By Richard Gomez
So when is it OK to decide to take arms against the sea of trouble? While we have for a long time sown the seeds that have currently flowered from ally into adversary thus blossoming forth a condition of consequences of a doctrine of military aggression that desires to establish a U.S. political hegemony with unrestricted access to oil resources in the Middle East. And so Obama submits to the slings and arrows of belligerent politicians and pundits that demand a U.S. assault in Iraq against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria).
The Green Party has called for no new U.S. military action in Iraq, including on-the-ground troop deployment and airstrikes including drone attacks. Not only do drones “take out” enemies, they also cause civilian death and widespread terror among populations that result in increased recruitment of followers. Further U.S. military action is likely to aggravate the current crisis and could empower ISIS and other factions, as the history of U.S. engagement in Iraq has demonstrated.
Congress itself could stop this madness by repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and stop handing out bipartisan “blank checks” for the White House to wage war. But why doesn’t Congress do that? This war’s impending troubles might advance Republicans’ own success in the upcoming elections.
Forty-seven years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the United States the “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” and it’s still true despite many who advocate for peace.
In California, 61 Green Party members currently hold elected office—on Board of Supervisors, City Councils and School Boards and as mayors. In November’s General Election, the Green Party is absent as an alternative choice in the statewide races. Greens are running about 35 candidates, none in the Central Valley, for various local offices in the Bay Area and the Los Angeles area. So when it comes to preferences, we here in California are limited to and find ourselves fighting the absurd and the ridiculous as our only available options.
Once again, as in our Primary, the General Election season is lacking debates between the candidates. As of this writing, none are planned for Gov. Jerry Brown and, well, who knows, much less cares. On Primary Election Day, people looked at their ballots realizing that they had no idea who these gubernatorial candidates were outside of the sitting governor and the two Republicans that the newspapers saw fit to make a fuss about.
Have we been wronged enough that gives us a right to act violently? Have all of our routes to peace been dried up? Putting fear and fright into our adversary, whether here or elsewhere, has failed globally. Isn’t it time to fix ourselves and begin to pull the weeds out of our own Garden of Evils?
The Fresno County Green Party will meet at the Hugh M. Burns State Building in downtown Fresno on Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. Learn more at http://FresnoGreens.localgreenparty.org.
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Richard Gomez is a council member of the Fresno County Green Party. Contact him at 559-408-3320, richardgomez136@yahoo.com or richard.gomez.9843@facebook.com.
