Stop the war. What is to be done next?
A letter from Joseph Woodard
Alameda, California
19 March 2003

I'm grateful so many people in the United States and around the world have protested Bush's war before it's even begun. I've never seen such widespread, loud chanting of "No War" and "Peace Now" before the bombing and shooting even start. Such an organized outcry is unprecedented. We live in interesting times. The perils are greater than ever, but the degree of support for peace and the hope that generates are inspirational.

I'm also grateful that I can ask you to think about what we should do now.

Our appeal to people with the power to wage war has failed to stop it, though our efforts have helped unite us for peace. But the United States continues to destroy lives as a means to brutally control world resources and populations. All appeals to reason have failed. While the people signal their interest in life, not death, and pray their wish for life will be heard, U.S. military forces move into position. It seems people will die unless the military machine is stopped. We will have to stop it, not by persuasion because the commanders have closed their minds, not by representative assembly because political leaders silently comply with State organized violence, not by unified opinion across the planet because self-interested empire builders don't care about opinions, but by us. We are the people who build and run the economic and military machinery that our leaders use for their own purposes. So we have the power to stop war.

We are the people who work and struggle and love and raise our children and plan for the future. We will not kill people for the benefit of an insane few. We will decide what to do, not them. I'll explain later on in this letter what I've decided I can do to stop war. (See below, DIRECT ACTION) I hope soon we can talk about that together and learn to act together. Please reply to jwoodard@best.com if you would like to do more with me. Please pass this on if it will help you do more with others.

Some of us are soldiers. What will we decide?

    General, your tank is a mighty vehicle.
    It smashes down forests.
    And crushes a hundred men.
    but it has one defect:
    It needs a driver.

    General, your bomber is powerful--
    It flies faster than a storm.
    And carries more than an elephant.
    But it has one defect:
    It needs a mechanic.

    General, a man is very useful.
    He can fly and he can kill.
    But he has one defect:
    He can think.

                        Bertolt Brecht

Why has it come to this? Why this murderous threat to the world? Dalton Trumbo wrote about that agonizing question in his book about World War I, "Johnny Got His Gun."

WHY? WHY? WHY?

Without legs, without arms, without face, cheek or throat, without tongue to taste, eyes to see, ears to hear, nose to smelt, without mouth or throat to speak, or even eyelids to blink, Johnny, in Johnny Got His Gun, has been utterly destroyed by a World War I shell blast.

Almost.

He does not die. His only link with any life at all, with any sanity, with any hope that he can break out of his grotesque loneliness is that he can speak in Morse code by tapping the brain stump of a head that stilt remains.

Finally his movements are understood. The Army officials tap on his forehead, asking him what he wants. He asks to be displayed before the people of the world so that they will know what war is. And never make war again.

The answer is no. They will not even take him out of his isolated hospital room to feel the sun or wind, or other people.

He can't believe that.

Why? why? why?

And then suddenly he saw. He had a vision of himself as a new kind of Christ as a man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things. He was the new messiah of the battlefields saying to people as I am so shall you be. For he had seen the future he had tasted it and now he was living it. He had seen the airplanes flying in the sky he had seen the skies of the future filled with them black with them and now he saw the horror beneath. He saw a world of lovers forever parted of dreams never consummated of plans that never turned into reality. He saw a world of dead fathers and crippled brothers and crazy screaming sons. He saw a world of armless mothers clasping headless babies to their breasts trying to scream out their grief from throats that were cancerous with gas. He saw starved cities black and cold and motionless and the only things in this whole dead terrible world that made a move or a sound were the airplanes that blackened the sky and far off against the horizon the thunder of the big guns and the puffs that rose from barren tortured earth when their shells exploded.

That was it he had it he understood it now he had told them his secret and in denying him they had told him theirs.

He was the future he was a perfect picture of the future and they were afraid to let anyone see what the future was like. Already they were looking ahead they were figuring the future and somewhere in the future they saw war. To fight that war they would need men and if men saw the future they wouldn't fight. So they were masking the future they were keeping the future a soft quiet deadly secret. They knew that if all the little people all the little guys saw the future they would begin to ask questions. They would ask questions and they would find answers and they would say to the guys who wanted them to fight they would say you lying thieving sons-of-bitches we won't fight we won't be dead we will live we are the world we are the future and we will not let you butcher us no matter what you say no matter what speeches you make no matter what slogans you write. Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make bread and cloth and guns we are the hub of the wheel and the spokes and the wheel itself without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. We are immortal we are the sources of life we are the lowly despicable ugly people we are the great wonderful beautiful people of the world and we are sick of it we are utterly weary we are done with it forever and ever because we are the living and we will not be destroyed.

If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

It will be you--you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquility in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.

Reprinted from Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun," by permission of Lyle Stuart, Incorporated.

DIRECT ACTION

Gandhi said that we should become the change we wish to see. Is it enough to stand as witness to the desire for peace? If you judge that acting as a witness is vital, then think how that action involves all the things you do. If you are a worker, should your desire for peace affect your work? Does your work contribute to a system that supports war? What should you do as a witness for peace if the answer is yes?

If you are retired or unemployed or still a student, what should you do? Has your expression of a wish for peace been all that you can do? Should you help your friends and family study how to become the kind of peaceful people who will not contribute to a system that kills for profit and power?

These are rhetorical questions, of course, but we have to ask them now. If what we are, what we do, what we will do contribute to a system that wages war, should we learn to become the change we want to see? What does that idealism mean we should do?

These questions aren't academic. While ordinary people are not the ones who control the bombs, they make them. Ordinary people don't send troops to kill, but they pay for the military. Ordinary people build and run everything that matters, but most don't control what they have to do to earn a living or how things they make are used. If we build the ship, and then row it, who's the captain? Who do we carry on our shoulders so they can profit from our efforts? We can become the world that labors for life, not death, but we have to organize with other workers, with our neighbors, with our families, what we will do and not do. We can decide how the things we build are used. We can decide how to construct life.

How do we do that? How can we decide? History gives us the opportunity to take charge, right now. We can begin by refusing to be a part of death. We can learn what we have to do to be a part of life-support for our group, our network of groups, and the world of possibilities beyond.

Form an affinity group, a group of people you know and trust. Begin with them by talking about what the group can do directly to resist the war machine. That experience will lead you to express doubts and fears that raise questions. Ask them. Learn from the answers what to do. By doing, learn to ask more questions. A deliberate cycle of thinking and acting will lead you and your group and a wider circle of groups to understand the social contract that causes war. You can change that social contract.

You don't have to discover how to form groups and act effectively by yourself. Many other people have gone through such an experience and can give you the benefit of their knowledge. You can study, learn, and decide what you can do in a way that suits you and your group.

The Ruckus Society is an organization that can help you train yourself and others in action to stop the war and change things. They are committed to non-violent action for change. The Society has been around a long time. They have a training center in Oakland at 369 15th Street in downtown Oakland between Webster and Franklin. Their phone number is (510) 763-7078. They have a website; http://www.ruckus.org. You can reach them by email at info@ruckus.org.

(You can also find out about others who resist the war by looking at the website http://www.actagainstwar.org Also take a look at http://www.internationalanswer.org )

The Ruckus Society can help by teaching you how to formulate what you believe and are willing to do with your people, and then go about doing things you feel are effective. They're a place to start learning how to organize your own plan. It's up to you, not the Ruckus Society.

I attended a first Ruckus Society training session last night in Oakland. The class was designed to accommodate twenty-five people. More than a hundred showed up. Many were young. Perhaps fifteen or more were over fifty. Two were in wheelchairs. Men and women, people of color, transgender and straight, workers and students, all came. I met the most pleasant and helpful people there. I recommend the experience to you. In the next letter, I'll give you a description of my first four hour class.

I also recommend a piece that can help you begin to compose your thoughts about what can be done. It's written by Howard Zinn, a professor emeritus of History at Boston College.

Disobedience and Democracy, Nine Fallacies of Law and Order
Radical 60s Series, Volume 4
by Howard Zinn. Published by South End Press
ISBN 0-89608-675-5

Power to the People,
Joseph Woodard