Peace with justice needs a foundation. That foundation is democracy. Not democracy "as advertised on TV," or bandied about during elections, but the real thing. We must govern ourselves, for we have seen what happens when we don't.
Imagine a peace movement that is part of a larger democracy movement. We talk about "outreach" to other groups. We talk about defunding the war to fund human needs. But brothers and sisters, what is our vision? Stopping the F-22 or trading an aircraft carrier for a housing program? It has to be more than that! What we need is to govern ourselves so we can create the kind of life we have an indisputable, inalienable right to.
But we aren't going to gain the power needed to govern ourselves if we expend our precious time toiling in an isolated peace movement that merely wants to get our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, just as we won't become self-governing with an environmental movement that aims only for more solar panels and cars with better mileage.
We need to get our minds right so we can see ourselves not as mere workers and consumers but as human beings with an absolute right to define what kind of life we need -- and then take it!
We need to create a culture of democracy from the bottom-up, to replace our culture of death. We need to change our government from what it is today -- a huge roadblock, guarded round the clock by greed and private interests, into a vehicle that nourishes the public interest; that helps us express our love for each other and our planet.
I believe there is a hunger for self-governance and democracy in America and that hunger is the fundamental link between the peace movement and every other movement working to address human needs.
I don't need to remind this audience of war's real cost. We can't even identify all the categories into which we pour war's staggering sums. Less than 5% of what we've spent in Iraq and Afghanistan would pay the tuition of every student attending public university this year in the U.S. Beyond dollars, we know war's human toll on individuals, families and whole communities is as impossible to quantify as the heartache of a single loved one; as impossible to calculate as the multiples of misery endured by those under our bombs.
If we experienced casualties in our country comparable to those just in Iraq it would mean -- listen for where you live -- that every person in Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle would be dead. Every. Single. Person. Everyone in Delaware, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, New York and Oregon: wounded. Every. Single. Person. The entire populations of Ohio and New Jersey: homeless. Everyone in Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky: refugees in Canada or Mexico.
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