“Let us not become the evil we deplore.” And with those words, Oakland Congressmember Barbara Lee rocked the House, the Capitol, this country, the world, the lone voice of more than 400 congressmembers.
"Napoleon said that it's not necessary to censor the news. It's more efficient to delay it until it no longer matters. In terms of the dead, it no longer matters."
In a keynote address by Daniel Ellsberg and seven roundtable discussions, presenters explored the major issues that have engaged Ellsberg’s life: the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, antiwar resistance, the Pentagon Papers, Watergate, whistleblowing, and the wars of the 21st century.
“When you drop a bomb from a drone… you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good,” and “The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict.” General Michael Flynn
"The notion that perpetual war will somehow bring long-lasting peace is a peculiarly American and often recurring form of doublespeak (saying one thing and meaning the opposite) that permeates the entire national surveillance empire..."
"What is taking place is not neglect. It is not ineptitude. It is not policy failure. It is murder. It is murder because it is premeditated. It is murder because a conscious choice was made by the global ruling classes to extinguish life rather than protect it."
Perhaps most important of all, [Biden's] bringing the U.S. back into the Paris climate accords, signaling an understanding that a planetary crisis demands planetwide measures and that the largest carbon-emitting economies should be leading the way. “This isn’t [the] time for small measures,” Biden has said. “We need to be bold.”
"The War Industry infests the American economy like a cancer, sapping its strength and distorting its creativity while devouring its treasure."
"We’re all part of a culture that continues to esteem war, embrace militarism, and devote more than half of federal discretionary spending to wars, weaponry, and the militarization of American culture. "
"The ruling elites, who first built a mafia economy and then built a mafia state, will continue under Biden, as they did under Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, to wantonly pillage and loot. The militarized police will not stop their lethal rampages in poor neighborhoods."
"Scenarios of perpetual war haunt my thoughts. For a healthy democracy, there should be few things more unthinkable than never-ending conflict, that steady drip-drip of death and destruction that drives militarism, reinforces authoritarianism, and facilitates disaster capitalism."
"Trump has also made this war even more secretive, issuing an executive order to no longer require the release of annual summaries of U.S. drone strikes and casualties, even as the Navy has expanded its mysterious drone technology."
