Anti-Conscription Movement

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 05:59 PM

Ebbie: Do you honestly believe that the leadership of the terrorists that are causing the problems world-wide gives a you-know-what what the "people" think? This enemy is unlike any the free world has ever had to deal with before. All of your points are good ones, and were this a perfect world, perhaps there would be hope for your POV. It appears to me, though, that you, Bobbert, Larry and others are simply not seeing the world the way it is. The terrorists do not operate their war against us and other free nations based on polls.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST,sophocleese
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 06:53 PM

No Doug I don't think Bush gives a fuck what I think. But he is basing his terrorism on the polls of an American people continually harassed and subjected to a mind numbing campaign that says that war is normal and the only way to do things.

I am anti-war and have been for all of my adult life. It has been noted that among nations that those that spend above a certain percentage (which I cannot remember exactly at the moment) of their GNP on their military inevitably end up fighting a war somewhere. Those nations are considered 'Supra-critical'. America has been a supra-critical nation now for many years and this site contains a partial listing of American military interventions in the last century. For one hundred years the list gives 130 interventions. Make no mistake War is Buisness and America's Business is War not peace.

If you want to use the old chestnut "If you want peace prepare for war." Don't forget if you prepare for war you inevitably end up with it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jun 02 - 09:17 PM

Good work Ebbie, Larry Guest, sopholeese and others. DougR and LEJ still can;t get it because of the miles and miles of tapes that the ruling class/masters of war have stuck in their heads. They are hopelessly stuck with their attention firmly afixed to the rear view mirror. Where we see unprecidented opportunity and potential for changing the manner inwhich earthing conduct business their tapes scream, No, No and thousand times NO!

Yaeh, the USA is the WORLDS POWER and can have things the way they want 'em if they will get behind them and SELL them the way they market Air Jordons in Third World countries. Yeah, they can SELL peace. They can SELL anti-war. But the ruling class is too lazy, greedy and anti-human to tell their boys to do it.

Well, it will get done because it has to. And when it does, Dougie, don't fret and wring your hands for your beloved ruling class/ masters of war because they will end up on their feet selling stuff that benefits mankind rather than the junk they sell now for folks to blow up each other...

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:58 AM

Thanks for straightening that out for me, Bobert. Now that I realize I'm an unwitting dupe who just can't understand the incisive logic of your position, I'm sure I'll re-examine the issue and come to see it your way. It's also a nice change from the "aw shucks ol Bobert" personna. You should really consider the legal profession, you know.

Oh...and thanks Ebbie for actually outlining your position. I find little in your list with which I could disagree, except perhaps the statement In reading the history of Nazism in the German culture, it becomes quite clear that the administration made a number of tentative moves from time to time to ascertain the mood of the German people and how much they would stand for and at what speed. If the German people ( read that as us in a similar situation) had spoken at those points of intervention, history would have developed differently. For some reason I don't see Hitler as a man trying to win a popularity contest. I think at a certain point he had lost his grip to a point that he believed his will was Germany's. I also feel that the key word in your manifesto is "most". "Most" people do want the things you speak of, but many are willing to settle for a lot less than to "see the future as being a limitless expanse of opportunity and challenge." And as long as there are enough others who subordinate the will of these people to their own needs, the cycle continues. I may see those oppressors as regimes like China, Iraq, North Korea and Cuba. You may see them as the US, Britain and Japan. One man's hero is another man's villain. One man's Napoleon is another's George Washington, and we point our fingers at each other. There are even some who, while proclaiming peace through understanding will oppose those with differing views as people who "just can't get it", unable to offer legitimate solutions, but coyly hinting that they are, depite all outward appearances, enlightened.

Until we formulate a true vision for a world at peace, and create a process for implementing it, taking into consideration and thoughtfully compromising different views and needs...until we begin that process, hoping that good thoughts will somehow make peace materialize is like hoping the lottery will make you rich. Sometimes, you need to actually DO something to achieve your goals.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 03:45 AM

Until we formulate a true vision for a world at peace, and create a process for implementing it, taking into consideration and thoughtfully compromising different views and needs...until we begin that process, hoping that good thoughts will somehow make peace materialize is like hoping the lottery will make you rich. Sometimes, you need to actually DO something to achieve your goals.

What it looks like to me, rather than people (us) shaping the future in the kind of proactive way that you seem to be describing, using a fullly formed "vision" of what that future is going to look like and then imposing that vision on reality, is that there is a somewhat more organic process that is already underway.

What it looks like to me is that humanity (the world) has experienced a paradigmatic shift as a result of advances in technology, and that this paradigmatic shift requires us to adapt. It looks like this adaptation is happening in increments.

To the extent that "vision" enters into the equation, it looks to me like it is the vision of many, many people, all creatively coming up with new ways to do things, new approaches and solutions to problems, that will create a cumulative effect, and will produce the necessary changes in our way of thinking and looking at the question of how we live together in the world as partners rather than as competitors.

Clearly, we still have a long way to go with this, but it looks to me like we're making some progress.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 09:53 AM

DougR and Lonesome EJ are demonstrating a textbook case of circular logic:.

We can't have peace until we don't have war, therefore we must endure war, because we don't have peace.

As to the argument that no one is "really" working on ending war--nothing could be further from the truth. Here is the UN link on conscription:

http://hri.ca/fortherecord1997/documentation/commission/e-cn4-1997-99.htm

We can also find our way to many websites of international bodies that may or may not be considered legitimate by DougR and Lonesome EJ (something tells me, they may not consider the UN a legitimate organization because they don't have nukes!), that demonstrates international momentum at the highest levels to end war. Arms treaties. Landmine bans. No nukes, from organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists. The work to end forced conscription of children. The international conscientious objector movement. Its all there. Social change never happens with "a well laid plan, agreed to by all" as Lonesome EJ and DougR suggest.

The work is going ahead with or without you, DougR and Lonesome EJ. The fact that you two don't believe in it doesn't even matter. You are perfectly entitled to continue living your lives with your heads in the sand, and spouting off your empty rhetoric on internet discussion forums. But the world isn't listening to men like you anymore.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 10:47 AM

LeeJdarlin'...one thing that would help to bring about such a dream is for the American people to get off their arses and VOTE, esp. if they will vote for someone who does NOT use the negative rhetoric of the Shrub. Sophocleese nailed that one. We hear nothing but fear-mongering from him. As far as he is concerned there is nothing to his presidency but feeding the public a daily dose of FEAR, which is what a bully does to bring about submission. I know you know this and I don't for a minute believe that you, of all people, do all you can to work for war! How absurd!:-)

As far as quote attribution goes, it was Einstein who said:

A country cannot simultaneously prepare for and prevent war; and,

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service; but, I really like the way Ben Franklin put it:

Never has there been a good war or a bad peace.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 11:16 AM

LEJ said:

The problem lies in this : In a world at peace, there must be either a balance of power that holds antagonistic forces in mutual respect and paasivity, or a single leadership. If the single leadership option is chosen, that leadership must be acceptable to the Great Powers, and there's the rub : The League of Nations and the Untied Nations were created as a form of world governing body, but are only effective when the Great Powers agree on laws and actions.

This is true as far as it goes, but there are multiple vectors at work. The balance of power is not just between nations, but comprises m,illions of lesser contracts and balances. The two major shifts in large that make the possibility of future peace a little more realistic are the rise of multi-national corporations and the rise of instant planetary communication.

Multinationals, because they are threatened by market loss if two of their national markets go for each others' throats. Rapid communication accelerates responses and makes it harder to build hidden war machines and commit atrocities in secret, although it is still possible.

But what kind of a process, legal framework or international court could bring about a planet-wide policy that war was anathema? The UN certainly tries hard, but it is operating in the face of conditions which promote war -- rampant nationalism, economic disparity, people being pushed around without let. People who are building and winning at their lives, as a rule, and getting enough to eat, don't usually do the war thing.

If the core conditions shift, through economic and technical advancement, then gradually the warmongers look like the psychos they are rather than possible solutions. Ya gotta be nuts to go to war, but being nuts beats watching your children starve to death, doncha think?

But until then, don't be dissin' LEJ prematurely here -- wait until he says something that ain't so!

A

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 01:36 PM

Amos, I think your "capitalism will bring peace" idea rather absurd. Capitalism is the engine that drives the war machine.

The UN may not be the organization which ultimtely is able to transcend nationalism, war mongering, economic disparity, etc. but it is the major transitional body that will give birth to the institutions which WILL allow humanity to transcend the corporate/capitalist state and the nation state, and all the war mongerers who are clinging to their life raft.

The world will change because the majority of human beings on the planet are already demanding it, and more and more human beings are dedicating their lives to working on transforming the world on precisely that level.

I'm not saying it will happen in our life times, but it easily could happen in our children's life times.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:24 PM

Guest, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but "transform" to what? Are you suggesting Communism as a replacement for the "corporate/capitalist" model? And what sort of governmental entity will implement it? Or is the answer good-natured anarchism?

Regarding the United Nations, I believe that as a forum for discussion of differences and as a vehicle for such things as disaster relief, it is of great value. What I am saying is that it has never achieved the level of an independent world government able to intervene objectively in wars and crises, or to make laws that it is able to enforce. Its involvement in situations like the Balkan Genocides in Croatia and Kosovo are impowered by massive US support. And I will not deny that if the US objects to a ruling, it will simply ignore it and do as it wishes. This is your model for a unifying world government? Not without major overhaul.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 02:58 PM

Yep, LEJ, I think you said it all, "dead horse."

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 03:10 PM

Why is the horse dead? Five hundred or a thousand years ago, no one had any concept of the "corporate/capitalist model", but that didn't stop it from coming into being.

I don't know why we should expect to be able to see what comes after the "corporate/capitalist model" at this point in time. But I hardly think it's realistic to expect that this model is what we're stuck with forever. It's been a useful model to get us to where we are now. But it's got a lot of limitations, and its got the seeds of its own destruction built right into it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 04:55 PM

Capitalism is the engine that drives the war machine.

What a crock -- talk about dead horse shit. Oh, anonymous and somewhat pusillanimous, but quite articulate Guest, the war machine is not "driven" by an economic model. Do you think there is a big difference between Papa Joe Stalin's Red war machine, Uncle Adolf's National Socialist war machine, Ho Chi Minh's Commnist war machine, or the Roman Empire's plutocratic one? Don't be redickledockle.

War is driven by individuals in the throes of psychosis, or it is driven by physical threat and self-defense.

It is not capitalism I was speaking of per se, anyway, but the notion that transnational commerce is a good way to avoid war, because it investsa lot of interest in the preservation of open transactions across spaces which would have to be cut off from each other in order for war to be conceivable.

If you are talking about the merchants of chaos and military weapons, well, I concur -- but they are their own brand of psycho, not a product of capitalism.

A

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: leprechaun
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 07:20 PM

As a capitalist of course I realize that the more people who are dead, the more of them will be able to buy my products. No, wait, um, let me see. The more people who are starving to death, the more I can sell... Just a minute. As long as I am lazy and treat people horribly, I'll be a Power That Bees. Oh, heck. The only way I can be a capitalist is to be dishonest and evil, like George W. Bush, and then I'll get "C's," and I can steal the election.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 08:31 PM

Industrial capitalists created the modern weapons industry, and have, with few exceptions, controlled it all along--including in communist countries. Sure the reds controlled some weapons production here and there rather than the capitalists. But in industry terms, and in the sheer numbers of weapons in which our world is awash, the overwhelming majority of them are, and always have been, controlled by industrial capitalists.

Try visiting here, to begin to explore "economic conversion" of war based economics to the economics of human and environmental needs:

http://prop1.org/prop1/prop1.htm

In the global weapons industry, a slowdown in buying has left companies with an excessive manufacturing capacity and management structure. By merging, they can eliminate some of the overhead and combine the income of the two companies. The American defense industry has seen a dramatic consolidation from dozens of military contractors down to just a few primary ones.

The problem with giant transnational companies is that they usurp power from communities and democratically-elected governments, replacing a process by which policy can be made by community input, with policy made by corporate executives.

DougR and Lonesome EJ--ever hear of Halliburton? None of the war on terrorism is about honor and patriotism, or keeping the world safe. It is about money. Follow the money, and money mongers and they will lead straight to the defense department, the White House and the military industrial war mongerers.

From the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institiute:

"Last but not least, the fall of communism in East and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union ushered in a period of "free market fundamentalism" in which free trade and deregulation of financial markets were the unquestioned order of the day...(T)he triumph of free market approaches to global trade and finance have had serious unintended consequences in facilitating self-perpetuating economies of war and plunder, particularly in the most impoverished regions of the global south."

http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/bh1000.htm

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 02 - 10:47 PM

This is really more about bad capitalists rather than capiatalism itself. We've had the same bunch for way too long and they have become lazy and reactionary and can't think beyond the tried and true formula. Build stuff that blows up and if folks get blown up with it, hey, not our problem.

The sad thing is that they could be building and selling things like windmills which would produce all the power needed for the Earth without burning one danged thing. Or they could build irrication systems which turns deserts into farm land. Or mass trsansit systems. Heck, they could do a lot of things but they refuse. Instead, we get the same old worn out, anti-human and Godless products that blow folks up. Real bright, boys!

And as for their "boys" who occupy the White House and most of Congress? These folks are just a guilty. Hey, the revisionist historians aren't going to find enough makeup to make these greedy, lazy folks look too good.

Vote Green

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 01:12 PM

Bobert, you're getting dangerously close to actually discussing the solutions when you say The sad thing is that they could be building and selling things like windmills which would produce all the power needed for the Earth without burning one danged thing. Or they could build irrication systems which turns deserts into farm land. Or mass trsansit systems. Heck, they could do a lot of things but they refuse. Instead, we get the same old worn out, anti-human and Godless products that blow folks up. Real bright, boys! Here's a shocker for you....I think you're right! Where we disagree is their motive for not doing these things. I don't think they refuse because weapons are evil and they enjoy doing evil. I think they produce weapons because there is a ready market for them, and they have the production and distribution down pat. If feeding people could be made as profitable as helping them kill one another, General Dynamics, Dupont, Lockheed-Martin, etc would be lining up to fill the bill. Unfortunately, the largest customers for weapons are the governments of nations, and the popular revolutionary movements that oppose them. If these people were more interested in feeding their own people than in subjugating them and maintaining power, your market for items to improve the quality of life would be ready made.

In a Capitalist World (sorry...that's pretty much what it is) consumers usually dictate the direction that manufacturers take. By denying supply, you don't kill demand. And you cannot create, even with the best advertising, a demand where none exists.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 01:45 PM

The problem with capitalism, in my view, is that it is driven by cynicism. 'Collateral damage', whether it is the fallout from the old greedy-banker-foreclosing-on-the-widow's-family-farm syndrome to the children put at risk by invading forces putting things right to sailors being unknowing guinea pigs for toxic products to the literal fallout from nuclear tests onto innocent farmers and their crops which make their way into the citizens' bodies and into the food chain, is somehow acceptable, mostly because it is 'free enterprise'.

I can see the logistical value in sacrificing 1,000 people for the sake of 100,000 but I question the value of sacrificing today what will prove of ominous importance in all of our tomorrows. And so many times we know better.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 02:05 PM

Ebbie, I have a friend who is a specialist in the water department of the EPA. Throughout the 90s, he has been employed as a consultant to various former Eastern Block countries in an attempt to undo the damage done by 50 years of Soviet control. If you think that collateral damage, abuse of people, hidden waste toxicity, and destruction of environment is a Capitalist innovation, you need to talk to him. What is apparent is that unregulated power in any governmental or corporate entity leads to damage and abuse.

What needs to happen is that the capitalists need to be coerced into the service of what you and Bobert and Carolc and others here have described as a new world view that transcends war and starvation. You won't be able to force them to do it by showing them the error of their ways. And if you destroy them you must envision a plan for something better that will replace the existing paradigm. Better, I think, to use the mule who is already in the harness to draw the wagon in a new direction. And we know the carrot-and-stick trick works pretty well for even the most stubborn mule.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 02:15 PM

Since you included my name in your 03-Jun-02 - 02:05 PM post, Lonesome EJ, I guess I need to refer you to my 02-Jun-02 - 03:45 AM post, in which I address the issue of how I think things are evolving. Coercion doesn't enter into the picture at all from the perspective I'm using.

But, to simplify things even further, I think that what will finally change the way people do business will be enlightened self interest. People will change when they see that they don't have any other choice. (And I do believe that this will happen in the not to distant future.) What the system will look like when that happens is the only thing that is in question (from my perspective).

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 02:20 PM

This may bear posting, again, from a thread about peace, last year. Some ideas on how we can work for change. I have not checked the links for updates. I'll fix any that may not work. Thanks:

I would turn first to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and also Sir John Templeton odd as that may seem. Another one would be Robert Fulghum. You may remember he advocated dropping "bombs" of colouring books and crayons in an essay on the healing of creativity and fun in one of his books.

I would also put the people at Peace Pilgrim at the top of the list of advisors and enactors.

Also, Women Waging Peace;

Women Building Peace;

Canadian Voice of Women for Peace;

People for Peace with lots of good links, esp. for kids;

And, not to be sexist: Men's International Peace Exchange;

Yamoussoukro Declaration of Peace in the Minds of Men UNESCO;

Men for Peace;

Interesting article and link to Pave for Peace;

Musicians4Peace takes a bit to load;

Musicians for Peace at PEACEZINE not for the faint at heart activism (warning, disturbing photo of war ravaged child);

RHYTHM WEB - Peace Through World Music.

If one enters "musicians for peace" in google, many smaller, individual orgs. come up.

There are a lot of people out there thinking the same thing and trying to pull it together, despite the politicians and big money fellahs.

In Peace Profound,

kat

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 04:55 PM

You're up at 3:45 A.M. posting to the Cat, Carol C? No wonder I think your thinking is cloudy on the evils of capitalism! You are suffering from sleep deprivation! :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: CarolC
Date: 03 Jun 02 - 05:06 PM

No, I've actually been getting a little bit too much sleep lately, DougR. Just not at the normal times.

If my reasoning appears clouded to you, it's because you've got the lense of your perceptions focused at a different setting than me. Just because you don't understand my thinking, doesn't mean it lacks clarity ;-)

Anyway, I never said it was evil. I said it has a lot of limitations and it's got a self-destruct setting built into it.

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: DougR
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 01:38 PM

Okie dokie, Carol C.

DougR

Subject: RE: Anti-Conscription Movement
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Jun 02 - 09:45 PM

LonesomeEJ: We are making some progress here. Now bare with me for just a couple more laps. You think that the market drives the supplier. Hmmmmmmm? Depends on just how limited the supplier is in his offerings. It also depends on how well his admen sell his crap. 99% of folks who own SUV's don't need them!!! But they have had it drummed into their feeble busy minds that if they want to portray success they had better danged well own own or fear that late knock on the door from the status monitors who inform them that, hey, this is Brookshire and in BROOKSHIRE, we drive SU-friggin-V's, pal. If all you produce is crap then it'll get bought. Now, here's an idea. WHAT IF (poor ol' Douggie going, "Danged, here we go with another of Bobert's endless list of what if's".) one capiatlist broke ranks and said, "Hey, I'm not making bombs no more. I'm making winfmills". And what if they spend a few bucks with the same folks who convince folks to buy the SUV's they don't need to sell the idea of telling the Middle East keep their oil 'cause we don't need it because we can meet all our energy need with wind power. And what if renigade capitalist were to sell power directly to the consumer at a price that was competitive with the power produced by burning stuff up? Now this is do-able. Now, the consumer says, "Hey, this is refreshing. And it is responsible and it doesn't mess up the environment and, hey, I can look mu grandkids in the eye because my generation didn't pass the buck." This is what I'm talking about. Don't believe for one minute that folks are inherently evil. They just haven't been given any choices by the lazy, evil folks who think they know what's best for you, me and the rest of the world when all they are really interested in is the easiest way to keep what they have. And screw everyone else....

End of Bobert's latest rant.

Vote Green

Bobert