My Conversion to Peace Activism
John Miksad and Grandson Oliver / World BEYOND War
(October 24, 2024) — I grew up in a blue collar family that was not politically active. The focus was on making a living and providing for family. I never heard my parents speak of politics. Their view of civic duty was voting on election day. My dad passed away and to this day, I don’t know if he was a registered Republican or Democrat.
I went to college and received an engineering degree. I went to work, I got married, started a family, maintained friendships, did home improvements, and mowed the lawn. As a result of living in the suburbs and working in the city, commuting was a big part of my life.
I retired after 34 years, still blissfully ignorant of politics and foreign affairs. This was at least partially due to the luck and privilege of being shielded from the direct effects of my nation’s wars. I was 15 when the Vietnam war ended and 40 when the U.S. War on Terror began. I have never been in a war zone as a soldier or a civilian.
When I retired, I had some time to breathe and focus on things not associated with work and family. By this time, the U.S. military had been occupying Afghanistan for 13 years and Iraq for 11 years. The reports on the U.S. torture program had been revealed. I saw the shocking photos from Abu Graib prison. I learned about the CIA rendition (kidnapping) program using secret black sites in other countries in order to avoid U.S. laws. I got a glimpse of what was going on in Guantanamo. I saw U.S. war crimes in Iraq thanks to Wikileaks. I learned there were no WMD’s in Iraq. I learned that we were duped into that illegal war. I learned that governments always lie before, during and after war. I learned about my government’s warrantless surveillance on U.S. citizens, violating our civil liberties. I learned that war always erodes civil liberties.
I started reading about foreign affairs and I was shocked and angered about what was happening. I wondered what else I didn’t know. I picked up a copy of “The People’s History of the United States”. I was shocked by what I found on its pages. It made me question everything I thought I knew about U.S. history. Then I found “War is a Racket” by Major General Smedley Butler and this gave me further insight into the history of many U.S. imperial wars.
One thing led to another, as they say.
I felt deceived, ignorant, angry, and naive. The more I learned, the more I was convinced that we were on a dangerous path. The U.S. could not continue as an empire. It would inevitably collapse as all empires before have collapsed.
Concurrently, I learned more about the three great existential threats that all of humanity faced…climate collapse, pandemics, and nuclear war.
Climate Collapse
Climate collapse will subject us to more frequent hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, droughts, floods, landslides, and killer heat waves. These events will result in mass migration. Some estimates suggest a tenfold increase from current levels of 100 million refugees up to 1 billion people. I thought about the political, economic, and social unrest this will cause. Scientists say we are currently experiencing the 6th great mass extinction in earth’s history…but this is the first one that is manmade. The handwriting is on the wall, but many cannot (or refuse to) see it.
Future Pandemics
Covid killed 1.1 million Americans and perhaps some 18 million worldwide. It sickened millions more. Many are experiencing lingering symptoms to this day. Experts says that we will experience future pandemics as a result of the modern era combination of world travel, densely populated cities, industrial agriculture, bio-labs around the world, and continued human encroachment into wild habitat as a result of population growth.
Nuclear War
The latest models suggest that a nuclear exchange between Russia and the U.S. is estimated to kill 5 billion of the 8 billion people on the planet. We will die from incineration, burns, and radiation poisoning. Many will be crushed by buildings, impaled by materials thrown by the blast wave, and infection. The vast majority of us will die from starvation over the course of years as the world’s food production plummets.
Even a small scale exchange between India and Pakistan is estimated to kill 2 billion people. Of course, billions of other life forms would die in the process as well. As we see every day, war has long ago left the battlefield. Nuclear war expands the death and destruction even beyond combatant nations.
These three existential threats share a number of features. First and foremost, no one nation can solve them alone. The U.S. is 4% of the world population. Even if we put our minds to it (something we foolishly haven’t chosen to do yet), we couldn’t solve these threats on our own. Global threats, by definition, require a global response. The second common characteristic is that militarism cannot solve these threats. In fact, it only exacerbates them. Yet the U.S. continues to spend a trillion dollars a year (60% of its federal discretionary budget) on the Pentagon and a fraction of this to address the real threats we are facing.
The international relations paradigm that our government is operating under is obsolete and self destructive. It is characterized by saber rattling, economic warfare, violent conflict over land, resources, power, and ideology, endless arms races culminating in MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), and desperately trying to maintain world primacy at all cost…even at the risk of increasing the possibility of nuclear annihilation. None of this builds the trust and the spirit of cooperation needed to deal with today’s existential threats.
It is obvious we need a new international relations paradigm. This new paradigm would rely heavily on dialog and diplomacy, not demonization. It would work to de-escalate tensions and foster trust. It would develop and ratify treaties in all dimensions (nuclear, chemical, biological, cyber, space, etc.). It would eliminate provocative military encirclements (aka- containment), and deadly and wasteful arms races. It would respect international law and institutions, and discard the hypocritical “rules based order” that is applied selectively depending on whether an ally or adversary is involved. It requires cooperation, collaboration, and win-wins, not zero sum games.
Of course, there will be differences, disagreements, and conflict between nations. But the new paradigm will expect and require all nations to find ways to resolve these differences non-violently.
I have 2 grandsons. I want for my grandsons what every grandparent wants for their loved ones…the ability to flourish. I assure you that Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean grandparents want this for their grandchildren as well. This is why I spend a significant part of my retirement speaking, writing, demonstrating, marching, advocating, and voting for peace. We are living in a world that is standing at the brink…just 90 seconds to midnight.
That’s where the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have set their symbolic “Doomsday Clock”. It is the closest to midnight since its creation in 1947. If the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East continue, the clock will advance further toward midnight when it is set again in January 2025. That is if we don’t annihilate ourselves before that either through a deliberate act of a madman or a tragic mistake or miscalculation.
Martin Luther King was correct 50 years ago when he said that, “we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters or we will perish together as fools.” We are all in this boat together. War and militarism will never get us to the peaceful shore. In fact, it prevents us from getting there by diverting our attention, creativity, and resources from addressing the real threats. We need to realize that what we have been doing is self destructive. What we have been doing is akin to fighting over deck chairs while the ship is on fire and sinking! We can change. We have to change! We humans do have an inherently violent aspect that we’ve inherited from our primate ancestors, but we also have a strong survival instinct, a rational mind to assess danger, and the ingenuity to problem solve.
I have come to the conclusion that my government is stuck in the obsolete paradigm. It is like a bad habit. Like smoking, this is a habit that can kill us. I believe that it will take a mass people movement to pull our government off this destructive path and onto the only sustainable path that is available to us. Peace! That means more of us will need to make the conversion to peace activism. It does not have to be full time but some of our focus, creativity, and time is absolutely needed to preserve all we hold dear. I’ve attached some resources to help you start.
A Collection of Anti-war Resources for Peace Advocates
Peace Organizations
World BEYOND War- https://worldbeyondwar.org/
Quincy Institute- https://quincyinst.org/
ICAN- https://www.icanw.org/
Physicians against nuclear war- https://www.ippnw.org/
SIPRI- https://www.sipri.org/
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists- https://thebulletin.org/
Code Pink- https://www.codepink.org/
Veterans for Peace- https://www.veteransforpeace.org/
Massachusetts Peace Action- https://masspeaceaction.org/
Brooklyn For Peace- https://brooklynpeace.org/
Back from the Brink- https://preventnuclearwar.org/
Jewish Voice for Peace- https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
Peace Resources
JFK American University Speech- https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other- resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/american-university-19630610
MLK Jr Beyond Vietnam Speech- https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
Cost of War Project at Brown University- https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/
National Priorities Project- https://www.nationalpriorities.org/
Scott Horton/Bill Kristol debate on US interventions- https://reason.com/video/ 2021/10/08/bill-kristol-and-scott-horton-debate-u-s-interventionism-at-the-soho- forum/
Prof. John Mearsheimer- https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs- https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/jeffrey-sachss-great- power-politics
Glenn Greenwald- https://rumble.com/c/GGreenwald
Andrew Bacevich- https://www.thenation.com/article/world/america-militarism- ukraine-king/
Exterminate All the Brutes- https://www.hbo.com/exterminate-all-the-brutes https://youtu.be/Js-CxhYO590
War Made Easy- https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/war-made-easy-how- presidents-and-pundits-keep-spinning-us-to-death/
Rev. William Barber- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRpuQ8WqYUY
Democracy Now- https://www.democracynow.org/
Antiwar- https://www.antiwar.com/
Neutrality Studies- https://www.youtube.com/@neutralitystudies
Ron Paul speech on House Floor- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s_IUwwGq-A
Books
-War is a Lie- D. Swanson
-People’s History of the U.S.- H. Zinn
-War is a Racket- S. Butler
-Un-American- E. Edstrom
-The Button- W. Perry
-A Global Security System- An Alternative to War- (in print or downloadable at https:// worldbeyondwar.org/alternativepost/)
-The United States of War- D. Vine
-Murder Incorporated- S. Vittoria
-Achilles of Vietnam- J. Shay
-After the Apocalypse- A. Bacevich
-War is the Greatest Evil- C. Hedges
-Enough Already- S. Horton
-Overthrow- S. Kinzer
-Nuclear War- A Scenario- A. Jacobson
-Additional Reading- https://worldbeyondwar.org/resources?type=book
Suggested Actions
-Sign the WBW Peace Pledge
-Talk to others about peace
-Divest from militarism
-Write letters to editors advocating for peace
-Use social media to advocate for peace
-Donate to/volunteer with peace organizations
-Contact your Congressional representative in Washington, by phone or email, NOW and tell them to oppose appropriations for war. The U.S. Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
-Visit your local congressional office. Ask to meet with the District Director. Tell them you want your congress person to vote for diplomacy and against war.
-Encourage, support and vote for those who oppose money for more war.
-Be prepared to oppose those congresspersons who support war and don’t be afraid to tell them that.
-Ask the President and the Congress to support our troops by bringing them home.
-Support humanitarian aid for food, water, shelter, and medical care to relieve the suffering of people in war-torn regions.
-Attend peace rallies in your hometown.
-Call the White House at 202-456-1414 and express your opposition to more money for war, or email comments@whitehouse.gov
John Miksad is Coordinator of World BEYOND War’s Chapter in Fairfield, Connecticut who has been featured in a Volunteer Spotlight.
