**The views and content of this presentation are solely the responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily reflect agreement with or endorsement by the church or the congregation.**

Peace on Earth: Saying No to War, by Lisa Mo

c. 2008 (Revision, Jan. 23, 2008: original presented Dec. 23, 2007)

I would have preferred titling this presentation in positive terms, like “Peace on Earth – Every Day” or “Saying Yes to Peace on Earth.” I’m uncomfortable framing this discussion in terms of a negative. Unfortunately, that’s how governments officially see peace-loving citizens – as objectors to the country’s prerogative to wage war, naïve and contrary cogs in the machinery of state, not as patriotic proponents of a better way to solve international differences.

Ironic, isn’t it, that we parents do our best to raise our children to be healthy, loving and empathetic people. We practice attachment parenting and use reason and redirection and calming time together instead of spanking. We try to instill in our children the idea of the Golden Rule, that we should think about other people’s feelings, be kind, considerate, and that name-calling and hitting are not acceptable. Here we are, in a society that ostensibly wants its citizens to be law-abiding and courteous, solving differences through discussion, mediation, or the judicial system – not through violence or the threat of violence.

Yet instead of behaving as a law-abiding country among other nations, our nation has tossed aside mediation, discussion, diplomacy, economic sanctions taken in concert with the world community, and international judicial process, in favor of being the biggest, baddest dude on the world playground. What’s more, we are told that we are not patriotic, even traitors, if we lack enthusiasm about the idea of sending our kids to another country to kill their people, not to mention bankrupting ourselves – oops, I mean our children, again. (And, by the way, you’re definitely not allowed to ask just how our oil got under their sand.)

Obviously, there’s something just slightly schizo about all this, and of course, it’s nothing new.

I’m not going to go through the long history of war and conscientious objectors in the U.S. That’s a topic that deserves at least a whole service of its own. Basically, thanks to peace churches, especially the Quakers, Mennonites, and the Church of the Brethren, along with other religious organizations including our own, and thanks to the many heroes who’ve suffered great abuse and imprisonment and even died for their beliefs, there is now at least a basic recognition that people are entitled to some rights in choosing not to kill other people just because their government says so.

Although many people feel that the current definition is too narrow, the U.S. officially considers a conscientious objector to be someone who, by reason of religious, ethical, or moral belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. A person designated as a CO by a draft board is exempt from military service, in the event of a draft. If called up, a CO may perform alternate civilian service.

However, on the Selective Service System registration card, which all young men are required to send in when they turn 18 years old, there is no place to indicate that you are a conscientious objector. You have to take the initiative and specially decorate it when you send it in, like Nicholas did on his. (Example shown here.) Don’t send it in online, as there is no way to indicate your objection. Always send any communication with the Selective Service System by certified U.S. mail, with return receipt requested. Make a copy or two, fold and tape and address the outside of the paper, and mail them to yourself and anyone else who is keeping a set of CO records for you, leaving it unopened. If you mail any copy to yourself in an envelope, leave that unopened. When you receive your registration number from the Selective Service System, you will again need to notify them that they’ve made an error in not including your CO designation information. Although this won’t matter to them, and none of it is legally binding, it does create a dated historical record of your beliefs.

Even though the Selective Service System is already in place, at this moment there is no draft in the U.S. However, New York Congressman Charles Rangel has proposed to institute a draft for universal national service, with the odd notion that this would somehow prevent war. He feels there would be such a huge public outcry that the government would be forced to capitulate to demands for peace. Personally, I have very little tolerance for puppet masters playing these little games with other people’s lives. Where is the sense in giving those who run the government such power over us? Historically, a draft seems only to have provided an easy supply of cannon fodder, easily escaped by those with personal links to power and privilege. And public outcry notwithstanding, it was many years and many lives lost before the government finally responded by ending the Vietnam War.

I think you all remember that hundreds of thousands of protesters – including Unitarian Universalists all over the world and many members of this congregation – made our views and the facts loudly known before the invasion of Iraq. Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress allowed President Bush to go do it anyway.

Surprise, surprise…the corporate media says we were right, after all, the war was based on lies. Oh, well. Now we are told that we have shed so much American blood, we can’t let that sacrifice go to waste by withdrawing our military forces from Iraq.

This is the government Mr. Rangel thinks will care if people protest about a draft.

So far, President Bush has consistently said that a draft is not in the works. However, I doubt that he’d mind if Congress handed it to him on a platter. In fact, if Congress doesn’t manage to take action with some of those Constitutionally provided checks and balances to rein in his military adventures and prevent a war with Iran, I feel that the current administration, or the next, might change its tune. With the volunteer military system as overburdened as it is, surely adding another war front would prove too much for it to handle.

If Rangel’s draft plan is enacted as written, women as well as men, everyone up to age 42, could be directly affected. And although the chances seem very slim that Rangel’s bill would be passed, the Selective Service System is already primed for a “skills draft,” which, if approved by Congress, could target any adult, male or female, up to 44 years old, working in any profession needed by the government, though it’s most likely to affect health professionals.

A military draft or compulsory national service which forces law-abiding citizens to work for the government whether they wish to or not, like slaves or prisoners, seems more in line with the philosophy of a totalitarian government than a democratic one. So, where does this mindset come from, that compulsory service would be a “good learning experience” and “make our children more mature” or even the lovely sentiment that it would “whip them into shape”? What an example of empathy that demonstrates.

What makes anyone think that compulsory service would have the effect of teaching democratic values and a sense of community responsibility? Would a national boot camp teach self-discipline, or simply mindless obedience to an all-powerful authority? Our lives are already crowded with hoops and boxes. Would you add more, with Big Brother Sam holding the whip?

What effect would this coercion have on lifelong volunteering, if people feel they’ve “done their time”? The pleasure and empowerment of personal initiative, of a free citizen freely contributing to the common good, could largely be gone.

What of someone whose career depends on constant lengthy practice, like an Olympic athlete or a dancer or concert pianist? Will you delay the education and work of teachers, doctors, engineers, physicists, researchers looking for a cure for diseases, in favor of mopping floors or digging ditches somewhere? Just what is more important to the country, and who would be responsible for deciding this? It seems to me that any money designated for a national service would be much better spent to provide all young folks with a college education and the chance to use what they’ve learned.

In a democracy, freedom to choose – the freedom of opportunity and the positive support and encouragement to do so – is the best answer, not mandatory indentured servitude for all. Or – if you prefer – the carrot, not the stick, should logically be the American Way.

However, government response to crisis is often not reasonable, and in the event a draft is enacted, very little lead time might be given once a person receives notification. You may have less than ten days to pull together documentation of the sincerity of your beliefs as a conscientious objector. Besides the registration card, you need to begin now to gather in a file everything that expresses your beliefs – poems, stories, and essays you’ve written; pictures and other proof of activities you’ve participated in, including this service. Keep the Order of Service from your bulletins, and if you’d like a DVD copy of the videotape Kai is making, let me know. If you wish to sign a statement of conscientious objection, later in this service, put your copy in your file. You can give me a copy to keep in our church’s CO registry.

This is the beginning of such a conscientious objector file – or Peace Book, if you prefer. (Example shown here.) It’s a gift everyone in this congregation can help give our young people. This is the ultimate scrapbooking project…a record of personal peacemongering, if you will. Parents, grandparents, friends, and mentors, we all can contribute by telling the story of our young folks and how they have been raised to be empathetic, caring, pro-active citizens working for a better way of living in our world. Do you have pictures of these kids at a peace vigil, fundraising for charity, participating in a presentation on global warming, teaching and learning the seven principles, or helping others? Can you write a letter about how they’ve expressed their beliefs and put them into action? There are special guidelines to use when writing these letters, along with other indispensable information, on the websites of organizations such as the venerable Center on Conscience and War, the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, and the American Friends Service Committee, listed on the handout I have for you.

Talk to children about military recruitment and its tactics. There are several organizations online, also on the handout, which offer advice about this. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, you have the right to request that your child’s high school remove his or her name from any student directory information sent to the military, so you won’t be inundated with things like this in your mailbox. (Example shown here.) Make sure your school board makes a form available at the beginning of each school year for any student who wishes to opt out of such lists.

You can also consider volunteering to be a member of the local draft board, to ensure that those wishing to be designated as COs will get a fair hearing, in the event of a draft. You might even be able to educate the other draft board members about the rights of COs.

Okay, you might say, it’s all very well for the individual to express his or her beliefs as a conscientious objector, and not be forced to kill other people, but so what? CO’s didn’t stop any wars. Except for not having to participate in killing others, isn’t it just another futile protest? And what about WWII? Maybe that was an exception, a “good” war?

War is government-sanctioned, organized, institutional violence. As someone who is called before a draft board, the only question you are legally required to answer is what you are willing to do personally if called to fight in a real war of today – the war you’d be conscripted to participate in.

However, members of a draft board are likely to ask you what you think you’d do if faced with a war of the past, like WWII, or some kind of hypothetical conflict of the future. Not many people would know that this kind of speculation is legally inappropriate, including, probably, the draft board members themselves. If you are certain that the “you” of today, transported back or forth in time, would refuse to fight, by all means say so. If you’re not absolutely certain, saying “I don’t know” is a perfectly reasonable and acceptable response for a CO.

Still, this issue points directly to the great need for an expanded legal definition of what a conscientious objector is and what a conscientious objector can do. To avoid negative subjective judgements by draft boards predisposed against COs in general, and to be more fair and inclusive of all CO beliefs, I believe strongly that federal law should be expanded to officially recognize as COs those who are “selective conscientious objectors” – that is, those who have ethical objections to particular conflicts – not just those who object to “all war.”

Furthermore, soldiers should have an absolute legal right to allow them to be designated and discharged as COs, along with fair, standard CO application procedures and clear and consistent reasons given for rulings across all military branches.

Soldiers should be guaranteed full rights to political freedom of speech while they are serving in the military, without fear of retaliation of any kind. They shouldn’t cease to be considered full citizens, protected by the Bill of Rights, just because they’re wearing a uniform. There is absolutely no logical reason or excuse to allow the kind of abuse that the military seems to regard as par for the course.

Besides the organizations I’ve already mentioned, there are those who focus solely on helping the military conscientious objector, like Courage to Resist, which assists soldiers in applying for CO discharges from the military. Commanding officers and military courts vary widely in how they treat such requests and the soldiers who apply for them. I highly recommended reading their stories. You may have heard about the case of Lt. Ehren Watada, who stated:

It is my conclusion as an officer of the Armed Forces that the war in Iraq is not only morally wrong but a horrible breach of American law. Although I have tried to resign out of protest, I am forced to participate in a war that is manifestly illegal. As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must as an officer of honor and integrity refuse that order….My oath of office is to protect and defend America’s laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today.

For those soldiers, like Lt.Watada, who believe the war in Iraq is unethical, but not all wars, the situation is especially difficult. Over 40,000 soldiers have gone AWOL. Some 200 have fled to Canada, even though it’s no longer a guaranteed refuge. Over 100 military resisters have stepped forward with Lt. Watada to publicly oppose the war.

I believe that the high number of suicides among soldiers also tells its own story. Obviously, it has nothing to do with cowardice or fear of dying. There is at least one recent example in the news of a soldier exhibiting suicidal and other symptoms of stress, who told his father he was having a hard time with combat and killing people. His leading officers didn’t believe he was suicidal, thought he was a slacker, threatened him with the prospect of sexual abuse in jail, and regularly meted out punishment, which finally included cutting off his communication with his family. It’s not terribly surprising this young man took his own life.

Again, I strongly urge you, please take the time to read the stories of these soldiers. The military is not an uber scout camp. It has one purpose, and that is to kill people, by producing soldiers who will pull the trigger on command without hesitation. For many years now, the military has been enamored of the controversial theories and training techniques espoused by Dave Grossman, which he calls “killology.” It’s also listed in the handout.

At the beginning of this service, you heard Forrest perform “Christmas in the Trenches,” by John McCutcheon. It’s basically a true story, of a real interlude in World War I, called “the Christmas Truce.” Despite orders to the contrary from generals on both sides, peace broke out, at least for Christmas Day, and in some areas lasted until New Year’s Day. Despite the virulent propaganda previously fed to both sides, demonizing the soldiers of the enemy, soldiers from one set of trenches spontaneously met with soldiers from the other side. It didn’t stop the war. The soldiers mostly went back to business afterwards, though at least some did so very reluctantly. But the commanders made sure to periodically shift soldiers from one front to another, so they wouldn’t have a chance to get too familiar with the enemy again, and anyone who was caught trying to communicate with the enemy would essentially receive a death sentence.

Still, there are a few accounts that some troops were only going through the motions of war, just for appearances’ sake, but not really doing any damage. A Wikipedia entry says “According to anecdotes, inexperienced British commanders were astonished to find British and German forces both exposing themselves above the trench line within clear range of enemy guns. Artillery was often fired at precise points, at precise times, to avoid enemy casualties by both sides. …Situations of deliberate damping of hostilities also occurred by some accounts; for example, a volley of gunfire being exchanged after a misplaced mortar hit the British line, after which a German soldier shouted an apology to British forces, effectively stopping a hostile exchange of gunfire.”

Think, for a moment, about the possibility of soldiers being able to vote with their feet and “opt out” of a conflict, as these soldiers could not in WWI, and as our own soldiers are finding it extremely difficult to do here and now. Perhaps then we would finally be able to answer the question, “What if they held a war and nobody came?”

Why don’t we also find the answer to the question “What if they held a war and nobody financed it?” According to the War Resisters League, about half of the amount you pay in taxes goes to finance the military. If you don’t want your money going to support war, you can check out the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund website, peacetaxfund.org, find out the status of H.R. 1921, and send a note to Congress. By the way, if this bill does pass, and you’d like to express your conscientious objection to paying for war, you will also need documentation to prove your belief. The Peace Book is something you need compile for yourself, not just your kids.

The war in Iraq is costing us $500,000 every minute, $720 million every day. Its total cost could top 2 trillion, not even counting interest payments. Have you ever wondered how Bush can have his war and keep cutting taxes, too? It’s all charged to the U.S. credit account, a major part of the mind-boggling, ever-growing national debt of over $9 trillion, with almost half of the loans provided by investors from other countries, particularly from Japan and China.

Our government is spending like an identity-theft crook with your credit card. We, the people, don’t feel it quite yet, but our children definitely will. At over $9 trillion, and growing, that means $30,000 in debt has been racked up so far on behalf of every single person in the U.S. You can add about an extra $1,500 per person as your share of the interest payment. The Comptroller-General of the U.S., David Walker, is so concerned over the lack of fiscal responsibility and its dire possibilities for our kids, that he’s gone on a “Fiscal Wake-up Tour” of the country trying to get his warnings across to the American people, since those in Washington don’t seem to want to discuss it – especially not in an election year.

If we had a balanced-budget amendment, and a pay-as-you-go philosophy, or at least a very limited deficit, the country would right now be feeling the instant feedback of financial pain and the political strain resulting from its misguided policies. Being the curmudgeon and cynic that I am, I’d bet that if anything could create a great general groundswell of protest against the war, a wallop in the wallet would be it. I’m in good company here with our country’s Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson considered a balanced budget requirement as a helpful curb on impulsive urges to wage war, and even went so far as to say that “I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” (He was, of course, referring to the form of government, and not the political party.) His economic opposite, Alexander Hamilton, would have been absolutely horrified that the good credit rating he’d established for our nation, by insisting on paying our Revolutionary War debts, is being blown away today.

With our country so far in the hole, how will we pay for global warming mitigation, or bridges, or anything else besides the interest on our country’s loans, for that matter?

If we wish to survive as a species, much less keep this country operating, we need to be taking strong measures right now to replace greenhouse-gas-polluting, fossil-fuel-dependent technology with planet-friendly, environmentally sensible renewables, and all the lifestyle patterns that go with it. Among other basics, we’ll need to figure out, paradoxically, where we’ll get fresh water and whether or not we can afford to protect our coastal areas from the ocean that is rising to inundate them. That’ll take cash…which we may not have, thanks to this war and this administration’s “faith-based financing”. It appears New Orleans is already a lost cause, and it was lost to Hurricane Katrina largely because the money that was supposed to be used to improve the levees went to the Iraq War instead. It’s a harbinger of more to come. You can help save the world, not just the U.S., by insisting on fiscal responsibility in government, including restoration of taxes on the wealthy.

Obviously, the idea of war is one we can no longer afford, both literally and morally. It is an insane response, like a murder-suicide. With countries working together, such as through the United Nations, there are so many effective ways to rein in aggressor nations like our own. For instance, why not simply refuse to bankroll the bully? If no one picked up the tab, and other countries such as Great Britain and Australia hadn’t supported or otherwise enabled the current administration in their push to war, perhaps it might have served to rein in even Darth and Dubya.

We can replace the old patterns of violence by learning new ways to deal with differences and conflict. As we have been learning better ways of relating to each other in our own lives, in our schools, and in our communities, it’s time to demand that our country learn and practice them, too. Along with the organizations and ideas mentioned previously, there is also the Alliance for Peace, headed by Marianne Williamson, which you can find on the web at thepeacealliance.org. The Alliance for Peace is promoting a bill, H.R. 808, proposing that there be an official U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence established to advise our government, with a seat on the President’s cabinet, and a Peace Academy, where the best and the brightest of our country learn the art of waging peace. The idea is to gather experts in the field of best-practice methods of community-building, consensus-building, and other ways of relating in an empathetic and nonviolent way with other people and other countries, and making these experts available at all levels of government.

Perhaps then we may officially choose to define ourselves as not just conscientious objectors, but peacemakers – a proud and integral part of the function and decision-making of our country.

Together, we have a chance to make war obsolete…beginning today by witnessing our own Unitarian Universalist peacemakers, young and old, sign a declaration of conscientious objection. Peace on Earth is born, right here and right now.