Recently I’ve posted photographs on my anti-war Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090431514412&mibextid=ZbWKwL) with the captions “The People Against Violence” or “Rockers Against Violence”. There is a reason for this choice of words. Violence does not raise political objections, it is nonpartisan–most people oppose violence.
Other posted photos include the phrases: “The People Against War” or “Rockers Against War”. War, apparently, is a political term: it, at times, inspires finger-pointing at the opposition political party as the instigators of war–it turns out to be a partisan term.
It is difficult, however, to pin war on only one of the two major political parties. The past four decades demonstrate this point.The Republican Reagan administration more than doubled the military budget during its eight years and the Country made a hard right towards militarization. It then took on countries like Panama and Grenada while feeding arms and training to hard right governments and militias which pillaged, raped, and murdered hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras–all of which is responsible for much of the migration we experience today.
This was followed by the Clinton administration which, with likely promises to the contrary, backed NATO expansion towards Russia, and engaged in the US-NATO bombing of Serbia.
This was followed by the Republican Bush administration which vastly expanded US military operations by invading both Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Democratic Obama administration continued the Bush era wars while winding down operations in Iraq but then threw Syria and Libya into the mix and provided support for the Saudis in Yemen.
The subsequent Republican Trump administration continued all the above while somewhat winding down activities in Afghanistan.
The Democratic Biden administration has supported war and genocide in both Ukraine and Palestine, the latter of which will receive equal if not more support during a second Trump administration. Both Trump and Biden have moved towards war with China, which started with Obama’s pivot to Asia. U.S. war making activities seem to be pretty equally divided between the two major U.S. parties.
Violence, the less partisan term, is broad: it encompasses war, but there are many types of violence: economic violence, environmental violence, psychological violence . . . . As a resident of a mostly post-industrial mid-western city who watched in horror decades of urban disinvestment, I’ve included economic violence as a secondary theme on this Page. This is reflected in the photographs on this Page.
War and violence in all of its forms should be rejected, regardless of where one resides on the political spectrum. Interestingly, anti-war sentiment is often an area where both the far left and the far right find common ground, albeit, often for different reasons. Economic violence is often also recognized by both sides of the political spectrum, although the sides will often differ in their solutions to the issue.
The point is, there is common ground to be found among the left and the right; where we agree, we need to unite to defeat the forces of war and economic violence. The purveyors of violence and war form a strong union in the promotion of violence. We need to match and exceed their energy.
Peace begins with us.