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But, in today's world, freedom can be lost without a shot being fired, by ballots as well as bullets. The success of our leadership is dependent upon respect for our mission in the world as well as our missiles — on a clearer recognition of the virtues of freedom as well as the evils of tyranny. — Remarks prepared
for an address at the Trade Mart in Dallas, Texas
While unemployment rages around the United States and thousands of families wonder where their next meal will come from, oil, timber, mining, and real estate interests are having a bountiful harvest. Under the guise of protecting national security, the Bush administration has been quietly reversing environmental policies, making legal settlements, and creating regulations that will rob our children of their future. His actions have included pushing for taxpayer dollars to build roads for timber companies in our national forests; reversing the phase-out of snowmobiles in our national parks; and making it easier for mining companies to rape our public lands of their gold, copper, and zinc. The nuclear bomb industry is being rebuilt and factories to make plutonium detonators for atomic bombs have already started up. Bush has even stopped the reintroduction of the grizzly bear in the Northwest and made it easier for developers to pave over wetlands. Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, told The New York Times on November 18, 2001, "The most difficult situation we face is that the attention of the media is almost exclusively on Afghanistan and anthrax." The administration has renewed its demands that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened to oil drilling, even though the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (DOE/EIA) has computed that the Arctic wilderness might deliver 104 million barrels per year, far fewer than the 339 million barrels of oil (1999 figures) per year that the U.S. exports. These actions have followed the bailout of the nation’s wealthiest corporations, including $15 billion for the airline industry, $1.4 billion for IBM, $833 million for General Motors, $671 million for General Electric, $600 million for Daimler-Chrysler, and $572 million for Chevron-Texaco. Fourteen of the world’s richest corporations are receiving $6.3 billion of the $25 billion tax refund. Not one penny of this money has been used to hire back any of the hundreds of thousands of workers that were laid off after the September 11 attacks. Bill Moyers, author and journalist, said, "They [the corporations] are counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They're counting on you to stand at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket." It seems to be working: little opposition to these policy shifts has been offered by the nation’s environmental organizations for fear of appearing unpatriotic during a national crisis. But the power of the major environmental organizations to influence national policy may have been waning for some time. The October 11, 2001 edition of Rachel's Environment & Health News, published by the Environmental Research Foundation, said, "For the past twenty years, the mainstream groups have found themselves unable to influence national policy in any lasting way because tweaking regulations and lobbying to amend laws — a strategy of ‘whispering in the king's ear’ — doesn't put any lasting pressure on the king. The king may arbitrarily grant your wishes, but just as quickly such favors can be reversed because there's no organized constituency across the country holding the king's feet to the fire." The public can no longer assume that their interests are being represented by their political leaders or the many organizations that lobby elected officials. The only way you can be sure your wishes are made known is to contact your leaders personally, through e-mail or phone calls. With the concern over anthrax in the mail, contacting your leaders by regular mail is the least reliable form of communication. We must spend some mindful moments stripping away the assumptions that have plagued our lives. The principles upon which our country was founded may be the first of these assumptions to strip away. Before the arrival of Europeans, the inhabitants of North and South America were remarkably healthy. But along with the Europeans came their illnesses and their livestock, and native inhabitants were now exposed to the many diseases that can be passed back and forth between those animals and humans: anthrax, tuberculosis, cholera, streptococcus, ringworm, and various poxes. The British and French had fished in southern New England for some time before the Pilgrims landed in 1620. It is likely that they came in contact with the native inhabitants at that time. The Natives had no resistance to the diseases brought by the Europeans, and within three years, a plague wiped out between 90 and 96 percent of the inhabitants of coastal New England! This death rate was unknown in all previous human experience. This piece of history is omitted from most textbooks, yet these plagues, which ravaged the Native population for the next 15 years, set the tone for our relationship with them. The English settlers inferred from the plague that God was on their side in taking over the land. John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, wrote that the plague was "miraculous," saying, "God hath thereby cleared out title to this place." Between 1520 and 1918, there were 93 epidemics among Native Americans. The United States was created through the intentional extermination of the native inhabitants, which the invaders believed was the will of God. Is it any wonder that our political leaders of today ask for God’s blessing and protection as they go to war? The hypocrisy of false patriotism must end. We must stop the plunder of our world by corporate leaders and their representatives in Washington, D.C. Don’t be fooled by the patriotic call for all Americans to get out and shop. You will only be emptying your pockets, contributing to the desecration of our natural resources, and filling the coffers of the shareholders of the nation’s wealthiest polluters. The cheap DVD player or zero-interest financing you get in return is hardly worth the pillaging of our future. National security needs to mean creating safe places for our children and the protection of our future on this planet. Those in power cannot be allowed to turn that phrase into one that lines the pockets of the rich at the expense of everyone else. Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D., is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He is the author of Healing Our World: A Journey from the Darkness into the Light. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at <jackie@healingourworld.com> and visit his Web site at <http://www.healingourworld.com/>. Participate in this year's "Buy Nothing Day," sponsored by The Media Foundation. They propose that we all buy nothing on the biggest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving. Learn more at <http://www.adbusters.org/home/>. Get involved with the issues with the help of WorkingForChange at <http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/index.cfm>. Get help overcoming consumerism at <http://www.verdant.net/>. See the full text of the undelivered speeches of President Kennedy at <http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/11.23A.Kennedy.Speeches.htm>. Keep informed of the inner workings of Congress that will not be reported in the mainstream media during the war on Afghanistan from the Truthout Web site at <http://www.truthout.com/index.htm>. See another point of view on today’s crisis from the Independent Media Center at <http://www.indymedia.org/>. Find out who your congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them that you want them be courageous and stop the plundering of our Earth. If you know your ZIP code, you can find them at <http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html>. The following organizations will keep you in touch with the issues and help you get involved: World Wildlife Fund, <http://www.panda.org/> Wilderness Society, <http://www.wilderness.org/> Natural Resources Defense Council, <http://www.nrdc.org/> Physicians for Social Responsibility, <http://www.psr.org/> |
In
a world of complex and continuing problems, in a world full of
frustrations and irritations, America's leadership must be guided
by the lights of learning and reason or else those who confuse
rhetoric with reality and the plausible with the possible will
gain the popular ascendancy with their seemingly swift and simple
solutions to every world problem.