Levees Not War

Our last post was illustrated with a big YES and this can do no less.

Congratulations to the 111th Congress—especially Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (with emphasis on “Leader”) and the suddenly productive Senate in the last days of this so-called lame duck session. Not so lame, after all. Let’s set aside for a moment the regrettable extension of the Bush tax cuts, now properly called the Obama-Republican tax cuts, or “Kumbaya for Billionaires.” This extension, however hateful to us, seems to have opened the gates toward better things. We want to briefly celebrate the last few days’ repeal of the odious Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, passage of a health bill for 9/11 responder-heroes sickened by (some dying from) the toxic ash at Ground Zero, and Senate passage of the New START treaty with Russia that will reduce nuclear stockpiles and provide for closer monitoring of old weapons facilities in the former Soviet Union. (See “Hiroshima, 65 Years On” and “Nagasaki, Not Forgotten.”) (The photo above shows President Obama and Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev signing the treaty in Prague in early April.)

We also want to thank the Republican senators who joined the Democratic majority and helped put these bills over the top. We understand that these votes were not politically easy for them, and we’re grateful for their votes of conscience. Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, in particular, helped move his colleagues to vote for New START. The nation should be grateful to Mr. Lugar, one of the true grown-ups of the Senate, and the Republican senators who listened to him.

The bills approved in the last week were passed in a flurry of activity because they had been deliberately held up for an unconscionably long time by the Republican leadership. They—particularly Jon Kyl of Arizona—repeatedly delayed dealing with the New START treaty, then whined about being rushed into action. Senator John Kerry deserves praise, too, for his steady, patient leadership on New START. The GOP also stubbornly, coldly stonewalled passage of the 9/11 responders health bill until they were shamed into submission by Jon Stewart (dead serious on Comedy Central) and Shepard Smith of Fox News, to both of whom we tip every hat on the rack. How many sick and dying workers suffered needlessly as Republicans postured about fiscal austerity while pushing for the billionaires’ tax cut extension? (The bill, we note with dismay, was whittled down from the $7.4 billion legislation passed by the House to $4.3 billion.) New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand deserves great credit for her leadership on the DADT repeal.

While praising the accomplishments of the 111th Congress under the leadership of Senator Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, let us point you to a piece from just after the midterm elections, “A Failure to Communicate—Not a Failure to Govern,” that shows the accomplishments of the House and Senate in the last two years. The Democrats, with scarcely a vote from the other side, passed an impressive, indeed historic amount of public-friendly legislation. They deserve our gratitude, which can come in the form of phone calls, letters faxed and mailed (see our Political Action page for contact info), and votes. Campaign volunteering, too.

Although we’ve been harshly critical of the president about the tax deal among other issues, we thank him for his steadfast push on New START and applaud his careful, strategic planning on repeal of DADT (he wanted to build military brass support + Senate repeal rather than letting the courts kill it). The president says “we are not doomed to endless gridlock.” We can hope, but we expect insane and raucous fights, often over nothing, in the 112th Congress. We pray that the president and (still) Senate Majority Leader Reid and congressional Democrats have learned a few things about standing up for what they believe in, persisting, getting the message sharp and clear, and not backing down. The tax bill was a horrible, costly, long-damaging error that didn’t have to happen. It hurt Obama’s relations with his own party, but may have earned a little goodwill from a few members of the opposition party (we’re not holding our breath). Let’s hope Democrats have learned some lessons in fighting. And let’s keep after them to keep the gloves on. They’ll need them.

These positive developments, after so many months of obstruction and passivity, all make for a merrier holiday season. They will bring a healthier new year for the long-suffering 9/11 responders (not just New Yorkers: volunteers poured in from every state), some relief for military service members oppressed by the unjust, 17-year-long DADT policy, and a safer new era for every person and nation endangered by aging and unsupervised nuclear stockpiles and weapons systems.

Now, back to writing those last Christmas cards (including ours to you) and wrapping a few last gifts . . .

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Obama/Medvedev photo by Doug Mills/New York Times

U.S. Capitol by E. McKnight Kauffer

On the anniversary of the assassination of a peace-seeking, war hero president—and at a time when the arms-reduction efforts of another peace-seeking president are being opposed for only political, not strategic, reasons by a few obstinate Republicans in Congress—we thought it fitting to present passages from President John F. Kennedy’s famous commencement address at American University in Washington on June 10, 1963. In this speech President Kennedy outlined a vision of peaceful coexistence of nations and announced “a series of concrete actions and effective agreements” the U.S. was initiating to make peace a little more likely. Kennedy’s reasons in 1963 apply to President Obama’s efforts today. Following the excerpts, please also see some key quotations from a fine book by James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, now in paperback.

“No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament—and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude—as individuals and as a Nation—for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward—by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.

. . . Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again. . . .

Let us focus . . . on a more practical, more attainable peace—based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions—on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace—no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process—a way of solving problems.

. . . So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it. . . .

. . . both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours—and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences—but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

From JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass

We can know the essential truth of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. That truth can set us free. . . .

On our behalf, at the height of the Cold War [in the Cuban missile crisis, October 1962], John F. Kennedy risked committing the greatest crime in history, starting a nuclear war.

Before we knew it, he turned toward peace with the enemy who almost committed that crime with him.

For turning to peace with his enemy (and ours), Kennedy was murdered by a power we cannot easily describe. Its unspeakable reality can be traced, suggested, recognized, and pondered. That is one purpose of this book. The other is to describe Kennedy’s turning. . . .

John Kennedy’s story is our story, although a titanic effort has been made to keep it from us. That story, like the struggle it embodies, is as current today as it was in 1963. The theology of redemptive violence still reigns. The Cold War has been followed by its twin, the War on Terror. We are engaged in another apocalyptic struggle against an enemy seen as absolute evil. Terrorism has replaced Communism as the enemy. We are told we can be safe only through the threat of escalating violence. Once again, anything goes in a fight against evil: preemptive attacks, torture, undermining governments, assassinations, whatever it takes to gain the end of victory over an enemy portrayed as irredeemably evil. Yet the redemptive means John Kennedy turned to, in a similar struggle, was dialogue with the enemy. When the enemy is seen as human, everything changes.

—from the Preface

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