Friends,
Can you sign on to the petition below? Can you join us at the
Real State of the Union on January 12?
Kagiso,
Max
PETITION TO
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: WE URGE YOU TO CHANGE YOUR POLICIES, AND TO USE
THE STATE OF THE UNION SPEECH TO RENOUNCE INEQUALITY, MILITARISM AND
ECOCIDE
January 12, 2016
Dear Mr. President,
As friends and representatives of the National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance (NCNR), we are writing to request that you
use the State of the Union speech to indicate you will do your best to change
the direction of this country. A real State of the Union would be a frank
speech which would condemn our country’s addiction to economic inequality,
racial injustice, warmongering and the destruction of our planet. After
being honest about our failures, you would then urge our elected officials to
go in a new direction, based on a democratic ideal for we the people, and not
for we the wealthy. Tell them to listen to the people, and not
the corporations. You could inform them that you will utilize
diplomacy and other peaceful means. You could tell them to listen to the
scientific community and not the fossil fuel industry.
You could also state that you will immediately end the
illegal and immoral killer drone program, and will never resort again to
assassination as a foreign policy. And most importantly, you would close
down the Pentagon, the Department of War, and renounce nuclear weaponry.
Finally, you would pledge to save Mother Earth. The Pentagon would become
the Department of Peace with Justice, and its mission would be to shape the
sustainable future.
We write to you as people committed to nonviolent
social change with a deep concern for a variety of issues that are all
interrelated. Please heed our petition—end our government’s continuing
wars and military incursions around the world and use these tax dollars as a
solution to end growing poverty which is a plague throughout this country in
which vast wealth is controlled by a tiny percentage of its
citizens. Establish a living wage for all workers. Condemn forcefully
the policy of mass incarceration, solitary confinement, and the rampant police
violence. Pledging to end the addiction to militarism will have a positive
effect on our planet's climate and habitat. Should you show any interest
in our demands, we would be available to assist in this process.
NCNR members have consistently participated in witnesses of
nonviolent civil resistance calling on our government to take meaningful action
to confront the climate crisis, the unending wars, the root causes of poverty,
the bigotry and antipathy to African Americans, Muslims, and other minorities,
and the structural violence of the military-security state. By listening
to the millions of people at home and abroad your administration has recently
taken laudable steps to avoid using military force with Iran and to reduce
carbon emissions, but more significant action is still needed.
Instead of the State Department, your administration uses
the Pentagon to deal with conflict, and such behavior in concert with our
allies greatly contributes to a violent and destabilized world. The U.S. use of
armed drones by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency is inflicting
enormous human suffering, is unconstitutional, and is only creating more
“terrorists.” Your administration should cease its hostile rhetoric and
sanctions against North Korea, Russia, and Iran. Furthermore, the US should
seek a diplomatic solution to the civil war in Syria, disband NATO, and end the
increasing military presence in Southeast Asia, commonly referred to as the
"Asian Pivot," which threatens China. You must end all military aid
to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the other countries in the Middle East. A
new approach must be taken by your administration to free the Palestinians from
over half a century of violent Israeli oppression. Diplomacy is the only answer
to stop the cycle of violence. Regardless of whether noncombatants suffer or
not, violence and war are not the answers to conflict. Diplomatic efforts to
end the sanctions and hostile relations with Cuba are a good example of the
positive path that can be taken and should be followed with other countries
labeled as our enemies.
Nuclear weapons can never be used, and the plan to use a
trillion tax dollars to “upgrade” the nuclear arsenal is madness. A study by
the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent think tank
that works closely with the Pentagon, reports that the actual costs your
administration plans for updating the nuclear triad — the intercontinental
ballistic missiles, submarines and aircraft capable of delivering nuclear
warheads – will cost one trillion dollars. This is beyond senselessly
wasteful! It is immoral and actually illegal under international law to
possess such weapons capable of global annihilation thousands of times greater
than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These tax dollars must be
re-allocated towards reviving our sagging infrastructure and supporting social
services desperately needed by the poor. The tax dollars could also be
utilized to assist former prisoners returning to their communities.
Almost half the people on this planet live off less than
$2.50 a day and around 22,000 children die every day due to poverty according
to UNICEF. However, the U.S. has continued to expend half of the federal
discretionary budget on warmongering. Besides wasting tax dollars, the
wars have resulted in untold numbers of lives lost, injured millions of
refugees, and contributed to ecocide.
According to the National Center for Children in Poverty
"More than 16 million children in
the United States – 22% of all children – live in families with incomes below
the federal poverty level – $23,550 a year for a family of four. Research shows
that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover
basic expenses. Using this standard, 45% of children live in low-income families."
Unending war and imperialism means rampant death and
destruction. Within the last 13 years, we have experienced how the United
States has responded to international crisis with violence. Our
government has waged wars in violation of international law. The
failed Middle East policy leaves a whole region mired in violence and
instability including an enormous refugee crisis. The continuing support for
Israel’s apartheid state and oppression of the Palestinian people must end.
Furthermore, so many continue to be victimized by killer drones or are tortured
and illegally detained now. We welcome the long overdue release in 2015 of some
prisoners from Guantanamo but you must follow through on your promise to close
this shameful illegal detention camp which has come to represent the racism and
structural violence of the American empire. Even in this country,
solitary confinement and mass incarceration is the norm, and undocumented
immigrants, who have fled strife and poverty caused by international economic
agreements, are held for long periods of time before being deported back into
the poverty and instability they desperately tried to escape.
Our disregard for the causes of climate chaos is
leading to the destruction of the planet. Being controlled, in part, by
the fossil fuel industry, our government has not been willing to sign onto
international treaties to end climate chaos. In the article “Greenwashing
the Pentagon”, Joseph Nevins states, “The U.S. military is the world’s single
biggest consumer of fossil fuels, and the single entity most responsible for
destabilizing the Earth’s climate.”
We believe that another way is possible and that
there are alternatives to the life threatening policies that our government has
promoted and that have been so destructive to Mother Earth and the people of
the world.
Use the State of the Union as a platform to renounce the
past and to promote necessary and positive social change. Unless our elected
officials take immediate and significant actions, Mother Earth is doomed.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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