Keynote talk for the West Suburban Faith-Based Peace Coalition at their Peace Essay Contest Awards Presentation on August 27, 2019, the 91st Anniversary of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The still in force, though much violated international treaty that outlawed war.
Bankers, weapons makers, Wall Street investors, pension funds, insurance and investment trusts, Pentagon generals and politicians who will dance for their campaign contributions have worked tirelessly to ignore and undermine the International order of Peace that the Pact portended, and that later Martin Luther King spoke of when he set the stakes in his time, still ours: ".... It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence in this world, it is non-violence or non-existence. That is where we are today. "
The Kellog-Briand Pact remains in force as the Law of the Land, though not enforced. Swanson speaks to its enforcement and undermines the logic used to justify the wholesale lawlessness of the current and past US Administrations.
It was Swanson's 2011 book, "When the World Outlawed War", the forgotten story from the 1920s of how people created a treaty to ban all war ", given to Frank Goetz, the Coalitions just past President and Peace Essay Contest coordinator, by peace activist Kathy Kelly, that inspired him to establish the Peace Essay Contest, now in its 7th year.
West Suburban Faith-Based Peace Coalition wsfpc.peace@gmail.com www.faithpeace.org
David Swanson - david@davidswanson.org davidswanson.org worldbeyondwar.org
This years 1st Prize, awarded to Patrick Flynn, Chicago, was titled "Pedagogy Against Propaganda". It can be read at their web site. www.faithpeace.org
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