40. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, September 22, 2021
Robert
Weissman, Public Citizen, “In Memory of the Lives Lost” for Peace
Dennis Kucinich and the Department of Peacebuilding Act of 2021 (DoP
2021) sponsored by Congresswoman
Barbara Lee (CA).
Hank Kaminsky’s Peace Rock
In memory of the lives lost
9-11-21
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8:49 AM (58 minutes
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Twenty years ago
today, two hijacked planes smashed into the World Trade Center, another slammed
into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania.
3,000 people lost their lives that sad and terrible morning.
Like so many of us, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing when the
first and then second planes hit the Twin Towers.
Like so many of us, I remember the shock, the horror, and the fear that
followed.
Our nation was traumatized.
The truth is, the whole world was shocked and horrified.
Though Americans pay far too little attention to what’s going on to people in
other countries, people around the world can’t help but know what’s going on in
the United States. People around the world cried, sympathized, and expressed
solidarity.
At that moment, the United States had an opportunity to unite the world
around diplomacy and shared humanist values.
This path would have rejected war and violence and embraced diplomacy,
peace-making, and justice.
Yes, it was imperative that the conspirators behind the 9/11 attack be brought
to justice — but that justice could and should have been pursued by global law
enforcement and according to international law rather than military means.
But our nation chose a different path.
George W. Bush categorically rejected offers from the Taliban to turn over
Osama bin Laden, without even exploring their viability.
And Bush — and the United States — went to war.
In Afghanistan.
Then in Iraq.
And around the world, as part of the so-called “Global War on Terror.”
Two decades later, the toll is clear.
Here’s the tally from Brown University’s Costs of War Project:
· More than 929,000 people — including at least
387,000 civilians — have died in the post-9/11 wars due to direct war violence.
· Several times more have perished from other
war-related causes, like malnutrition and disease.
· 14 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq
became war refugees or were internally displaced by war.
· The U.S. federal price tag for the post-9/11
wars is more than $8 trillion.
· Over 7,000 U.S. soldiers died in the wars, as
did more than 8,000 American contractors.
· There isn’t adequate data to assess the scope
of injuries and trauma suffered by U.S. soldiers. We do know that more than
30,000 active duty personnel and war veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died
of suicide.
All those numbers, of
course, fail to reveal the individual tragedies that have befallen people and families
around the world.
The needless pain, sorrow, and heartbreak is utterly incalculable.
As the author and historian Garrett Graff writes in The Atlantic:
“The United States — as both a government and a nation — got nearly
everything about our response wrong, on the big issues and the little ones.”
· We waged war on Iraq based on completely
fabricated grounds.
· The Central Intelligence Agency adopted a
full-fledged, illegal torture program that the Senate Intelligence Committee
would later conclude was “brutal and far worse than the C.I.A. represented.”
· Military and political leaders repeatedly lied
to the nation about purported progress in Afghanistan — now confirmed by the
immediate collapse of the Afghan government and army upon U.S. withdrawal.
All of this had a
horribly corrosive effect on our country domestically.
· The war and terrorism narrative inevitably led
to a dangerous rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-immigrant sentiment.
· Fear and paranoia were used to justify
intrusive surveillance policies — some of it legal, much of it not — that
shredded civil liberties and privacy protections.
· And the lies and body bags boomeranged to
deepen domestic cynicism about government, worsen alienation, and fuel
conspiracism.
As Graff writes, “the
fear and suspicion that came to dominate America’s reaction to the 2001 attacks
... yielded a long succession of tragic consequences, cynical choices, and
poisonous politics.”
Which brings us to the current moment.
We all owe thanks to President Biden for showing the courage to end the U.S.
military occupation of Afghanistan and to declare an end to “forever wars.”
Yes, the withdrawal was done imperfectly — due in significant part to the
surprisingly sudden collapse of the Afghan government.
But the most important thing is that the withdrawal was completed.
Yet there is no easy escape from 20 years of pursuing war instead of diplomacy.
The U.S. military budget now stands at roughly three quarters of a trillion
dollars. And the defense committees in the House and Senate each just voted to
bump it up even more.
It’s time now to make a fundamental turn away from war, fear, and
militarism.
And, in doing so, to turn toward diplomacy, solidarity, and cooperative efforts
to face our great global problems — including the coronavirus pandemic,
poverty, and climate catastrophe.
Please join me in telling President
Biden:
Thank you for ending the Afghan
War. Now please oppose the proposed increases in the Pentagon’s budget. It’s
time to redirect the nation away from war and toward addressing the giant
global threats that do not yield to military might.
Add your name.
Thanks for taking action.
In memory of the lives lost on 9/11 and in the needless wars that followed,
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW |
Washington DC 20009
Department of Peace, Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich
PEACE IS BUILDING
Department of Peacebuilding Past and Future
Twenty years ago, Congressman Dennis Kucinich
(OH) introduced into Congress a bill to create a cabinet-level
Department of Peace (DoP). This was exactly two months before
9-11-2001. PEACE IS A PART OF AMERICA'S DNA from
the days of George Washington, but how do we transition to a culture of
peace? That is the question. A DoP is part of the answer. Going
forward, we continue to build support for the Department of Peacebuilding Act
of 2021 (DoP 2021) which is sponsored
by Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA). We
need your help.
On this 20th anniversary of DoP legislation, we commemorate those who have remained steadfast in
the goal of making peace and violence prevention integral to policy decisions
in this nation. We honor the continuing evolution of the art and
science of peacebuilding and its practitioners.
Peace is building. We
urge you to TAKE TWO (or more) of these actions to build
support for a DoP:
· One click Ask Your Congressperson to
Cosponsor Dept. of Peacebuilding (HR 1111)
· Contact two
organizations to join this list of DoP Organization Endorsers. To
endorse, organizations should submit the information in this DoP Organization Endorsement
Form to nancy@peacealliance.org
· Forward to
your friends/ family members this email for them to TAKE TWO actions.
· Call two (or
more) of the following former DoP endorsers and ask them to cosponsor
DoP 2021 (HR 1111):
Karen
Bass (CA-37) (202-225-7084); Judy
Chu (CA-27) (202-225-5464); Peter
DeFazio (OR-4) (202-225-6416); Al
Green (TX-9) (202-225-7508); Pramila
Jayapal (WA-7) (202-225-3106); Robin
Kelly (IL-2) (202-225-0773); Andy
Kim (NJ-3) (202-225-4765); Alan
Lowenthal (CA-47) (202-225-7924); Carolyn
Maloney (NY-12) (202-225-7944); James
McGovern (MA-2) (202-225-6101); Peter
Welch (VT-At-Large) (202-225-4115); Susan
Wild (PA-7) (202-225-6411).
What to Say to Congress About
Cosponsoring Dept. of Peacebuilding
· Post this
information on your Facebook page
This nation has a rich history of working to
mainstream peacebuilding, beginning
with the administration of George Washington, calls for a Department of Peace
after World War I, introduction of 88 Department of Peacebuilding bills in the
House and Senate during the years of World War II and Vietnam (1943-1968),
creation of the United States Institute of Peace relating to international
conflict issues, and introduction in 2001 to the present of Department of
Peace(building) legislation relating to domestic and international conflict
resolution. See DoP - Part of America’s DNA Since Day
1.
To build a sustainable culture of peace takes all
of our efforts. We thank you for being a peacebuilder and
we urge you to TAKE TWO (or more) of the actions listed above as we move forward to establish a Department of
Peacebuilding and a culture of peace.
"To ever have a peaceful world, we need to
proactively and diligently wage peace." - Marianne Williamson. Continue building a
culture of peace and a government which prioritized peace by creating a cabinet-level Department
of Peacebuilding.
Peace is building. Make history. Work
for a Department of Peacebuilding.
Nancy Merritt,
On Behalf of the National Department of Peacebuilding Campaign
DOP Committee and Campaign Members: Fernando I. Andrade (GA), Laura Brown (PA),
Anne Creter (NJ), Karen Johnson (IL), Maggi Koren (CA), Nancy Merritt (CA),
Kendra Mon (CA), Debra Poss (GA), Josh Roebuck (CA), Pat Simon (MA), Cetta
Smart (IL), Jerilyn Stapleton (CA), Stephanie Thomas (CA) and many others
For more information, see Department of Peacebuilding. Join National Department of
Peacebuilding conference calls on the third Wednesday of every month
at 5 pm PT/ 8 pm ET, 1-929-436-2866 or 1-669-900-6833, meeting ID 464 735 321
or, to be placed on the call notice list, contact nancy@peacealliance.org.
BACK FROM
HANK
KAMINSKY’S “PEACE ROCK”
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/09/hank-kaminskys-peace-rock.html
Hank Kaminsky's "Peace Rock'' (1998) greets
visitors to the OMNI Peace, Justice, and Ecology Center. The sculpture was commissioned by James
Richard (Dick) Bennett in 1997. The sculpture honors all peacemakers by naming
thirty United States peacemakers, men and women equally.
The oval sculpture --17 inches wide, 40
inches long, 19 inches tall--is eloquent in its function. In bold raised letters along the top, the
sculpture spells out PEACE, supported by the names of the peacemakers, also in
raised letters, around the sides.
Three features of the sculpture deserve
special comment (with thanks to Hank).
First, it is shaped and colored dark brown to appear from a distance as
a large stone, to suggest a connection between peace and the evolving earth and
humankind. Second, the letters of PEACE
are designed to contain soil for growing moss and ferns to suggest the
connection between the ideal of peace and the tranquility of plants, in
contrast to the machines of death--machine guns, planes, nuclear bombs. The
quest is for peace not only among humans but between the human-made
techno-sphere and the natural ecosphere. Among the planet's greatest
problems--perpetual wars, nationalism, imperialism, hunger and malnutrition,
the global war of rich against the poor, nuclear holocaust--ecological
destruction /climate catastrophe ranks highest in urgency. Third, the names of
the peacemakers are not always immediately discernible because, in contrast to
the Vietnam Memorial Wall's incised clarity for quick identification, the
sculptor wished to involve viewers in the peacemaker’s search for peace. The
incompleteness of the names Thoreau and
Rukeyser, for example, share the
subsidence of the letter E, to suggest the perpetual danger of the collapse of
peace into war.
All of the names are inscribed
horizontally to suggest time and the equality of these peacemakers in time, who
are placed in random order up and down, left and right. The sculpture rests in
a setting of flowers, shrubs, and trees.
The United States is a war-making nation.
It has fought a dozen wars since 1941, none of them defensive (despite its
name-change, the Department of Defense remains the old Department of War). It invaded a dozen countries during the
second half of the 20th century, in violation of international laws and
treaties. Sovereign nations were defined
as "enemies” because they offended US military and civilian leaders (expressed
a different ideology, or simply stood in our way to some national goal : Guatemala,
Dominican Republic, Libya, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Iraq). From childhood, we are conditioned to accept
aggression and war and the violence essential to war-making. The United States glorifies war; ceremonies
and symbols and monuments of warriors pervade national life. Militarism inhabits the niches of our
society, it is grassroots. Terrorism
comes always from some other nation or group or in-dividul. . The
War on Terrorism is really the War of Terrorism.
Many methods exist for diminishing
nationalistic, conditioned aggression. One is to increase the ethos of peace
and of peacemaker models for our youth by building memorials to peacemakers and
nonviolence in peaceful and beautiful landscapes. Our children know the names
of our warriors, who are celebrated in countless ways. They do not know the
names of our peacemakers. So we must instill the values of beauty, peace, and
just law by celebrating the peacemakers by naming them. Just as citizens have
always expressed their patriotism by erecting a flag in their yard, or by
setting aside a place in their home to remember loved ones who served or were
killed in war--the home as a war memorial, privately reinforcing the legitimacy
of the war-making nation---, we can also transform our places into peace
memorials.to honor those who sacrificed for peace and imagined a peacemaking
nation.
John Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of
Architecture argued that architecture, as the art of edifices that
contributes to our "mental health, power, and pleasure," is an index
of a nation’s values. Throughout our history, warriors have appropriated this
domain of public good. But a
counter-movement is rising of beautiful monuments dedicated to peace,
especially in landscaped places. We must know and remember peacemakers, not
warmakers and killers, if we are to have peace. The plastic arts and literature
provide us with memory. Ruskin: "it
is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands
have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld, all the days
of their life.”
This
sculpture is a measure of our culture's struggle with violence. In conception, design, and execution, it
offers "health, power, and pleasure.'
And it benefits from the spiritual and sensory power of the landscape,
both of` which are to be discovered by the inquiring visitor. In contrast to the immensely successful
conditioning of soldiers to kill by the U. S. Army, and the apparently
successful conditioning of the population to be violent by our culture---in films,
television, computer games—this sculpture and place invite non-violent
reflection and behavior.
It is hoped that this private place for
peace will inspire the creation of more private peace memorials and Iead
outward to more public peace memorials. We should strive to create not only
private places of peace but also to create peace parks and gardens and
sculptures in our towns, cities and countryside, if we are ever to evolve into
a nation and world dedicated to peaceful rather than Pentagon values.
Biographies of all of the peacemakers
named on Kaminsky's sculpture (except for one) may be found in books by Michael
True: Justice-Seekers, Peacemakers: 32 Portraits in Courage (1985) and To
Construct Peace. 30 More Justice Seekers and Peacemakers (1990). True has
also written An Energy Field More Intense Than War: the Nonviolent Tradition
and American Literature (l995).
A note on heroes. Our genuine heroes are
less well known than the false heroes used to sell products. Our society is
saturated with meretricious celebrities pushing commodities. Celebrity names
sell; celebrity makes money. What kind of person the celebrity is or what
relation the celebrity has to the product sold matters little. But the heroes
listed on Hank Kaminsky's engrossing “Peace Rock” possess authentic identity as
seekers for a peaceful world.
Hank Kaminsky was born April 3, 1939. He is
married to Jo Ann Burton Kaminsky and has two sons. Jesse and Daniel. He was
educated at Queens College (Flushing, NY), the Art Students League, the New
School for Social Research, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and the
University of Arkansas. His most well known work is the World Peace Prayer Fountain
on the downtown Square of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Some of his other sculptures
are: "The Miracle of the Double Helix,'' University of Arkansas for
Medical Sciences, Little Rock; a Set of Communion Vessels and Candle Fixtures
for the First United Presbyterian Church, Fayetteville; "Islands in the
Sea" for Temple Shalom, Fayetteville; “Yahrzeit" for Temple B'nai
Israel, Little Rock; and "Eternal Light" and "Words for
Healing" at the Washington Regional hospital in Fayetteville.. His works
have been shown widely in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC,
Birmingham, AL, and throughout Arkansas. He has taught widely from Dallas to
New York City to Branson, including the position of Adjunct Assistant Professor
of Art, University of Arkansas. Fayetteville. "Since 1971 I have been
working with a technique which I call 'Sand-Matrix Design.'' The latest example
of this technique can be seen in the sculpture series called "The Sacred
Ground Project," a collection of concrete sculptures designed for gardens.
To read about the thirty Peacemakers
celebrated on the sculpture, in alphabetical order, all from the United States,
go to::
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/09/hank-kaminskys-peace-rock.html
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