They are Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya, and without significant troops on the ground yet: Somalia and Pakistan. Of course, the United States has recently bombed other countries, and has so-called special forces and permanent troops in most countries on earth. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that had a U.S. flag and the words "There is only one." Yes, I thought, because the world could never survive two.
SO WHAT MUST WE DO?
At the event in Roanoke I spoke briefly about two of my books, War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War, as well as about their local Congress member, and about things we could work on.
Congressman Bob Goodlatte, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, I noted, has put corporate sponsors or "supporters" of laws on the House Judiciary Committee website, including the NRA. He has sat by while the Department of so-called Justice has claimed to legalize murder by drone missile. He has allowed drone wars and other wars to proceed without Congress, the United Nations, or any other legal fig leaf. He has stood silent as the Department of so-called Justice has viciously prosecuted whistleblowers like Jeffrey Sterling, while giving a pass to Hillary Clinton and a slap on the wrist to David Petraeus. He has not halted the so-called Homeland Security Department's participation in arming and training local police as if for war. And he pushes the rhetoric of budget cuts while over half of discretionary spending is dumped with his approval into militarism each year, but the National Park Service, with less than 1/1000th the budget, has been reduced to seeking corporate sponsors for its attractions. I think any corporation that gets to put its name on a mountain or geyser should have to put it on a war too.
You know it's not just Congress members who can do sit-ins. You can take the sit-ins to Congress members' offices. You can sit down and call the media and broadcast your own video from the floor of Congressman Goodlatte's office, just like House members did from the floor of Congress.
All those things I started by asking you if you'd vote for cannot be gotten by voting. But they can be gotten by organizing nonviolent actions and educating and inspiring cultural change. You can push for city resolutions. You can advocate new sister city relationships. You can propose the creation of a peace pole in a public place -- something done in many cities, essentially a post with the words "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in a different language on each side. You can create a study of local transition from war to peace industries. You can educate in civic groups and schools. You can stage colorful events that attract the media, call talk shows, write letters to editors. You can get military tests out of schools, bring veterans for peace into schools, and advance the cause of the Pentagon's most feared enemy on earth: free college. You can lobby elected officials but also lobby human rights and environmental and immigrants rights and other organizations to join in taking on the institution of war. You can promote the bill in Congress that would end the Selective Service, and oppose the pseudo-progressivism of the bill that would force young women to join young men in registering for the draft. You can boycott, divest, and sanction Israel for its crimes but extend that movement to all militarism, including that of the United States.
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