All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest is Kevin Zeese.
Comehomeamerica.us, that's the website.
And that's also the name of the book, the title of the book.
Comehomeamerica.us, historic and current opposition to US wars and how a coalition of citizens from the political right and left can end American empire.
What a great title for a book.
That's exactly what I'm saying.
Welcome back to the show.
Kevin, how are you?
Thank you for having me on.
I appreciate it.
Uh, this is one of the most important things I think really is, uh, well, it's hard to rank these things, but, um, I guess I learned in community college about it in the 1930s, it was a real alignment, all the liberals and the progressives and the conservatives and everybody got in on the new deal, except a very few classical liberal types.
And it was a town and country and black and white and East coast and West coast and the Midwest, and everybody got on board and it was a big political realignment in America in the old terms.
Uh, a lot of them flip-flopped meanings and a lot of them just got brand new meanings and, uh, this is what we need right now in America to end the empire is for the people who care about the bill of rights and peace, regardless of what other labels they've allowed to be applied to themselves or, or what have you, uh, can finally have our way and get our act together.
And that's the movement that you're helping to lead here.
Well, thank you a lot.
I think I, you know, I agree a lot with what you say there.
The 1930s, of course, were a time of economic collapse, and that tends to bring people, uh, looking for solutions, uh, new ways of doing things.
And we're seeing that right now.
We're seeing our foreign policy falling apart with failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now new fronts in Pakistan.
We're seeing the Egyptian, uh, example of a U S supported dictatorship as a price of a policy that doesn't work any longer.
We're seeing the, you know, the, uh, the empire economy not working at home.
And so come home America dot U S which is a website we have up now.
Uh, it's actually in beta testing.
So your listeners can go check it out and send me any, any comments they have about it.
We're, we're, we're, you know, just testing it out now, but there's also a book you can order there called come home America dot U S that is a compilation of materials from about, you know, 30 or 40 authors, uh, you know, ranging, uh, from Justin Raimondo to Ralph Nader.
Um, and, uh, it's people who oppose war and empire and want to see a change.
And we divide the book into three parts.
One looks at the history of anti-war activism, showing that throughout history, we've had people from the conservative, uh, libertarian, uh, as well as the progressive and, uh, liberal sides of the political spectrum, all working to end war, not a new idea.
Uh, and it's one that we need to reinvigorate and we've had very successful anti-war movements in the past, uh, much more successful than we have today, we need to learn from that history.
The second part, um, uh, you know, looks at the current situation.
The wars we're fighting now, uh, how they're going and why we should get out of them.
And the third, uh, deals with the future.
What would be an effective anti-war movement?
So I hope you visit comehomeamerica.us and buy the book and give us your comments about how we can build this movement into one that cannot be ignored, uh, by the political powers.
All right.
Well, so tell us more about the organization cause you held a big conference of, you know, I have people from the American conservative and the nation and everywhere in between.
Maybe you can tell us briefly again, a little bit of the history of that and, and where things have gone as far as really building this thing up.
I mean, that's your bread and butter is the actual networking and the activism and the making it happen.
Right?
That's right.
We're really just getting started.
I mean, we started, uh, we had our first event, which was a, uh, kind of a pilot, uh, conference to see if people from the right and left and in between to get together for a day and not, you know, have a food fight and, uh, could work together.
And we held that conference back in February, uh, February 20th, uh, 2010.
And, uh, we found that people not only could get together and work together, but they wanted to, but they, people who came to this conference, we had like 40 people, uh, included, uh, as you said, the American conservative, the nation included students for democratic society to campaign for liberty.
Uh, and we got them together and, uh, they recognize the need for those of us who oppose war and empire to come together.
Because we see what's happening in Congress.
Those who are corporatists from the Republican party and from the democratic party who favor, uh, you know, uh, us foreign policy dominated by militarism, who see war as a way for our transnational corporations to get cheap labor and cheap resources.
They've come together and they, they, they've made it themselves unstoppable.
And one way we're going to stop it in Congress is that we can energize, uh, libertarians and conservatives, traditional conservatives and progressives and liberals who oppose war to come together and vote against war funding.
Uh, that's where the power is.
And so, uh, this conference has been set and we decided that the next step would be to publish this book.
The book was, uh, a lot of the articles in the book, uh, were developed for the conference, but we, we added a bunch more that, uh, expanded it.
And so it's, uh, it, you know, includes a range of people that, uh, I think you'll find people will find really interesting.
And then the next step we had in mind are going to be a national conference and we're, uh, and a, uh, a series of town hall forums around the country to push the conference and also to push the book to talk about this issue and develop the organization.
And we're trying to raise the money for that conference now.
And as soon as we have that money raised a few months later, we'll put the conference on.
And so we're in that fundraising stage.
If people want to have questions about that, they can check me through the website, come home, America dot us.
And, and, uh, we can talk about, you know, how they can get involved with us and We plan the conference to be something that's a big event.
Uh, we're going to put out a request for papers that cover a range of issues like is the United States an empire?
Uh, is, uh, the militaristic foreign policy good for, uh, the U S economy for democracy, for the rule of law?
Uh, and we're going to bring that out to academics, advocates, think tanks, uh, add people who work in think tanks, people who work in advocacy groups, a whole range of people are going to get these requests for papers and we're going to develop up a new face for the anti-war movement.
It's going to be broader and one that, uh, we hope cannot be ignored as easily.
You know, when you look at the buildup to the Iraq war, there were millions of people in the streets opposing the war, but president Bush was able to ignore those people that all came from the Democrat side or the left side of the political section.
Uh, and he doesn't have to listen to Democrats or people on record.
He's not going to get their votes anyway.
If we had a broad basement in those days and we had brought out people from the Republican side, from the conservative side, from the libertarian side, if they had joined into those demonstrations, because he organized broadly, it would have been much more difficult for president Bush to ignore because he'd be losing votes.
These voters would be out there too.
And so we think it's very important for us to have a broad base sufficiency on this issue of one empire.
Of course, we disagree on other issues, but we also agree on other issues.
We agree on civil liberties.
For example, we see the, uh, the war mentality undermines the words at home.
You know, they're pushing the Patriot Act renewal now in, uh, in, in the Congress, uh, it failed yesterday in a vote, but I see today in Portico, the Democrats are criticizing Republicans for mishandling that vote, uh, showing what they really think that they actually support the leadership actually supports the Patriot Act and the Democratic Party.
And so, uh, you know, lots of civil liberties and some else we agree on.
And so there are areas we can build together.
And when we disagree, we hope that when we disagree, we work together and issues we agree on, we can actually listen to each other.
You know, I, I ran for office in 2006, US Senate was nominated by the green party and the libertarian party and the populist party.
I was the only person ever nominated by green and libertarian party for a statewide office.
And what I found interesting about it was it created a space where we could hear each other, listen to each other and learn from each other and their ideas and libertarians have for dealing with the, uh, environment that the greens can learn from and the ideas on healthcare, uh, that the libertarians can learn for and on other issues as well.
But, and we also learned what issues we agreed on.
So I think there's a real chance for us to develop this kind of across partisan, uh, trans partisan, uh, issue based agenda that we can bring people together on and really have an impact that we haven't been unable to have so far.
So that's, that's our hope and that's our goal.
Great.
Well, we are coming up near, uh, the time limit here.
I have so much, uh, about what you just said that I want to go over with you in the next segment.
But, uh, right now I'll tell people again about the website.
It's come home, america.us and plenty of contact information there for Kevin Zeese.
And also, uh, don't go to Amazon, but go to any other book selling website and find come home, america.us historic and current opposition to us wars and how a coalition of citizens from the political right and left can end American empire.
And it's full of a bunch of great authors to a past, present and tomorrow.
Hang on.
Y'all we'll be right back.
All right, y'all welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton on the line is Kevin Zeese.
From voters for peace and come home America.
And now, so Kevin, I think maybe a couple of years ago we talked about this and you had something to say about maybe getting doctors to try to organize doctors and trying to get lawyers to organize lawyers and radio show hosts to organize radio show hosts and, and academics to organize academics.
And if we need to have, if we need to form new groups to then all join up together into this one big Voltron group, then that's what we got to do.
Are we, is that part of the plan still?
It makes a lot of sense to organize people who you have something in common with.
That is definitely the way to go.
You know, clergy organizing clergy academics, urging, organizing academics.
So that will definitely be part of the future plan.
Right now we're at the stage where we're going to be reaching out to the initial core group in those areas through this conference.
And so when we, when we put out a request for papers to academics, history professors, political scientists, foreign policy professors, students from those is, then we'll start to from that developer core group who can reach out further.
And that's what, that's the plan is to keep building out and building concentric circles larger and larger around that core.
Well, you know I'm trying to think of a good example right off of the top of my head, but so many times you'll see some kind of anti-war statement or anti Guantanamo statement or something that'll just have an extraordinary list of you know, public advocacy groups and whatever, who are signed onto it.
And it seems like that's really the big task is lining up as many groups as you possibly can, even if you got to make new ones and make, you know, being the one big coalition for everybody, all the groups that already exist and everybody else who's going to join into this massive new thing.
That's right.
And you know, no, no, no anti-war coalition will cover everybody because there'll be people on the left who don't want to affiliate with free market thinkers on the right.
There'll be people on the right who don't want to affiliate with people on the left.
We're going to have the, you know, that's fine.
You know, I have no problem with people organizing on their own to develop their own organizations that are more focused on like-minded people that we need that as well.
So, and I, you know, with voters for peace, our other anti-war projects, we're very interested in organizing progressives who should be opposing war, whether you're an environmentalist or a labor leader.
I mean, you need to be opposed to war because it hurts your issue.
You must be spending half of our discretionary spending on weapons and war.
And so this is an issue that affects every issue.
And we need to get that across the public that the empire economy that emphasizes militarism is undermining the civilian economy.
Whether you believe in the money coming back and going to lower tax rates or the money coming back to be invested in rapid rail or healthcare or education, whatever your belief on that is, the money coming back out of the military economy is the key to developing the civilian economy.
We're not going to do it without doing that.
Yeah.
Plus all the people killed too.
Oh, but yeah, I mean, I just want to say right here, like it seems to me, and I know I have my particular libertarian analysis of class war and whatever, but it seems to me it's so obvious that, you know, the lines, regardless of all the old social issues and country and rock and roll and all this different stuff, abortion and whatever people want to argue about, there's the bill of rights, there's welfare for people who are already billionaires and there's the world empire.
I mean, this is the core three things that every, that defines the difference between us and them, the people of this country versus the people who right now have all the power, make all the policy.
These are the three things that they insist on bailing themselves out, destroying our bill of rights and waging a world empire.
And these are the three things that we all are most against, right?
I agree.
Easy line between us and them on the, on, on our, the issues that define us today.
You know, that's right.
The wealth divide, which is such a major problem in the United States.
In fact, our wealth divide is worse than the wealth divide in Egypt.
The wealth divide, which is so big in the United States really is caused by, uh, crony capitalism or if you want to call it corporate welfare.
Uh, both pretty much the same thing.
One's a right term on the left term, but they both mean the same thing.
It means political preference for those who are politically connected in the big business.
And I think we need to really be clear that that's what we, that's what we're fighting when it comes to the economy is ending that kind of crony capitalist approach that favors the entrenched corporate concentrated corporate powers and results in a corporate government, uh, which is a very dangerous kind of government, uh, and, and it's that, that's that corporate government also leads to the loss of civil liberties.
Uh, and those are the issues where we, we need to build on.
And I think that there are issues we have in common.
And then, as I said, beyond those issues, we can have discussions and listen to each other.
And I bet, I imagine we will improve each other's perspective by listening to each other.
So that's where I hope we can go as, as, uh, people who are trying to break the corporate state and challenge the existing powers that be who are under, who are perpetuating wars, who are undermining the bill of rights and who are creating this wealth divide that's so destructive to any, any country.
Yep.
Well, excluding, uh, the, uh, welfare part, the corporate welfare part explicitly, although it is, it tends to be included because it's all the same story, really, uh, anti-war.com has taken this approach the whole time that we're libertarians, but we include anybody who's good on war and we'll have Pat Buchanan and Dan Ellsberg right next to each other, uh, their articles posted right next to each other on the same day, and we try to be a resource for anyone who's good on this issue or, or needs to be, wants to be educated on it.
Um, and, uh, you know, I, it's, it's really good to see people catching on.
You know, I tend to think of the libertarians as the real middle, but the, the, the real moderates, as opposed to who we call the moderates now, who are like the Joe Liebermans and the John McCain centrists of the world who aren't moderate at all.
They're the most extreme of all.
The libertarians are the center between the good left and the good right, the peaceful left and the peaceful right.
And, uh, it seems like with the, with the issue so starkly dividing us and and with the ideology, so basically American, uh, it seems like we can't help a win, you know, we ought to.
I agree with your applause for anti-war.com.
In fact, they've asked me to become a regular columnist.
And so you'll have Justin Armando and Kevin Zeese on the right and left, uh, talking together on these kinds of issues.
And, uh, they are an excellent resource for anyone who cares about, uh, these issues, they, they really cover the, the, the issues so thoroughly.
And that's a lot more people than me.
I'm not trying to take the credit.
I'm giving the praise too.
Oh, there, there are a lot of good people involved in that.
I mean, Eric Garrison is doing a great job.
Angela Keaton is doing a great job.
Justin, of course, and you do a great job.
So it's a strong team that, uh, has put that together and, uh, really makes it such an effective source of, uh, of understanding the issues, um, you know, that are daily facing us.
I mean, what we're seeing in Egypt is such an amazing revolution and, uh, it really is an opportunity for us to see our government at work, the way that, uh, the, the, the Obama administration is putting, pushing Suleiman, you know, who was the torture in chief, the, the essentially the intelligence head for 30 years, a trained in the United States, the military intelligence issues, a friend of Israel, why the United States pushing him as the alternative embark is so pitiful.
I really hope that the people of Egypt stand firm and oppose any continuation of the regime, not to bark, but people like Suleiman as well, who really won't be a change.
It'll be more of the same.
It'll be, uh, you know, more of a, uh, autocratic state.
We still have men saying that they're not ready for democracy in Egypt.
He's saying, I don't need to get rid of the 30 year, uh, emergency laws, uh, 30 year emergency law.
I mean, you know, he is out of touch and yet, you know, aggressively, we have a real opportunity here where even Neil Cavuto on Fox news is telling Ron Paul.
So you're saying just don't pay any of these people.
Eh, it kind of makes sense to me.
I mean, that means there's a world of possibility open to us like Connelisa rice and, uh, and bill Clinton and the rest of these people say Rahm Emanuel, whenever there's a crisis, there's an opportunity.
So, uh, you know, maybe, uh, maybe the, the Rand Paul's and the Al Frankens of the world can make a little coalition in our Senate, you know, maybe we can force them to.
Well, I think that's right.
And it's an opportunity.
I was very pleased to see Rand Paul raised the issue of, uh, uh, foreign aid for Israel.
I mean, that, that's an issue that has not been allowed to be discussed and hopefully with Rand Paul, you know, raising it, others will have the courage to discuss it as well because, uh, our U S alliance with Israel is, I think, one of the great dangers in American foreign policy.
And, uh, it prevents a lot of positive moves, uh, that could be occurring.
Uh, and we need to prevent Israel from actually making peace.
If we were not, the United States was not providing 20% of their military budget, giving Israel as much as we provide to all of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined.
If we were not doing that to this country, the size of New Jersey, Israel would have to negotiate peace.
We, we, how can the, how can I take the top in negotiating good faith?
So it's time.
All right.
Oh, well, it sounds like we lost him right on time.
Thank you, Kevin.
That's Kevin Zeese voters for peace.
And most especially come home America dot U S that's the website and the name of the book.
You can find it at every book website, except amazon.com.
Don't bother there.
