Gideon Polya, “Ten ways to stop the war & help yourself”, MWC News, 1 January 2006, not cached by Google.
TEN WAYS TO STOP THE WAR & HELP YOURSELF
We have just gone through the gross hypocrisy of First World Christmas-New Year festivities that ostensibly celebrate new life and new hope but in reality are devoted to sloth, over-consumption, commercialism, greed and indulgence. This season is fundamentally about reverence for Mother and Child but the horrendous reality - non-reported by racist, lying Mainstream Media - is that 1,300 infants are dying EACH DAY in US-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.
The latest UNICEF report (December 2005) estimates that in 2004 the under-5 infant mortality was 122,000 in Occupied Iraq, 359,000 in Occupied Afghanistan and 1,000 in the occupying country Australia (noting that in 2004 the populations of these countries were 28.1 million, 28.6 million and 19.9 million, respectively) (http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html).
About 1,300 under-5 year old infants will have died in Occupied Iraq and Afghanistan on Christmas Day alone and 0.5 million will die in the coming year due to criminal non-provision by the US-led Coalition of life-preserving requisites demanded by the Geneva Conventions (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm).
These horrendous figures are consonant with my estimates from the latest UN demographic data that the post-invasion excess mortality (avoidable mortality) and under-5 infant mortality in the US-occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now total 2.1 million and 1.7 million, respectively (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/us-polya211205.htm).
The appallingly high civilian mortality in US wars derives from the nature of high technology war that minimizes politically-sensitive US combat deaths at the expense of “enemy” civilian deaths in gross contravention of the Geneva Conventions. Thus the ratio of “enemy civilian deaths” to “US combat deaths” has steadily increased over the last 70 years: 18 (World War 2), 24 (Korean War), 277 (Indo-China War), 12,259 (Gulf War & Sanctions War against Iraq), 15,716 (Afghanistan War) and 324 (Iraq War) (see Senate Inquiry submission #112: http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/terrorism/index.htm).
Decent people must consider what they can do as individuals in the face of the horrendous carnage being wrought by UK-US war, state terrorism, democratic imperialism, democratic Nazism and democratic tyranny – and sustained by resolute Mainstream Media lying and racist holocaust denial. The following is a New Year’s Resolutions list of 10 ways to stop the war – and to help yourself at the same time.
The fundamental philosophy under-pinning this Stop the War List is that of the US Empire itself, namely that of the Free Market and Free Choice. By eschewing products and services of the US-led Coalition of war criminal nations you will be ethically avoiding financial contributions to the Coalition war on Muslim women and children. By eschewing deleterious Coalition products you will be helping yourself, helping others and helping the Environment as well as opposing war in a practical way (additional amplifying justifications are given in parenthesis below).
1. No drinking (Coalition countries such as the UK, US, Denmark, Italy, Japan and Australia are major players in the global alcoholic beverage market of about $900 billion per annum (pa); abstinence is good for your health; 1.8 million people die globally each year from alcohol-related causes).
2. No smoking (Coalition countries, notably the UK and the US, are major producers of this dangerous product that has an annual market value of about $1,000 billion; about 5 million people die annually world-wide from smoking-related causes).
3. Avoid processed foods when possible (Coalition countries are major players in the processed food market that is worth about $3,000 billion annually out of global food sales of about $4,000 billion pa; fresh food is cheaper and healthier both for you and a resource-challenged planet – but clearly there are important pasteurization, freezing, pressing, grinding, preserving and canning exceptions for your “peacenik” shopping list).
4. Avoid Coalition goods, services, people and organizations when possible (you certainly wouldn’t associate with people who merely threaten public health through Main Street vomiting, urination, spitting and unprotected coughing – accordingly we certainly should not financially support or associate with those complicit in actual, continuing mass murder, mass infanticide and horrendous human suffering. Should Asian or Muslim overseas students study in Australia or in the universities of other Coalition countries involved in egregious passive genocide of Asian and Muslim infants? (see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm). Would you buy or use soap made in Auschwitz?)
5. Minimize use of private transport (US wars in the Middle East and Central Asia are linked to profligate use of increasingly scarce oil resources at the expense of the global environment and sensible use by chemical industry; Coalition countries, notably the US, the UK, South Korea, Japan and Australia, are major automotive industry players; walk or take public transport; any time you drive or fly your taxes are killing “enemy” Asian infants; walking is good for your health too).
6. Avoid mainstream media (Alternative electronic media can provide ethical reporting, analysis and entertainment at minimal cost to the consumer and our dwindling forests and polluted rivers; why subsidize environmental degradation and continuation of egregious warmongering, racism, lying and holocaust denial?)
7. Support pro-peace citizens in organizations, business and politics (support pro-peace humanists and resolutely oppose child-killing proto-Nazis at all levels of society through ethical investment, purchasing, dealing and voting; would you vote for a Nazi?).
8. Intolerance of racism, bigotry, lying and war-mongering (we would not tolerate noisome flatulence, flagrant nose-picking or threatening behaviour in a restaurant – we should surely be utterly intolerant of obscene, proto-Nazi public advocacy leading to racist war, mass murder and passive genocide).
9. Minimize use of resources and be resolutely Green (US wars, US Empire, UK-US democratic imperialism, globalization, First World constraint of the Third World and greenhouse gas-driven global warming are all fundamentally about profligate, greedy and inequitable resource utilization; half the world (3 billion out of 6 billion people) lives on less than $2 a day and yet the US, with 5% of the world’s population, controls half its resources; resource use profligacy supports Coalition corporations and the associated taxes support militarism and passive genocide; lifting global annual per capita incomes to at least $1,000 would “cost” $1,400 billion pa – yet global resources are grossly and counterproductively mis-directed to military expenditure ($1,000 billion pa), smoking ($1,000 billion pa), alcohol ($900 billion pa) and illicit drugs ($800 billion pa); it has been authoritatively estimated that the annual economic benefit of over $4,500 billion from saving what is left of wild nature would exceed the annual cost of doing so by a factor of over 100 - see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950).
10. INFORM EVERYONE – silence kills and silence is complicity. Save the kids, save the world, save yourself. Lower your blood pressure by doing something practical against war and mass murder. Give this List of 10 News Year’s Resolutions to 10 other people and tell them to tell 10 more people etc. When George Bush reads this Stop the War List on the door of a White House john, the war on women and children will be over.