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Nonviolence, Peace

#AfghanistanTuesday says #OWS = #Antiwar

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President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Oval Office
Image via Wikipedia

It’s all connected.The wars in the Middle East are just another method to transfer out tax dollars to the 1% — the war profiteers.  Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex still needs to be heeded 50 years later.

I had previously quoted the words of Eisenhower-– the Republican, five-star general.  The words of his 1953 speech The Chance for Peace speech are worth repeating:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?

Throughout the #AfghanstanTuesday campaign, I have been quoting the blog Scarry Thoughts.  He comes through again on the effect of war on our economy.

The fact that Occupy Wall Street bloomed into a global phenomenon in little more than a week, and that it all happened at the beginning of October, 2011 — coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War — has given tremendous hope to everyone who has been working to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan. People are in the streets, talking to each other, and that is how we’re going to find answers.

Especially important is the fact that the Occupy movement understands the systemic nature of the problems our country is mired in. And they have a determination to go to the root of those systemic problems. That’s essential to the antiwar movement. We don’t just have a war problem … we have a war economy problem!

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Peace

Palin, Nader, & Augustus Agree the Problem is “Corporate Socialism”

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Corporate Socialism, after B. Lebedev
Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

Duke Augustus was pleasantly surprised last night to hear former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin describe the US economy as “Corporate Socialism.”  This a a term that the Duke has been using for years to describe the US economy.  And a term that a quick Google search show was also used by Ralph Nader. The concept is simple.  The US has not had a capitalist economy since the first Europeans landed.  Classical Capitalism requires buyers and sellers with equal power and equal information.  Instead, the US has an economy planned by a small group, the classical definition of socialism.  That small group is not a politburo.  It is a klatch of large corporations.  Hence “corporate socialism.”

Duke Augustus agrees with Palin’s first conclusion.  That once we recognize that our economy is “corporate socialism”, it is clear that the bailouts are merely self-dealing by the oligarchs who run the economy.  The bailouts do not favor the flesh and blood citizens.  After all, large corporations do not make jobs — small and medium size companies are the job engines of the US economy.  Large corporations do not invest in the US economy.  They don’t even pay taxes.  These large corporations hide any profits they get in off-shore tax shelters and then use the tax rebates they get to lobby the US Congress to give them a tax holiday to bring these sheltered profits back while only paying a 5% tax.  Continue reading Palin, Nader, & Augustus Agree the Problem is “Corporate Socialism” →

Nonviolence, Peace

Has Your #Peace Group Joined #AfghanistanTuesday ?

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Duke Augustus believes #AfghanistanTuesday is an effective way for your Peace Group to bring attention to the 10- year war the US is conducting in Afghanistan.  The US corporate media ignores any protests against the war, and even ignores that a war is going on.  The best way to stop the war is to bring the issue directly to thecitizens.  if you are not familiar with Twitter, they track search terms with a “#” before them, and report which ones are “tracking” meaning they are getting a lot of tweets.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/MidwestAntiwar/status/108567578959544321″]

So what can your peace group do?  Get your members to give 5 minutes to advocate for peace:  Continue reading Has Your #Peace Group Joined #AfghanistanTuesday ? →

Nonviolence, Peace, Video

Bring Peace to your Town Board Meeting

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The Bring the War $$ Home resolution passed by the US Conference of Mayors on June 20, 2011 is sparking a grassroots movement to end the wars in the Middle East and Africa and re-direct the funds to domestic priorities.  The resolution uses cautious language, stating a “drawdown of troops should be done in a measured way…” and “as soon as strategically possible” from Afghanistan and Iraq.  The resolution does not mention the wars in Libya, Yemen and Pakistan. Duke Augustus is working with other local peace activists to bring a similar (but stronger) resolution before his locality, and you should, too. A copy of the Conference of US Mayors resolution is reproduced at the end of this post.  (You may need to refresh to see the video below.)

Continue reading Bring Peace to your Town Board Meeting →