You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train! Thank You Howard Zinn.

Friends,

Judging by the State of the Union (as evidenced by current events and President Obama's recent address) the United States is indeed, as many claim, a Christian nation.  This is evidenced by our devout leaders constantly calling on the protection of Our Lady of Perpetual War, the patron saint of the Military-Industrial Complex.  For anyone who still harbored any hope that Obama might lead us to the Promised land, those hopes should have been soundly dashed as he uttered the words "national security" during his State of the Union address.  He essentially sealed the coffin on people's hopes of "change we can believe in", if by that we think of reducing the role of the military (and its associated spending), increasing humanistic diplomacy and foreign assistance, and increasing spending on "entitlements" such as education, health care, social security and critical infrastructure.

Of course, it would be too easy to blame Obama for this entire mess, but he is really just another in a long line of Presidents, each of whom has continued building this house of cards for most of our nation's history.  We should know that we cannot rely on Presidents to change a system over which even they now have little real control. Nearly every member of Congress is beholden to one or more corporate interests.  Many, if not most, of those in other important positions in Washington got there through the revolving governmental-corporate doors.  And now, the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, with which we bestow the ultimate care of those documents on which our nation's foundation rests, have given away the farm (or should I say "foundation" to corporate, moneyed interests.

It should be obvious to each of us now that the people's interests mean little to those in whom we have given far too much of our trust.  It should be evident that we cannot trust our elected leaders to make sound decisions without our oversight and involvement.  And it should be obvious that we cannot trust what our elected (and appointed) leaders tell us because, as journalist I.F Stone used to tell journalism students, "GOVERNMENTS LIE."  These were, according to Stone, the only two words they needed to remember from their time with him.

Although Stone was speaking to students of journalism, those two words apply to every citizen.  We must question everything presented by our government, and test it for truth.  To do so requires more than just critical thinking skills; it requires a depth of knowledge of history, and not just the history that we are commonly taught in school (the history that is written by the victors) but the history beneath the thin veneer of the party line.

The recent death of historian Howard Zinn made me realize how few historians have dared to challenge (as did Zinn) the historical status quo that gives students a single, homogenous narrative that holds up a system that works to sustain itself rather than the spiritual, physical and economic well-being of its people.  Of course, the writing of history is not a purely objective undertaking.  As Zinn himself admits,

I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit.  And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian. (source: A People's History of the United States)

What is unique about Zinn is that he was much more than a mere historian; he believed that he could help people (particularly his history students) be:

not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it.  This of course, was a recipe for trouble. (from: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train)

In testing what we are told, or what we read about historical or current events, we must hold them up to a strong, critical light and test them for truth, using all the tools at our disposal.  And then, it is up to each of us to decide what we do with that information that we derive from such a critical analysis.  It may seem daunting to even begin to stand up to a system dominated by military power, corporate wealth and an antiquated political system, but we should always remember that we have power, should we choose to exercise it.  In his book, A People's History..., Zinn closes with the last lines from a poem by Shelley, written after the massacre carried out by the British government at Peterloo, Manchester in 1819.  Even without rest of the poem (which is powerful) these word carry Zinn's message:

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number -

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few.'

Indeed - We are many, they are few.  Let us (as Zinn said) not only be better informed, but use that knowledge to speak out against injustice and for a better world.  There is strength in our numbers if we choose to be in solidarity.  As Zinn's book says, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", particularly one that is heading for disaster.  We can get this train on a different (and sustainable) track.  Thank you Howard Zinn.  We will miss you, but your works live on!

Peace,

Leonard

War Without People???

Friends,

Imagine, if you dare, a battlefield without soldiers. There was a time, going back to the earliest days of recorded history, when there were essentially just soldiers on the battlefield, fighting each other hand to hand with swords (and daggers, from which swords evolved) made of bronze. Interestingly enough, historians still debate whether the earliest swords evolved out of agricultural sickles. This was war in which the primary characters in this violent event, those injured and killed, were soldiers.

Over the centuries war has gradually evolved technologically as humans attempted to make killing easier and more efficient. There is also an associated profit motive as weapons makers ply their trade in these modern times. More recently weapons have evolved (at an almost exponential rate) to an unimaginable technological state in which some weapons systems allow soldiers to operate them from a distance, sometimes halfway around the earth (by satellites). Systems are also being designed to have some degree of autonomy in decision making, decreasing the human interaction even more.

A recent article in the Arizona Daily Star, Will drones push fighter pilots out of the cockpit?, shows the excitement within the military establishment. "This is massive," said [Col. Paul] Johnson, an A-10 pilot with more than 2,000 hours in the skies, describing the potential changes ahead. "It's a head-exploding topic," he said. But "for us to sit on the sidelines and ignore this new technology would be irresponsible." This pilot was describing the future of military aviation as more and more pilotless drones take to the skies over Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of other locales (even the United States).

Photo above: Just another day at the office. Airman 1st Class Caleb Force, a Predator sensor operator, helps 1st Lt. Jorden Smith, a Predator pilot, locate simulated targets during an MQ-1 Predator training mission at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. Photo courtesy of the United States Air Force.

Of course, the movement away from piloted aircraft is about much more than decisions about costs of aircraft and risk to pilots; it is about the very nature of war itself. The historian Howard Zinn once said, We might think that at least those individuals in the U.S. Air Force who dropped bombs on civilian populations were aware of what terror they were inflicting, but as one of those I can testify that this is not so. Bombing from five miles high, I and my fellow crew members could not see what was happening on the ground. We could not hear screams or see blood, could not see torn bodies, crushed limbs. Is it any wonder we see fliers going out on mission after mission, apparently unmoved by thoughts of what they have wrought. Bomber pilot at 30,000 feet or drone pilot sitting in an air-conditioned trailer in the arizona desert doing his or her 8 to 5 job; one just happens to be thousands of miles from the battlefield. "Hey, could you take the controls while I duck out for a cup of coffee?"

As if war itself is bad enough, we have been moving down a very slippery slope as we have depersonalized war. It's simply getting easier, and easier to kill. Gone are the days when soldiers hacked each other to death with swords; we now have pilots commanding aircraft from 7000 miles away (Iraq and Afghanistan), dropping bombs and firing missiles, often killing civilians. One pilot quoted in the Daily Star article asked, Are we moving toward a battle space devoid of human beings? And, if so, how will that impact a nation's willingness or reluctance to wage war? Ironically, we seem to be moving away from a battlefield in which our soldiers are present, but in which exists the presence of not only "insurgents" and "terrorists", but also innocent civilians - men, women and children - who are suffering indiscriminately.

It is also ironic that one of the pilots said that, while we are having these technological developments, we can't be afraid to couch them in some larger philosophical discussions about what war is, and what war will be. Indeed, we must have serious philosophical discussions about war, but those discussions are currently being conducted by just those in charge, the Pentagon planners, the people at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the weapons makers. There is no room at the table for those who can ask the humanistic, philosophical questions that go far beyond the sterile questions surrounding efficiency, pilot safety and financial considerations between $85 million fighter jets and $5 million drones.

It is certainly a brave new world we are creating in which there might come a day when we sit in our barricaded homes watching the floor to ceiling television screens (from Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451) as the drones and robots unleash their horrors on the "enemy" in some far off land. It is certainly not a world in which I wish to live. And it will all be controlled via satellites orbiting the earth. 70% of the weapons used in the 2003 "shock and awe" attack on Iraq were directed to their targets by space technology.

It is time to say NO to military use of space for making war on Earth! It is time to speak out to Keep Space for Peace! Join the International Week of Protest to Stop the Militarization of Space from October 3-10, 2009. Learn more at the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.

Just as those earliest swords may have evolved out of agricultural sickles, it is time to turn today's highly technological swords into ploughshares, and stopping the militarization of space is an critical step in doing so.

Peace,

Leonard

Read the Arizona Daily Star article Will drones push fighter pilots out of the cockpit?