In Matters of War and Peace, the Real Work Lies Elsewhere By Rob Crawford  first published, Oct 12, 2016 in Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber   Among the many urgent problems that compete for our attention, the political choice between more war, or the courage to seek peaceful solutions to the many and complex problems of global violence begs for our attention and discernment. One might have thought, perhaps naively, that an electoral campaign to be president of a nation that has been at war for the past 15 years would provide an opportunity to debate the grave issues of foreign and military policy. The current presidential campaign has failed miserably in this democratic responsibility. Yet many people yearn for clarity. They…

Actually We Can Abolish War by Thomas Ewell I have spent the better part of this weekend streaming a World Without War conference on war abolition being held in Washington, DC. (For those interested, the conference videos are online. Click on “World Without War” above) We heard speaker after speaker give accounts of the enormous negative impact of war our planet – the suffering of people killed and injured, the hundreds of thousands of refugees created, the economic and environmental cost of preparing for and executing war, the immorality of the arms trade, the failure of the US Congress to audit and control the Pentagon budget, the complete insanity of preparing for a nuclear war, the failure of the US to observe…

Real Cooperation with the Nations is the Best Survival Tactic By John M Repp Unexamined assumptions are the real dictators in a culture and society. Too many people in the USA believe that human beings are by nature competitive and competition brings out the best in us. This idea is seldom questioned. Our media saturates us in stories of competition. The sports networks give us games all day long. Fortress America looks out and sees danger everywhere, every country wanting to “destroy” us as the foreign policy advisor to Donald Trump writes. (“Flynn adds to the confusion of Trump foreign policy” by Trudy Rubin, The Seattle Times, July 24, 2016, p A13  http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/flynn-adds-to-confusion-of-trump-foreign-policy/ ) Our current economic thinking, so terribly…

Letter to the Editor by Larry Kerschner   While the horrible event that recently occurred in Orlando with the murder of 49 people by a man armed with an assault rifle may be the largest massacre by a single individual in US history, it is far from the only large massacre. In the 1863 Bear River massacre near the present-day city of Preston in Franklin County, Idaho, 225 Shoshone were murdered by US Troops. In the 1864, the Sand Creek massacre occurred when a 700-man force of Colorado Territory Militia attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. In 1868 at…

A Vietnam War Veteran’s Poem II intro by the editor, poem by Mark Fleming President Obama recently announced a 65 million dollar, 13 year long “commemoration” of the American war in Vietnam. In announcing this program, he said “As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we reflect with solemn reverence upon the valor of a generation that served with honor“. Many veterans and peace activists think that the effort is being undertaken “to whitewash what really happened and to glorify the Vietnam War as a noble effort.” The purpose of the government’s “commemoration” campaign is to make it easier for the U.S. government to fight future wars of aggression. There are too many people still alive who…

Letter to the Editor or Why I Allowed Myself to be Arrested Blocking the Road to Bangor  by Larry Kerschner Several of us, members of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, were arrested for blocking the road to the Bangor Submarine Base in celebration of Mother’s Day. I have been asked why I would allow myself to be arrested like this.. My only answer is that until enough people are awakened to the realities of the world we are living in there is no choice. Americans, through ignorance and lack of concern and or vision, are willing to accept the death of millions to maintain our level of comfort. Fr. Richard McSorley, a Jesuit priest, put it succinctly.“The taproot of…

A Vietnam War Veteran’s Poem intro by the editor, poem by Larry Kerschner President Obama recently announced a 65 million dollar, 13 year long “commemoration” of the American war in Vietnam. In announcing this program, he said “As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we reflect with solemn reverence upon the valor of a generation that served with honor“. Many veterans and peace activists think that the effort is being undertaken “to whitewash what really happened and to glorify the Vietnam War as a noble effort.” http://www.olympiafor.org/tv_programs.htm  The purpose of the government’s “commemoration” campaign is to make it easier for the U.S. government to fight future wars of aggression. There are too many people still alive who…