June/July 2002
Community
Consciousness
Eric Sirotkin
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: A Call to Action
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
We
Are Not An Isolated Fringe
Kayla M. Starr, MPH
Rejecting
Neo-Liberal Globalization Will Diminish Causes of War and Conflict
Gerald Cavanaugh
War,
Inc.
Mike Ferner
Hell
to Pay: The Proving Ground
William Rivers Pitt
Liberation
Psychology and The Power Elite
Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.
The
Age of Inequality
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Industrial
Agriculture Poisoning Our Water and our Home
PR
Firms Help Corporations "Infect the World"
George Monbiot
Book
Reviews:
The Democracy Owners Manual and The Global Activists Manual
Green
Beings: Plant Mind, Planetary Mind
Jesse Wolf Hardin
The
Yearly Round
Richard Moeschl
Keep
Your Tubes Outta Me … It's a Good Day to Die
John Darling
The
Movie Mystic: Waking Life
Stephen Simon
Soy
to Enjoy and Soy to Avoid
Rebecca Wood
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
We Are Not An Isolated Fringe
The real silent majority is for peace and against war
By Kayla M. Starr, MPH
The realization that this administration’s endless war on terrorism has failed to catch the accused terrorist leaders, while being responsible for the deaths of more than 5000 innocent Afghanis at a cost of two billion dollars per month (funds which could otherwise be used for essential social, health, educational and environ-mental protection programs) has many, many Americans deeply disturbed. Adding to this are the following concerns:
• The US has recently pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the International Criminal Commission, the Kyoto Accords on Global Warming, the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, the Land Mine treaty and various other international agreements, refusing to cooperate with these international efforts.
• Our government promotes the WTO, NAFTA and FTAA to guarantee the interests of US corporations, at the expense of the welfare of human rights and the environment worldwide.
• Congress has passed laws that are turning our country into a police state, where authorities now have the go-ahead to search and seize without public warrants, incarcerate people without access to lawyers and without being charged publicly, and to eavesdrop on all of us, without due cause.
• In our names and with our tax dollars, our government is responsible for the deaths of at least 50,000 Iraqi civilians, funds and supplies the Columbia military to kill its own people in the name of “narco-terrorism,” trains death squads all over the southern hemisphere, sells arms to both sides in conflicts around the world, and has engaged in over 120 armed conflicts since WWII.
• Many question that we actually are living in a democracy now that our current leaders were chosen against the will of the people, employing rampant election fraud, lacking even the popular majority vote.
Most of us fear that we can’t do much to change any of this. We direct our efforts to do our best for our families, in our work, and perhaps for some local issues. We hope that, by living with decency, meditating, praying, caring for those close to us, we might somehow affect the big picture. Some of us take time from our busy schedules to write letters to our legislators and the newspapers, sign petitions, attend educational presentations, keep ourselves informed by reading publications such as the one in your hands right now. In fact, an increasing number of Americans are taking actions to improve the safety of our food, recycle, use less fuel, support local businesses, invest in socially responsible stocks, work for better schools, etc. Yet most of us assume that we are an isolated fringe—that most Americans support the current political agenda.
That’s where we are wrong!
According to well-documented studies by Paul Ray, co-author of the best selling book, The Cultural Creatives, we are actually in the majority. Its just that the powers-that-be have a huge vested interest in making us believe we are an unpatriotic minority. So, the media continues to report skewed and dated polls that say that the Bush regime enjoys popular support. They’re still quoting polls taken in the month following 9-11, whose questions read something like, “Do you support going to war to stop the terrorists attacks, or should we do nothing?” And the tens of thousands of people who showed they do not support Bush’s Endless War in marches in Washington, DC and San Francisco—indeed all over the US—were ignored or vastly under-reported. Major news services reported 50,000 at the anti-war march on Washington last April. Experienced analysts who were there estimate 200,000 Americans in the streets in DC. In addition, people were marching that day in every city and in many small towns. Hundreds of thousands are protesting in London and all over Europe, but we haven’t read about this in our papers or seen much on TV, have we?
We are approaching the point where large numbers of people are awakening to the fact that we are not an isolated fringe. The real silent majority is for peace and against war. We actually do have the power to stop these appalling offenses. But we are going to have to do more now to stop this war machine. We are going to have to take some risks, make some sacrifices. And if we don’t do so soon, the day may come when we are the innocent victims of these policies. We must not cooperate with a government that is blatantly illegitimate and criminal. Think of ways that you can and will withdraw your cooperation. We must have the courage of our convictions now. Each act builds on the global movement of dissent against evil.
Here in Ashland a group has come together since 9-11 which calls itself Southern Oregon ANSWER. The acronym stands for “Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.” The local group, which is loosely affiliated with a national organization by the same name, has sponsored speakers, a teach-in, and several marches and rallies. These events provide people with the opportunity to stand together for what they believe in, to learn the truth about what is happening, to show the public that we are here, that we can be patriotic while still opposing the Bush brand of terrorism. More than 50 Ashlander’s bussed to SF for the demonstration in April, while about 350 marched here through downtown Ashland.
To participate
in this dynamic group, or to find out more about it, please call (541) 482-6543.
