United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

In an appeal posted on Tuesday, Stan Goff called the U.S. “a parasite that is destroying its own host,” the world.[1] -- In it, he offers to “people outside the United States” a 10-point list of ways to engage in campaigns of resistance to U.S. bases, U.S. companies, “U.S.-based transnational corporations,” USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, U.S. embassies, and “politicians who are called ‘pro-American.’” -- In Goff’s view, “destruction of U.S. imperial power” is necessary lest it “destroy other societies — upon which we depend — and the biospheric basis of life itself.” -- A few days earlier, Dan Froomkin, who writes the White House Watch blog on the Washington Post's web site offered a 10-point list of lessons the media need to remember if an attack on Iran is to be averted.[2] ...

AN APPEAL TO PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES TO BREAK U.S. IMPERIAL POWER
By Stan Goff

NOTE: Please translate this into as many languages as possible, and distribute as widely as possible.

This series of suggestions is written because my country is on a path that will first destroy other societies -- upon which we depend -- and the biospheric basis of life itself; and this means eventually our own society. Our society now -- an imperial society -- is deeply alienated, desperately unhappy, and thoroughly indoctrinated into the acquisitive individualism that creates that alienation and unhappiness. We continue down this path because the weight of the system gives it such enormous inertia. We need you to do these things, not just to ensure your own futures . . . but for our own good.

The United States now exists as a parasite upon the rest of the world. In this system, this political entity called the United States of America is not only a parasite, but a parasite that is destroying its own host. There is only one outcome in the end for such a relationship; we will all perish together. With the help of the people of the world -- and I will outline ten ways you can help us -- we can all escape this fate. Each of us -- with the destruction of U.S. imperial power -- will be in a better position to work for a sustainable and independent future for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.

(1) If there is a U.S. military base in your country, begin a concerted campaign to get rid of it. These bases are exercises of imperial power against your own sovereignty. They are creating base-economies of crime, corruption, and prostitution. They are environmental disasters. Wage a sharp political struggle to make them untenable.

(2) If there are U.S. companies, be they factories, financial offices, or retail outlets, in your country, organize sustained boycotts of them.

(3) If you live in a country that owes an external debt to the U.S. or the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund, begin a fight to either default on that debt outright, or secure low-interest or no-interest loans from other countries to pay down the principle. Your nations’ debt is your peoples’ slavery.

(4) Boycott any American agricultural products being dumped on your national markets; and wage a political fight to stop them coming in. U.S. industrial agricultural corporations are heavily-subsidized and predatory monstrosities that destroy the environment and are used as a weapon to destroy your local, traditional agriculture. Ending agriculture for export and supporting your own subsistence and local market agriculture is necessary to break your dependency upon and subjugation to the United States. Fight for you nations’ land; and do not let it become an export platform for dollar-crops in the U.S. market.

(5) Boycott American cultural products. They are propaganda aimed at turning your children into mindless consumers and your nations into obedient colonies.

(6) Make these political issues at home. Fight politicians who are called “pro-American.” This means they are stooges for U.S.-based transnational corporations or for the U.S. state.

(7) Fight to nationalize your most valuable natural resources; and support politicians who will abrogate agreements that allow U.S. finance capital unlimited access to your national markets.

(8) Try to close down any projects that are run out of the U.S. Embassy by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). These projects are designed to drain talented local people away from national independence movements, and the USAID works closely with the Central Intelligence Agency.

(9) Expose and resist any political activity by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), also operating in concert with the U.S. Embassy. This is a front organization for the purpose of engineering elections outcomes in your nation that are seen as favorable to U.S. transnational corporations and the U.S. state.

(10) Mount massive political efforts directed at U.S. Embassies everywhere that oppose the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and demand not only withdrawal, but that no U.S. bases be left behind.

NOTE: I have not called for violence in any of these suggestions. These are generic recommendations.

** Journalists, and through us the public, have a grave responsibility to not be complicit in another march to war on false pretenses. So what lessons should we have learned from Iraq? **

Lessons we thought had been learned from Vietnam were forgotten in the rush to invade Iraq. And now, as we cover President Bush’s ratcheting up of the rhetoric against Iran, it’s looking like the lessons we should have learned from Iraq may not have been learned at all. So at the risk of stating the obvious, here are some thoughts about what those lessons were. (Feel free to add more in comments.)

* Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie.

* Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate.

* Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines. The absence of supporting evidence for their assertion -- or a preponderance of evidence that contradicts the assertion -- may be more newsworthy than the assertion itself.

* Don’t print anonymous assertions. Demand that sources make themselves accountable for what they insist is true.

* War is so serious that even proving the existence of a casus belli isn’t enough. Make officials prove to the public that going to war will make things better.

* Demand to know what happens if the war (or tactical strike) doesn’t go as planned?

* Ask them: Isn’t it possible this will make things worse, rather than better?

* Don’t assume that these officials, with their access to secret intelligence, know more than you do.

* Alternately, assume that they do indeed know more than you do -- and are trying to keep intelligence that would undermine their arguments secret.

* Keep an eye on how advocates of war frame the arguments. Don’t buy into those frames unless you think they’re fair.

* Keep a particular eye out for the no-lose construction. For example: If we can’t find evidence of WMD, that proves Saddam is hiding them.

* Watch out for false denials. In the case of Iran, when administration officials say “nobody is talking about invading Iran,” point out that the much more likely scenario is bombing Iran, and that their answer is therefore a dodge.

* Listen to and quote the people who got it right last time: The intelligence officials, State Department officials, war-college instructors, and many others who predicted the problem we are now facing, but who were largely ignored.

* Offer the greatest and most guaranteed degree of confidentiality to whisteblowers offering information that contradicts the official government position. (By contrast, don’t offer any confidentiality to administration spinners.)

* Raise the question: What do people in other countries think? Why should we be so different?

* Keep an eye out for how the international press is covering this story. Why should we be so different?

* Send more reporters into the country we are about to attack and learn about their views, their politics, and their culture.

* Don’t allow the population of any country to be demonized. All humans deserve to be humanized.

* Demand to know why the administration won’t open a dialogue with the enemy. Refusing to talk to someone you are threatening to attack should be considered inherently suspect behavior.

* The nation is not well served when issues of war and peace are not fully debated in public. It’s reasonable for the press to demand that Congress engage in a full, substantial debate.

* Historically, the real motives for wars have often not been the public motives. Try to report on the motivations of the key advocates for war.

* If no one in the inner circle will openly discuss their motives, then encourage reasonable speculation about their motives.