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it this is an extraordinary top and I think this is probably one of the
one of the most important political and
cultural and sociological and frankly human
topics that one can discuss
I've told you before how up professor Jack forbes professor Native American
Studies at the University California Davis
I shared with me and I'll link the interview I
flew out there to to to sit with him for a couple days
um he wrote the book lovers another cannibals have been appropriate
good discussion for Columbus Day here about how
genocide had been visited upon this content by the
by the europeans I how he talked about
so many Native American societies not all bits it but most made it Native
American societies it reached a point where they no longer had war
instead the resolve conflicts by games
like lacrosse or counting coup is actually
when the first drop a blood was drawn that was when everything stopped in the
in the goal was to
draw blood from your pony but not to warn them or injure them in a serious
way
and the it was almost like it you know a game with a little bit a blood it did
and football
I think you could argue is a variation on that oh look at the guy got injured
you know and and it's the kind the same thing
but this was a wave con about that have conflict resolution as well as
you know communities interacting with each other david Swanson wrote a book
called wars ally that i think is one of most important books has been publishing
years
and as a follow-up to it a new book out called no war no more the case for
abolition
David welcome to the program welcome back to the program a time great here
traffic thanks thanks for being with us arm lay out your case
well as you just began to give they are examples throughout history and at the
present time of society's living without war or at least with much less whorish
than ours in fact ninety-six percent of humanity as we speak is represented by
governments that are far less militarized
then the US government Social we wouldn't be talking about going against
songs
laws of physics are part of human nature in proposing less militarism
up by the United States but I think the the argument
has to be four abolition rather than reduction
we have to do away with war so that we are afraid I'll
a war from someone else and we have to keep the military for defense and then
as eisenhower
course of it creates offensive wars
other roomie have done away with all sorts barbaric practices
we have virtually done away with slavery with blood feuds with dually
we have put things on the list to be done away with
including nuclear weapons including the death penalty and are well on the way
but when it comes to war we talk about waging better war symbolized wars floors
without particular weapons
or switch international approval by coalitions and so forth sheesh
we ought to be talking about abolishing war
my English yes so it's so the question that
inevitably is raised in and some I was with a group of
love pretty profound and thoughtful people this weekend
arm and I by brought up you in your book and I recommended strongly to these
folks that they
they read your book and um are one of them a person whose name you would
immediately recognize
said I O well what would he have done
a or what should we have done I
during world war two when we learned unambiguously that Hitler was
a gas in jusen and a you know
what what what was going on the Warsaw Ghetto in and et cetera et cetera I mean
should we have not gone into where were his eyes that what you're trying to tell
me
wilshire small it's interesting and I think revealing that that the argument
always goes just as this one has just gone except
school War three quarters of a century ago I and that you can't find a case
that you can convince
any significant percentage of the population justifies the war machine
each
in the 75-year sense you have to go back to that watch
and once you go back to that one 8 it and look at it closely
I it looks a lot less like something you want to justify
going forward I N E that this was a time in the world
win nonviolent alternatives to war were much less understood each
little beginnings of them seen inch
up the Netherlands and Denmark in the streets of Berlin
I showed the potential but we're nowhere close to being exercised
Irish you go back to history and you look at a crisis
it's also helpful to look at how you got there I
and the incredible punishment of the entire nation of Germany rather than the
war makers following World War watch
the West support for the fascists governments rise in Germany
as a preferable alternative to the communists in the Soviet Union Church
disastrous policies for decades leading up
to a crisis and then the crisis treated as
if's I you had a choice all-out war or nothing each
I A you know is is not the way to look at history
I needless to say the hitler's government was
the an absolute disaster that's
killed millions love innocent able but the war
killed tens of millions of innocent people there was nothing worse than the
war
world her to is the worst thing forty million people something like that when
you consider the
the russians there are over 20 million russians died at work
fifty to seventy million people worldwide depending on how you count it
to you police
I'll majority of them civilians now are you suggesting that for example
by hitler could have been stopped by this was simply saying we're no longer
going to
launder your money which I'm suggesting that it would have helped
I am suggesting that that there is not a new Adolf Hitler on the horizon
%uh people like to justify thomas jefferson slavery because they 18 lifted
she but they never go back in just 25 franklin roosevelt's war because at the
age he lifted me live in a different age I
I get I do you know the penny has dropped a min that he is so we'd we no
longer justify slavery although we justified Jefferson slavery
or some do arm because that was the AG lived in and he
he actually Jefferson a throughout his political career the first
his legislation offered as a member the house Burgesses Virginia was to end
slavery
he tried over and over and over again and slavery unsuccessful in was badly
punished for a number of times
on the this and so
years you're saying that we we lived through an era slavery we pay set that
aside
we lived through an era of warfare we set that aside its
it is time now to set your side
I think it is i think thats the
people imagine that you're going to need war to protect us
hand they ought to be looking at the actual case
in the world as it exists today in which war is endangering us
I you done my best my book documents
experts within the US and other governments testify
a and makes clear just as a young girl from Pakistan
said to President Obama this week your actions are making you less
6 not reports your drones are fueling terrorism
always will also due to the president over the weekend
we're talking with david Swanson he has a new book out it's called war no more
the case for abolition
I'm you can buy it at all though the usual suspects I'm assuming and also on
David's website david Swanson
dot org and
arm David we have just a minute left if it what's the
what what is the the main message the you want people to get
stop hosing down wars to stop closing bad wars to stop opposing the most
wasteful
Pentagon's spending more than we oppose the most efficient deadly
and against Andy to talk to starch see in the elimination of chemical weapons
the elimination of nuclear weapons the reform much
I love this murderous practice as steps toward the obvious desirable and
up its total abolition to understands that ***
when it becomes a grand scale is still ***
and still less worthy of being eliminated from the World as
individual *** it you kill someone with an axe you're seen as associate
pastor seen as barbaric
you threaten to kill sampled soul and its
it's an acceptable joke in our society I gotta
well is so very well said please get over it david Swanson dot or
you can read all about it a small just the way it sounds Davi DSW Cayenne S O N
double R G
david Swanson his new book war no more the case for abolition good luck with my
friend
bank in time we're talking to David we'll be right back