"Consider this background: Two years ago, a well meaning state legislator, deciding it would be nice for New Mexico to sponsor a "peace conference" in order to put the state on the map, persuaded the legislature to appropriate $450,000 for such a conference. For reasons fathomable only to those not actually interested in opposing war and militarism, the event was put under the jurisdiction of the Department of Tourism. That's right -- the Department of Tourism.
"Without a real mission beyond a vague assignment from the legislature to advance peace (and an implicit assignment to advance tourism, as well as the presidential fortunes of Gov. Bill Richardson), and ultimately unable to reconcile the dissonance involved in holding a peace-promoting event in a state at the heart of the nation's war-making machine without discussing that machine, conference organizers gave up in 2006 after wasting almost half the appropriated monies and decided to reschedule the conference for 2007. For this year's version of the conference, the Department of Tourism hired a self-described "professional peacebuilder" and mediator who has organized a newly imagined conference centered on the five peace councils mentioned.
"It is worth keeping in mind that, although New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the nation -- ranking 48th in per capita income and near the bottom on all other indices of prosperity and well being -- it is the birthplace of the atom bomb, home to two giant nuclear weapons development laboratories in Los Alamos and Albuquerque, and storage location for one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons in the world, at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. New Mexico is a critical cog in the U.S. machine of war and empire -- supported by its politicians, Democratic as well as Republican -- and most of the state's antiwar and antinuclear activists concluded that participation in a conference that does not take serious account of that grim reality would be meaningless and ineffectual at best, and at worst would lend legitimacy to an expensive effort that would actually reinforce the war industry.
"Working personally on our inner selves as the conference proposes, working to tame society's impulse to violence, coming to a recognition that "responsibility for peace on earth starts with self, not with the 'bad guys' out there," getting together to talk about the elements of a peace economy and how to make peace work "financially viable for those who undertake it," are all laudable consciousness-raising goals, but this peace conference as designed in fact merely distracts from what should be serious work toward dismantling New Mexico's war industry. It wastes scarce energy and resources that should be directed urgently at stopping war and New Mexico's war-making potential. It seriously undermines real justice and peace work. Real justice and peace work recognizes and actively opposes war and war industries, rather than merely putting forth sweetness and light about the virtues of peace.
Found on Counterpunch.org
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