SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress, with Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the dais behind him, on April 28, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images)
What If? A Speech for President Biden in These Dark Times
Could Biden lift the shadow of a world darkened by war, suffering and the looming threat of nuclear annihilation?
Jul 06, 2022
The war in Ukraine continues to rage and threaten world peace with the dark shadow of a potential nuclear holocaust. Could President Biden lift that shadow? What if he dared to step before the cameras and address the nation -- and the world -- with words like these...
My fellow Americans, I have been thinking long and hard about the situation in Ukraine. I now fear that the path we've been following risks a nuclear weapons exchange with consequences beyond comprehension. I am therefore changing course. We will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people, but, starting today, we will approach this crisis from a significantly different perspective.
That perspective requires no small amount of humility on our part. For far too long, our own nation has been guilty of doing exactly what we find so horrific about Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, with our disastrous invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq only the most recent examples. We have become, as a nation, what President Eisenhower's extraordinary 1961 farewell address to our nation warned us about. We see the world through the lens of our military industrial complex.
Our failure to heed Eisenhower's warning has left us with a military budget nearly as large as the rest of the world combined. We now stand as the largest supplier of weaponry to the rest of the world, and the wars these weapons wage have only one set of winners: the corporations that profit from the weaponry.
The weapons we make, of course, don't just go to wars between nations, as the recent horrific mass murder shootings in New York,Texas and Illinois so horrifically remind us. We face a grisly, connected reality: On top of our gargantuan military budget, our nation has nearly as many guns as the rest of the world combined.
Our great nation can change this reality. We can advance the cause of world peace by setting a peaceful example ourselves. I am now asking Congress to reduce our military budget by 50 percent. The hundreds of billions saved will be directed at fighting the single gravest threat to our true security: the unfolding climate catastrophe now endangering our Earth's life support systems.
We are all citizens of planet Earth. At this stage of human evolution, nationalism simply must combine with a deep planetary consciousness. We should be in the forefront of this urgently important expansion of humanity's perspective. Our nation's courageous Apollo 8 astronauts, remember, gave the world the magnificent and humbling first picture from space of our priceless planetary home.
Pope Francis, in his Laudato Si encyclical, calls upon all of us to defend God's wondrous creation, Mother Earth. Over recent decades, our most far-sighted have asked us to make the rescue of our environment "the central organizing principle for civilization." If we take words like these to heart, we may yet find a way to live in peace and harmony on this amazing spaceship we call planet Earth.
I hope the new approach I have outlined here may help inspire both sides in the war in Ukraine to establish a ceasefire and reach a negotiated settlement to end this terrible conflict. Only then will we be able to turn our full attention to the most crucial challenges all humanity faces.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Jeff Vogel
Jeff Vogel, a retired respiratory therapist, sings for peace and justice with the New York City Labor Chorus.
The war in Ukraine continues to rage and threaten world peace with the dark shadow of a potential nuclear holocaust. Could President Biden lift that shadow? What if he dared to step before the cameras and address the nation -- and the world -- with words like these...
My fellow Americans, I have been thinking long and hard about the situation in Ukraine. I now fear that the path we've been following risks a nuclear weapons exchange with consequences beyond comprehension. I am therefore changing course. We will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people, but, starting today, we will approach this crisis from a significantly different perspective.
That perspective requires no small amount of humility on our part. For far too long, our own nation has been guilty of doing exactly what we find so horrific about Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, with our disastrous invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq only the most recent examples. We have become, as a nation, what President Eisenhower's extraordinary 1961 farewell address to our nation warned us about. We see the world through the lens of our military industrial complex.
Our failure to heed Eisenhower's warning has left us with a military budget nearly as large as the rest of the world combined. We now stand as the largest supplier of weaponry to the rest of the world, and the wars these weapons wage have only one set of winners: the corporations that profit from the weaponry.
The weapons we make, of course, don't just go to wars between nations, as the recent horrific mass murder shootings in New York,Texas and Illinois so horrifically remind us. We face a grisly, connected reality: On top of our gargantuan military budget, our nation has nearly as many guns as the rest of the world combined.
Our great nation can change this reality. We can advance the cause of world peace by setting a peaceful example ourselves. I am now asking Congress to reduce our military budget by 50 percent. The hundreds of billions saved will be directed at fighting the single gravest threat to our true security: the unfolding climate catastrophe now endangering our Earth's life support systems.
We are all citizens of planet Earth. At this stage of human evolution, nationalism simply must combine with a deep planetary consciousness. We should be in the forefront of this urgently important expansion of humanity's perspective. Our nation's courageous Apollo 8 astronauts, remember, gave the world the magnificent and humbling first picture from space of our priceless planetary home.
Pope Francis, in his Laudato Si encyclical, calls upon all of us to defend God's wondrous creation, Mother Earth. Over recent decades, our most far-sighted have asked us to make the rescue of our environment "the central organizing principle for civilization." If we take words like these to heart, we may yet find a way to live in peace and harmony on this amazing spaceship we call planet Earth.
I hope the new approach I have outlined here may help inspire both sides in the war in Ukraine to establish a ceasefire and reach a negotiated settlement to end this terrible conflict. Only then will we be able to turn our full attention to the most crucial challenges all humanity faces.
Jeff Vogel
Jeff Vogel, a retired respiratory therapist, sings for peace and justice with the New York City Labor Chorus.
The war in Ukraine continues to rage and threaten world peace with the dark shadow of a potential nuclear holocaust. Could President Biden lift that shadow? What if he dared to step before the cameras and address the nation -- and the world -- with words like these...
My fellow Americans, I have been thinking long and hard about the situation in Ukraine. I now fear that the path we've been following risks a nuclear weapons exchange with consequences beyond comprehension. I am therefore changing course. We will continue sending humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian people, but, starting today, we will approach this crisis from a significantly different perspective.
That perspective requires no small amount of humility on our part. For far too long, our own nation has been guilty of doing exactly what we find so horrific about Mr. Putin's invasion of Ukraine, with our disastrous invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq only the most recent examples. We have become, as a nation, what President Eisenhower's extraordinary 1961 farewell address to our nation warned us about. We see the world through the lens of our military industrial complex.
Our failure to heed Eisenhower's warning has left us with a military budget nearly as large as the rest of the world combined. We now stand as the largest supplier of weaponry to the rest of the world, and the wars these weapons wage have only one set of winners: the corporations that profit from the weaponry.
The weapons we make, of course, don't just go to wars between nations, as the recent horrific mass murder shootings in New York,Texas and Illinois so horrifically remind us. We face a grisly, connected reality: On top of our gargantuan military budget, our nation has nearly as many guns as the rest of the world combined.
Our great nation can change this reality. We can advance the cause of world peace by setting a peaceful example ourselves. I am now asking Congress to reduce our military budget by 50 percent. The hundreds of billions saved will be directed at fighting the single gravest threat to our true security: the unfolding climate catastrophe now endangering our Earth's life support systems.
We are all citizens of planet Earth. At this stage of human evolution, nationalism simply must combine with a deep planetary consciousness. We should be in the forefront of this urgently important expansion of humanity's perspective. Our nation's courageous Apollo 8 astronauts, remember, gave the world the magnificent and humbling first picture from space of our priceless planetary home.
Pope Francis, in his Laudato Si encyclical, calls upon all of us to defend God's wondrous creation, Mother Earth. Over recent decades, our most far-sighted have asked us to make the rescue of our environment "the central organizing principle for civilization." If we take words like these to heart, we may yet find a way to live in peace and harmony on this amazing spaceship we call planet Earth.
I hope the new approach I have outlined here may help inspire both sides in the war in Ukraine to establish a ceasefire and reach a negotiated settlement to end this terrible conflict. Only then will we be able to turn our full attention to the most crucial challenges all humanity faces.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.