Sunday, October 31, 2010

Empire or Democracy

I am reading Chalmers Johnson's Dismantling the Empire, an addition, really a 4th volume of his "blowout" trilogy, and each essay relates closely to one or more of the trilogy. It seems an important book for his insistent message that our imperial overreach is destroying us, our democracy and our economy. And it's short and easy to read--a source perhaps by which a large number of formerly silent people can become informed about US militarism and empire and take action. If you have time to read it, I hope you will tell your lists and friends about it.
And Gary Younge's one-page essay in The Nation (Nov. 8) is excellent. Here's one sentence from it: "Remembering the war....would force Americans to remember what Afghans cannot forget--the sheer brutality, incompetence, futility and recklessness of an invasion and occupation that have achieved neither peace nor democracy nor security."
Our Saturday tabling continues. We have mailed the petitions on leaving Afghanistan and ending drones, and are now collecting signatures against our violations of our best traditions-- torture, assassination, secrecy, foreign bases, and nuclear weapons--, and for WikiLeaks, open government,the START Treaty, nonviolence. For last Saturday Julie made an excellent poster on these subjects.

On warming we have several handouts and a petition in support of the Clean Air Act to regulate C02.

And we are talking to people.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in his speech against the Vietnam War and wars in 1967 at the Riverside Church said above all we must never be silent against the atrocious wrongs of wars. Join us next Saturday.

Dick

No comments:

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)

Dick's Wars and Warming KPSQ Radio Editorials (#1-48)