Organizing Notes

Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....

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Location: Brunswick, ME, United States

The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure. We must all do more to help stop this western corporate arrogance that puts the future generations lives in despair. @BruceKGagnon

Monday, November 09, 2020

The hard road ahead for us......

 


Here are a few comments from folks that help clarify our difficult road ahead.

Dave Obey from Wisconsin had a damning assessment of Hillary and the Democratic Party abandoning the Rust Belt.  Trump didn't throw them even a crust of bread during these 4 years so they returned to the Blue Belt. There are always forces that will fill the gaps left by the neo-Liberals and globalists. The Left has caved in.
~ Andre Brochu, Sweden is an American who went to Sweden to resist the Vietnam war

This is the essence of the Peace Dividend strategy. It is a direct appeal to the 165 million people on the bottom of the economy in their language on their terms reflecting their priorities. I find it impossible to get anyone to understand .... that it is not intellectual surrender to talk peace in everyday language. The typical citizen is overwhelmed trying to feed their kids, pay their bills, stay safe, find decent medical care. They are worried about their jobs, their schools, their communities. Perpetual war overseas is perpetual war on these people. They feel the pain of aggression because the skewed values of our neocon warmongers deprives them every single day of their fair share of our nation's vast wealth. Maybe there's not as much blood, but these folks are as much victims of our military madness as those on the receiving end of our military aggression across the globe. Talk peace to them and the fraud of war in terms of their poverty and suffering and they'll listen. Give them something they can do about it, and they'll come running.
~ Tarak Kauff, Woodstock, NY is a member of Veterans For Peace

 


At least Trump opposed much of this Russiagating McCarthyism because he was a target of it. At least he called out the CIA, FBI and Democrat McCarthyite media propaganda as fake news. While Trump was president, at least the White House was not under the control of this Russiagate McCarthyism. Biden is going to be 100% on board with this new McCarthyism. Insofar as we are effective in countering his interventionism and war threats, we are going to be a direct target of the corporate media, the national security state and now the Executive Branch.  At least with Trump there was a movement against him, against Biden there is not. And at least with Trump, the US's imperial allies took some distance from him. With Biden, they will become close allies in imperialist interferences again.  I suspect our work is going to be more difficult with Biden as president.
~ Stansfield Smith, Chicago, IL is a member of United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)


Going against Trump was easy but most of the people doing it were against 'Trump' and unaware that Trump is just a reflection of the system.  So, maybe we are not as badly off as some think. We just got rid of a huge distraction from the real issue.  Biden will not do better no matter what excuses he makes.  So it is time to get down to business and focus on the fact that for a very long time, and at least for 20 years that everyone is aware of, presidents (and other representatives) of both parties had been responsible for pursuing the same policies, on the global scene and domestically as well with the same results.
~ Judy Bello, Syracuse, New York is an activist with United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC)

Not being confused by the liberal framework that advances a cartoonish understanding of fascism that Trump’s bombastic theatrics evokes in the public imagination, it is clear the threat of increased authoritarianism, the use of military force, repression, subversion, illegal sanctions, theft, and rogue state gangsterism is on the agenda of both capitalist parties in the U.S. and the Western European colonizer states.  No matter who sits in the white peoples’ house after the election, we will have to continue to fight for social justice, democracy, and People(s)-Centered Human Rights.  It is important to re-state that last sentence because the left in the U.S. is experiencing extreme anxiety with the events around the election. They want and need to have order, stability and good feelings about their nation again. But for those of us from the colonized zones of non-being, anything that creates psychological chaos, disorder, delegitimization, disruption of the settler-colonial state and demoralization of its supporters is of no concern for us.
~ Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace

 

Black people will get nothing from a Joe Biden administration except fiscal austerity and the precarity that comes with it. Democrats don’t want to talk about low wage work, housing insecurity, lack of health care and student loan debt but millions of people don’t bother to vote because their experiences are barely ever mentioned. The voters who Democrats need in order to win choose to stay out because they have been rendered invisible. Instead the Democrats again launched an attack on the most progressive candidate, Bernie Sanders, and rigged the process against him. Sanders chose to be a good soldier and capitulate but no one was fooled. His claim that a Biden presidency would be the most progressive since the days of Franklin Roosevelt was obvious nonsense. Only wishful thinking liberals were impressed and hoped that the ruse would work on those who are once again marginalized. There is another factor at work here. This is a deeply racist country, and the Make America Great Again theme still resonates for millions of people. They like Trump precisely because he is a true believer in white supremacist thought and policies. The term white supremacy should not be misunderstood.. The men in pickup trucks carrying AR-15 automatic weapons are the public face of this belief system but they are not the only adherents.
~ Margaret Kimberley, New York city writes for Black Agenda Report 

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I felt charged up at first by your profile, Bruce. But after reading all the anti-Biden and pro-Trump comments from others you have quoted here, I am disheartened. I'm not saying that both parties with their elected legislators haven't been complicit with, even profiting from, the War Machine, but how could anyone be worse for peace and denuclearization than Trump? Still plan to read your writings (for now) as I never go on first impressions.

Am I against nuclear weapons? You bet. I'm Japanese American (nissei) and my mom and my family in Japan survived that war. (Except for my great uncle who was killed a day after the war ended and the man who was engaged to my mother at birth, but later perished as a kami kaze pilot). Visiting Hiroshima (before it was such an amped-up tourist destination), drove me to my knees in tears. I was shattered and have never been the same since.

When I was a kid, all my elders who lived through that war were always telling me: "Tell the American people that Japan wants peace, no more war." Sadly, since the U.S. wrote the Japanese Constitution, Japan can't defend itself and is stuck with whomever holds the U.S. Presidency. This is why Shinzu Abe supported Trump and why his successor will support Biden. It's not that we had a viable 3rd party candidate who could win in 2020.

Today, instead of 10 out of 10 Japanese people being against nuclear weapons, now it's 9 out of 10 because of the threat of North Korea/Kim Jong Un next door. What a mess.

If I'm rambling in gibbrish, I hope you can still sift through this. It's a visceral topic for me. The one thing I am happy about is that even though my daddy served in the Air force during the Korean War (stationed in Japan) he came out of the military as a total pacifist and I am, indeed my father's daughter. My dad was anti-violence, too. If boxing was on TV, he would not let us watch it. And no guns - none of us got a BB gun at age 5, followed by the usual hillbilly progression of being gifted guns growing up.
BTW, after asking my mom two innocent questions about the war when I was younger (we split our time between the U.S.and Japan), I never asked her any more questions. Her answers were beyond heart breaking.

Anyway, Bruce, if you can decipher any of this and respond, I'd be most grateful and humbled. And I won't be offended if you don't respond as it's such an emotional topic for me that words fail me.

P.S. Do you know Crystal Zevon just a hunch). She's one of my activist sisters and we are in a number of the same activist groups, although we have yet to protest together. Cheers,

11/9/20, 9:53 PM  
Blogger Bruce K. Gagnon said...

Yes I do know Crystal thru our mutual work with Veterans For Peace.

I don't quite see the 'pro-Trump' focus that you claim is included here but I am certain that people are trying to say that the Dems demonization of Trump & Russia was a fabrication of reality - which I surely agree with.

Best wishes your way.

11/10/20, 10:49 AM  

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