Political Speeches by Stephen Travis Pope
I have been asked several times over the last year to address peace
rallies in Santa Barbara. This page collects three of the texts I
wrote related to the recent world political situation and our approach
to changing it.
Individual texts
You can also down-load a printer-friendly
PDF version of this text.
See also my collected spiritual texts.
Message to a Peace Rally -- October, 2002
I'm so grateful to have been asked to address you all today.
I'd like to divide my opening comments into three parts: the spiritual
message of the Quakers to the current peace movement, a few simple
facts, and my thoughts on how we have to proceed. After this, I will
discuss some of the work we're doing to support
conscientious objectors and those interested in alternatives to
military service
Part One: The spiritual message of the Quakers to the greater peace
movement
We often represent the spirit as coming from above (as in the Christian
paintings of the tongues of fire on the apostles' heads at the
Pentecost), but we know that there's no "up" to the spirit; we know
that it is everywhere, and that it flows through every one of us and
everything around us -- except sometimes our thoughts. Whenever we
inhale, there's an energy in the air that came from somewhere; it's
imparted to the air by plants and trees, as well as by animals and
people. That energy is shared -- even by people I think I don't like or
agree with. All of creation is intimately connected, and all people are
forever capable of being lead by their spirits. Problems only arise
when our thoughts are not permeated by the spirit.
So, for those of us who feel lead to raise our voices, it's as in the
Bible quote from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (which is
unfortunately only read at weddings these days) -- "If I can speak in
all the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am just like
a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. [...] If I have all knowledge and
all faith, even so as to move mountains, but have not love, then I am
nothing."
This is our entire message; it doesn't change based upon our audience,
and we've been saying it for over 350 years.
Part Two: Three statements of my convictions that should influence us
and inform our activism
I state these personal opinions in an emphatic, almost militant manner
for rhetorical purposes.
A: War is terrorism.
The way I see it, a war on terrorism makes about as much sense as a war
on violence. War is terrorism. The United States has used terror
against civilians in recent history from the 1972 Christmas-day
firestorm in Hanoi to the decade-long sanctions against Iraq. The
difficult issue is that the difference between soldiers, terrorists,
serial killers, and madmen is a subtle one; the only real technique to
classify these people is to look into their own intentions and
organization. According to this classification scheme, the events of
September 11, 2001 were acts of war; the last major act of terrorism
against America was home-grown terrorist Timothy MacVeigh's bombing in
Oklahoma City in April, 1995.
B: The media are not our friends.
It feels to me that to speak of an independent US news media is a
misnomer. It's the nature of the commercial media to sell out to the
Fortune 500. They are designed to be transparent channels for the
messages of US industry (and business-friendly government), and the
fact is that war is much better for ratings than an on-going economic
slump or a looming environmental catastrophe. This applies to the major
broadcast networks, the national newspaper and magazine conglomerates,
much of the Internet, public broadcasting, and to our local newspapers.
C: It's the big picture that's disturbing.
I believe that it's urgent that we express our opposition, not only
about the prospect that we may soon be paying for the killing of
innocent people in Iraq, but -- far, far more -- for our country's
on-going flagrant scoff-law attitude and bullying in the international
arena, be it with respect to the Kyoto accords on the environment, the
International Criminal Court, the World Trade Organization, towards our
neighbor Cuba, or in our unilateral abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile treaty. Our administration is not playing the role of the
world's policemen, but of the world's vigilante.
Part Three: How we do this?
As much as we are upset, as much as we are deeply angered by the words
and deeds of people who purport to be acting on our behalf, if our
anger makes us hateful, then we have lost and they have won. What's
central is that we be angry, but at the same time act out of our deeper
selves and motivations. In our everyday dealings with people,
one-to-one or group-to-group, if we are not aware of being filled with
the spirit and motivated by love, then we should just stay home.
Gandhi put this most succinctly when he said, "you have to be the
change that you want to see in the world."
To connect these three topics together -- attitude, context, and
process -- I'd like to present you with the image of a flag (produced
by Quakers in Pennsylvania) that consists of the words "united we
stand" placed over a photograph of the earth as seen from outer space.
Next, I'd like to introduce you all to our group, "Conscientious
Objectors and their Supporters (COS)," and to describe what we do and
why. (outline form from here, since I'll talk impromptu.)
Who is COS?
COs and related or interested parties
Provide concrete practical services in our local
communities
Why am I a member?
My own CO experience
My faith and objection to war
The Draft
Selective service registration, conscription, and
the draft
Classification, options, and deferments
Conscientious objection under current law
The future of draft law
Helping COs in the military
Registration and "no child left behind"
Opting out as individuals
Opting out as a group
The Ojai experience (try it at home)
Counter-recruitment
Recruitment advertising (e.g., MTV)
Statistics of those in the military
Bank ad analogy
Ventura food bank statistics
CR activism in schools
CR activism in the media
COS, CCCO, and our activities
Draft counseling (UCSB, SBCC, schools, marches)
hot-line
Public awareness
To segue back to the "big picture" of what we're here for this evening,
I'd like to read a short poem by SB CO (and COS co-founder) Wayne
Ferren that bears the title "Universal Soldier."
The issue is not we versus they
Not allies versus foes.
The issue is War or Peace,
Soldier or civilian.
The choice is individual.
The choice is Universal.
If we chose Peace
And there is no one left to fight,
There is no way War,
There is only path to Peace.
The choice is individual.
The choice is Universal.
In closing, I want to note that our nation's poet-laureate Billy
Collins recently reminded us that, "If political protest is urgent, I
don't think it needs to wait for an appropriate scene and setting and
should be as disruptive as it wants to be."
I can return to my grateful state now, and I thank you all for the
incredible gift of your attention.
Stay Awake! -- Notes for the People's March --
May 17, 2003
"One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people
fail to remain awake through great periods of social change [...] but
today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to
adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of
change." These words were written by Martin Luther King over 35 years
ago, but are even more true today than then.
The topic of the panel that I'll be speaking on this afternoon is
"Understanding Occupation - The After Effects of War"; for me, this
topic boils down to the question of what it means to be "freed" by the
US. During my lifetime, our military has seen action in the following
countries: Guatemala, Lebanon, Panama, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Panama
(again), Indonesia, The Dominican Republic, Guatemala (again),
Cambodia, Oman, Laos (again), Chile, Cambodia, Ira, Libya, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Honduras, Lebanon (again), Grenada, Libya (again), Bolivia,
Iran (again), Libya, Panama, Liberia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, most
of the components of the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and
now Iraq again.
Although it sound like we're freeing people in all parts of the globe,
in some of the countries, we ousted elected leaders and installed
vassal dictators (I think of Indonesia, Chile, Libya, Iraq, or Cuba
here). Whether they're called Somoza, Batista, Pahlevi, Marcos,
Suharto, or Saddam Hussein, we hare a pretty dismal record for picking
friends in the world at large.
What if the Afghani or Iraqi people elected left-leaning leaders like
the Chileans, and the Cubans, and the Iranians, and the Granadians did?
Another problem that often arises in countries that we liberate is that
we let our businesses and our military go there. After a
well-publicized rape case in 1995 in Okinawa, Admiral Richard C. Macke,
Commander of US Forces in the Pacific, told a reporter, "I think that
[the rape] was absolutely stupid. For the price they paid to rent the
car, they could have had the girl." The conservative Japanese newspaper
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, found that between US military personnel were
implicated in about one crime per day over the last 25 years, and
stated that the US troops in Okinawa are essentially an occupying force
and behaved as such. In 1995, 85,000 Okinawans demonstrated to call for
the withdrawal of U.S. troops and bases, and in 1996 they passed a
referendum to rid themselves of U.S. bases. I could continue this
train of thought with other stories from Asia, of from Central America
for example, but I'd rather move on to the topic of War and Business.
Several US presidents over the years have spoken out against the
military-industrial complex. Speaking almost 100 years ago President
Woodrow Wilson asked "Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say
any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern
world is industrial and commercial rivalry?" More recently, a highly
decorated Marine once wrote, "War is just a racket. A racket is best
described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the
majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about.
It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the
masses. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6
percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100
percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the
flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy
investment of the bankers. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag
that the military gang is blind to. I spent most of my time [in the
Marines] being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall
Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for
capitalism." This was written by Major General Smedley Butler in 1935.
More recently, Chris White wrote "If one were to look closely at the
[time since WW II], one would be hard pressed to find a single U.S.
military or C.I.A. intervention that has brought us one iota of safety,
or, for that matter, that has actually been done for national defense
purposes. As Butler illustrated in 1935, and it is even truer now than
then, the U.S. engages in interventions meant to protect the interests
of the powerful and wealthy of our nation and our allies, and rarely,
if ever, in order to actually protect its citizens."
If you doubt that oil was our sole motivation for the recent illegal
invasion of Iraq, here are a few quotes from a report that came over
the Reuters News Service (hardly a liberal organ) in April: "The United
States plans to run Iraq's oil industry until an Iraqi interim
authority can be formed to take it over. It is uncertain how long the
United States would operate [...] the country's main source of revenue.
The Defense Department is putting in place an advisory board of former
U.S. oil industry executives to help run [the] industry. Does the
United States want Iraq to remain in OPEC? 'It will be up to their
government to decide.' said one U.S. official." The photograph that
accompanied the story had the caption, "A U.S. soldier from the 173rd
Airborne Division, guards oil facilities in the oil-rich northern city
of Kirkuk." I find it interesting that we could not manage to protect
the most significant museum of antiquities in the world, but we can
send battalions to guard oil wells.
It is very well documented that an infrastructure is being put in place
just now to transfer something over $1 trillion from our pockets to the
major companies such as Haliburton, Bechtel, and Kellogg, Brown and
Root, to rebuild Iraq. (Actually, this will come from our children's
pockets, since our federal budget deficit is growing at a faster rate
than ever before in history and the senate just passed another large
tax cut bill this week.)
To end this topic, I will remind you that in March, multi-billionaire
Riley Bechtel (as in the Bechtel Corporation) was sworn in as a member
of President Bush's Export Council to "advise the government on how to
create markets for American companies overseas." Harvey Wasserman's
comment on this was, "Have they no grace, no shame, no common sense?
Why don't they just have Enron run America?" Ordained minister Bill
Moyers says, "They're counting on your patriotism to distract you from
their plunder. They're counting on you to be standing at attention with
your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they
pick your pocket!"
I've segued now to the topic of the economic and social impacts of the
militarization of US society. The administration plans to spend $2.7
trillion on the military over the next six years, with a projected
federal deficit of up to $300 billion next year. According to the
fiscal 2004 discretionary budget request, we'll be spending $399
billion on the military. This is more than the next 16 largest budget
items combined. Allow me to repeat that, we're being asked to spend
more on the military than the total of what we spend on education,
health, justice, housing, international aid, natural resources, the
environment, veterans benefits, science and space, transportation,
training, social services, costs of government, social security,
energy, and agriculture, COMBINED.
A report from the Cato Institute (again, not a liberal organ) states
that, "The United States has over 200,000 troops stationed in 144
countries and territories. At any given time, it usually has another
20,000 sailors and Marines deployed afloat on Navy ships. In the
post-Cold War period, the number of armed conflicts has declined by
more than half -- from 55 in 1992 to 24 in 1997. In addition, most
conflicts now occur within states, not between them. Of the 101
conflicts occurring from 1989 to 1996, 95 involved combatants within a
state and only six took place between states. A threat to U.S. security
is more apt to arise from cross-border aggression than from civil
strife. Most of the 100,000 troops in Europe, and almost all of the
75,000 troops in Asia are supporting wealthy nations against mild or
declining threats." A report by our own Dept. of State tells us that,
"the world's average military expenditures per capita ratio, a general
measure of security costs, fell from $254 in 1989 to $142 in 1999. Now,
I'm being asked to contribute over $1200 for next year, and I'm not
happy about it.
It's time to stay awake, to take action. This afternoon, I'll be
talking more about our work on counter-recruitment, our information
campaign against JROTC, and the options we're supporting to the "No
child left unrecruited" clauses to the US Patriot Act. You might ask,
"what can I do?" The two problem areas where each of us can take simple
and direct action are combating corporatism and reshaping our media.
The best thing that we can do to combat the global corporate powers is
to buy locally. This applies equally well to food, clothing,
entertainment, and many other goods and services. To start, see if you
can take 10% of your expenditures and devote them to locally produced
(and union-produced) goods and services. This can be a simple as going
to a farmer's market, buying no-name clothing, or avoiding chain
restaurants. In terms of things we are required to buy from large
corporations, there are many web sites and publications that rank
corporations in terms of their levels of social and environmental
responsibility. There are web sites that list the corporate sponsors of
right-wing causes and media, for example a list of the advertisers on
the Rush Limbaugh show, or of the local radio stations owned by the
Clearchannel corporation, including a local classic rock station that I
used to listen to. If you remember that we vote with our dollars, then
the word "boycott" re-enters our vocabulary. For a boycott to be
effective, however, it has to be vocal; it has to be publicized, which
brings me to the media.
Taking back the media is easy, and it's already happening, but the
mainstream fortune-500-owned media aren't covering it. My litmus test
for the last couple of months was that I refuse to patronize any news
organization that referred to the US army in Iraq as "the coalition."
This means that my US-based news sources are pretty much reduced to the
Pacifica Radio network and the Nation magazine. If you want a truly
broader view of what happened in the Middle East in the last 2 months,
I'd recommend that you get the newest issue of the wonderful magazine
called "World Press Review." It collects reports on the Middle East
form all parts of the world and of the political spectrum. After
reading news stories from Spain, Egypt, Poland, Israel, Australia,
Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Jamaica, and Indonesia, you can
call yourself well-informed. Believe me, you have a different
perspective on recent events than if you get all your information from
the Fortune 500 mouthpieces for the Dept. of Defense. We can influence
our local media by demanding that they serve us. I'd like right now to
ask the News Press and the Independent to cover today's event on
several pages, and to print the full text of the speeches made here
today.
There is lots of good literature on how to do what needs to be done.
For example, this pamphlet on the basic rules for nonviolent
direct action lists four principles: (1) define your objective; (2) be
honest and open-minded; (3) love your enemies; and (4) give your
opponents a way out. It's five strategic steps are: (1) investigate;
(2) negotiate; (3) educate; (4) demonstrate; and (5) resist.
To close with another quote from Martin Luther King that puts all of
the topics of war and peace, and of social and economic justice in
relation to one another, "when machines and computers, profit motives
and property rights are considered more important than people, the
giant triplets of racism, militarism, and economic exploitation are
incapable of being conquered. [...] I speak out today not in anger, but
with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate
desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example for the
world [but] we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.
Our only hope today lives in our ability to recapture the revolutionary
spirit."
Thank you all for the incredible gift of your attention.
Looking back at the revolution -- Notes for the
9/27/03 Peace Rally
Thank you; I'm very grateful to have been asked to address you today,
and I bring you all some bad news, then some good news, then some even
better news
The bad news is what we already know: A coup has taken place in our
country; we have to accept that. Some speak of a "silent coup," but it
wasn't even silent. We know of the situation surrounding the 2000
presidential election, the complicity of the US government in the Sept.
11, 2001 acts of war, and the tyranny of the USA Patriot Act. In my
mind, these things are uncontestable, but we need to move on and focus
on how to respond rather than just reacting.
The fact is that we, as critical thinkers, as people of faith, as
progressives, now qualify as an oppressed people. I say this not as an
excuse for hand-wringing and self-pity, but simply as a reality check.
As an oppressed people, there is much we can learn from other similar
groups throughout history, from the Spartacan slave revolt 2070 years
ago to the 1960s civil rights movement. It is important for each of us
to concentrate on the message that the powers that be can take our
money (as they do), they can take our rights (as they're trying to do),
but they can never take our dignity, they can never take our hope. I am
filled with hope. Anne Sexton wrote the wonderful line, "There is hope;
there is hope everywhere. Today God gives milk, and I've got a pail." I
find it helpful to recall to myself the image of those who, during the
freedom struggle in South Africa, went before the sham courts singing
loudly. Their voices eventually won. Let us sing!
The good news, and there is a lot of good news, is that the revolution
has already started, and we have already won many significant
victories. At the latest since the "battle in Seattle" in December 1999
(which was before the 2000 US presidential election or the events of
Sept. 11, 2001), progressive forces have been coming together more and
more to oppose globalization of trade, the rape of the environment, and
the growing income and social disparities in the developed world. We
now expect protest events at every meeting of the World Economic Forum
or International Monetary Fund. We dare not overlook the recent 400 vs.
20 vote in the US congress against the FCC's deregulation of the public
airwaves. We should remind ourselves (and others) that over 170 towns
throughout the USA have successfully fought off WalMart. We need to
study and re-study the Maine experience; in that state, public
financing of campaigns leveled the playing field, and this lead to
progressive policies like universal health care.
Even more ambitious, the progressive movement in Austria was concerned
with the entry requirements for the European Union, so they sponsored a
referendum to state that they feel their society should be in the
business of providing at least four services to its people: free
single-payer health care, free education through university level, free
old-age pensions, and subsidized public transport. Much to everyone's
surprise, the referendum passed.
I'd like to address the notion of "taking back the media." What comes
up for me on this issue is, why would I want to "take back" CBS or Fox?
What do I want with them? It's our task to make the so-called
mainstream press moot; more and more people are becoming aware that the
commercial media are simply doing their job as the opium of the masses
and the mouthpiece of the Fortune 500. The question is, who cares? The
good news is that in the last year, KPFK has registered a 123% increase
in memberships. Progressive writers such as Michael Moore, Jim
Hightower, Gore Vidal, and Noam Chomsky make it to the prestigious best-seller
lists, but this fact is curiously not covered in the commercial press.
Who cares? People are reading their books. People are passing these
books on to their friends. KCBX, our own local moderate NPR station
broadcasts Democracy Now and RadioNation. To my mind, the most positive
development in the media in recent years takes place on Friday evenings
when Bill Moyers hosts the program Now on PBS. Our voices are growing
in strength. Let us sing!
As I see it, the best news is what has happened on the international
stage so far this year. The US went to war alone, the vast majority of
the international community opposed us vocally, and there were no
ramifications. We don't dare actually doing anything against our most
important traditional allies. Now George Bush is going begging to the
UN. The sun is already most definitely setting on the American Empire.
Our status as a superpower is rapidly being undermined by our own
leaders, and this is very good news for the world.
In closing, I'm reminded of the speeches held 40 years ago at the march
for peace and jobs in Washington. There were many great orators present
that day, many speakers with data and with attitudes, speakers venting
their anger and attacking the then-current power structures. There is,
however, one speech from that day that we remember most. Martin Luther
King was not the most famous person to rise to the podium that day;
what was important was that he had a vision that he could articulate
and make accessible. He had a dream and he told people about it. He
appealed not to our fear and anger, but to our hope and our faith. What
our movement needs is for us to be active and vocal dreamers. Friends,
I, too, have a dream, and if you spend long enough within ear-shot,
you're certain to hear about it. Let us all sing!
Thank you the incredible gift of your attention.
Copyright (c) 2002-2003. Stephen Travis Pope. All Rights for
reproduction and distribution granted, provided that acknowledgment of
authorship is maintained. Responses are invited to stp@create.ucsb.edu.