Image by cool revolution via Flickr
by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
January 26, 2022
The last thing any of us need is a war with Russia over the Ukraine. You don’t need to know much about foreign policy to know that. Let the pundits and talking heads argue about the nuances of NATO and war maneuvers at the border of Russia. For most Americans, there are at least four sensible reasons (beyond the basic horror that is war) to oppose escalating this conflict with Russia.
First, we’re still reeling from the pandemic. Across the United States, many hospitals are facing staffing challenges as nurses get sick. They’re also struggling with bed shortages as their wards are packed to capacity with COVID patients. Our families are still grappling with long COVID and multiple deaths of relatives. We’re struggling to stay in our houses, keep the lights on, get the kids to school (or not) and so forth. We can’t even get groceries delivered across the country because our truck drivers are calling-in sick. Who has the bandwidth to fight a war with Russia?
Second, we’ve got other ways to spend our money. With 140 million citizens at or below the poverty line, we don’t need to spend trillions on war. We could spend those tax dollars on school lunches, heating bills relief, job training programs, affordable housing vouchers, student debt cancellation, living wages, better healthcare, or even social security increases. If it’s a choice between a pointless war none of us really understand and giving We, the People, a fighting chance of a good life, I know what I’d choose.
Third, if we need a global emergency, let’s not invent one. Instead of going to war with Russia, let’s join forces with Russia (and China, for that matter) and tackle the climate crisis head-on. With wildfires burning a thousand homes in Colorado, heat domes blistering the Pacific Northwest, hurricanes wreaking havoc up and down the eastern seaboard, drought depleting the west’s water supply, insects and disease killing off our forests, and so forth, we’ve got enough on our plate at the moment.
Fourth, we’re 100 seconds to midnight. According to the scientists who run the Doomsday Clock, we’re closer to utter disaster than we’ve ever been. Going to war with Russia is like playing chicken and pressing the throttle down harder. Do we really need to get to 10 seconds to midnight to realize this is a terrible idea? Instead of rattling the sabers (or nuclear warheads), let’s roll back the Doomsday Clock by getting serious about abolishing nuclear weapons and ending our shameful status as a rogue nation with thousands of terrifying, illegal nukes.
How many reasons do we need to not go to war with Russia over the Ukraine? Instead of a foolhardy plunge into yet another military conflict, let’s look closer to home and take care of the many crises we face in the United States. Be sure to tell your elected officials this – they may not have gotten the memo.
Author/Actress Rivera Sun syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection and the sequels, The Roots of Resistance, Winds of Change, and Rise and Resist – Essays on Love, Courage, Politics and Resistance and other books, including a study guide to making change with nonviolent action. Website: https://www.riverasun.com.
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Email Congress and the White House. No War in Ukraine!
From the archives:
To Send Weapons and Troops to Ukraine You’d Have to Be a Stupid Son of a Biden, by David Swanson
Max Lawson: World’s Richest Doubled Their Wealth While Millions Fell Into Poverty
Eugene Puryear: US in 2021: Crisis at Home, Chaos Warriors Abroad
What If U.S., NATO Talks Are Cover for More Aggression Towards Russia? by Finian Cunningham
No U.S. Boots – But Plenty of Arms – on the Ground in Ukraine, by Finian Cunningham
What Can Russia Do About NATO Hostility? by Finian Cunningham
Working Conditions are Getting Worse in the US, by Pete Dolack
Dandelion Salad 
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If the Chinese and the Russians can agree on a common digital currency, several European nations may join them.
That will be an unprecedented threat to the US dollar and the billionaires who wallow in them.
War is a means of throwing a spanner in the gears.
My first reaction to the drumbeats of war is that they leave me speechless. There are so many reasons to NOT go to war, and they are all obvious to me, and I sometimes forget that they are not obvious to everyone. Rivera Sun has reminded me, and all of us, what some of the reasons are. But she has omitted what may be the most important reason of all.
To explain it, I must first restate the drumbeat: “We are under attack! We must defend ourselves! Our honor, our freedom, our very lives are at risk!” That assertion outweighs all four of Rivera Sun’s reasons for peace.
Except, of course, that assertion is a lie. This is the biggest reason to not go to war: ACTUALLY WE ARE NOT UNDER ATTACK, WE ARE NOT BEING THREATENED. Nor are our “allies,” the Nazis who were put into power in Ukraine by a NATO-backed coup in 2014.
All of our many, many wars are based on lies. David Swanson’s book War is a Lie is excellent on this subject. The US Department of War was renamed as the Department of “Defense” (I never omit those quote marks) shortly after the novel “1984” was published. In all our television and movies, the US soldiers are “the good guys,” but the truth is that the US soldiers are either monsters or the dupes of monsters.
It is unfortunate that so many people in the USA are so inattentive, so easily fooled. Half of our country still believes that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction. I will leave it to Swanson’s book to give many, many other examples.
And what is the motivation for the lies? It seems clear to me that some people hope to profit from war, in a variety of ways, too numerous to list here. Not just monetary profit, but also power. The novel “1984” made it clear that some psychopaths simply lust for power.
As war criminal Hermann Göring said in 1947,
Why do the people of the USA pay so little attention? I am sorry to say this, but I think most USers really don’t care very much what is done in our name, as long as it is far away. I blame that lack of empathy on the overall sickness in our culture, a culture of competition and bullies and private profit. We need a great awakening. Perhaps we will get it soon, when the climate gets a little worse.
To be fair, Rivera did not say these were the only reasons not to go to war.
See David’s post from yesterday: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2022/01/25/to-send-weapons-and-troops-to-ukraine-youd-have-to-be-a-stupid-son-of-a-biden-by-david-swanson/
Okay, that is fair.