After six months of enduring this tragic but
preventable COVID-19 pandemic, there is still no national leadership. More than
200,000 Americans will die, and hundreds of thousands will suffer through the
disease process, and then continue to have debilitating symptoms long after.
Compare the response to how quickly our nation mobilized for war after less
than 3000 died on 9/11; war that we continue to fight in the Middle East and
Africa.
The inadequacies of our healthcare and public
health systems and the persistent shortages of equipment, supplies, hospital
beds and timely testing underscore the fact that military-related activities
are the highest priority of the U.S. government. Its 2020 military budget is
$738 billion. That’s over $84 million an hour for war. That’s where our tax
dollars go and that’s where the resources are—spread around the world to
intimidate and do harm, rather than good.
The President’s recent extravagant patriotic
speeches and ceremonies ignore the pandemic and instead, extol the virtues of
“law and order” and the largest military budget ever. Flyovers of fighter jets,
used as a way of showing appreciation to healthcare workers treating COVID-19,
demonstrates an effort to tie all aspects of our life, even this most desperate
public health situation, into the U.S. war culture. Obviously, the cost of
these nationwide military tributes and ceremonies, which is significant, could
have provided medicine, testing, facemasks, and other items that are still
desperately needed to help stem the spread of this disease. Perhaps these
expensive public relations stunts were an effort to distract us from the
government’s continuing failed leadership in handling the COVID-19 crisis.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if war was deemed a
non-essential activity, and our country focused instead on eliminating
healthcare disparities, systemic racism, aggressive policing, poverty, and
this heartbreaking pandemic. These are the things that are terrorizing
Americans.
World Peace Gong National Gandhi Museum. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
by Andre Sheldon, Director of Global Strategy of Nonviolence
Question:
After Covid-19, in a world divided and fraught with global crises, will people
find a way to work together to create a “new normal” characterized by peace and
justice for all?
Answer:
Yes, with new leadership that speaks truth to power, enlists the people,
and—most importantly–embraces nonviolence, a new normal can be created that
provides a better world….for the children.
Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed, Krishna, Moses, all the
sages through the ages, and Gandhi, King, and Mandela in the past 100 years, lived
and died to teach us that nonviolence is the answer. Are there leaders today who have the ability
to influence the world’s people and all their governments to “commit to
nonviolence?” Yes, there are!
The ideal leader is a person who can see that the
first thing we must do to achieve a more peaceful and just world is unite under
one umbrella. The response to Covid-19 of
countless people confirms that people everywhere see the value of solidarity
and unity. The opportunity is here for
leaders to create a new global peace movement to promote kindness, compassion,
trust, respect, and stopping war!
Leaders and Movements Must Come Together
Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben have highlighted the
dangers and causes of catastrophic climate change, as well as remedies and
strategies to rescue the planet. Klein
and McKibben know we have to unite and think big. Klein wrote,“… strengthening the threads tying together our
various issues and movements – is, I would argue, the most pressing task of
anyone concerned with social and economic justice.” Klein
also wrote: “Sensible people are always telling us that change needs to come in
small increments. Well, we rejected all of that.”
Recognizing the strength of the Golden Rule, religious
scholar Karen Armstrong formed the Charter for Compassion
10 years ago to bring together leaders of all religions. According to the
Charter, “The principle of compassion lies at
the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always
to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.”
Other organizations promoting unity include Global
Citizen, We,
the People, founded by Rick
Ulfick, and ONE,
founded by Bono, is dedicated to
eradicating extreme poverty. World
Humanists , together
with World Without War
(WWW), recently sponsored the second World March for Peace and
Nonviolence to promote the strength of unity for stopping
war. The founder of WWW, Rafael de la Rubia, visualizes
nonviolence as the tool to change the world.
Covid-19 prompted U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to issue a call for a Global Cease-Fire— a critical recognition of the fact
that stopping wars affects all issues and that
we need peace to devote significant efforts to the other crises As Guterres noted,
“It is time to put armed
conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
There are brilliant people leading their
organizations and promoting new ideas that should be in the mainsteam: David
Swanson from World
Beyond War, Margaret
Flowers and Kevin Zeese from Popular
Resistance, Marianne Williamson
and Dennis Kucinich in politics,
and economist Jeffrey Sachs from
Columbia University who has his finger
on the pulse of the world.
Madeleine
Rees,
the Secretary-General of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK,
in 2015 highlighted their initiative’s slogans at the Geneva II Peace talks to
stop the war in Syria. WILPF’s slogan is
“WOMEN’S POWER to STOP WAR.” CODEPINK’s
slogan is “WOMEN SAY NO TO WAR.” These
slogans highlight the direction to take to sustain and perpetuate the
cease-fire and to create a nonviolent new normal.
Moving Forward
I believe the two individuals who most convincingly
speak truth to power, and show the potential to unite all movements, all religions,
all governors, mayors and community leaders, and all the “people” in every
village, town, and city in every country under one umbrella – nonviolence, are Medea Benjamin and Naomi Klein.
Medea Benjamin can connect all the women’s
organizations and initiatives that have already begun and have practiced mobilizing
— the Women’s
March on Washington, Women
that marched in Jerusalem, Women
that Crossed the DMZ in Korea, Women
in India,
and the #MeToo movement-into
one powerful force. It is time to “harness the energy and power” of women and
nonviolence to create
trust and respect between nations and people!
Naomi Klein can connect all the leaders mentioned above
to join together, to take THE LEAP, to promote
both the climate movement and the peace movement in unison. We need both urgently!
Benjamin and Klein have the knowledge and ability to
create a “CHAIN REACTION” of leaders coming together around the world to begin and
promote a new global peace movement in September 2020! A list of leaders for the chain reaction is
compiled and available for review.
Introducing a Global Movement of Nonviolence, For
the Children
In
2002, the summer after the attacks on 9/11, I began my efforts to stop war
because I believed the United States could have addressed the attack without
using the military. I found that
grassroots initiatives for peace and humanitarian efforts were everywhere, all
trying to unite. Research supported my
theory that women had an advantage for
creating peace
by promoting nonviolence (take away the threat of violence), especially if it
was about protecting the children.
It
is my honor to announce a comprehensive plan for a Global Movement of
Nonviolence (GMofNV), For the Children, led by women. A GMofNV is not just for women, it is
for everyone, as the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. was for everyone, not
just African Americans. The children are the motivation for everyone
to unite!
The plan is for a GMofNV to be implemented by an
initiative called a CALL to WOMEN, a
World-Wide Unity Campaign.
Non-governmental women leaders will ask women to be the first to rise-up
and unite as the peacemakers. I have
presented a GMofNV to U.N. Secretary-General Guterres for review! A GMofNV includes the largest marketing plan
the world has ever seen.
We
need something different and special because the obstacles to create a nonviolent
new normal are enormous. A GMofNV is designed
to be outside the box but it has tentacles reaching into every part of
society. Historian and activist, Howard Zinn was my
confidante. He wrote to me, “Your ‘Call to Women’ is excellent. Well
written, clear, strong. No doubt women represent nonviolence best.”
A new nonviolent normal will not be easy to attain
and will have risks. We need to create a
new power to change the old; therefore there will be contention. Professor
Marshall Ganz, on NOW,
stated that we need contention. Therefore, we need a peace movement!
We need elections, but we also need a peace movement
because we are in an emergency situation. Mary Robinson, Ban Ki Moon, and Jerry Brown, at the Doomsday Clock Update (see video and Fast Forward to 25:30) highlighted
the world’s crises and asked for action in 2020 because the global crises are so extreme. Also,
experts
are predicting that economic difficulties and potential chaos will
be larger than the world has ever previously experienced. Ban Ki Moon, in a
recent Post by
the Elders, called for a people movement. People movements work, as illustrated by Bill Moyers in his compilation of
different episodes
of NOW.
There will be no life-sustaining new normal if we do
not commit to nonviolence, do not support a cease fire, and do not have a unified
peace movement. Without such a commitment, military spending will take away our
ability to achieve sustainable solutions to problems. Without a peace movement, the climate
movement will fail, which means we failed.
It is time for non-governmental leadership to guide
the people to work together for peace and humanity! All the mechanisms are in place. The opportunity is here now! A GMofNV is one step away from beginning –
enlist peace, social justice, and environmental leaders to promote a GMofNV and
a CALL to WOMEN. The world must promote
clean energy and change to a green economy to provide the basic needs of the
people if peace is to be enduring.
The women leaders cited in this paper can create a unified
peace movement. All the leaders
together, promoting one voice for peace, can move the world along that path,
building on the incredible ideas that exist for a new nonviolent
normal.
Mary Robinson,
the former President of Ireland, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human
Rights, current Chairperson of the Elders, and founder of the Mary Robinson Foundation is a leading
voice in calling for action and unity in 2020.
Robinson stated,“We are faced by a gathering storm
of extinction-level consequences, and time is running out. We cannot continue with business as
usual.”
Every time I promote a GMofNV, it makes me feel
good. We need visionary leaders. The time is now and the plan is ready.
Peace and Love!
Contact: Andre@GlobalStrategyofNonviolence.org
Andre Sheldon began working for peace in 2002 to find solutions other than military action in response to the attacks on September 11, 2001. Andre is a member of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), National Organization of Women (NOW), follows CODEPINK, and is an Honorary Co-founder of the Library of Peace in Atlanta, GA. He is founder and director of the Global Strategy of Nonviolence, which was formed to promote a new narrative of committing to nonviolence and committing to helping others. He has tirelessly networked with non-governmental women leaders from around the world to set in motion a new global peace movement.
Unidentified Vietnamese women and children before being killed in the My Lai Massacre.In the public domain. Author: Ronald L. Haeberle
by Ian Hansen, PhD
Pointless War #1: The War on
Communism/Socialism/Equality/Human development
Consider
the battle against communism. Communism
was supposed to be so evil that stopping it required slaughtering millions of people, developing expensive and
expansive programs of government torture and mind
control, and terroristically overthrowing
multiple democratically-elected or otherwise popular governments throughout the world. But Kerala is the most communist state in
India. Since 1957 it has regularly elected
communists into governance. These were
and are free, contested elections by private ballot, with rights to assembly,
protest and dissent constitutionally guaranteed. And yet (or therefore, or “as luck would have
it”) Kerala is also an
Indian standout with regard to education and literacy, high life
expectancy, low infant and maternal mortality, and high voter turnout. Other regularly communist-electing states in
India also
stand out in
these regards. In regions outside India,
even places like “totalitarian1” undemocratic communist Cuba and “totalitarian genocidal2” China (communist for four
decades, and still ruled by The Party) stand out in human development terms: life
expectancy, mortality, and literacy. Of
course questions of voter turnout are moot in both Cuba and China.
Pointless War #2: The War on
Terror/Islam/Religion
And
various lines of research, many of them cited in an article I co-authored for Religion, Brain and Behavior (“Religion and Oppression”), suggest that in general religion
is okay. Specifically, the core
God-worshipping element of religion appears to attenuate oppression and
oppression-related prejudices and inclinations to violence. Religion does not, as War-on-Terror
ideologists would claim, cause or exacerbate oppression. As for the supposed perils of Muslim
religiosity, supplementary analyses for the same article suggest that among
Muslim majority countries, the more religious their populations are, the freer they are.
Footnotes
1. The
word “totalitarian” evokes a sense of the impossibility of normal life due to a
total, and often death-threatening, intrusion of the state into all aspects of
life. Cuba and China are more “lapsed
totalitarian” in this regard, and their relics of totalitarianism blend into
ordinary authoritarianism. Near-constant
fear of the state varies greatly individual by individual and group by group,
and “normal life”—with humor, friendship, parties, intellectual discussions, social
enjoyment, etc—abounds in both countries.
The ever-present menace of the state often registers as little more than
a faint background hum.
2. The
word “genocidal” evokes a sense of organized millions-killing mass murder on the
scale of the Holocaust. It can also refer,
though, to attempts to exterminate a culture or religion by mostly cultural means
like “education”, or sublethal/minimally
lethal means like deportation and resettlement. These attempts are often backed up with only a
punctuated drip of state murder, rather than a roaring river thereof. China is genocidal in this latter respect,
though by no means unique—a “soft” genocidal zeitgeist is sweeping countries of
various ideological histories in recent years, including India and the US. The fires of war could turn these relatively soft
genocides hard pretty quickly though.
End US military wars and US drug wars. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Jeff Davis Show
The big lie peddled by our leaders at the beginning of this millennium was that the military had to go into Iraq because Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Although the rationale for military intervention was based on inconclusive reports, the lie was still sold to the public. The cartoonLiar, Liar, Pants on Fire, published on Engaging Peace April 15, 2019, brilliantly illustrates the tactics that the government used to sell that lie.
Even prior to September
11, 2001, the military-industrial complex did a rather good job of drumming up
public support for the invasion of Iraq. However, the level of that support
reached an apex following the September 11 attacks. In fact, according to a
Gallup poll conducted at the time, the majority of surveyed individuals falsely
believed that Iraq was responsible for those attacks. It is my firm belief that
this was no accident. It seems that the government’s propaganda machine was
working overtime to convince the public that it really was Iraq that was
responsible. Perhaps this was done to exploit Iraq’s strategically advantageous
geographic location, or perhaps the U.S. had long felt that it was time for
Saddam to go because they could no longer exert enough influence over him.
Either way, they undoubtedly felt that it was the right moment to push for war,
given the public outrage over 9/11.
The devastating
destabilization resulting from the power vacuum created in Iraq is still being
felt to this day. It is quite unfortunate, but the U.S. has long been having a
direct impact on the instability that some countries face. For instance, I
strongly believe that many Mexican migrants are fleeing a never-ending war that
is not often spoken about anymore — the “War on Drugs.” It is, in fact, the
same “War on Drugs” that was used to justify the U.S. invasion of Panama in
1989. This war, propagated by the U.S., has fueled the rise of ruthlessly
violent cartels, who have caused political corruption, violence, and
instability in Mexico. This has led some Mexican citizens to seek refuge in the
United States.
I am very understanding of
their plight and believe that people such as this should be treated as refugees
by our government. However, I also feel that a good number of those people
would have liked to stay in Mexico, but could not, in large part due to the
havoc wreaked by the cartels running their towns. Yet, I firmly believe that
the power to wreak such havoc is mandated to the cartels as a result of the
“War on Drugs.” As with Alcohol Prohibition in the first half of the twentieth
century, it has created an increasingly lucrative black market, with profit
margins (as well as substance use) actually increasing over time.
As a strong proponent of civil liberties, I believe that the government has long been abusing their powers by perpetuating the “War on Drugs,” leaving countless casualties in their wake. A lot of politicians talk about accepting migrants as refugees, but very few talk about the uncomfortable fact that oftentimes, our government is creating refugees by destabilizing nations. Sadly, it appears that this has been the case in both Latin America and Iraq.
Note from Kathie MM: Please check out the cartoon that inspired Arsen to write this post.
Arsen Gourjian earned a master’s degree in Psychology from
Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Worcester State
University. He currently works as a Research Psychologist at The Fireside Center: Learning & Teaching
International, a Massachusetts based clinic for psychological and
educational services. He is also working towards his graduate degree in Applied
Behavior Analysis at Regis College, with aspirations of becoming a Board
Certified Behavior Analyst. In addition to Psychology, Arsen’s academic and
research interests include Criminology, History, and Geopolitics.
