Quotable Quote
"To see the face of war's most determined
supporters and peace's most deadly opponents,
follow the money."
- Judith Hand
A Good Book
David C. Korten's Agenda for a New Economy:
from Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth. 2009.
San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler Publishers
A Good Movie
"The Lord of War" Nicholas Cage in an
international thriller about the munitions
industry and its relationship to governments.
Another Good Movie
"The International" Clive Owen and Naomi
Watts - International thriller. "They control
your money. They control your government.
They control your life. And everybody pays".
A look at international banking.
A Future Without War
Believe in it.
Envision it.
Work for it.
And we will achieve it.
|
|
|
A New AFWW Newsletter Format!
To see the face of war's
most
determined supporters and peace's most deadly
opponents, follow the money. - Judith
Hand To make the AFWW newsletter content more
widely available and interactive, we're
changing the format somewhat. Topics and
items of interest will be introduced, and a
link will be provided to the full text on our
blog. This will tighten the newsletter, allow
you to quickly navigate to subjects that
interest you, and allow you to post your
comments.
Judith will also be on Twitter. This is a
service that's similar to a blog, only
with very short updates. It's FREE and
fun.If you'd like
to follow her there, check it out at twitter.com/JudithHand.
AFWW's Constructive Program is built on 9
cornerstones. Each cornerstone embraces a
strategically critical area of work required
in order to build a more just, peaceful, and
ecologically sustainable world without war.
One of these focus areas is economics, and
the cornerstone is called "Shift Our
Economies."
It is useless to proceed
along this
path; one cannot prepare for war and expect
peace. There is no compromise possible
between preparation for war, on the one hand,
and preparation of a world society based on
law and order on the other.
- Albert
Einstein
|
|
|
Budgeting and War
Abolishing war is a massively complex
project: the simple designation - Shift Our
Economies - covers and lot of ground. In
fact, each of the AFWW 9 cornerstones does
so. This newsletter zeros in on one of many
critical things that must be on our economics
"to do" list: budgeting and spending, using
the United States as an example. The
principles apply, however, to the budgets of
all nations, and even the budgets of our
individual lives.
Take
a critical look at U.S. Budget priorities
|
War is a Racket
"How is it possible", Tolstoy asked,
"For people endowed with reason and
conscience to be deceived by argument so
manifestly irrational and directed by the
self-interest of the privileged few?" In 1935, a U.S. Marine Corps Major
General, Smedley Butler, wrote a
fascinating
book that really hasn't been bested, although
time and circumstance are catching up to some
of it.
Butler certainly knew his subject. He was
awarded two Medals of Honor and at the time
of his death, in 1940, he was the most
decorated Marine in history. He was one of
the first to describe the working of the
military-industrial complex about which U.S.
President Dwight Eisenhower would
later offer
a warning.
More
on the book and following the money trail
|
You Count
Your voice, your actions, your
participation counts. - Use Word-Of-Mouth (and the pie
charts from the "Budgeting and War" entry
above) to let others know how crazily out of
balance budgeting priorities are.
- Commit yourself to the vision of a future
without war, because in that commitment lies
the seeds of your thoughts and actions.
- Join and support a group-like Women's
Action for New Directions (WAND) or Earth
Institute or Center for Global Development
(CGD) or Global Marshal Plan, or
some of the
other 19 groups listed on the AFWW
website-groups focused on making our spending
priorities match the goal we want to reach -
a just, warless and less violent, and
ecologically sustainable future.
How do we make this
change? What can you do?
Shifting
our Economies
|
Who Profits?
To abolish war, we must prevail over its
causes. We can lay a solid foundation of good
works: for example, attacking poverty,
empowering women, establish and actually
using internationally recognized bodies to
resolve disputes based on laws, fostering a
global sense of family and oneness.
Ultimately, though, it will come down to
money.
Learn
who the top fifteen weapons sellers
are |
A Future Without War
|
|
|
|
