STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS
Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment
April, 2002
A Modesto Peace/Life Center Publication
Peace
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament — a Call to Action
By
U.S. REP DENNIS KUCINICH
“.
. . Come my friends, ‘tis not too late to seek a newer world,”
-
Alfred Lord Tennyson
If you believe that
humanity has a higher destiny, if you believe we can evolve, and become better
than we are; if you believe we can overcome the scourge of war and someday
fulfill the dream of harmony and peace earth, let us begin the conversation
today. Let us exchange our ideas. Let us plan together, act together and create
peace together. This is a call for common sense, for peaceful, non-violent
citizen action to protect our precious world from widening war and from
stumbling into a nuclear catastrophe.
The climate for conflict
has intensified, with the struggle between Pakistan and India, the China-Taiwan
tug of war, and the increased bloodshed between Israel and the Palestinians.
United States’ troop deployments in the Philippines, Yemen, Georgia, Columbia
and Indonesia create new possibilities for expanded war. An invasion of Iraq is
planned. The recent disclosure that Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North
Korea, and Libya are considered by the United States as possible targets for
nuclear attack catalyzes potential conflicts everywhere.
These crucial political
decisions promoting increased military actions, plus a new nuclear first-use
policy, are occurring without the consent of the American people, without public
debate, without public hearings, without public votes. The President is taking
Congress’s approval of responding to the Sept. 11 terrorists as a license to
flirt with nuclear war.
“Politics ought to stay
out of fighting a war,” the President has been quoted as saying on March 13th
2002. Yet Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution explicitly
requires that Congress take responsibility when it comes to declaring war. This
President is very popular, according to the polls. But polls are not a
substitute for democratic process. Attributing a negative connotation here to
politics or dismissing constitutionally mandated congressional oversight belies
reality. Spending $400 billion a year for defense is a political decision.
Committing troops abroad is a political decision. War is a political decision.
When men and women die on the battlefield that is the result of a political
decision. The use of nuclear weapons, which can end the lives of millions, is a
profound political decision. In a monarchy there need be no political decisions.
In a democracy, all decisions are political, in that the derive from the consent
of the governed.
In a democracy, budgetary,
military and national objectives must be subordinate to the political process.
Before we celebrate an imperial presidency, let it be said that the lack of free
and open political process, the lack of free and open political debate, and the
lack of free and open political dissent can be fatal in a democracy.
We have reached a moment in
our country’s history where it is urgent that people everywhere speak out as
president of his or her own life, to protect the peace of the nation and world
within and without. We should speak out and caution leaders who generate fear
through talk of the endless war or the final conflict. We should appeal to our
leaders to consider that their own bellicose thoughts, words and deeds are
reshaping consciousness and can have an adverse effect on our nation. Because
when one person thinks fight! he or she finds a fight. One faction thinks war!
and starts a war. One nation thinks nuclear! and approaches the abyss. And what
of one nation which thinks peace, and seeks peace?
Neither individuals nor
nations exist in a vacuum, which is why we have a serious responsibility for
each other in this world. It is also urgent that we find those places of war in
our own lives, and begin healing the world through healing ourselves. Each of us
is a citizen of a common planet, bound to a common destiny. So connected are we,
that each of us has the power to be the eyes of the world, the voice of the
world, the conscience of the world, or the end of the world. And as each one of
us chooses, so becomes the world.
Each of us is architect of
this world. Our thoughts, the concepts. Our words, the designs. Our deeds, the
bricks and mortar of our daily lives. Which is why we should always take care to
regard the power of our thoughts and words, and the commands they send into
action through time and space.
Some of our leaders have
been thinking and talking about nuclear war. In the past week there has been
much news about a planning document which describes how and when America might
wage nuclear war. The Nuclear Posture Review recently released to the media by
the government
Assumes that the United
States has the right to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
Equates nuclear weapons
with conventional weapons.
Attempts to minimize
the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
Promotes nuclear
response to a chemical or biological attack.
Some dismiss this review as
routine government planning. But it becomes ominous when taken in the context of
a war on terrorism which keeps expanding its boundaries, rhetorically and
literally. The President equates the “war on terrorism” with World War II.
He expresses a desire to have the nuclear option “on the table.” He
unilaterally withdraws from the ABM treaty. He seeks $8.9 billion to fund
deployment of a missile shield. He institutes, without congressional knowledge,
a shadow government in a bunker outside our nation’s Capitol. He tries to pass
off as arms reduction, the storage of, instead of the elimination of, nuclear
weapons.
Two generations ago we
lived with nuclear nightmares. We feared and hated the Russians who feared and
hated us. We feared and hated the “godless, atheistic” communists. In our
schools, we dutifully put our head between our legs and practiced duck-and-cover
drills. In our nightmares, we saw the long, slow arc of a Soviet missile flash
into our very neighborhood. We got down on our knees and prayed for peace. We
surveyed, wide eyed, pictures of the destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. We
supported the elimination of all nuclear weapons. We knew that if you
“nuked” others you “nuked” yourself.
The splitting of the atom
for destructive purposes admits a split consciousness, the compartmentalized
thinking of Us vs. Them, the dichotomized thinking, which spawns polarity and
leads to war. The proposed use of nuclear weapons, pollutes the psyche with the
arrogance of infinite power. It creates delusions of domination of matter and
space. It is dehumanizing through its calculations of mass casualties. We must
overcome doom-thinkers and sayers who invite a world descending, disintegrating
into a nuclear disaster. With a world at risk, we must find the bombs in our own
lives and disarm them. We must listen to that quiet inner voice which counsels
that the survival of all is achieved through the unity of all.
We must overcome our fear
of each other, by seeking out the humanity within each of us. The human heart
contains every possibility of race, creed, language, religion, and politics. We
are one in our commonalities. Must we always fear our differences? We can
overcome our fears by not feeding our fears with more war and nuclear
confrontations. We must ask our leaders to unify us in courage.
We need to create a new,
clear vision of a world as one. A new, clear vision of people working out their
differences peacefully. A new, clear vision with the teaching of nonviolence,
nonviolent intervention, and mediation. A new, clear vision where people can
live in harmony within their families, their communities and within themselves.
A new clear vision of peaceful coexistence in a world of tolerance.
At this moment peril we
must move away from fear’s paralysis. This is a call to action to replace
expanded war with expanded peace. This is a call for action to place the very
survival of this planet on the agenda of all people, everywhere. As citizens of
a common planet, we have an obligation to ourselves and our posterity. We must
demand that our nation and all nations put down the nuclear sword. We must
demand that our nation and all nations.
Abide by the principles
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Stop the development of
new nuclear weapons.
Take all nucl
Persist towards total, worldwide elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Our nation must
Revive the Anti
Ballistic Missile treaty.
Sign and enforce the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Abandon plans to build
a so-called missile shield.
Prohibit the
introduction of weapons into outer s
We are in a climate where
people expect debate within our two party system to produce policy alternatives.
However both major political parties have fallen short. People who ask “Where
is the Democratic Party?” and expect to hear debate may be disappointed. When
peace is not on the agenda of our political parties or our governments then it
must be the work and the duty of each citizen of the world. This is the time to
organize for peace. This is the time for new thinking. This is the time to
conceive of peace as not simply being the absence of violence, but the active
presence of the capacity for a higher evolution of human awareness. This is the
time to conceive of peace as respect, trust, and integrity. This is the time to
tap the infinite capabilities of humanity to transform consciousness which
compels violence at a personal, group, national or international levels. This is
the time to develop a new compassion for others and ourselves.
When terrorists threaten
our security, we must enforce the law and bring terrorists to justice within our
system of constitutional justice, without undermining the very civil liberties
which permits our democracy to breathe. Our own instinct for life, which
inspires our breath and informs our pulse, excites our capacity to reason. Which
is why we must pay attention when we sense a threat to survival.
That is why we must speak
out now to protect this nation, all nations, and the entire planet and
Challenge those who
believe that war is inevitable.
Challenge those who
believe in a nuclear right.
Challenge those who
would build new nuclear weapons.
Challenge those who
seek nuclear re-armament.
Challenge those who
seek nuclear escalation.
Challenge those who
would make of any nation a nuclear target.
Challenge those who
would threaten to use nuclear weapons against civilian
Challenge those who
would break nuclear treaties.
Challenge those who
think and think about nuclear weapons, to think about
It is practical to work for
peace. I speak of peace and diplomacy not just for the sake of peace itself.
But, for practical reasons, we must work for peace as a means of achieving
permanent security. It is similarly practical to work for total nuclear
disarmament, particularly when nuclear arms do not even come close to addressing
the real security problems which confront our nation, witness the events of
September 11, 2001.
We can make war archaic.
Skeptics may dismiss the possibility that a nation which spends $400 billion a
year for military purposes can somehow convert swords into plowshares. Yet the
very founding and the history of this country demonstrates the creative
possibilities of America. We are a nation which is known for realizing
impossible dreams. Ours is a nation which in its second century abolished
slavery, which many at the time considered impossible. Ours is a nation where
women won the right to vote, which many at the time considered impossible. Ours
is a nation which institutionalized the civil rights movement, which many at the
time considered impossible. If we have the courage to claim peace, with the
passion, the emotion and the integrity with which we have claimed independence,
freedom and, equality we can become that nation which makes non-violence an
organizing principle in our society, and in doing so change the world.
That is the purpose of HR
2459. It is a bill to create a Department of Peace. It envisions new structures
to help create peace in our homes, in our families, in our schools, in our
neighborhoods, in our cities, and in our nation. It aspires to create conditions
for peace within and to create conditions for peace worldwide. It considers the
conditions which cause people to become the terrorists of the future, issues of
poverty, scarcity and exploitation. It is practical to make outer space safe
from weapons, so that humanity can continue to pursue a destiny among the stars.
HR 3616 seeks to ban weapons in space, to keep the stars a place of dreams, of
new possibilities, of transcendence.
We can achieve this
practical vision of peace, if we are ready to work for it. People worldwide need
to be meet with like-minded people, about peace and nuclear disarmament, now.
People worldwide need to gather in peace, now. People worldwide need to march
and to pray for peace, now. People worldwide need to be connecting with each
other on the web, for peace, now. We are in a new era of electronic democracy,
where the world wide web, numerous web sites and bulletin boards enable new
organizations, exercising freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of
association, to spring into being instantly. www.Thespiritoffreedom.com is such a web site. It is dedicated to
becoming an electronic forum for peace, for sustainability, for renewal and for
revitalization. It is a forum which strives for the restoration of a sense of
community through the empowerment of self, through commitment of self to the
lives of others, to the life of the community, to the life of the nation, to the
life of the world.
Where war making is
profoundly uncreative in its destruction, peacemaking can be deeply creative. We
need to communicate with each other the ways in which we work in our communities
to make this a more peaceful world. I welcome your ideas at http://www.kucinich.us/contact.htm
or at www.thespiritoffreedom.com.
We can share our thoughts
and discuss ways in which we have brought or will bring them into action.
Now is the time to think,
to take action and use our talents and abilities to create peace
in our families.
in our block clubs.
in our neighborhoods.
in our places of
worship.
in our schools and
universities.
in our labor halls.
in our parent-teacher
organizations.
Now is the time to think,
speak, write, organize and take action to create peace as a social imperative,
as an economic imperative, and as a political imperative. Now is the time to
think, speak, write, organize, march, rally, hold vigils and take other
nonviolent action to create peace in our cities, in our nation and in the world.
And as the hymn says, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with
me.”
This is the work of the
human family, of people all over the world demanding that governments and
non-governmental actors alike put down their nuclear weapons. This is the work
of the human family, responding in this moment of crisis to protect our nation,
this planet and all life within it. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and
peace. As we understand that all people of the world are interconnected, we can
achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace. We can accomplish this through
upholding an holistic vision where the claims of all living beings to the right
of survival are recognized. We can achieve both nuclear disarmament and peace
through being a living testament to a Human Rights Covenant where each person on
this planet is entitled to a life where he or she may consciously evolve in
mind, body and spirit.
Nuclear disarmament and
peace are the signposts toward the uplifting path of an even brighter human
condition wherein we can through our conscious efforts evolve and reestablish
the context of our existence from peril to peace, from revolution to evolution.
Think peace. Speak peace. Act peace.
Peace.
A
conversation in Ramallah
By JEFF GUNTZEL
Human
rights activist Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness recently returned to the Middle East along with Jeff Guntzel
and three Catholic Worker companions. Each felt very compelled by the
extraordinary witness of Palestinians, Israelis and internationals who, at
considerable risk, have nonviolently resisted the Occupation, invasion, and acts
of random violence that afflict people in Israel and Palestine. Kelly spoken in
Modesto in 2000 and 2001.
April 10, 2002
We left for Ramallah
yesterday morning. In order to enter the city, our little group had to avoid the
Israeli checkpoint by walking (and sometimes running) through the brush just
south of the checkpoint. Once we were safely inside the military zone, a taxi
driver with whom we had made advance arrangements drove us about a mile into
Ramallah and stopped. He would not go any further for fear of Israeli snipers
who were situated in many of the city’s tall buildings. A Red Crescent
ambulance driver offered to take us to the Sheik Zayed hospital where we had
arranged to meet two organizers with the International Solidarity Movement.
Those of you who have been
following the news carefully might remember the Sheik Zayed hospital as the site
of a mass grave dug, several days earlier, in the parking lot as a temporary
burial ground for 29 Palestinians, including one American citizen. The morgue at
the hospital was full, and there was nowhere else to put the bodies.
Coming down a steep hill
about three miles from the hospital, we spotted a tank and an armored personnel
carrier (APC). These days, in Ramallah, the only vehicles on the streets are
tanks, APCs, and ambulances (I guess you could also count the mangled cars
peppering the roadside that tanks had rolled over during the invasion).
Suddenly a soldier
appeared. He crouched on one knee, aimed his M-16 directly at us, and fixed his
eye to his gun’s sight. We stopped. The driver began slowly backing up the
hill and several more soldiers appeared some of them taking aim and some
motioning us to come closer. We all held our passports up to let them know there
were internationals in the car. Israeli troops had been harassing, arresting,
and even shooting ambulance drivers since the start of the invasion. We had no
idea what to expect.
When we got to the soldiers
at the bottom of the hill we stopped again. Eight M-16s and a tank were aimed at
us. The soldier directly to my right looked tired and scared. That scared me.
Our driver was ordered out of the car and asked a few questions in Arabic. Then
we were ordered out, with all of our bags. We laid our bags out on the ground
and opened them. After a not-so-thorough search several soldiers asked us a few
questions while others encircled us. The soldier who at first struck me as tired
and scared now just looked cautiously curious.
“Why are you here?” he
asked, not quite meeting our eyes.
“We came to bring
medicine and food to people under curfew,” said one member of our group.
“Don’t you know there
are terrorists here, it is dangerous,” he replied, “do you think you can
bring peace?”
“We don’t know,” we
said, almost in unison.
Then Kathy, my roommate and
co-worker, stepped in, “We are here because we know that our government pays
for much of what is going on here and we feel a responsibility to intervene
nonviolently in this terrible situation.”
“We did not ask for this,
it is the Palestinian leadership, bad leaders, they are responsible for this,”
replied the soldier.
“But over half of the
people here are children,” Kathy said, “and children can’t be bad leaders,
they can only be children!”
“I know there are
children here,” he replied solemnly, looking off into the distance, “but
there are also terrorists. You cannot drive to the hospital,” said the
soldier.
“Then we will walk,”
replied Greg, another member of our group, who then began walking towards the
tank and APC that partially blocked our path.
“Stop! You cannot walk
either,” demanded the soldier, who then paused and looked around. Directly in
front of us was a soldier on one knee, holding each of us briefly in his
cross-hairs, one person at a time.
“Don’t you understand
that you make the terrorists happy when you come here to help them?” the
soldier continued.
“We are here to help the
innocent people in Ramallah who are being terrorized and killed every day,”
replied Kathy.
“We do not kill innocent
people.”
“We read Ha’aretz
[an Israeli paper, printed in Hebrew and English] every day and we know innocent
people are being killed,” Kathy said.
“Do you think I like
this?” the soldier demanded, “I don’t want to be here.”
At that moment there was an
enormous explosion and sustained machine gun fire. It was coming from directly
behind us, and it was really loud. Two members of our group stepped away to
smoke, and the others drifted back towards the ambulance. Kathy and I remained
with the soldier.
“Do you know what Arafat
wants, he wants murder, why do you want to help a murderer,” he asked.
“Maybe there is another
way to look at our presence here,” I replied, “We are here operating beneath
the level of the leaders who we believe do not want real peace. I think you and
I have more in common than you have with Sharon, or than I have with Arafat,
wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, I agree.”
“So let us go to the
hospital,” Kathy responded.
Silence. Then the soldier
spoke again, “You know, it is not just the Palestinians who are suffering.”
“We want a just peace for
both sides,” we responded, “We want an end to *all* of the violence.”
“It is too late,”
insisted the soldier, “there can be no peace now.”
“It is difficult to see a
way out, but...”
“Why don’t you work on
behalf of the Jews, why can’t you be objective?”
At that moment, another
soldier came up to us and began speaking in Hebrew. Then, suddenly, we were told
we could get back into the ambulance and push ahead towards the hospital.
The hospital is actually
two buildings separated by a road. It was in that road, just yards from the
hospital, that an elderly woman with a walker was shot dead by an Israeli sniper
just weeks ago. In the parking lot we saw the mass grave we had all read about.
It was empty; the killing was less frequent 11 days into the siege, giving
hospital workers the window they needed to dispose of the bodies properly.
--Edited by Jim Costello
from a letter sent from Melissa
Muro, Voices in the Wilderness, 1-773-784-8065; http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw
Four
Reasons not to spend $240 billion on “missile defense”
Excerpted
from California Peace Action
