Rob: I think you're right. I agree with you. It doesn't take a lot of people and very often it involves small acts just by an individual that has huge repercussions and a whole butterfly wing effect that people talk about.
DS: Right.
Rob: It's a matter of getting people to do it and you can't just do it one time and you can't do it just for one protest. You've got to be...it's got to be a part of your life. It's like losing weight and staying slim, it's got to be a lifestyle change. It can't be some temporary diet you're on. When it comes to changing the world, you've got to do it as Gandhi said, by being the person that you want to see the change....be the change that you want to see.
DS: I think that's right.
Rob: What projects are you working on now, Dave?
DS: Well, you know, building on this idea that the tide is slightly turning in public opinion ,at least, if not in pentagon spending against war. A lot of us have started up a website and an organization that's still forming called worldbeyondwar.org., the mission of which is to move the conversation and the policy toward the eventual elimination of war making. We're not aiming at this war or that war, or this weapon or that weapon, but the whole entire institution -- the machinery that Eisenhower warned us against while supporting. We've begun getting people to sign a short, just two-sentence, statement that you are in favor of the elimination of war not by Tuesday, but when we can do it. Thousands of people have signed from 57 countries so far, and counting, and we're hoping to build a more mainstream, broader, widespread movement against what we ought to see as the greatest evil we've got to deal with. It's so acceptable in our society to be against a disease or an accident or other wrongs, but to be against war seems to require a certain degree of independence and willingness to challenge opinion. We're trying to change that, we're trying to make it easier for people to not just be for peace, but to be against war.
Rob: And I would argue that one way to do that might be to make it accepted by the public that the idea of going to war is insane.
DS: Yes, exactly. Exactly. You look at the....I don't know if you saw my blog about it but there was a story in the Washington Post within the past week, I think on April 7th, that 13% of the country wants a U.S. war in Ukraine at this point. Now, they haven't given a hard sales pitch for it yet, but that's insane levels in terms of statistics. Sixteen percent can find Ukraine on a map and the interesting part is that the further people put Ukraine on the map from where it actually is, the more they want to attack it. So, you're talking about hardcore idiots, hardcore lunatics who think Ukraine is in the United States and want to attack the Ukraine to defend US national interests; or think the Ukraine is in Australia, or Africa and want to attack it to defend US national security. This is who warmongers are at this point in our culture. They are the extreme, ignorant lunatics, insecure emotionally unstable people. We shouldn't be cruel to them, but there is an important political tool in mocking the stupidity of a position.
Rob: I agree with you completely. I've reached the point where, when people say things like that, whether it's Ukraine or the Bundy ranch, you've got to stand up. It's not being cruel to call stupid, stupid or crazy, crazy, or just evil, evil. I think that that's what we need to do.
And I agree with you that a lot of those people are certainly not psychopaths or sociopaths. They're dupes. They're victims and...
DS: Yeah.
Rob: ...and that...so the question is, how do we prevent people from becoming these kinds of dupes and victims? I think, getting back to our conversation about psychopaths, about predators, this whole collection of predators, we need to understand it better because we need to stop people from being victimized that way.
DS: Yeah, I think as the great, late Howard Zinn always taught us, the biggest enemy we have is obedience, not disobedience, not civil disobedience, but obedience, blind loyalty to wrong instructions and evil orders and criminal demands from superiors. We're engaged in a massive Milgram experiment where people with respect and prestige and authority are telling us to do evil things, telling us to impose a shock on that actor in the next room and we're going along. So, it's when somebody like Edward Snowden steps forward, when the reporters who dared and managed to force his stories into mainstream newspapers get prestigious awards, those are the kind of things that have to be encouraged and advanced and celebrated as acts of disobedience.
Rob: I agree 100%. Whistleblowers are the canaries in the coal mine and we need them desperately. Here we have the Obama administration, the biggest enemy of whistleblowers and, I also believe, the biggest enemy of a free press that we've seen in recent history.
DS: For sure.
Rob: We've got to wrap. This is the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show WNJC 1360 AM. I've been speaking with David Swanson, author of War is a Lie, War No More: The Case for Abolition. He's got the websites worldbeyondwar.org, davidswanson.org, and warisacrime. David, thanks so much for doing what you do and being on this show. Really appreciate it. And let's keep working together...
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
