Season of peace
This is the season of miracles and mystery. People gather to light candles, build bonfires, share tidings of great joy, and look with hope in the turning of the year. We wish for peace on earth and goodwill to all humankind.
This year we send these wishes in the face of war. The U.S. Senate, unable to find agreement on feeding the hungry, caring for children, or protecting the sick, agreed to spend $900 billion on weapons of war. It will build new weapons of mass destruction, including fighter jets, submarines and drones.
By the turn of the year we may well see an invasion of Venezuela. This week the President ordered a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela. This comes days after the US seized a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. This is in the midst of the continuing murders of people in small boats by US drones and missiles. At this writing we know that 95 people have been killed through US drone attacks. There will likely be more killing before the year ends.
Meanwhile, the President has ordered the assembly of the largest military buildup since the Spanish Armada of the 1820s. An estimated 10,000 troops and 6,000 sailors are now deployed on Navy warships, including an aircraft carrier.
There is nothing new about the US military invasions in Central and South America. “From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli” is more than a song. It reflects centuries of US aggression, especially against progressive, democratically elected leadership. Claiming the entire western hemisphere as “ours,” the US has engaged in assassinations, organized death squads, enhanced torture methods, encouraged repression, and launched invasions.
Under this administration that policy, codified in what was called the Monroe Doctrine, has been affirmed and expanded. Pete Hegseth, who seems obsessed with war said recently:
After years of neglect, the United States will restore U.S. military dominance in the Western Hemisphere. We will use it to protect our homeland and access to key terrain throughout the region. We will also deny adversaries’ ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities in our hemisphere. Past administrations perpetuated the belief that the Monroe Doctrine had expired. They were wrong. The Monroe Doctrine is in effect, and it is stronger than ever under the Trump corollary, a commonsense restoration of our power and prerogatives in this hemisphere consistent with U.S. interests.
This power and prerogatives mean the US government will use military force to kill people and seize the resources of anyone they choose. Venezuela, with 17% of the world’s oil, is a good target.
But military domination is about more than oil and economic interests. The US cannot tolerate the development of centers of power that challenge corporate capitalist greed. For most of this century, Venezuela and much of Central and South America have been forging new world connections that challenge dependence on US corporations. Under socialist and revolutionary leadership, they are embracing values of caring more for people and the planet than for profits. They have been in the leadership of creating human connections among the Americas, Africa, and Asia. They have helped forge socialist values to encourage new models of development.
In spite of the gains of some right-wing groups throughout the continent, a US invasion would contend with a very new world, and a world where millions of people see themselves as upholding ways of living that are far more humane and valuable than what the US would attempt to impose.
Much of this new world is being framed by the emerging leadership of indigenous peoples. At the recent COP30 held in the Brazilian city of Belem, nearly 1000 indigenous people came to claim their responsibilities as guardians of life and to offer concrete ways to transform ourselves and our ways of living.
This is a sign of the critical role indigenous peoples and the wisdom they carry are opening ways to move toward a better future.
In contrast to men who aim to control a small world of white, nationalist Christians dedicated to death and destruction, other people are organizing, acting, and affirming that another world is possible. Peace is a process in creation.