I am a co-organizer of our March for Peace that begins at 1PM on 15 Feb, and is followed by speakers, some theatre I hope to direct, and some vegetarian pot luck; This document last modified Sept 17, 2003
Our country is FearAware, not PeaceAware. We live in the United States of Fear. Las night I saw Michael Moore's new movie, "Bowling for Columbine." It is scene after scene of just how FearAware people in the USA have become. On Feb 13 I stood in front of the ROTC cannon on the New Mexico State University campus. I spoke to cadets and peace people about the cover-up of America's use of Depleted Uranium in its wars and how the dust our military ate and breathed has killed 9,600 young USA service men and women. How the radiated dust lasts 4.5 billion years and how together with sanctions against Iraq, and bombing sanitation facilities, is part of killing 1.7 million civilians, 500,000 children under five. I turned to the ROTC cadets, all wearing their battle fatigues, and told them to get to the Sperm Bank and make their deposit, to not wipe out future generations. I think I contributed to making them FearAware, but not PeaceAware.
Instead of FearAware, I want to talk today about PeaceAware. How can we become PeaceAware?
1. Turn off Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. Those 3-letter "news" shows sell a 4-letter word, "F-E-A-R." They are not the 'News,' they are the Theatre of Fear's ads for profit. "If it Bleeds Fear, it Leads." "If it Breeds Fear it leads." The Theatre of Fear keeps Americans afraid of Black men, and Middle East men, and neighbors, and school children, and each other. The Aristotelian cathartic reason for Fear Theatre is to link Iraq to Fear, to make USA people applaud the use of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons. USA kills the Other to contain Fear..
2. Turn on PeaceAware. Turn off the dominant storytellers of FearAware. We can learn to tell our own stories. We can break out of the prison of the dominant story. We can collect our stories of PeaceAware. As Arundhati Roy (Jan 27 03) puts it, we can tell "stories different than the ones we are brainwashed to believe" (source).
This is what we do at PeaceAware. We tell our own stories. We become immune to the brainwashing. We awaken from the catharsis of the Theatre of Fear. We tell stories outside the mainstream.
3. Attend Peace Vigils. I go to two a week. I am less afraid. I meet people who are PeaceAware. They are people who are young and old, from all walks of life, from every possible faith. They believe peace is possible. They are Aware of Peace. They light candles to spread the light. I remember my friend's young child, Tess Bixby, letting me light my candle from hers. After five months that candle still burns.
On 15 march, PeaceAware is hosting the Interfaith Symposium for Peace. We invite leaders of all faiths to attend. This will be a time of spiritual Festival, a time to bring faith to peace.
4. PeaceAware people have voice. They express their voice. They carry signs. They hold up two fingers for Peace, instead of just one for War. They honk for peace. The signs say
"Not in Our Name"
"War is Not the Answer"
"No Iraq War"
"Make Love, Not War"
"Patriots Ask Questions"
"Patriots for Peace"
"No Oil War"
5. Roy ends her speech by saying "Remember this We be many and they be few." She continues, "They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing." We are the many; they are the few. The few are getting rich from the oil, and from the sale of weapons of mass destruction. The many are kept in bondage to fear. On the 13th of February I read out the names of the USA corporations who sell Weapons of Mass Destruction. Seems someone in the Pentagon forgot to black out the corporate names
USA CORPORATIONS SELLING WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
N =nuclear C =chemical B= biological R =rockets (missiles) I=Sold weapons supplies to Iraq
1) Honeywell (R,I)
2) Spektra Physics (I)
3) Semetex (R)
4) TI Coating (N,I)
5) UNISYS (N,I)
6) Sperry Corp. (R,I)
7) Tektronix (R,N) - Note our info is this firm does test equipment testing
8) Rockwell (I)
9) Leybold Vacuum Systems (N)
10) Finnigan-MAT-US (N)
11) Hewlett Packard (N.R,I)
12) Dupont (N)
13) Eastman Kodak (R)
14) American Type Culture Collection (B)
15) Alcolac International (C)
16) Consarc (N)
17) Carl Zeis -U.S. (I)
18) Cerberus (LTD) (N)
19) Electronic Associates (R)
20) International Computer Systems (N,R, I)
21) Bechtel (I)
22) EZ Logic Data Systems,Inc. (R)
23) Canberra Industries Inc. (N)
24) Axel Electronics Inc. (N)
*25) E-Systems of Texas. (definitely in the "defense" business)
* means item people suggested be added to the list
Now the mask is off. We can see the corporate faces profiting from the War Machine. Now that I can see who they are, I know who is trying to sell this Iraq war. And I know why. The international arms business is a one trillion dollar market.
6. I love PeaceAware. I think we need to define it. What is PeaceAware? We are Aware that Peace is possible. We are aware that Peace is coming. We are Aware of the pain. We are Aware that the world is going through birth pains of Peace. We are Aware that we in New Mexico make and test Weapons of Mass Destruction. We test them in Sandia, Las Alamos, and White Sands Missile Range. We test the Depleted Uranium in many places in New Mexico. For example the firing range of Depleted Uranium shells is called the 'Energetic Materials Research Test Center' (EMRTC). There's a name. They open-air tested 40 tons of Depleted Uranium between 1972 and 1993. Uranium dust settles two miles away on Socorro residents. The testing center is part of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (known as New Mexico Tech).
The majority of Socorro's 8,000 residents are Hispanic. My friend from Socorro, Damacio Lopez, says this location is no accident.
He wants the New Mexico State Environmental Protection Department (EPD) to disclose data about radioactive contamination at the firing range and in the air around Socorro. Damacio, returning home after presenting his case to New Mexico Tech, on the night of March 1, 1986, was struck from behind and beaten until unconscious. It was no accident. He says, "I was right near my house. Apparently, whoever did this came out of the bushes. When I came to five or six hours later, I was on the operating table at the local hospital" (source).
He spent several months in the hospital. But his voice was not silenced. Damacio is our birth pain. He is helping to give birth to Peace. I met him a few days ago, he added to his story. The President of New Mexico Tech University warned him to keep silent or bad things would happen to him. An irritated University Tech president told him,
"What's the matter with you, boy? Don't you understand English? It's depleted uranium. There's no radioactivity so it doesn't make any hazard. You should learn English."
The President of the university was in Fear, in Denial, afraid the university would loose valuable funding. We can help give birth to Peace or we can submit to Silence, to Denial, to Fear. David Collis of EMRTC (Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center) at N.M. Tech says, "There are no risks to the residents of Socorro." NM Tech says they remediated the toxic effects of two D.U. test sites in 1992, and they now meet state's cleanup standards. Sandia Labs says they cleaned up several contaminated test sites of D.U. dust and fragments in 1994-95. In Kirtland Air Force Base, D.U. is in trenches and near town. In the 1940's New Mexico sent Navajo to be open-pit uranium miners. The Navajo ate the dust, breathed the dust, and carried the uranium dust home on their feet. The Pentagon and White House says that it is legal, safe for civilians and USA soldiers, and has asked the Congress to allow more of it to be used in the next Iraq War. The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) does D.U. surveys of Socorro and Albuquerque and finds no problem. They did find D.U. in the lower reaches of the subterranean (aquifer) Las Alamos drinking water. Sandia and Las Alamos officials say they are still doing D.U. testing in New Mexico (source).
If we are to be PeaceAware we need to oppose junk science. We need to get independent studies of the D.U. in Socorro, White Sands, Sandia, and Las Alamos. More important we need to ban D.U. as illegal under international human rights and humanitarian laws governing customs of war. More important, we need to ban war, and build up the UN.
7. My Jain name is Arihanta. It means "conqueror of inner enemies." My inner enemy is Fear. My inner enemy is hatred. My inner enemy is greed. My inner enemy is revenge. My inner enemy is war. As Pogo said, "We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us."
President Bush is not PeaceAware, he is WarAware. When President Bush speaks, he is the star performer in the USA Theatre of Fear. President Bush does not listen to PeaceAware voices. He thinks our voices will cease, and our numbers will decrease. I say he is wrong. President Bush said this week that once the Iraq War starts, the peace movement will collapse, the nation will rally behind him as our leader. Mrs. Laura Bush won't even listen to Poems for Peace. I think she can learn from Poems for Peace.
I think President Bush is now unmasked. His cloak of invisibility is now visible. President Bush is the Emperor with no clothes. The cold war hawks that surround Bush tell him that he is finely dressed, that his mask is in place. This is groupthink, a president surrounded by the voices of fear, ready to listen to his cold war buddies and to his inner voices of fear; he has no dissenting voices to tame his decisions.
The World transformation is coming. The World is turning from FearAware to PeaceAware. Once this nation realizes what the rest of the world already knows, then we will elect PeaceAware presidents.
We stand today against the spectacle theatre, the multi-million dollar war campaign. Today we are part of the birth of a PeaceAware world. today is both a "Festival of Peace" and a "Carnival of Resistance." We are a Carnival, with our theatre of satire and resistance. We are Festive in our community, joining our spirits with the world community to say, "No War."
Thank you.
AND -