the propeace community - It's not a dirty word any more! - Comments

Al Gore agrees

Susan Livingston — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:13:48 -0400

Just in case it's cheating to blog only the people who support my views, I'll confess that I've had two dissenting opinions. But one was just an outraged reaction and the other was so ponderous that I couldn't get through it. This quick reaction comes from Dan "the man" Manweiler, another APEC colleague.

...the government is now not in service to the people, but to corporations. I agree with Mr. Gore's premise in Assault on Reason - that we have lost discourse with our government and therefore are loosing the fabric of freedom. I salute Susan's efforts to dive at the heart of the issue.

Editor, propeace.net

Rethinking states' rights

Susan Livingston — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:47:58 -0400

On May 3rd, a fellow Appalachian Peace Education Center activist and grandmother with the very fortunate name of Rachael Bliss published an entry in response to this post in her blog I'm sharing a significantly shortened version of her remarks with you.

To many of us progressives, the idea of secession runs against our grain. You know, some of those southern states had to be put in their place when they kept insisting on "states' rights." How I used to HATE those words! To me, they meant segregation, white supremacy, bigotry, and rule by the "good ole boys!"

When our country was forming, there was controversy whether it would be a federalist or a confederate type of government. Less than 100 years later, states that preferred a federalist type of government prevailed in a war that cost half a million lives. Although slavery was ended with the Emancipation Act, justice for the former slaves lasted for just a few years during Reconstruction before some states initiated Jim Crow laws that denied rights to Blacks. The '50s and 60s saw a groundswell among African-Americans and their white allies, and people hoped that at last there would be equal rights for all in this country. Yet even today, we are still working for equal rights and true justice for all our citizens.

While we were fighting these internal battles among the states and between the states and the federal government, our country was growing into an empire, threatening smaller countries, enriching itself by spreading its influence throughout the world. Thus we have seen unilateral attack on Iraq, involvement in numerous civil wars in developing countries, and an ever-tightening relationship between the federal government and multi-national corporations.

Today, the USA is an imperialist empire, much like Rome and Great Britain were centuries ago. We have witnessed the breakup of the former Soviet Union; it is no longer a world power. When Great Britain shed many of its colonies, it became a much more representative government. Do you think that perhaps if China would give up Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, then it could govern the remaining people within its domain in a just manner? What does this say about the U-S-of-A? [Editor's note: Rachael, who said that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?]

Many believe that our country as it is organized today is unmanageable. Our legislators don't truly represent the people who elected them, we have a President that acts like a king, our government is spying on its own citizenry, and some states claim they get the shaft when it comes to federal monies coming back to them. In essence, our government has lost touch with its citizens, and it is mainly in partnership with powerful corporations as they use the rest of the globe to secure resources, control puppet governments, attack leaders who don't cooperate, extend their tentacles into dangerous places they don't belong, and use our children as pawns in a gigantic global chess game.

What would our 50 states be like if we became five countries: the Northeast, the Northwest, Southeast, the Midwest and the Southwest? What if we did separate into the United Red States and the United Blue States? Maybe Vermont could at last become its own country. Perhaps the 50 most vocal interest groups could each settle in one state, and thus there would no longer be the imperial empire that rules the world, but instead there would be many smaller countries representative of the hopes, dreams and even eccentric interests of the people who live there.

One concern about separating into a bunch of new nation-states is the headache of negotiating interstate environmental regulations. Interstate commerce probably wouldn't be that difficult to manage since free trade is in full force now anyway. The most positive outcome would be that no one nation-state would be strong enough to rule the world. No one country would be able to unilaterally attack another country halfway around the globe. Maybe peace would truly break out in the world.

I may have to change my mind regarding states' rights. I may even have to think beyond states' rights - think of new countries from what are now states. Maybe our grandchildren will never know what it is like to live in an empire. Instead they will be citizens of Iowa, or Michigan or Vermont with a small government and a more truly representative type of governance. Could this happen? Remember, Thomas Jefferson himself said that every generation needs a revolution. Maybe this is the time!

I'm grateful to Rachael for this view of history through the eyes of a southern liberal.

Editor, propeace.net

Three-state solution

Susan Livingston — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:19:16 -0400

I received the following comment from Powell Foster, a fellow Appalachian Peace Education Center activist, on May 3, and I want to share it with the propeace community.

Even our constitution was drafted by plutocrats, and it has been downhill ever since.

Before the war between the states, the states as a whole were referred to as "the United States are..." not "the United States is." What followed was the industrial revolution and a Supreme Court decision in the late 1800s declaring that, under the
constitution, corporations had the same rights as people. When Truman was president, the decline in the balance of powers started, with the Executive Branch gaining unequal power. And despite efforts such as POCLAD, we have become a corporate democracy - government of, by and for the plutocrats.

I often have wondered, if the War Between the States had resulted in at least three nations - the United States, the Confederate States, and the Western United States - would it have resulted in a group of nations too weak to go to war to "save" (read "use for our benefit") other nations? Would the 3+ nations have formed some alliance that might incorporate common needs such as one monetary system, open borders, free trade among the nations of the alliance, health, environmental and safety regulation? Is dissolving the union now and forming such an alliance among the individual states a practical way to meet these common needs?

Thank you, Powell. This is the question I want to address in order to reframe secession as a constitutionally-defensible act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Editor, propeace.net

It's not a dirty word any more!

Susan Livingston — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:49:35 -0400

If you are like me, you probably used to think of yourself as a "constitution thumper." Maybe you still do. However, if you are like me and over 70% of Americans, you think this country is "broken" beyond repair. Are you surprised at that number? I sure was!