On behalf of the soldiers who continue to lose their lives, their livelihoods or their sense of well being, discarded after use by a for-profit enterprise built on bloodshed.
On behalf of the children who continue to lose their lives, their families, their sense of wonder at the world, because some group somewhere else gave themselves the authority to remotely execute other humans without due trial, oversight or accountability.
On behalf of the richest and most powerful global population to date, torn apart by an industry whose very existence depends upon our staying divided as a people, when the money being wasted on warfare could finally lift the entire human race out of the grips of desperate poverty.
It is time to enact The World’s People V The World’s Top 100 Defense Earners, for all the pain and suffering they continue to enable. They can still make arms all they want, but the trillions they’ve been reaping in profits will be forfeited.
Even though Americans will not be made safer by manufacturing new generations of people to hate them, their government insists upon expanding the militarized drone program. They see it as the future of warfare – it’s faster, cheaper and offers less short-term risks than a boots on the ground war.
The US Defense Department doesn’t care that the program wont make Americans safer, for that’s not actually their objective. Instead, they work to protect their own job security, and the millions employed in their death-dealing business. Stir up the hornets nest, keep poking those bears. Anything to conjure up some fright-inducing yet easily subdued foes to scare up the US population. This way the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars keep rolling in while the war-profiteers can stay fat and happy atop the growing pile of bodies.
The ruling class of America don’t want any wars to stop, and drones offer a new frontier of ongoing bloodshed. Just watch the video above, as protesters expose the suffering inflicted upon fellow humans… the rest of the attendees kept their heads down, in silent shame.
You shouldn’t be able to just kill people with no due process – not on any just and civilized planet. They know it’s wrong, but they do it anyway. That’s why there is so much secrecy surrounding the drone program.
Were too many Americans to find out what their government is doing – engaging in long distance mass murder – the outpourings of dissent might overcome the corrupting influence of an entrenched military industry. Then they will have no choice but to stop cease their crimes against humanity, and peace will gain a stronger foothold over our planet.
While this may be bad for those whose livelihoods depend upon ongoing conflicts, for the rest of us it will be awesome. So let’s keep working to make it happen. Be involved in the movement. Keep spreading awareness about the drone program and give support to others who do the same.
Wars have been on the decline for centuries. A few more years, with enough people involved, war as we know it will be done away with for good.
Americans spend trillions of dollars on warfare every single year. This is an absurd amount of money to spend on anything, let alone using it to blow up your fellow humans on an industrialized scale. With that kind of cash, you could end extreme poverty the world over, give every person a home and an education, and dramatically lift the tide which raises all ships.
The financial costs are an incredible burden, and the emotional scars would take generations to heal even if war ended this very second. The longer these large scale conflicts get prolonged, the worse off our entire world is.
So why aren’t Americans ending war? If the US people, much like the rest of us, just want to live and prosper in peace, why don’t their politicians listen to them and give them what they want?
The sad truth is that they can’t.
The entire American system has, to the detriment of the world, fallen victim to what can only be described as a parasitic entity, a beast that has been around in one form or another for thousands of years.
Whether through anesthetizing concepts like pride and security, the unfettered power of wealth, or, when all else fails, brute force, the war machine of which I speak has been able to keep countless populations within their grasp – and right now their prey is the American public.
In the United States, mainstream newsanchors all dance around the issue ending war, and ‘radical’ concepts like bringing home the troops rarely arise. Politicians are no better, for they too are in the pockets of the military industry, as made evident by a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who intentionally escalates wars around the world.
So even when the vast majority of Americans want peace, a political system which is mostly theatre combined with a deliberate lack of guidance from the media makes it hard for the anti-war movement to gain the momentum needed to make a significant impact.
But peace-loving Americans won’t stay down for much longer. They simply cannot. Fueled by a crumbling economy, driven by global awareness, and united by social media, a multi-million person strong movement will prove more powerful than the entire military industrial complex. Or so we shall hope.
The world is changing faster than even those who sit atop can control. Unprecedented technology is causing new concepts like transparency and global solidarity to crash down on our world. As the old guard falls away, a newfound democracy is sure to bring to fruition the civilization our species has been cultivating for eons.
One of the world’s leading human rights violators – the State of Israel – is in the headlines once again, positioning their military along the Gaza border while murdering innocent Palestinian civilians.
And yet again we see the blatant double-standards in Western media coverage: “Israel has a right to defend themselves from the Palestine aggressors who’ve been launching hundreds of rockets.” Every time we hear about Israel bombing Gaza, the reporter always – ALWAYS – frames it as if Israel is ‘reacting’ to Hamas’ attacks.
It’s as if history conveniently goes back just to the point when Israel ceased their last attacks and the Palestinians hadn’t. Always neglecting to point out how one side are firing makeshift bottle-rockets in the general vicinity of their targets (Palestine), while the other side uses state-of-the-art weaponry from one of the world’s biggest arsenals (Israel).
But never mind the fact that this battle is egregiously one-sided. It would be nice if the media were to at least acknowledge fault on both sides of the conflict, but we don’t even get that. Every single time, Israel is the good guy simply protecting itself and Palestine is the evil terrorist destroying the peace and threatening the world.
Some of this is due to Israel’s powerful PR campaign which has infiltrated much of the Western world. They’ve bought our support. Somehow we see them as victims and their enemies as bad. As well, it’s likely that there’s some inherent anti-Muslim sentiment tied up in there as well.
Cenk from the Young Turks offers an excellent analysis of this hypocrisy in the video released yesterday. It’s a little long, but well worth watching, especially if you’ve never been exposed to the alternate viewpoint that maybe the State of Israel isn’t exactly worthy of our support:
The best point that Cenk makes – one which so often gets ignored by the press – is that Israel simply refuses to make peace. They stifle the Palestinian’s peaceful attempts at diplomacy through the UN. They are unwilling to accept truces and ceasefires. They do not want the conflict to end.
See, Israel’s true agenda is expansion. For 70 years now, Jewish settlers have been stealing Palestinian land. They bulldoze Palestinian homes, burn their crops, bully their children, and forcefully evict them under the pretence of religious destiny.
And only under the fog of war – by having armed men fighting – can Israel continue to rob their neighbours of land without too much opposition from the International community. If Palestine was recognized by the UN as a state, or if Hamas militants stopped their acts of defiance, Israel would no longer have the pretence they need to further their institutional genocide.
So here’s the sad truth: even if Hamas were to stop firing rockets, it really wouldn’t matter. Israel would simply send their own troops into Gaza, disguise them as Palestinians, and have them fire upon their fellow Israelis. That way their necessary war stays perpetual, and Isreal’s illegal and immoral agenda remains on the table.
This leaves the only practical path to peace as a global awareness campaign. Once enough of the world’s people see Israel for what it is – a warmongering bully – international pressure will continue to mount against them. Then, just like with Apartheid in Africa, Israel will have to stop their campaign of wholesale racism and death if they wish to remain part of the modern world.
Picture a greenhouse that continually produces food all by itself, with little to no human interaction. This autonomous mechanical marvel – built from low cost materials and powered by renewable energy – could truly mean a sustainable source of fresh food all year round.
Sound too good to be true? Well, it is right now. But not for much longer. Automated greenhouses are fast becoming a reality, and these seemingly magic structures will give humankind a permanent solution to world hunger.
Consider the Horto Domi project, which aims to take the labor out of running a garden at home. Their working prototype can regulate soil and atmosphere conditions, runs on the economical Arduino micro-computer, and can be monitored remotely via web App.
So it’s not yet a magical box. But over the coming years, teams will hash out the remaining pieces of the puzzle. Atmospheric water collectors will provide all the fresh water needed to irrigate the crops. Wind and solar will provide the necessary energy to heat and run the system. The structure itself will be built from some kind of abundant material, shaped into whatever form works best. And all that will be left is to figure out how to mechanize the entire crop cycle safely and effectively.
The implications of this will be astounding! No one will be starving anywhere on the planet. Incredible, right?
If you think about all the wars and chaos in our world, so much of it is rooted directly in poverty. People in desperate situations are willing to do desperate things. When no mouth goes hungry, when everyone’s needs are met, there won’t be this fundamental drive towards violent conflict.
A recent Stanford/NYU Law study analyses the United State’s growing reliance on unmanned aircraft as remote executioners, and they’ve found out what many of us already know: the use of drone strikes needs to be halted immediately.
Interviewing 130 people in Pakistan about their personal experiences with U.S.-led drone attacks – 69 of which had either survived or lost family to a strike attack – the report builds on findings by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which counted ‘474 to 884 civilian deaths since 2004,including 176 children’ while ‘only about 2% of drone casualties are top militant leaders.
The report also shows that American UAV attacks violate international law, making them illegal war crimes. Obama is now complicit in human rights violations and should stand trial alongside the Bush Administration.
Furthermore, the team found drone strikes to be ineffectual and counter-productive, stating: ‘Evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks. One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the U.S. an enemy.’
So that settles it, right? No more need to prolong the injustice. Tell everyone you know about how wrong drone strikes are, and together we can finally put an end to long distance murder.
Aren’t you sick of war yet? Haven’t you grown tired of the defense sector increasingly siphoning your precious lifeblood, this swollen and diseased parasite latched on to your once great nation’s face?
Sure, the Military Industrial Complex offers up an anesthetic. Concepts like honor, bravery, nationality, and freedom numb the pain for some and blind the truth for others. But in the end, humanity endures no suffering more intense than that caused by war.
War inflicts such a staggering emotional and financial toll on society that you’d think these massive ongoing fights are imperative, but they are not. The world is ready for peace. Yet perpetual armed conflict, the trillion dollar business it is, permits a handful of powerful corporations to pull political puppet strings, pushing military spending to unprecedented heights.
If you are indeed sick of war, as you should very well be, rest assured you are not alone. Most Americans are ready for their troops to come home and for the fighting to stop. But they are waiting. Waiting for government to decide to cease fighting, or counting on the mainstream media to declare wars to be over. But that will never happen on its own.
Instead it is up to you, dear Americans, just as it is the responsibility of every citizen of earth, to stand up against the empire of war and say NO MORE! WE ARE THROUGH FIGHTING OURSELVES! YOU HEAR US? WAR IS OVER!
Doing this in greater and greater numbers will erode the war machine from within. And not long after that, the peace which has been culminating for centuries will finally be set free to envelop the planet.
However, in a recent vote of 303-113, US Congress decided to prolong the occupation of Afghanistan through 2014. If the United States is supposed to be a representative republic, who the hell is Congress trying to represent? Certainly not the people.
Instead, Congress, much like the rest of America’s two-party dictatorship, caters to whoever holds the most sway. Which in this case are corporations entrenched within the war industry, flourishing off the massive military endeavors they pay Congress to authorize.
This charade cannot continue for much longer. The American people, much like the world’s people, are awakening to a new reality.
Corporations may be able to buy most of the US’ political spectrum, but there is still something money cannot buy: the power that comes from millions of pissed off humans coordinated into action.
We saw it in Egypt. We see it with Occupy. And, at this very moment, it is happening in Quebec. Regular people are the new power, all we need is an effective way to work together in large numbers.
Soon, enough Americans will realize that wars are killing their own country and they’ll accept that their government has failed them. Using the same tools as those in Egypt and Montreal, they will rise up in opposition the Military Industrial Complex, growing in size and strength until peace ultimately prevails.
Are you male? Aged 13-60? Living in the Middle East or North Africa? If you answered yes to all three questions, then congratulations, you are now officially a militant in the eyes of the United States of America!
‘But I haven’t done anything!’ you may cry, but to no avail. The instant you get blown up by an American drone strike, you immediately become known as a militant, regardless of who you actually are.
This is all part of President Obama’s strategy to downplay civilian casualties. By considering ‘all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants‘, it makes the number of murdered innocents seem far lower, and somehow makes the war more palatable to the public.
Forget due process, facts, or your own personal story. If the American government cared about any of that they’d never have begun using remote controlled assassins, let alone allowed drone use to escalate to daunting new heights.
If this keeps up, anyone who gets obliterated by American bombs – men, women, and children alike – will be considered enemies of the state. Their crime? Being dead innocent human beings, which is damaging to the image of the war. Ergo, they are threats to the US, and therefore deserving of the bombings they had just received.
