OMNI PTSD NEWSLETTER #2, September 10, 2012. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace. (#1 Jan. 12, 2012).
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice, and ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for change.
See Dick’s Blog, “IT’S THE WAR DEPARTMENT” http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/
Contents #1
DOCUMENTARY FILMS
Book: Philipps, David. Lethal Warriors
Hidden Battles Documentary Film
Suicides
Poster Girl Documentary Film
IVAW Outreach
Contents of #2
Chloe Fox: Rev. of Castner, The Long Walk
Suicides July 2012
Women Homeless Veterans
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales
Book: Lethal Warriors
Diagnosis
Gandolfini’s documentary, Wartorn
Soldiers, Husbands, and Coming Home: “The Long Walk”
Posted by Chloe Fox, The New Yorker, July 12, 2012
During my husband’s twelve-month deployment to Afghanistan, I made it a point to avoid novels, movies, TV programs, and even friendly discussions about war. Once, at a cocktail party, a guest discovered that my husband flew helicopters and asked me if I had ever seen or read “Black Hawk Down.” I replied that I needed another glass of wine and then proceeded to ignore him for the rest of the evening. (Few know the emotional fury lying just beneath the surface of a woman whose husband is deployed.) My one guilty obsession throughout that time was to read the I.S.A.F. press releases about casualties and offensives because they offered a kind of bureaucratic flatness to the news that made it easier to read. I could be connected to events in Kandahar without ever having to envision them in a novelistic or cinematic way.
When my husband came home in February, though, I found the opposite survival instinct taking root. In an effort to meet my husband halfway on the bridge that had divided us for a year, I turned to war literature and movies to try and understand what soldiers since Hector have experienced. From watching “Deer Hunter” for the first time to rereading “A Farewell To Arms,” I’ve been trying to piece together what these experiences mean for service members coming home today. About two months into my search, a friend sent me the manuscript of a new memoir by Brian Castner, who commanded an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2006. Castner’s book, “The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life that Follows,” is not the typical testosterone-driven account that plagues the war-memoir genre. (Castner spoke about the book on “Fresh Air” earlier this week.) He gives equal, if not more, weight to the time and effort that goes into readjusting to his family life, and his straightforward, unself-conscious writing paints an absorbing picture of war in the twenty-first century—the first century in which post-traumatic stress disorder has been both diagnosed and treated as a medical condition.
“The Long Walk” flashes between scenes of devastation as Castner worked clearing I.E.D.s (counting the number of right hands found after an explosion to determine the number of casualties) and the quiet rage and anxiety he lived with upon returning home (fingering his imaginary rifle as a kind of security blanket). There are science lessons about T.B.I. (traumatic brain injury) and a history of P.T.S.D.: during Vietnam they called it the thousand-yard stare; in the First World War it was shell shock; and Civil War veterans referred to it as soldier’s heart. Castner also coats his prose with just enough humor. On a particularly bad day of six I.E.D. missions, his team headed to the gruesome scene at a Kurdish day care for crippled children. “That sounds fake, right?” Castner writes. “Like I just made that up? Like I picked the stereotype of the most horrific possible target of a suicide car bomb. If only.”
Castner’s great service is to help readers understand what this all means within the context of an all-volunteer force, which is perhaps the most distinct aspect of today’s wars. Serving one’s country, as my husband and I have discovered, is a complicated and tortuous emotional adventure: equal parts pride and frustration, with a very rare dash of pure fulfillment. Castner went into Iraq hoping to make it a little bit safer—after all, disarming I.E.D.s and tracking down their makers not only saved the lives of American troops but those of Iraqi citizens as well. But he adeptly pinpoints the jaded feelings of many service members after two wars. In the middle of a crowded blast site, Castner describes his frustration at not being able to comb the area for clues:
Did they not see that I was trying to help? But every move the crowd made set me back half a step, an accumulation of a thousand ingratitudes, the removal of a speck of explosive residue here, the grabbing of the bomber’s license plate there. The mob swarmed like ants anywhere we had to work. Why did they have to make an awful job next to impossible?
When the screams of women are added to the steady drum of small-arms fire that surrounds him, one begins to understand Castner’s violent impulse to “shut these women up,” to “stop this migraine tearing my skull apart, to stop the mindless wailing and gnashing.”
By the end of his memoir, it seems (or perhaps the reader just wishes badly) that Castner is learning to live more at peace with his experiences. (Yoga, in particular, is proving to be therapeutic: “My mind follows my Om…flows upstream, dips into the HAS at Kirkuk, to a call coming, to the rhythm of timeless combat.”) But he still daydreams about strapping a pistol to the center console of the family’s minivan in order to protect them and he still cries from seemingly random triggers, like “long-form NPR radio pieces.” In one scene, he weeps quietly in front of other parents and children as he helps his seven-year-old son get ready for a hockey game; the routine feels too similar to suiting up a colleague in a bomb suit.
Castner’s memoir forces a reader to empathize with these unrelenting psychic and emotional pressures, but it doesn’t fully explain why his spirit and will were not crushed by those pressures. The reader is left yearning for that insight, especially in light of the Pentagon’s recent report that more service members have committed suicide this year than have died on the battlefield. In a recent survey of military families, twenty-six per cent said that their service member exhibited signs of post-traumatic stress. Alarmingly, sixty-two per cent of those respondents said that their service member had not sought treatment. It’s perhaps not unrelated that ninety-five per cent of military family members feel that the general public does not understand or appreciate the sacrifices made by them and their families. Castner’s experience isn’t everyone’s, of course, but a memoir like his can help to bridge that gap between civilians and today’s military.
As for the bridge my husband and I are building? Not surprisingly, many late-night talks together, sometimes with a bottle of wine, have helped more than watching “Deer Hunter” did. After a handful of restorative adventures on our own, and, of course, a few finding-our-way spats, we’re now nearly at the middle. Nonetheless, after reading Castner’s memoir, I happily noted its laconic dedication to his wife: “To Jessie, who loves me in spite of all this.”
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/07/veterans-brain-castner-the-long-walk.html#ixzz264dGe1uF
Army Suicides: July Deaths Set A Tragic
Katie Drummond, Contributor
I write about things that raise eyebrows. Or singe them right off.
8/16/2012
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
More bad news for a military already under suicide siege: The Army today announced that their July suicide rate was the highest since 2009, when the service first started publishing monthly data.
A total of 38 suicides, 26 among active-duty soldiers and another 12 among National Guard or Reserve members, have either been confirmed or are suspected, according to an Army report. The tally exceeds the Army’s previous single-month suicide record, in July of 2011, by five additional lives lost.
The Veteran Suicide Explosion And You Rick Ungar Contributor
The Military's 'Invisible War:' A Call To Action To Stop Sexual Assaults Kate Taylor Forbes Staff
We Carry On - What Does A Disabled Vietnam Veteran Hero Have To Do With The Year Ahead? Jeffrey Sica Contributor
How Do Military Veterans Feel When They Return Home From Combat? Quora Contributor
Overall, the military’s suicide rates are looking increasingly grim. So far this year, suicides in the Army far exceed rates reported in previous years. Other services aren’t doing much better, with suicide rates among both Marine Corps and Coast Guard personnel already outpacing those reported in 2011.
These new statistics also reveal a troubling trend: Older soldiers are now more likely to take their own lives than younger GIs. Analysts suspect that as troops draw-down from combat zones overseas, more veteran soldiers — many of whom have been deploying consistently since the dawn of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — are struggling to reintegrate into civilian life.
“Issues like minor depression, anxiety and sleep disturbances…begin to surface after a service member has been home for more than a year, and start to reintegrate with their family,” Bruce Shahbaz, a medical analyst with the Army’s Suicide Prevention Task Force told Time’s Battleland blog. “I liken it to a pot that’s on simmer….”
There’s no question that reintegration — after more than a decade of war — will continue to pose a significant challenge for soldiers and veterans. In addition to finding work (no small challenge) and managing the stresses of marriage and parenthood, some returning soldiers are also coping with a host of health problems — including post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury and addiction — that can potentially increase the risk of suicide.
To be sure, the military has made a concerted effort to better understand ailments like PTSD in recent years — they’ve funded everything from cutting-edge neurological research to far-out treatment methods. The military and the VA have also spent millions trying to enhance suicide prevention programs, with the VA earlier this year announcing plans to hire an additional 1,600 mental-health clinicians.
But for every step forward, there’s been at least one step back: Military and VA officials continue to be bogged down with allegations of inadequate mental-health care, excessive wait times and flawed diagnoses. In one particularly damning instance, clinicians at the Madigan Army Medical Center were earlier this year accused of reversing at least 300 PTSD diagnoses to cut costs.
Unfortunately, the military won’t be able to remedy the crisis of personnel suicides overnight. And, by many accounts, institutional problems still threaten to exacerbate the problem. I’m struck by one recent example: Earlier this week, I interviewed Sean Hamilton-Knapp, a 44-year-old veteran who has twice tried to take his own life. After two years of VA-funded counseling that have kept him from the brink, Hamilton-Knapp is being cut off.
“According to them, now that I’m stable and on-track, I don’t need the help anymore,” he told me. “The government is trying to save money, and I get that. But they sent someone somewhere, and that person came back broken. It’ll take more than two years to fix that.”
Support the Troops? How About 55,000 Female Homeless Veterans By Jin Zhao, AlterNet 25 July 12, RSN
omelessness among women veterans is a growing national concern. Tens of thousands of women veterans are fighting a war they did not choose to wage, and many of them have had multiple traumatic experiences, not only during service but also before and after. These traumatic experiences, which can include everything from combat-related stress to childhood abuse to domestic violence, contribute to this growing crisis.
There are some 55,000 homeless women veterans in the U.S. today, and that number is likely to grow as the number of women veterans increases overall. (The VA projects the number to grow from 1.8 million, or 8.2 percent of the total number of veterans, in 2010 to 2.1 million, or 15.2 percent of the total, in 2036.)
Research shows that trauma is a gateway to homelessness. As many as 93 percent of female veterans have been exposed to some type of trauma. The high concentration of trauma among women veterans contributes to the fact that women veterans are four times more likely to become homeless than their civilian counterparts. Among homeless women veterans, 53 percent have experienced military sexual trauma (MST), compared to one in five among women veterans in general.
As more women are deployed in combat operations, trauma is becoming an urgent concern in women veterans’ care. The VA reports that 182,000 women have been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to 41,000 in the Gulf War. This increase in women deployment correlates the number of women veterans who suffer PTSD and traumatic brain injury, two major risks related to homelessness.
Jennifer, a 45-year-old homeless veteran, shared with AlterNet her story of struggling with MST over the years. Jennifer joined the Marine Corps in 1988, but her dream of building a military career was shattered just a year later when she was sexually assaulted by a staff sergeant while on duty overseas.
The perpetrator was tried and found guilty, but with little support, Jennifer started a downward spiral. For more than 20 years, Jennifer has struggled with substance addiction and mental illnesses. (She’s been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, depression and PTSD.) She has a difficult time holding a job. She’s neglected her children. After two failed marriages, Jennifer hit a new low point 18 months ago and became homeless.
Those who work with homeless women veterans would easily recognize this familiar pattern: trauma, addition/mental illness, homelessness. Often the cycle repeats itself. A woman interviewed for a VA study described her experience living that pattern:
“It’s like for me, you start with the rape. Then you go into the drugs. And drugs leads to homelessness. You regroup. You go back to the rape. You go back to the drugs. Go back to the homelessness....You go to stay with people and they rape you. It’s a vicious cycle until something stops.”
Trauma-Informed Care for Homeless Women Veterans
There are few available services tailored to women veterans’ needs, and many homeless women vets are not aware of the programs and services that are available to them due to programs’ inadequate outreach and communication.
In March, the VA’s Office of Inspector General audited a number of VA-funded homeless services providers, and the results raised a few red flags. The OIG found that 31 percent of the providers it reviewed did not adequately address the safety, security and privacy risks of veterans, especially female veterans. In one case, a sex offender was placed in a facility where a homeless women veteran and her 18-month-old son lived.
But these issues are not new. Last year, the Government Accountability Office expressed safety concerns with VA-funded housing. Incidents of sexual harassment or assault on women residents had been reported and there were no minimum gender-specific safety and security standards for the programs.
The VA has vowed to improve safety and security of the providers it funds to serve women veterans. However, ensuring safety and security is only part of what needs to be done to better help homeless women veterans.
“Some services providers overlook the impact of trauma. They mislabel or misunderstand people’s challenges and behaviors, when they are in a lot of ways responses to traumatic experiences that people have. So what can happen is that it can lead sometimes to services...designed to help people who experienced trauma end up retraumatizing people inadvertently. By retraumatizing I mean in ways sort of recreating situations that may mimic past trauma,” said Kathleen Guarino of the National Center on Family Homelessness.
Guarino worked with the Department of Labor Women’s Bureau last year to create Trauma-Informed Care for Women Veterans Experience Homelessness, a guide for community homeless service providers that work with women veterans. According to Guarino, the key to success for service providers is to “identify what [women veterans’] unique needs are, and to design [homeless service] programs to speak to those needs.”
That means programs must avoid putting women veterans in situations that mimic their traumatic experiences -- situations that make them feel vulnerable or helpless. Details such as installing locks on doors become crucial in facilities housing women veterans. Structural arrangements such as including women veterans in making policies and rules for themselves are also important because they give women veterans a sense of control over their own lives.
Signs of distress can be subtle. “As somebody becomes agitated or shuts down or becomes more anxious, that could be...misunderstood or mislabeled as defensive or difficult, kind of label them in more negative ways. What may be really happening is somebody is having a trauma-related response,” said Guarino. That’s why a good understanding of trauma should be an important qualification in those who work with this population.
With proper help, homeless women veterans can break their vicious cycle and get back on their feet. Jennifer has been receiving trauma-informed care for three months and is making remarkable progress in the Veterans Village of San Diego, a residential program for veterans with addiction and mental illness. Sober for four months, she has reconnected with her two older daughters and is getting ready for a new semester at the City College of San Diego, where she will study skin care. She said her life has been “turned around."
Though hopeful for the future, Jennifer wished that help had come earlier. “To turn to addiction, to lose your family, seriously, that should have been acknowledged in the beginning,” she said. “But that was a long time ago. Now I just started recovering and it’s been 20 years.”
Empowering Women in the Military and Beyond
In the recently released documentary The Invisible War, director Kirby Dick documents heart-wrenching stories of military sexual violence victims. Many of these women are retraumatized by the responses to their attacks. In a male-oriented military culture, victims of sexual assault are often discouraged or intimidated so they do not report their assaults. And when assaults are reported, they can be dismissed, and victims blamed.
“When you have military sexual trauma, people look at you like it’s your fault or you did something wrong, or you provoked it. And then in the male-oriented environment, they look at you like it is your fault completely so...it is tough,” said Jennifer, adding that her roommate is an MST survivor who never reported her assault.
What makes it difficult for women in the military or women veterans to come forward and/or ask for help is the high expectation of self-reliance. “You have to be tough. I chose to be in the military, so things shouldn’t bother me. That’s how I felt. And I felt like I was very weak if I said anything, like I was whining,” Jennifer said. Until recently, she did not tell anybody in her personal life about her assault -- not her ex-husband, her children or her friends.
The military isn’t the only place where bad things happen. Many homeless women veterans have experienced multiple traumas before and after their military service as well. Taken together, these traumas become a huge burden.
It is reported that 52 percent of homeless women veterans had “pre-military adversity" such as child abuse (sexual and physical) and domestic violence. Post-military intimate partner abuse is also common among this population.
Worse, pre-military abuse often contributes to a young woman’s decision to enter the military in the first place. As a homeless woman veteran told VA researchers, she joined the military to get out of her abusive environment, hoping that the military would be a “safe haven.”
What we see here is a pipeline that produces trauma, and it should be taken seriously if we are serious about ending homelessness among women veterans. When girls and young women find themselves in abusive situations, they should have more options than joining the military or sleeping on the streets. Only when women are validated, respected and empowered in the military and in society at large, will the wounds of those who have been hurt start to heal.
Jin Zhao is a freelance journalist, multimedia producer and photographer. Her work has appeared in the Nation and on AlterNet. Follow her on twitter @jinealogy and visit her blog thingsyoudontknowaboutchina.com
STAFF SGT. ROBERT BALES, MASSACRE IN AFGHANISTAN
JOHN GRAHAM
Stick Your Neck Out
Views, news and coaching tips from John Graham,
Director of Giraffe Heroes International,
Dear James,
The US Army thought it could squeeze one more combat tour out of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. It was wrong.
Bales is now accused of shooting and stabbing to death 16 Afghan civilians, most of them women and children.
Sgt. Bales should not go into the dock alone. Many of us should be there too, charged with willful ignorance, with acting as if war was not what it is-a series of relentlessly horrific acts destroying bodies, psyches and souls. Sgt. Bales was no rogue. But to admit that warriors who snap are an inevitable product of war upsets the storyline that keeps too many of us comfortable sending generation after generation into battle. Read more. http://johngrahamspeaker.org/whos-on-trial-with-sergeant-bales
. . . . . . . . .
Sit Down Young Stranger Now Available on Kindle
More on the Giraffe Heroes Project
John Graham
phone:360 221 7989 write: PO Box 759 Langley WA 98260
Book Review: “Lethal Warriors” by David Philipps
PTSD is a very real condition, and it is also a very serious problem for our service members, veterans, and families. PTSD must be addressed immediately on a far larger scale now by top leaders at the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.
Investigation Blames War and Leadership Failures for Most of Mental Health Crisis
Review by Paul Sullivan and Kristina Brown
Veterans for Common Sense – David Philipps’ new book, Lethal Warriors: Uncovering the Tragic Reality of PTSD, is an essential and heartbreaking account of the failures in preparing our soldiers and our society for the transition more than 2.1 million from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan to civilian communities at home.
Our government’s failure to recognize the signs and seriousness of mental health problems and then take the necessary precautions is no longer just having a devastating affect on our military population. The failures continue spreading into civilian life all across America.
PTSD is a very real condition, and it is also a very serious problem for our service members, veterans, and families. PTSD must be addressed immediately on a far larger scale now by top leaders at the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs.
The tragic tales of several murders in Colorado Springs, Colorado led David Philipps on an investigative journey into one Band of Brothers stationed at Fort Carson. The common thread: many homicides involved recently returned Army soldiers who had deployed to the Iraq War, and many of the suspects were untreated PTSD patients.
Philipps guides his readers through the lives of soldiers who, tragically, become notoriously known as the “Lethal Warriors.” He chronicles their childhood stories leading them to join the Army, their different attitudes and experiences during deployment, and the startling similar series of events leading to their psychological and criminal demise upon their return home.
His thorough examination of the military’s failure to recognize and properly respond to the variety of warning signs of combat stress and PTSD and the military’s improper efforts to remove soldiers experiencing such symptoms are important lessons for Congress, the Pentagon, VA, and cities near military installations.
Without a doubt, Philipps’ highly commendable investigative journalism reveals our soldiers are not receiving proper mental healthcare. In many cases documented by Philipps, this is due to neglect of the military to recognize the crisis and quickly hire enough mental health professionals to provide prompt care. The failures also result from persistent and severe stigma as well as other obstacles, such as untrained noncommissioned officers, personality disorder discharges, and improper treatment which prevents too many of our soldiers from seeking and/or continuing the necessary treatment.
Philipps makes it abundantly obvious that PTSD is not being responded to in the proper manner as a result of limited resources and a “don’t look don’t find” attitude from higher command and at the Pentagon. For example, warning signs, such as anger, withdrawal, depression, outbursts, anxiety, sleeplessness, nightmares, and more, are being ignored or unnoticed. In another example, service members with PTSD are frequently and wrongly kicked out personality disorders that don’t exist, often preventing the new veteran from obtaining post-military VA medical care.
Philipps cites an essential study, conducted at the recommendation of Fort Carson’s General Mark Graham, by the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine in July 2009. The Army report observed that the trend of behavioral problems had little to do with individual backgrounds and everything to do with the intensity of combat observed during deployment.
Overall, investigators blame deployment (and repeated) to war, not the soldiers, who usually joined the military in good health. The investigation published its recommendations, listed by Philipps on page 241:
First, they noted, reintegration training must be overhauled and started before soldiers come back from overseas. Even soldiers who return early must get this enhanced training.
Second, units and individual soldiers who have been exposed to high levels of combat must be flagged by commanders so they can get better care. The days of letting soldiers lie their way through Post Deployment Health Assessment must end.
Third, the Army should reassess whether the entire command structures should change after each tour, which can interrupt the supervision of soldiers who need help.
Fourth, commanders have to ensure soldiers caught for drugs or drinking get substance abuse care and stick with it.
Fifth, make sure soldiers are not humiliated by peers or commanders by educating all tanks about Combat Stress Injuries. The prevailing attitude that legitimate stress injuries are a made-up disorder and a sin of weakness has to be broken.
Sixth, the Army needs to train sergeants and young officers to manage their troops so they don’t instinctively punish soldiers who are acting out.
The vital takeaway message from David Philipps: Deployment- caused PTSD is not something that can be ignored and left untreated.
In July 2009, VCS reviewed the Army investigation and offered our own conclusion that deployment to war remains the main culprit, followed by repeated mistakes by military leaders.
Much of the book would not have been possible without the dedicated advocacy of Iraqi War veteran Andrew Pigoany.
Our soldiers have suffered long enough, especially since the Iraq War invasion was based on misleading information. Combat stress and PTSD need to start being recognized and recognized early so treatment and recovery have the greatest chance of success for our soldiers, our veterans, their families, and our communities.
If we don’t, then the adverse impact of the war may flood into more and more lives of an unprepared civilian population. We can and must do the right thing now and make sure every soldier receives prompt mental health exams as well as any needed when they return – that’s because a mental health wound is as serious as a physical wound.
Left untreated, both can be lethal.
Gandolfini, Wartorn, HBO's Brilliant War Doc
Nov 10, 2010 6:47 PM EST
James Gandolfini, still best known as the therapized mobster Tony Soprano, turns the focus on veterans for Wartorn, a new documentary airing Thursday. Rebecca Dana on the making of the film and the ravages of PTSD.
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If there’s one point of intersection between The Sopranos and the Civil War, it’s post-traumatic stress. You can only go around blowing people’s faces off for so long before it starts to get to you, and that may help to explain why so many veterans feel such an immediate connection with the actor James Gandolfini.
The brooding, bulb-nosed Gandolfini, who played therapized mobster Tony Soprano in the HBO series, has produced a number of documentaries for the network looking at the long-term effects of war on soldiers. His latest is Wartorn: 1861 to 2010, which examines the affliction known over the course of the last 149 years as cowardice, hysteria, melancholia, shell-shock, combat fatigue, and eventually PTSD, when it was finally recognized as a legitimate condition just 30-odd years ago.
PTSD is a difficult subject to render on video for much the same reason doctors took so long to recognize it as real. The effects of war are typically obvious. It leaves torn-up bodies, bombed-out buildings, coffins, carcasses, and rivers of blood. But PTSD is invisible—until the moment a Midwestern farm boy drinks up the courage to press his dog tag against his forehead with the mouth of a handgun and shoot.
For Wartorn, which airs Thursday night on HBO, filmmakers Jon Alpert, Ellen Goosenberg Kent, and Matthew O’Neill overcome the difficulty of showing PTSD with plenty of gut-wrenching telling. Sufferers of the condition, which afflicts 20 percent of veterans according to one study, talk candidly (or, in the case of the deceased, speak through letters, family members, and old public testimony) about how it’s affected their lives.
“I came back as a raving lunatic,” says a veteran of World War II.
“I was having nightmares. I still have bad nightmares. And it takes all goddamn night to kill somebody.”
“I have three boys I haven’t seen in 25 years.”
Here’s the mother of the young man who got drunk and then shot himself in the forehead after two tours of duty in Iraq: “The United States Army turned my son into a killer…They forgot to un-train him to take that urge to kill away from him.”
And here’s the young man: “I’m not a good person. I have done bad things. I have taken lives. Now it’s time to take mine.”
HBO
“These soldiers are at a rather courageous crossroads,” says Alpert, an Emmy-winning documentarian who’s worked widely in war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan. “They have suffered so much from the stigma of PTSD, from the fact that it’s a mental as opposed to a physical ailment, that they have decided the only way to make sure other people don’t suffer the way they have is to start talking about it.”
“It’s hard for me even to describe how unpleasant it is for [Gandolfini] to be on camera,” Alpert says. “He would prefer it if he were the invisible man.”
And what got them to start talking?
“Jim,” Alpert says. “People feel like they know him. First of all, he’s very sincere in his concern. Second, he’s been in their living rooms every Sunday for five years. He portrays a big tough guy who was psychologically wounded by the things he’s had to do and he’s seen. As a result of that, they’re ready to talk. From the lowest ranking service member to the top generals, they opened up very quickly to him.”
Gandolfini lumbers into scene after scene of Wartorn, transmuted now from patient to listener. Visually, this move off the couch doesn’t suit him. He looks overstuffed into the straight-backed chairs of military offices, his hangdog face stern as he absorbs the stories all these people seem suddenly eager to tell.
“It’s hard for me even to describe how unpleasant it is for him to be on camera,” Alpert says. “He would prefer it if he were the invisible man. That’s the role he would like most instead of the roles that he’s had.”
Emotionally, and in every other way, Gandolfini-as-therapist works eerily well. The actor’s efforts to help sufferers of PTSD by shining a light on their condition are also helped by recent developments in the military’s own approach to discussing and treating it . The Department for Veterans Affairs now has a National Center for PTSD. This week, Eric Shinseki, the retired general who is now secretary of Veterans Affairs, wrote a column explaining PTSD and its treatments.
Those treatments range from standard therapy to new drugs to 10 minutes of Tetris. But key to any treatment plan is a wider acceptance that PTSD isn’t cowardice but a real affliction, suffered widely.
When The Sopranos went off the air, some critics wondered if Gandolfini would ever be able to break away from his iconic portrayal of the damaged mobster. Since then, he has given several acclaimed performances, but for the most part remains fixed in our minds as Tony Soprano. Which turns out to be a good thing for the swelling ranks of suffering veterans, telling their stories now for the first time. “Very very self-conscious” or not, Gandolfini seems uniquely suited to hearing them.
Rebecca Dana is a senior correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she has also written for the New York Times, the New York Observer, Rolling Stone and Slate, among other publications.
Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com
Peter Barglow. “We Can’t Treat Soldiers’ PTSD Without a Better Diagnosis.” Skeptical Inquirer (May-June 2012). PTSD is accepted by the VA, but it does not meet the criteria for a real psychiatric-medical disease.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
9-11 NEWSLETTER, SEPTEMBER 11 FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL TOMORROWS DAY #5,
OMNI
9-11 NEWSLETTER, SEPTEMBER 11 FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL
TOMORROWS DAY #5,
September 9, 2012 (replacing Patriot Day). COMPILED BY Dick Bennett for a Culture of
Peace.
See Interdependence Day Newsletter.
PEACEFUL TOMorrows
Day is part of OMNI’s National Days
Project.
Here is the link to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ Here is the link to the Index: http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/
Contents of #4 2011
Collapse Conspiracy?
CONSEQUENCES of Bombings:
Fear
Book by Engelhardt:
Foreign and Domestic McCarthyism
Film by Pena:
Unconstitutional Attacks on Civil Liberties
9-11 Commission: 2 Books
John Farmer
Philip Shenon
ALTERNATIVES to Retaliation, Invasion, and Occupation:
September 12:
Interdependence Day
Potorti’s
Book: September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
International Police: Ali Soufan’s Book
Peace Rallies 2010 from NYC to
9-11 1973:
Contents for #5 2012
Peaceful Tomorrows 9-11-2012 Statement
Peaceful Tomorrows Actions
Nonviolence National Dialog
Dick,Consequences of War on Terror
Chomsky, The Alternatives
Democratic Senators vs. Patriot Act
Susan Herman, Taking
Liberties
9/11 the Whole Story
PT Statement
on 9-11-2012
A reporter called and
asked to interview members to see if we mind that this year’s commemoration
will not get the same attention as last year’s. Here is our response:
We greatly
appreciate the tremendous support over the years to our
families. Our actual concern is not that such support will wane,
but that there does not seem to be adequate attention to those
who are continuing to be harmed as a repercussion of both the 9/11 attacks and
of responses to the attacks. Recent tragic hate crimes in
Yet there is also hope.
A growing movement of those who simply see that forging bonds among one another
is possible. We hope that this year’s commemoration will see such connections
grow one by one, people joining the world over to attain peaceful tomorrows.
SEPTEMBER 11
FAMILIES FOR PEACEFUL TOMORROWS ACTIONS
Peaceful
Tomorrows Statement on Activities of the Military Commission at Guantanamo
May 5, 2012 The
Peaceful
Tomorrows Joins Call for Accountability for Torture
PT Endorses Appeal to
Spanish Public Encouraging Support For Spanish Courts in Prosecuting U.S. Officials
who Authorized Torture
9/11 Mother
Demands Obama Try Terrorist Plotters In Civilian Court
March 31st, 2010 From
the Huffington Post: In anticipation of a final announcement as to the trial
venue for the 9/11 plotters, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is
warning…
Letter to
President Obama Urging Trials in Civilian Courts for 9/11 Defendants
February 18th, 2010 On
February 18, September 11th Families For Peaceful Tomorrows sent a letter to
President Obama urging him to try the 9/11 defendants in civilian courts. The
full…
On Abandoning
NYC as the Venue for the Trial of KSM and the Four Other 9/11 Defendants
February 2nd, 2010
Statement from September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows On June 16th,
2009, members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows went to the
Department of Justice and…
Rights Groups
Mark Beginning of a Decade of Wrongful Detentions at Guantánamo and Demand
Obama Close Island Prison with Justice
January 11th, 2011
January 11, 2011,
Coalition of
groups rallies outside White House for closure of Guantanamo Bay
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011104335.html
A group of 173 human rights activists, each wearing an orange jumpsuit and a
black hood and representing the remaining 173 prisoners…
Open Letter to
A.G. Holder on 9/11 Trials
November 11th, 2010
Attorney General Holder: We, family members of those who died in the attacks of
9/11, entreat you to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his
Where to Try a Terrorist Suspect
April 17th, 2010 On
Sept. 11, 2001, Terry Greene’s older brother Donald was on United Flight 93
that crashed into a
Statement on the
8th Anniversary of the Establishment of Guantanamo Bay
January 11th, 2010 Eight years ago today, as many of us were still memorializing and putting to rest our family members lost on 9/11, our government was adding another wound…
Building the Nonviolent Community: A National Dialogue
a free teleconference
dialogue * advanced registration required
September 11, 2012 8:00 - 9:30pm ET / 5:00 - 6:30pm PT
Please join the Metta Center for Nonviolence, the National
Peace Academy, September 11th Families for a Peaceful Tomorrows, and
individuals from around the globe for an inspiring evening of connection, conversation
and relationship building as we engage with the paradigm shift "from
aloneness to all-oneness" through the power of nonviolence. We will hear stories from participants of how
the new paradigm thinking deepens the commitment to peace building, and work
together to build strategy to take all of the various good projects in the
"movement toward peace" to the next level.
The interactive discussion
will invite everyone to contribute. The
dialogue will be structured to move from the largest frame - what is the
"New Story" - to best practices for public participation, low-risk
options for people to find solutions to some of the tough challenges facing us
("constructive program" work) and not-so-low-risk options
("Satyagraha"). Please bring your voice, your ideas, your passion,
idealism and enthusiasm to what will be a very satisfying virtual gathering.
We invite you to review the
following documents from the co-hosting organizations before the
teleconference:
Pamphlet: Hope or Terror: Gandhi and the Other 9/11
(introduces basics of nonviolence)
Brochure: Roadmap, the pledge of nonviolence, and the new story
Webinar: Roadmap (on Metta
Center homepage)
September 11th
Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Missions and Goals
Registration
Click here for more information and to
register today. http://nationalpeaceacademy.us/911dialogue/
Dick’s LTE
9-11 No
Time for Tin Drums and Patriotic Torpedoes: The Consequences of the War on
Terror Here and Abroad
Frida Ghitis’ column, “Our Strength of Ideas” (ADG 4-26-12, she writes for the
. The attack on NYC’s
And abroad, are people
freer as the result of US invasions, bombings, killings, armed searches, destruction
of water and sewage systems, and prolonged occupation? Do the people of
Perhaps it is not because
she is lazy but because she is like former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, who defended the use of cruise missiles and embargo against the
people of
Review of Chomsky’s 9/11: Was There an Alternative?
“The book you are holding was
conceived, produced, and published as an act of protest.” This is the first
line of the editor’s introduction to Noam Chomsky’s revised book about the
causes and effects of the September 11 attacks. Originally titled simply 9-11,
the book was published in November 2001. The 2011 edition features a new
introduction -- “Was There an Alternative?” -- in which Chomsky comments on the
assassination of Osama bin Laden and other developments since the book was
first published.
Chomsky’s initial
comments 10 years ago provide a sobering perspective today, warning about
events that have since unfolded. Chomsky argues that the
Chomsky laments
that the
9-11 is a crash course in
Chomsky was one of
the few people in the
Democratic Senators Issue
Strong Warning About Use of the Patriot Act Charlie Savage, The New York Times, March 17,
2012 , RSN
Charlie Savage reports: "For more than two years, a handful
of Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee have warned that the
government is secretly interpreting its surveillance powers under the Patriot
Act in a way that would be alarming if the public - or even others in Congress
- knew about it."
Justice Dept. Accused of
Misleading Public on the Patriot Act
Charlie Savage, The New York Times , Sept. 22, 2011, RSN
Intro: "Two
Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy by Susan N. Herman, 2011
In this eye-opening work, the
president of the ACLU takes a hard look at the human and social costs of the
War on Terror. A decade after 9/11, it is far from clear that the government's
hastily adopted antiterrorist tactics--such as the Patriot Act--are keeping us
safe, but it is increasingly clear that these emergency measures in fact have the
potential to ravage our lives--and have already done just that to countless
Americans.
From the Oregon lawyer falsely suspected of involvement with terrorism in Spain
to the former University of Idaho football player arrested on the pretext that
he was needed as a "material witness" (though he was never called to
testify), this book is filled with unsettling stories of ordinary people caught
in the government's dragnet. These are not just isolated mistakes in an
otherwise sound program, but demonstrations of what can happen when our
constitutional protections against government abuse are abandoned. Whether it's
running a chat room, contributing to a charity, or even urging a terrorist
group to forego its violent tactics, activities that should be protected by the
First Amendment can now lead to prosecution. Blacklists and watchlists keep
people grounded at airports and strand American citizens abroad, although these
lists are rife with errors--errors that cannot be challenged. National Security
Letters allow the FBI to demand records about innocent people from libraries,
financial institutions, and internet service providers without ever going to
court. Government databanks now brim with information about every aspect of our
private lives, while efforts to mount legal challenges to these measures have
been stymied.
Barack Obama, like George W. Bush, relies on secrecy and exaggerated claims of
presidential prerogative to keep the courts and Congress from fully examining
whether these laws and policies are constitutional, effective, or even
counterproductive. Democracy itself is undermined. This book is a wake-up call
for all Americans, who remain largely unaware of the post-9/11 surveillance
regime's insidious and continuing growth.
Powerful account of how civil liberties have rapidly eroded in
post-9/11
Authored by the President of the ACLU, the book features numerous
stories of ordinary people caught in the government's surveillance dragnet
Explains that the state of emergency has continued into the Obama
administration, and shows why we must remain vigilant if we are to hold on to
our age-old freedoms
"Taking Liberties offers
a compelling case that the basic constitutional protections most Americans take
for granted, including the rights to free speech, a fair trial and due process,
as well as freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, were seriously
compromised after 9/11 as a result of the government's well-meaning but
ill-conceived efforts to safeguard the country against another attack. . .
[P]ersuasively fair and reasonable . . . A valuable contribution to the growing
body of literature regarding the War on Terror's impact on our constitutional
rights." --Kirkus Reviews
"This smart and passionate book shows how we as Americans -
and not our faceless enemies - have the most to lose from the erosion of our
civil liberties since 9/11. By showing what has happened to real people, Susan
Herman offers the wake-up call we need to regain our perspective and reclaim
our values." - Linda Greenhouse
"Taking Liberties is an
engrossing read full of heartbreaking stories about how the War on Terror more
than made up in zeal what it utterly lacked in logic. In the immediate
aftermath, the errors documented here were understandable; ten years out, they
are unforgivable. Anyone who cares about civil liberties, believes the War on
Terror is making us safer, or even believes the War on Terror is about the War
on Terror should read this book." -Barry Friedman, author of The Will of the People
"'If you don't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to
worry about.' This phrase is destined to be with us for all time, kept alive by
the same people who cheerfully volunteer that they are willing to trade some
'liberty for security.' Susan N. Herman's new book, Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of
Democracy, provides a sharp rebuttal to this compliant mind-set that
gave the government more power over the rest of us . . . [A] great catalog of
personal injustice anecdotes, with story after story of people who don't do
anything wrong yet have plenty to worry about-they get deported, imprisoned
without charge, tortured . . . In addition to compiling all these outrages in
one handy place, Taking Liberties does
quite a good job of detailing the mechanics of the laws, policies, and
procedures that created this havoc and in most cases made legal redress
unattainable."
--Reason
Ssan N.
Herman became president of the American Civil Liberties Union in 2008
after serving on its national board for twenty years. A constitutional scholar
and chaired professor at
Ralph Nader, “The Empire Is Eating Itself
,” CounterPunch,
September 3, 2011, Reader Supported News
Excerpt: "Here are some suggestions: 1. Do not exaggerate our
adversaries' strength in order to produce a climate of hysteria that results in
repression of civil liberties, embodied in the overwrought USA Patriot Act, and
immense long-term damage to our economy ..."
READ MORE http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/7290-focus-the-empire-is-eating-itself
Did
Anthony Summers and Robbyn
Swan, Vanity Fair, (August 2011) Reader Supported News
Introduction: "Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11
attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven't been given the whole story,
while a key 28-page section of Congress's Joint Inquiry report remains
censored. Gathering years of leaks and leads, in an adaptation from their new book, Anthony Summers and Robbyn
Swan examine the connections between Saudi Arabia and the hijackers (15 of whom
were Saudi), the Bush White House's decision to ignore or bury evidence, and
the frustration of lead investigators - including 9/11-commission staffers,
counterterrorism officials, and senators on both sides of the aisle."
READ MORE http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/71-71/6667-did-saudi-arabia-attack-us-on-911
Gobble Gobble by Cathryn Falwell. 2011
A child observes turkeys throughout the seasons, and we learn
about this ancient bird. For young
children.
My Life as a
END PEACEFUL TOMORROWS
(PATRIOT DAY) NEWSLETTER #5 2012
EXTRA NOTE ON PEACEFUL TOMORROWS DAY TO BE MAILED 9-11-11
Four Newsletters:
#1 September 2008
#2 September 12, 2009
#3 July 11, 2011
#4 September 3, 2011 (also on Blog)
NOTE: THIS NEWSLETTER SHOULD
HAVE BEEN SENT FOR PATRIOT DAY AS PEACEFUL TOMORROWS # 4, SO I CORRECTED THE
TITLE HERE AND ON BLOG
Saturday, September 8, 2012
OMNI BOOK FORUM ON EMPIRE AND WAR ON TERROR 9-21-12
NEWS RELEASE
SEPTEMBER 8, 2012
OMNI CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
CONTACT: DICK BENNETT, 442-4600
SUBJECT: BOOK FORUM ON US EMPIRE, MILITARISM, AND WAR ON TERROR
When: Friday, September 21, 2012 (United Nations International Day of Peace)
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Where: OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
3274 Lee Ave., behind FedEx, north of Office Depot, extra parking in front of Liquor World.
So long as the fear-mongering myths continue of enemies who hate us for our freedoms and US invasions and bombings are perpetrated to protect those freedoms, US imperial interventions will continue, innocent people will be killed, our troops will futilely die, and our treasury wasted. People around the world hate our imperial practices. But you and I are not helpless; we are not powerless. We can contribute to an end of US wars of conquest or repression (McCarthyism abroad and at home) by refuting lies and fears and by advocating nonviolence, empathy, knowledge, reason, evidence, and diplomacy. Let us therefore be informed and not be silent.
This Forum reports on a few of the hundreds of books which our good scholars and publishers provide for our understanding of US imperialism and the so-called “War on Terror.” Chalmers Johnson’s “Blowback” tetralogy critically examines hundreds of aspects of the development of the US empire. Nicholas Davies’ Blood on our Hands identifies many of the specific violations of Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg laws committed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But the consequences of empire are not limited to its foreign wars. Empire also results in war against its own people—McCarthyism abroad, McCarthyism at home. Susan Herman in Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy examines cases after case of unconstitutional violations of domestic liberties. Other books will be cited. For a list of 46 books on these topics, contact Dick Bennett at jbennet@uark.edu
BOOK FORUM ON US EMPIRE, NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, MILITARISM, WAR ON TERROR, PERMANENT WAR, HOMELAND SECURITY, CIA
By Dick Bennett
Myths of US Innocence and Freedom
In its editorial of March 23, 2011, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette repeated the old imperial lie: “But of course America doesn’t have to do anything—right, wrong, or in-between—to be the target of protest. Our very existence is a standing provocation to the tyrannies of the world. It’s been that way since we first proclaimed that all men are created equal. . . .So no one should be surprised to hear any protesters-for-hire in the Mid-east start chanting ‘Death to America!’. . . .Maybe chanting ‘Death to America!’ is just an old habit. By now it may be custom—a tradition!—when any two or three gather together in an Islamic country.”
Little of this is true. And its sweeping anti-Islamic message is a call to kill. Who cried “Death to America!” in the nineteenth century? Not the Muslims or anybody except the British in 1812 and the Filipinos at the end of the century. Our Statue of Liberty welcomed the oppressed of the world, and they came, and still wish to come, including Muslims. Not our “very existence” has inspired enemies, but our many invasions and interventions, the hundreds of thousands of innocent people we have killed.. Before us the cry was “Death to the Romans.” And then “Death to the British!” “Death to all the imperial tyrannies.” So “Death to the USA” from Hawaiians, Iranians, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Vietnamese, Afghans, Iraqis and all the many victims of US aggression.
Neither is the second myth true. Our youth continue to join the military and die in combat, our leaders continue to foment wars, and our wars continue hardly without cessation for a hundred years partly because our troops are said to be defending our freedom. That’s a cruel falsehood to the dead and wounded soldiers and their grieving families, since the freedoms have been diminishing in direct correlation to the increase and continuation of our wars. You remember the Cold War and McCarthyism, including the 1950 Internal Security Act, the 1951 Supreme Court Dennis decision, the 1964 Communist Control Act. But you might have forgotten President Reagan’s assaults on our freedoms—McCarthyism’s extension: the gag rule for public officials, Executive Order 12356 increasing the secrecy classification, increased use of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and the McCarran-Walter Act, to mention only the most infamous. Nor perhaps do you recall President Clinton’s 1996 Counterterrorism Bill: a special court for secret evidence to deport noncitizens accused of association with groups listed as “terrorist”; Executive Branch power to criminalize fundraising for lawful activities conducted by organizations labeled “terrorist”; repealing the Edwards amendment, which prohibited the FBI from opening investigations based on First Amendment activities; resurrecting the discredited ideological visa denial provisions of the McCarran-Walter Act to bar aliens based on their associations rather than their acts; and especially: creating a new federal crime of terrorism, carving further exceptions in the time-honored posse comitatus law barring the U.S. military from civilian law enforcement, expanding use of pre-trial detention, and loosening the rules governing federal wiretaps.
I assume you do remember the Patriot Act and other intensifications of all of these past restrictions on our freedom that occurred under Bush II’s administration post-9/11 and continue under Obama.
So long as the myths continue of enemies who hate us for our freedom, democracy, and affluence (‘our very existence”), US imperial interventions will continue, our troops will futilely die, and our treasury wasted. But we are not helpless; we are not powerless. We can contribute to an end of US wars of conquest or repression (McCarthyism abroad and at home) by refuting these myths. Knowledge, reason, evidence can produce changes for the better. Let us therefore not be silent.
Here is a brief list of some of the scholarship exposing the lies. Call or write to me if you will be a panelist to report on one of these books. jbennet@uark.edu, 442-4600 in a panel sometime this fall.
US HISTORY OF IMPERIAL CONQUEST
--- Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Times Books, 2006. Equally excellent: Tom Engelhardt, The American Way of War. Haymarket, 2010. The history since 9-11: “Washington is a war capital…the norm for us is to be at war.” Engelhardt, The United States of Fear. Haymarket, 2011. F. William Engdahl . Full Spectrum World Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. US geopolitical attempts at
world domination through military and foreign policies. A People's History of American Empire:American Empire Project by Howard Zinn; Paul Buhle; Mike Konopacki, Metropolitan Books
Adapted from the bestselling grassroots history of the United States, the story of America in the world, told in comics form. William Blum, Killing Hope and Rogue State (both on post-WWII interventions and invasions and killing civilians. These books are the foundation for understanding the US empire. Blum’s Freeing the World to Death adds misc. essay on empire and consequences abroad and at home). (John Gray). (9 books)
CORPORATE IMPERATIVES , THE CORPORATE-IMPERIAL STATE
--Michael Parenti.. The Face of Imperialism. Paradigm, 2011. Corporate power generating the imperial reach. Gregory Elich. Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit. Elich focuses on the U.S. heavy-handed foreign policies and open aggressions deployed in Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, and North Korea. One western economic principle is practiced – the free market system. Noam Chomsky. World Orders Old and New. Columbia UP, 1994. (3 books)
DELUSIONAL NATIONAL MYTHS LEADING TO IMPERIAL DREAMS
One of Andrew Bacevich’s books. The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. Oxford, 2005. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Metropolitan, 2008. Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. Metropolitan, 2010. Paul Buchheit, ed. American Wars: Illusions and Realities. Clarity, 2008. David Swanson. War Is a Lie. 2010. Richard Rubenstein. Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War. Bloomsbury, 2010. Chris Hedges. The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress. Chomsky, Noam. Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right. Monthly Review, 2012. Elizabeth Martinez, et al. eds. We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st Century America. War Resisters League and PM Press. 2012. Intersection of white supremacy and the war machine. (9 books)
Lawlessness of US Empire
--Davies, Nicholas. Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. Nimble, 2010). Systematic US violations of Nuremberg Principles and Geneva Conventions. ( John Rule). Related: --Tirman, John. The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars. Oxford, 2011. Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians. Nation Books, 2008. Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9-11 to Abu Ghraib. HarperCollins, 2004. Johnson, Chalmers. Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope. Metropolitan, 2010. His last book, following his “Blowback” Trilogy: Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, Nemesis. William Blum’s and Engelhardt’s books. (8 plus books)
Rise of Imperial Presidency
--Swanson, David. Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. Seven Stories P, 2009. Related: A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror. New Press, 2007. Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. Penguin, 2010. Rachel Maddow. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. Crown, 2012. Joe Hanania,. Where the USA Went Wrong: A Study of the United States Empire. Limited Autoedition. Reviews each presidential administration as the imperial misadventures unfold from the conquest of the continent to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (5 books)
Domestic Harms (vs. Democracy and Liberty) of US National Security State, Homeland Security, War on Terrorism, Surveillance, Secrecy
--Herman, Susan. Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy. Oxford UP, 2011. Related: Jane Mayer. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Doubleday, 2008. Cole, David and James Dempsey. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. New Press, 2002. FBI and 1996 and 2001 Anti-Terrorism Acts. Priest, Dana and William Arkin. Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State. Little, Brown, 2011. Immense trillion-dollars increase of top, top secret agencies post-9/11. (4 books)
Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
--Swanson, David, ed. The Military Industrial Complex at 50. Charlottesville, 2011. Related: Nick Turse, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. Metropolitan, 2008. Henry Giroux, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex. Paradigm, 2007. (3 books)
US Empire, Mainstream Media, Public Acquiescence
--DiMaggio, Anthony. When Media Go to War: Hegemonic Discourse, Public Opinion, and the Limits of Dissent. Monthly Review, 2009. Related: Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and the Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. Wiley, 2005. Dudziak, Mary. War-Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences. Oxford, 2012. Why US public accepts permanent war. (3 books)
Anti-Imperialism
Richard Seymour. American Insurgents: A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism. Haymarket Books, 2012. The history of US anti-imperialism as a force for democracy around the world. --Ginger, Ann Fagan, ed. Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11. Prometheus, 2005. (2 books)
46 books 9-3-12
SEPTEMBER 8, 2012
OMNI CENTER FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND ECOLOGY
CONTACT: DICK BENNETT, 442-4600
SUBJECT: BOOK FORUM ON US EMPIRE, MILITARISM, AND WAR ON TERROR
When: Friday, September 21, 2012 (United Nations International Day of Peace)
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Where: OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology
3274 Lee Ave., behind FedEx, north of Office Depot, extra parking in front of Liquor World.
So long as the fear-mongering myths continue of enemies who hate us for our freedoms and US invasions and bombings are perpetrated to protect those freedoms, US imperial interventions will continue, innocent people will be killed, our troops will futilely die, and our treasury wasted. People around the world hate our imperial practices. But you and I are not helpless; we are not powerless. We can contribute to an end of US wars of conquest or repression (McCarthyism abroad and at home) by refuting lies and fears and by advocating nonviolence, empathy, knowledge, reason, evidence, and diplomacy. Let us therefore be informed and not be silent.
This Forum reports on a few of the hundreds of books which our good scholars and publishers provide for our understanding of US imperialism and the so-called “War on Terror.” Chalmers Johnson’s “Blowback” tetralogy critically examines hundreds of aspects of the development of the US empire. Nicholas Davies’ Blood on our Hands identifies many of the specific violations of Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg laws committed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. But the consequences of empire are not limited to its foreign wars. Empire also results in war against its own people—McCarthyism abroad, McCarthyism at home. Susan Herman in Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy examines cases after case of unconstitutional violations of domestic liberties. Other books will be cited. For a list of 46 books on these topics, contact Dick Bennett at jbennet@uark.edu
BOOK FORUM ON US EMPIRE, NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, MILITARISM, WAR ON TERROR, PERMANENT WAR, HOMELAND SECURITY, CIA
By Dick Bennett
Myths of US Innocence and Freedom
In its editorial of March 23, 2011, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette repeated the old imperial lie: “But of course America doesn’t have to do anything—right, wrong, or in-between—to be the target of protest. Our very existence is a standing provocation to the tyrannies of the world. It’s been that way since we first proclaimed that all men are created equal. . . .So no one should be surprised to hear any protesters-for-hire in the Mid-east start chanting ‘Death to America!’. . . .Maybe chanting ‘Death to America!’ is just an old habit. By now it may be custom—a tradition!—when any two or three gather together in an Islamic country.”
Little of this is true. And its sweeping anti-Islamic message is a call to kill. Who cried “Death to America!” in the nineteenth century? Not the Muslims or anybody except the British in 1812 and the Filipinos at the end of the century. Our Statue of Liberty welcomed the oppressed of the world, and they came, and still wish to come, including Muslims. Not our “very existence” has inspired enemies, but our many invasions and interventions, the hundreds of thousands of innocent people we have killed.. Before us the cry was “Death to the Romans.” And then “Death to the British!” “Death to all the imperial tyrannies.” So “Death to the USA” from Hawaiians, Iranians, Guatemalans, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Vietnamese, Afghans, Iraqis and all the many victims of US aggression.
Neither is the second myth true. Our youth continue to join the military and die in combat, our leaders continue to foment wars, and our wars continue hardly without cessation for a hundred years partly because our troops are said to be defending our freedom. That’s a cruel falsehood to the dead and wounded soldiers and their grieving families, since the freedoms have been diminishing in direct correlation to the increase and continuation of our wars. You remember the Cold War and McCarthyism, including the 1950 Internal Security Act, the 1951 Supreme Court Dennis decision, the 1964 Communist Control Act. But you might have forgotten President Reagan’s assaults on our freedoms—McCarthyism’s extension: the gag rule for public officials, Executive Order 12356 increasing the secrecy classification, increased use of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and the McCarran-Walter Act, to mention only the most infamous. Nor perhaps do you recall President Clinton’s 1996 Counterterrorism Bill: a special court for secret evidence to deport noncitizens accused of association with groups listed as “terrorist”; Executive Branch power to criminalize fundraising for lawful activities conducted by organizations labeled “terrorist”; repealing the Edwards amendment, which prohibited the FBI from opening investigations based on First Amendment activities; resurrecting the discredited ideological visa denial provisions of the McCarran-Walter Act to bar aliens based on their associations rather than their acts; and especially: creating a new federal crime of terrorism, carving further exceptions in the time-honored posse comitatus law barring the U.S. military from civilian law enforcement, expanding use of pre-trial detention, and loosening the rules governing federal wiretaps.
I assume you do remember the Patriot Act and other intensifications of all of these past restrictions on our freedom that occurred under Bush II’s administration post-9/11 and continue under Obama.
So long as the myths continue of enemies who hate us for our freedom, democracy, and affluence (‘our very existence”), US imperial interventions will continue, our troops will futilely die, and our treasury wasted. But we are not helpless; we are not powerless. We can contribute to an end of US wars of conquest or repression (McCarthyism abroad and at home) by refuting these myths. Knowledge, reason, evidence can produce changes for the better. Let us therefore not be silent.
Here is a brief list of some of the scholarship exposing the lies. Call or write to me if you will be a panelist to report on one of these books. jbennet@uark.edu, 442-4600 in a panel sometime this fall.
US HISTORY OF IMPERIAL CONQUEST
--- Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq. Times Books, 2006. Equally excellent: Tom Engelhardt, The American Way of War. Haymarket, 2010. The history since 9-11: “Washington is a war capital…the norm for us is to be at war.” Engelhardt, The United States of Fear. Haymarket, 2011. F. William Engdahl . Full Spectrum World Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order. US geopolitical attempts at
world domination through military and foreign policies. A People's History of American Empire:American Empire Project by Howard Zinn; Paul Buhle; Mike Konopacki, Metropolitan Books
Adapted from the bestselling grassroots history of the United States, the story of America in the world, told in comics form. William Blum, Killing Hope and Rogue State (both on post-WWII interventions and invasions and killing civilians. These books are the foundation for understanding the US empire. Blum’s Freeing the World to Death adds misc. essay on empire and consequences abroad and at home). (John Gray). (9 books)
CORPORATE IMPERATIVES , THE CORPORATE-IMPERIAL STATE
--Michael Parenti.. The Face of Imperialism. Paradigm, 2011. Corporate power generating the imperial reach. Gregory Elich. Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit. Elich focuses on the U.S. heavy-handed foreign policies and open aggressions deployed in Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, and North Korea. One western economic principle is practiced – the free market system. Noam Chomsky. World Orders Old and New. Columbia UP, 1994. (3 books)
DELUSIONAL NATIONAL MYTHS LEADING TO IMPERIAL DREAMS
One of Andrew Bacevich’s books. The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. Oxford, 2005. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Metropolitan, 2008. Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. Metropolitan, 2010. Paul Buchheit, ed. American Wars: Illusions and Realities. Clarity, 2008. David Swanson. War Is a Lie. 2010. Richard Rubenstein. Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War. Bloomsbury, 2010. Chris Hedges. The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress. Chomsky, Noam. Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right. Monthly Review, 2012. Elizabeth Martinez, et al. eds. We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st Century America. War Resisters League and PM Press. 2012. Intersection of white supremacy and the war machine. (9 books)
Lawlessness of US Empire
--Davies, Nicholas. Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. Nimble, 2010). Systematic US violations of Nuremberg Principles and Geneva Conventions. ( John Rule). Related: --Tirman, John. The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America’s Wars. Oxford, 2011. Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, Collateral Damage: America’s War Against Iraqi Civilians. Nation Books, 2008. Seymour Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9-11 to Abu Ghraib. HarperCollins, 2004. Johnson, Chalmers. Dismantling the Empire: America’s Last Best Hope. Metropolitan, 2010. His last book, following his “Blowback” Trilogy: Blowback, Sorrows of Empire, Nemesis. William Blum’s and Engelhardt’s books. (8 plus books)
Rise of Imperial Presidency
--Swanson, David. Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. Seven Stories P, 2009. Related: A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror. New Press, 2007. Garry Wills, Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State. Penguin, 2010. Rachel Maddow. Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power. Crown, 2012. Joe Hanania,. Where the USA Went Wrong: A Study of the United States Empire. Limited Autoedition. Reviews each presidential administration as the imperial misadventures unfold from the conquest of the continent to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (5 books)
Domestic Harms (vs. Democracy and Liberty) of US National Security State, Homeland Security, War on Terrorism, Surveillance, Secrecy
--Herman, Susan. Taking Liberties: The War on Terror and the Erosion of American Democracy. Oxford UP, 2011. Related: Jane Mayer. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals. Doubleday, 2008. Cole, David and James Dempsey. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. New Press, 2002. FBI and 1996 and 2001 Anti-Terrorism Acts. Priest, Dana and William Arkin. Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State. Little, Brown, 2011. Immense trillion-dollars increase of top, top secret agencies post-9/11. (4 books)
Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
--Swanson, David, ed. The Military Industrial Complex at 50. Charlottesville, 2011. Related: Nick Turse, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. Metropolitan, 2008. Henry Giroux, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex. Paradigm, 2007. (3 books)
US Empire, Mainstream Media, Public Acquiescence
--DiMaggio, Anthony. When Media Go to War: Hegemonic Discourse, Public Opinion, and the Limits of Dissent. Monthly Review, 2009. Related: Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and the Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. Wiley, 2005. Dudziak, Mary. War-Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences. Oxford, 2012. Why US public accepts permanent war. (3 books)
Anti-Imperialism
Richard Seymour. American Insurgents: A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism. Haymarket Books, 2012. The history of US anti-imperialism as a force for democracy around the world. --Ginger, Ann Fagan, ed. Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11. Prometheus, 2005. (2 books)
46 books 9-3-12
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
BRIAN WILSON 25TH ANNIVERSARY NUREMBERG ACTIONS
Brian Willson 25th anniversary YouTube video Tue Sep 4, 2012 11:11 am (PDT) . Posted by: "Phil" ambergrass2 Saturday September 1 was the 25th Anniversary of Brian Willson being run down and nearly killed by a US Navy Munitions train while engaging in Nuremberg Actions nonviolent blockade in protest of weapons shipments to Central America. I attended the gathering at the tracks Saturday and have posted a short seven minute video of the four hour event.
http://youtu.be/4WHHIqaOQiQ
S. Brian Willson
"We are not worth more. They are not worth less"
www.brianwillson.com
His book "Blood on the Tracks:" "The Life And Times of Brian Willson" is available from PM Press
www.pmpress.org
The Significance of Nuremberg Actions: Concord Naval Weapons Station, Concord, California
July 1, 1987
"We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its very nature, is total–but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the velleities of peace…Of course, let us have the peace, we cry, but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties."
–Daniel Berrigan, No Bars to Manhood, 1971
The munitions move daily from their bunkers near Concord, CA, to their nearby piers in the Suisun Bay for loading on military or commercial ships for transport to Central American and Pacific theater military operations. On June 10, 1987, a campaign was launched, promising sustained, open-ended nonviolent resistance to the flow of these munitions of death–bombs, white phosphorus rockets, missiles, grenades, ammunition, etc., both conventional and nuclear.
This campaign is called Nuremberg Actions, invoking the Nuremberg Principles and Charter that obligates citizens who are aware of acts of government or officials of government in violation of international and Constitutional law to disobey commands furthering the illegal conduct and to refrain from participating any further in this illegal conduct.
The use and manner of use of our munitions in Central America is illegal under international and Constitutional law. In addition, the presence of nuclear weapons, some designed as first-strike weapons, all part of a planning process to wage aggressive war or to threaten to use first-strike weapons or to wage aggressive war, is illegal and in violation of international law in a Nuremberg sense. Every citizen has a responsibility to the enforcement of international law as well as our own Constitution.
The peace movement in the United States has sought a method to effectively reverse the nuclear and conventional arms race and to end our covert and overt destabilization operations throughout the world. The idea of sustained full-time peace efforts of the citizenry to directly resist and noncooperate with military policies is not a new one. In 1938, Gandhi called for the creation of a people’s nonviolent army of volunteers "equal to every occasion where the police and the military are required." This "Peace Brigade" would be prepared to risk their lives as peacemakers. In 1961, A. J. Muste, a long-time advocate of nonviolent resistance in the United States, along with others from other countries created an experimental peace brigade to be a nonviolent striking force to "revolutionize the concept of revolution itself by infusing into the methods of resisting injustice the qualities which insure the preservation of human life and dignity." The Brigade’s most important project was establishment of a training center for nonviolent action in Tanzania, Africa.
In 1958, the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) became a permanent group which undertook a series of creative resistance actions against nuclear weapons for a number of years. This was a committee initiated and sustained by citizens of the U.S. though they conducted interactions with other nations whom the U.S. government was covertly or overtly at war with.
Beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott on December 1, 1955, the civil rights movement in the United States began more than a decade of resistance and noncooperation of large numbers of people, many working part- or full-time, to change the racist laws and views that had prevailed in our country since the beginning.
In September 1981, the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common Air Base, England, began. This has become a model for peace camps throughout the world. It sought and continues to seek prevention of the deployment of U.S. Cruise missiles at the base and, when that fails, to remain at the base using nonviolent resistance in an effort to make use of the missiles impossible.
Also in 1981, Peace Brigades International was created in the U.S. "to undertake non-partisan missions which may include peacemaking initiatives, peacekeeping under a discipline of nonviolence, and humanitarian service." In fact, PBI now has a project in Guatemala.
In 1983, Witness for Peace began sending U.S. volunteers to the war zones of Nicaragua in areas made dangerous by the U.S. financed and directed proxy terrorists. They regularly live in remote villages and document the atrocities committed by the Contra terrorists.
At the conclusion of the Veterans Fast For Life in October 1986, the fasters suggested creation of Veterans Peace Action Teams to work with other unarmed citizens in Central America to stand between innocent residents and the U.S. terrorists, whether private or public terrorists. Several teams have already been in the war zones of Nicaragua observing and working.
The fasters also suggested development of Citizens Peace Action Teams, a reserve of people committed for specific periods of time in which they can be called upon to act in an organized peacekeeping presence at critical locations, including the critical placement of bodies to block the flow of munitions from the United States to Central America.
The extent and depth of militarization of our culture and its effects on other nations as well, and on the future of the world, is at a very critical state–a state of emergency. The most basic assumption of nonviolence, and especially civilian resistance, is that government functions only with the consent of the governed–that is, you and me. If our literal physical, financial, and other cooperation is withdrawn in an active, nonviolent manner then the diabolical polices and ethic can no longer continue.
Consequences to the resisters, of course, can be expected in this serious pursuit of justice and peace. Intimidation, harassment, jail, physical suffering, even premature death could result in some cases. However, in the long run it becomes impossible to enforce repression and diabolical policies against people who refuse to respond to it with violence.
A revolution of consciousness and action, a liberation theology, a liberation psychology, is in the making in the "Third World." The real question is whether we in the "First World" are prepared to join them in this revolution, this liberation, of pursuit of peace and justice–with our lives, our lifestyles, our action.
The number of people we kill, maim, or threaten everyday throughout the world with our various styles of intervention is probably beyond our capability for belief, certainly our capability to fully experience viscerally. We are the lead nation in promoting the nuclear arms race, holding all of us here and elsewhere in hostage.
Because we are a very privatized culture, our self-indulgence has become what some say to be our most effective method for social control–silence, acquiescence, complicity. We historically have maintained an almost eerie detachment from the happenings of our own culture as well as life elsewhere. We seem, in reality, to be disconnected from the essence of life–from other people, and ultimately from ourselves. We have chosen to be unnatural.
The Nuremberg Actions at Concord Naval Weapons Station are intended to be part of a national strategy to facilitate a major escalation of resistance and noncooperation with the insane, immoral, and illegal militarization of our culture and the daily death and maiming we impose upon people of other sovereign nations.
There appears to be a measurable minority of people in the United States who are quite aware of the lack of moral and legal authority in o
ur government, in our national ethic. There is a rightness and ripeness for developing sustained, nonviolent resistance and noncooperation in our daily lives in the United States.
Concord, possessing both conventional and nuclear munitions, shipping arms to military operations in Central America, the Pacific theater, the Philippines and South Korea, and the Middle East, including the Persian Gulf, is the largest munitions storage and shipping depot on the West Coast. It has played a major role in supplying munitions for much of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and our military operations in Central America, as well as covert activities in countless locations. There were daily protests at Concord during part of the Vietnam war and sporadically since by concerned citizens.
The vision for the Nuremberg Actions includes the daily upholding the law of nations and our own Constitution by placing ourselves–our bodies–in front of the trains and trucks carrying munitions of death from their bunkers to the piers for placement on ships, some destined for Central America where we can predict a specified number of human beings who will be killed and maimed once transported past our vulnerable bodies. This kind of action, similar in philosophy to the civil rights campaigns of the 1950s and ’60s, requires the building of a community to provide the kind of support necessary for sustaining large scale resistance, resistance that stems from an affirmation of life–equally–for all people of the earth.
We must take "sides" pursuing fundamental principles of justice for all so that peace becomes realistic. Peace is our business. Violence is our business to stop–nonviolently. None of this is possible as long as we are unable or unwilling to pay the price or endure the risks of living and working for justice and peace.
Since the North American government serves as the principal engine of the arms race and interventionism, it seems logically flawed to expect the same government to participate in the repudiation of its basic role and identity as the guardian of our "national security" and the security of the "free" world.
There is but one place left to hope–within each of our hearts and minds. We the people must reclaim our legitimate human power, our dignity, our honor, our self-respect. It cannot happen unless we allow ourselves to become connected to our nature, and to the nature of the peoples of the world, to the nature of the earth. We must begin. Why not right here at the Concord, CA, Naval Weapons Station–our weapons station?
"We are now in an age when men will have to choose deliberately to exchange the values, the concepts of ‘security’, and much else which characterizes contemporary society, and seek another way of life. If that is so, then the peace movement has to act on that assumption, and this means that the whole picture of our condition and the radical choice must be placed before people–not a diluted gospel, a program geared to what they are ready to ‘buy not."’
–A. J. Muste, 1962,
as reported in Peace Agitator by Nat Hentoff, 1963
"We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest…we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society…A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…it will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: ‘This is not just." …Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
"Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate-ourselves to the long and bitter–but beautiful–struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history."
–Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967,
speech given at the Riverside Church in New York City,
"A Time to Break Silence," about the U.S. war in Vietnam.
The opportunity is ours. The time is now. Peace is at stake. Our lives and the lives of our children hang in the decision we make, the real choices we make each day. Together, we shall overcome–with much work, courage, and vision.
This entry was written by brian, posted on at 1:11 pm, filed under Envisioning Nonviolent Revolutionary Alternatives. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
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http://youtu.be/4WHHIqaOQiQ
S. Brian Willson
"We are not worth more. They are not worth less"
www.brianwillson.com
His book "Blood on the Tracks:" "The Life And Times of Brian Willson" is available from PM Press
www.pmpress.org
The Significance of Nuremberg Actions: Concord Naval Weapons Station, Concord, California
July 1, 1987
"We have assumed the name of peacemakers, but we have been, by and large, unwilling to pay any significant price. And because we want peace with half a heart and half a life and will, the war, of course, continues, because the waging of war, by its very nature, is total–but the waging of peace, by our own cowardice, is partial. So a whole will and a whole heart and a whole national life bent toward war prevail over the velleities of peace…Of course, let us have the peace, we cry, but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties."
–Daniel Berrigan, No Bars to Manhood, 1971
The munitions move daily from their bunkers near Concord, CA, to their nearby piers in the Suisun Bay for loading on military or commercial ships for transport to Central American and Pacific theater military operations. On June 10, 1987, a campaign was launched, promising sustained, open-ended nonviolent resistance to the flow of these munitions of death–bombs, white phosphorus rockets, missiles, grenades, ammunition, etc., both conventional and nuclear.
This campaign is called Nuremberg Actions, invoking the Nuremberg Principles and Charter that obligates citizens who are aware of acts of government or officials of government in violation of international and Constitutional law to disobey commands furthering the illegal conduct and to refrain from participating any further in this illegal conduct.
The use and manner of use of our munitions in Central America is illegal under international and Constitutional law. In addition, the presence of nuclear weapons, some designed as first-strike weapons, all part of a planning process to wage aggressive war or to threaten to use first-strike weapons or to wage aggressive war, is illegal and in violation of international law in a Nuremberg sense. Every citizen has a responsibility to the enforcement of international law as well as our own Constitution.
The peace movement in the United States has sought a method to effectively reverse the nuclear and conventional arms race and to end our covert and overt destabilization operations throughout the world. The idea of sustained full-time peace efforts of the citizenry to directly resist and noncooperate with military policies is not a new one. In 1938, Gandhi called for the creation of a people’s nonviolent army of volunteers "equal to every occasion where the police and the military are required." This "Peace Brigade" would be prepared to risk their lives as peacemakers. In 1961, A. J. Muste, a long-time advocate of nonviolent resistance in the United States, along with others from other countries created an experimental peace brigade to be a nonviolent striking force to "revolutionize the concept of revolution itself by infusing into the methods of resisting injustice the qualities which insure the preservation of human life and dignity." The Brigade’s most important project was establishment of a training center for nonviolent action in Tanzania, Africa.
In 1958, the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA) became a permanent group which undertook a series of creative resistance actions against nuclear weapons for a number of years. This was a committee initiated and sustained by citizens of the U.S. though they conducted interactions with other nations whom the U.S. government was covertly or overtly at war with.
Beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott on December 1, 1955, the civil rights movement in the United States began more than a decade of resistance and noncooperation of large numbers of people, many working part- or full-time, to change the racist laws and views that had prevailed in our country since the beginning.
In September 1981, the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common Air Base, England, began. This has become a model for peace camps throughout the world. It sought and continues to seek prevention of the deployment of U.S. Cruise missiles at the base and, when that fails, to remain at the base using nonviolent resistance in an effort to make use of the missiles impossible.
Also in 1981, Peace Brigades International was created in the U.S. "to undertake non-partisan missions which may include peacemaking initiatives, peacekeeping under a discipline of nonviolence, and humanitarian service." In fact, PBI now has a project in Guatemala.
In 1983, Witness for Peace began sending U.S. volunteers to the war zones of Nicaragua in areas made dangerous by the U.S. financed and directed proxy terrorists. They regularly live in remote villages and document the atrocities committed by the Contra terrorists.
At the conclusion of the Veterans Fast For Life in October 1986, the fasters suggested creation of Veterans Peace Action Teams to work with other unarmed citizens in Central America to stand between innocent residents and the U.S. terrorists, whether private or public terrorists. Several teams have already been in the war zones of Nicaragua observing and working.
The fasters also suggested development of Citizens Peace Action Teams, a reserve of people committed for specific periods of time in which they can be called upon to act in an organized peacekeeping presence at critical locations, including the critical placement of bodies to block the flow of munitions from the United States to Central America.
The extent and depth of militarization of our culture and its effects on other nations as well, and on the future of the world, is at a very critical state–a state of emergency. The most basic assumption of nonviolence, and especially civilian resistance, is that government functions only with the consent of the governed–that is, you and me. If our literal physical, financial, and other cooperation is withdrawn in an active, nonviolent manner then the diabolical polices and ethic can no longer continue.
Consequences to the resisters, of course, can be expected in this serious pursuit of justice and peace. Intimidation, harassment, jail, physical suffering, even premature death could result in some cases. However, in the long run it becomes impossible to enforce repression and diabolical policies against people who refuse to respond to it with violence.
A revolution of consciousness and action, a liberation theology, a liberation psychology, is in the making in the "Third World." The real question is whether we in the "First World" are prepared to join them in this revolution, this liberation, of pursuit of peace and justice–with our lives, our lifestyles, our action.
The number of people we kill, maim, or threaten everyday throughout the world with our various styles of intervention is probably beyond our capability for belief, certainly our capability to fully experience viscerally. We are the lead nation in promoting the nuclear arms race, holding all of us here and elsewhere in hostage.
Because we are a very privatized culture, our self-indulgence has become what some say to be our most effective method for social control–silence, acquiescence, complicity. We historically have maintained an almost eerie detachment from the happenings of our own culture as well as life elsewhere. We seem, in reality, to be disconnected from the essence of life–from other people, and ultimately from ourselves. We have chosen to be unnatural.
The Nuremberg Actions at Concord Naval Weapons Station are intended to be part of a national strategy to facilitate a major escalation of resistance and noncooperation with the insane, immoral, and illegal militarization of our culture and the daily death and maiming we impose upon people of other sovereign nations.
There appears to be a measurable minority of people in the United States who are quite aware of the lack of moral and legal authority in o
ur government, in our national ethic. There is a rightness and ripeness for developing sustained, nonviolent resistance and noncooperation in our daily lives in the United States.
Concord, possessing both conventional and nuclear munitions, shipping arms to military operations in Central America, the Pacific theater, the Philippines and South Korea, and the Middle East, including the Persian Gulf, is the largest munitions storage and shipping depot on the West Coast. It has played a major role in supplying munitions for much of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and our military operations in Central America, as well as covert activities in countless locations. There were daily protests at Concord during part of the Vietnam war and sporadically since by concerned citizens.
The vision for the Nuremberg Actions includes the daily upholding the law of nations and our own Constitution by placing ourselves–our bodies–in front of the trains and trucks carrying munitions of death from their bunkers to the piers for placement on ships, some destined for Central America where we can predict a specified number of human beings who will be killed and maimed once transported past our vulnerable bodies. This kind of action, similar in philosophy to the civil rights campaigns of the 1950s and ’60s, requires the building of a community to provide the kind of support necessary for sustaining large scale resistance, resistance that stems from an affirmation of life–equally–for all people of the earth.
We must take "sides" pursuing fundamental principles of justice for all so that peace becomes realistic. Peace is our business. Violence is our business to stop–nonviolently. None of this is possible as long as we are unable or unwilling to pay the price or endure the risks of living and working for justice and peace.
Since the North American government serves as the principal engine of the arms race and interventionism, it seems logically flawed to expect the same government to participate in the repudiation of its basic role and identity as the guardian of our "national security" and the security of the "free" world.
There is but one place left to hope–within each of our hearts and minds. We the people must reclaim our legitimate human power, our dignity, our honor, our self-respect. It cannot happen unless we allow ourselves to become connected to our nature, and to the nature of the peoples of the world, to the nature of the earth. We must begin. Why not right here at the Concord, CA, Naval Weapons Station–our weapons station?
"We are now in an age when men will have to choose deliberately to exchange the values, the concepts of ‘security’, and much else which characterizes contemporary society, and seek another way of life. If that is so, then the peace movement has to act on that assumption, and this means that the whole picture of our condition and the radical choice must be placed before people–not a diluted gospel, a program geared to what they are ready to ‘buy not."’
–A. J. Muste, 1962,
as reported in Peace Agitator by Nat Hentoff, 1963
"We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest…we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society…A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…it will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: ‘This is not just." …Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
"Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate-ourselves to the long and bitter–but beautiful–struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history."
–Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967,
speech given at the Riverside Church in New York City,
"A Time to Break Silence," about the U.S. war in Vietnam.
The opportunity is ours. The time is now. Peace is at stake. Our lives and the lives of our children hang in the decision we make, the real choices we make each day. Together, we shall overcome–with much work, courage, and vision.
This entry was written by brian, posted on at 1:11 pm, filed under Envisioning Nonviolent Revolutionary Alternatives. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
Post a Comment
Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *
Name *
Email *
Website
Comment
Available June 20, 2011!
Search
Pages
•Home
•Autobiography
•Brian’s Favorite Books
•Brian’s First Book: On Third World Legs
•Links
•Email Brian
Brian's Essays
•Thematic Summary
•The Most Dangerous of Rogue Nations: The United States
•Envisioning Nonviolent Revolutionary Alternatives
•Philosophy, Religion & Ecology
•All Essays by Title and Date
Blog Archive
•August 2012
•July 2012
•June 2012
•March 2012
•January 2012
•February 2011
•December 2010
•April 2010
•February 2010
•January 2010
•October 2009
•August 2009
•July 2009
•June 2009
•May 2009 http://www.brianwillson.com/2009/05/?cat=31
Saturday, September 1, 2012
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