A Global De-Militarized Zone

The goal to which all sane individuals left on the planet should commit themselves to, beginning today, is to convert the earth, every square inch of it, into a de-militarized zone.

The advent of the 21st century has witnessed war-mongering, war-profiteering, and rapacious capitalism shift into high gear. At the center of the maelstrom is the United States of America and its lackey-allies.

Many of our fellow citizens do not feel right about the direction in which we are headed, but they shrug and ask, "What can I do?"

What is to be done? Tolstoy posed this question at the close of the 19th century. His prescient inquiries and warnings were ignored and we are now in far deeper and more perilous waters than ever before.

This country has produced a slim tradition of native radicalism--slim but resilient. It is on the ropes today and in danger of going down for the count. Emerson is no longer remembered for his abolitionist stand or Thoreau for his pacifism. The scholars who study their works seem too often to be unmoved by them. At least, politically.

The good news is that the American tradition of native radicalism is not the property of professors, and certainly not the property of those professors who fawn after power. It is the common inheritance of the American people.

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,
makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part,and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop."

– Mario Savio, Sproul Hall Steps, 2 December 1964, UC Berkeley

It has happened before; it can happen again.

Indeed, it must. We owe it to the world that is still aborning.