"Dear United States of America,
"You are terrifying the rest of us. We had no say whatsoever in bringing your current political administration into power. And yet the actions of your leader, who some have called unstable, have the potential to annihilate all people, all life on the planet. It is horrifying to think that the person you have elected as your president could be goaded into pushing the nuclear button for the sake of proving himself or personally saving face. As you search for some way forward please remember all that is at stake and that the lives of over 7 billion who are essentially hapless bystanders to the choice you made in November now hang in the balance."
Over 130 nations, of course, are now working on creating a treaty that will ban nuclear weapons. That this process has been boycotted by those six big weapons dealers I mentioned earlier: the U.S., France, U.K., Germany, Russia, and China, has meant a far more open and democratic set of meetings at the UN than many can recall ever seeing before. The only nuclear nation to have voted in favor of a treaty banning nukes is . . . who can tell me? I'll give you a clue. Trump calls it a menace. The United States bombed it flat 60 years ago and dropped diseased insects on it in hopes of creating a plague. The United States and South Korea fly practice first-nuclear-strike missions over it every year just to ease tensions. You guessed it: North Korea. Here's another way to build the peace movement: support the nuclear weapons ban treaty. Pressure nations that are on the fence to join it. And then start pushing for divestment from nuclear weapons on the ground of illegality. There will be a women's march to ban the bomb in New York on June 17.
But I was going to say something about taxes. Next Tuesday and anytime before and after are good times to talk with people about what taxes go to. Raise your hand if you've ever met anyone who likes wars but hates taxes. I think the best approach to such people may be the approach that the signs tell you to take with bears in the mountains. Back away slowly, no fast movements. And if they show signs of attacking, make yourself look big and make a lot of noise. Specifically, hold up a giant pie chart of the federal budget and scream "Wars cost money! Wars cost money!" until they back down. You can get a variety of pie charts and graphs from the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, from the War Resisters League, from the National Priorities Project, etc. Did you know that Americans know less about the federal budget than they know about the metric system, soccer, or healthy eating? Did you know that the typical believer in a 5,000-year-old earth has even less idea where taxes came from?
Taxes were created for wars, the income tax was invented for the Civil War and went away again. The income tax on ordinary working people was created for World War II and never went away again, as that war has in a great many ways never ended. Few are aware of the origin of taxes, but many are aware that billionaires and corporations and presidents regularly cheat on their taxes, and most are aware that in return for your taxes you don't get much. In some countries you get fast clean trains, beautiful parks, top quality education preschool through college, healthcare, retirement, parental leave, vacation, etc. In the United States you get wars basically, with some prisons and highways on the side.
Raise your hand if you know why we call junk email spam. Right, in a Monty Python skit you could order for your meal only some combination of foods that included spam. I once rewrote the thing to illustrate what you could get from the U.S. government:
"Well, there's sanctions and prosecutions; sanctions drone strikes and prosecutions; sanctions and war; sanctions prosecutions and war; sanctions prosecutions drone strikes and war; war prosecutions drone strikes and war; war sanctions war war prosecutions and war; war drone strikes war war prosecutions war cyber war and war."
That's the menu you get for your taxes. The budget pie chart, by the way, will show the majority (or close to it, depending how it's defined) of your income tax dollar going to war, and the majority of discretionary spending (according to every calculation I've seen) going to war -- a percentage that Trump wants to push up to over 60%. Another tool that I know people in Cambridge know how to use is the local resolution. While Cambridge has admirably passed a good resolution for Trump's impeachment, on the model that we've promoted at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org -- and I'll talk about that in a minute -- a number of cities and counties have passed resolutions against Trump's federal budget proposal. On the World Beyond War website we have a statement signed by an impressive list of people, and at worldbeyondwar.org/resolution you'll find a model resolution. I think it's here on flyers.
Some cities have, I think, done this right and others wrong. Some have passed resolutions that just list all the programs they don't want cut. This produces opposition from the small-government crowd who come out in support of all the supposed cuts. But I want a much smaller government and dramatic increases to all of those programs. How is that possible? It's explained by the better resolutions that make clear that Trump's budget proposal is the same size as last year's, only it moves $54 billion from virtually everything else to the military. It doesn't actually cut funding; it moves it. A poll that showed people the budget and asked how to change it found that on average they wanted to move over $41 billion out of the military -- a $94 billion gap from what Trump wants.
The U.S. Congress, House and Senate, are out of session right now. Congress Members and Senators are in their districts and states until April 23rd. This is the time to challenge them to do better. It was this kind of in-person pressure that was key to preventing a massive bombing of Syria in 2013, and that has been central to improving policy on numerous issues.
Sign and print out the petition to Un-Trump the Budget. Search for that and you'll find it. Find events that your misrepresentatives have already scheduled, and attend them. There's a list at townhallproject.com. Create your own event, invite your rep and senators. Get from them commitments to de-fund the wars and to move the money out of militarism. If they are not responsive, do not shy away from sitting across the doorway to their office and phoning the media.
Do not fail to act like a United Airlines passenger in a video when an injustice is happening. If the other passengers had simply blocked the aisles, corporate thugs could not have dragged their fellow passenger away. If everyone on board had demanded that the airline offer higher compensation until someone volunteered to take a later flight, rather than being violently "reaccommodated," then it would have done so. The idea that United Airlines had no choice but to assault a man is as ludicrous as the idea that a government had no choice but to launch a war. In fact, United now claims to have a policy of never assaulting anyone again, just as the U.S. government should have a policy of never launching a war again.
Passivity in the face of injustice is the greatest danger we face. This fact does not mean I'm "blaming the victims." Of course United Airlines should be shamed, sued, boycotted, and compelled to reform or "reaccommodate" itself out of our lives entirely. So should the government that has deregulated the industry. So should every police department that has come to view the public as an enemy in a war.
But one should expect corporations and their thugs to behave barbarically. They are designed to do so. One should expect corrupt governments that lack popular influence or control to abuse power. The question is whether people will sit back and take it, resist with some nonviolent skills, or disastrously resort to violence themselves. (I've not searched yet for proposals to arm airline passengers, because I really don't look forward to reading them.)
The one nonviolent skill that seems to be advancing most encouragingly is videotaping and livestreaming. People have got that down. When police blatantly lie, such as by claiming to have carried a passenger who fell, rather than dragging a passenger whom they assaulted, video sets the record straight. But we often lack video of events far away that the U.S. military blatantly lies about, and events locked out of sight that prison guards blatantly lie about, and events that happen over long periods -- such as the willful destruction of the earth's climate.
When it comes to those injustices that can't be videotaped or litigated, too often people fail to act entirely. This is extremely dangerous behavior. We're collectively being dragged down an airplane aisle, and we're failing to act. A U.S.-Saudi war is threatening millions with starvation in Yemen. In Syria, the U.S. is risking a nuclear confrontation with Russia. The Pentagon is considering attacking North Korea. Baby steps toward slowing down the destruction of the earth's climate are being reversed. Warrantless spying, lawless imprisonment, and presidential drone murder have been normalized. As the great Howard Zinn used to say, civil disobedience is not what we have to be afraid of. Rather, civil obedience is the danger.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
7
6
5
