End overseas military engagements

[UndyingFlame]

Sorry I didn't get this posted earlier.  I stayed up all night, went home to charge my phone, and put my head on my pillow for one small moment... 5 hours later, I wake up.  My bad.

 

Here is the text of a new, amended text.  I've spoken with a lot of different people over the night about this, and tried my best to make this a representative of the cross section of our movement.  Here it is:

 

Our nation continues to spend the largest portion of its budget on military interventions overseas.  At present, America has troops stationed in 130 countries around the world.  This degrades us economically, relationally, and morally.  America should not intervene in other nation's problems with a military presence, except when backed by international law.  We demand a noninterventionist foreign policy just as our founding fathers recommended.  Our military should be strictly used to defend our land and its people.  We fundamentally disagree with the concept that we must fight our enemies abroad to avoid fighting them here - our overseas interventions are the primary recruiting mechanism of extremist groups.  We demand that our nation immediately begin the responsible withdrawal, to be completed within a time frame of not more than 6 months, of all overseas troops, military contractors, naval vessels, and the closure of all overseas bases, except in those nations asking us to remain.

[UndyingFlame]

A few key points:

Keep in mind, that if you think we need stronger language against interventionism/imperialism, there is someone who thinks we need to include language giving America more room for foreign interventionism.  The only good compromise language is language which no one will find perfect.  Please keep that in mind when suggesting alterations to this grievance.

Every grievance has ended with a general statement of what we want done.  I added the 'within 6 months' part because someone claimed that the 'responsible withdrawal' language was a vague promise any politician could make, but then we also had those who argued that one can't quickly back out of a fight - we need to compromise.  I don't like how laborious the language is and personally would like to keep our demand firm in spirit but vague in details (we can work out specifics when we draft specific demands.)

Founding Fathers - for every person who objected strongly, I found more that really liked the language and felt it would help us recruit a broad cross-section and avoid the stereotype the media is already trying to place on us.  Yes, they owned slaves and supported an oligarchic hierarchy, but everything must be viewed in historical context, it was normal at the time, and many continue to admire/positively view them.  In the end its just a rhetorical flourish for PR that doesn't substantially change the nature of our grievance, or our demand.

Keep in mind that if we can't agree on a broad statement that pleases as many as possible, we have no official statement against the wars when we show up to the protests on Saturday.  A statement you may not entirely agree with is better than nothing.

[UndyingFlame]

/ fail.  Forgot a key sentence in the grievance.  Here is the correct version:

 

Our nation continues to spend the largest portion of its budget on military interventions overseas.  At present, America has troops stationed in 130 countries around the world.  This degrades us economically, relationally, and morally.  America should not intervene in other nation's problems with a military presence, except when backed by international law.  These wars benefit a small elite at great cost in money and lives to ourselves and the international community.  We demand a noninterventionist foreign policy just as our founding fathers recommended.  Our military should be strictly used to defend our land and its people.  We fundamentally disagree with the concept that we must fight our enemies abroad to avoid fighting them here – our overseas interventions are the primary recruiting mechanism of extremist groups.  We demand that our nation immediately begin the responsible withdrawal, to be completed within a time frame of not more than 6 months, of all overseas troops, military contractors, naval vessels, and the closure of all overseas bases, except in those nations asking us to remain.

[OnlyOneT]

I don't really understand why people would like us to leave room for foreign intervention.

One of the main points last night was that we should broaden it to ending all wars. I don't think occupying America will change the militarism of Iran, or any other nation except that which is being occupied. But, I do think that we should end any potential wars from ever occurring in the name of America. Going to a foreign country to kill people, especially in order to stop them from killing people, is fucking ridiculous. 

There is no situation which would give America the right to murder people. 

I would like the "except when backed by international law" taken out. But this is just what I feel. Democracy!

Great job on everything you're doing with this by the way Patrick. You're making history with your hard work and I really appreciate what you've been doing for the movement.

[Realer]

I also like to point out that destruction and deaths of so many innocent people which we have caused through out the world. I know this was also going to be included as well.

[Billy]

I like what you have there. I don't think it goes far enough. We spend a huge amount of money on weapons and weapons development and this seems limited to just our wars. Also the black budget stuff kind of removes any accountability to the American tax payer.

 

     Also our military has been caught more than once getting involved in drug trade to finance covert ops. Air America and Iran Contra are the first two that come to mind but those are really probably different topics. I guess I'm just a little bothered by the recent revelation that we were involved in human trafficking through the UN as the movie " Whistleblower " let the whole world know and it seems not enough has been done about that.

 

     wow this is a bit crazy. One topic comes up and a limited number of related issues start running through my mind. I can see how narrowing down the list of grievances could be tough.

 

     As a side note I really like that sheet that was distributed at the 7:00pm meeting 10/6/11 that came from the Wall street occupation and talked about why we did not have specific grievances at this point. I thought it was really well written.

EDIT:

I think that I went off in too many directions and I think you should ignore most of this it would make things too wordy.

[jon krnsk]

Patrick, awesome job! A quick thought: I think you're letting the people you're predicting will be the political competition be the driving force in the language you're coming up with more than is necessary. Sure, there will be people out there, and maybe even one or two at our GAs, who want to see US imperialism grow and perhaps people who have bought into the racist ideas the media put out that justify the wars and occupations, but we shouldn't pander to them. Surely part of the Occupy movement is the idea that we can actually change the conversation in this country, which means we need to actually put forward a strong argument from the front of the GA and in our public statements and get practice at defending our position. What do you think?

[UndyingFlame]

So a lot of thought went into the rewording of this, and it was realized that a lot of the issues stemmed from seeking specific demands, rather than addressing a general grievance. So the discussion group decided to be true radicals, in the original meaning of the word - to strike at the root. So w realized that the root of all our foreign wars (or rather, engagements, since legally they are police actions) is the fact that our military is used to pursue the desires and needs of the 1%, not the 99%. So we asked ourselves: what would the mission statement of the military of we the people look like? W think this rewrite addresses the core of the issue. The grievance reads as follows:

Our nation continues to spend more on military engagements than any other activity, preventing us from rebuilding our country. These engagements benefit a small elite, and destroy the economy and countless lives in both our domestic community and the international community. Our military should exist solely to defend the people of the United States of America and the afflicted people of the World - NEVER to acquire resources, expand influence, or spread ideology.

[UndyingFlame]

I'm bringing this up again tonight for another vote.  I'm not changing it because no one has offered any amendments or suggestions to it.