Here are the comments of Henry A. Giroux, writing in Tikkun magazine. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy:

“Passing thoughts on the willingness of the politicians and merchants of death who allow the unimaginable to become imaginable, allow financial gain to prevail over the lives of innocent children, and are more willing to protect guns at the expense of the lives of children.

President Trump listened recently to the impassioned testimony of parents and children who have seen their children and friends killed in gun shootings. He responded by advocating that teachers be armed and trained to have concealed weapons.

Instead of confronting the roots of violence in America, he followed the NRA line of addressing the issue of mass violence, shootings, and the ongoing carnage with a call to arm more people, putting more guns into play, and stating that violence can be met with more violence. This logic is breathtaking in its insanity, moral depravity, refusal to get to the root of the problem, and even advocate minor reforms such as banning assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and expanding background checks.

There are 300 million guns in the United States and since the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School of 20 young children and 6 teachers a decade ago, 11,000 more children have died of gun violence.

There is no defense for putting the policies of the NRA ahead of the lives of children. Criminal acts often pass for legislative policies. How else to explain the Florida legislature refusing to even debate outlawing assault weapons while students from Majory Stoneman Douglas High School sat in the galleys and watched this wretched and irresponsible act take place. How else to explain that the House of Representatives – reduced to an adjunct of the NRA – voted to pass the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R.38) which would allow individuals to carry concealed weapons across state lines. These are the people who have the blood of thousands on their hands.

The power of money in politics has morphed into a form of barbarism in which financial gain and power have become more important than protecting the lives of America’s children.

I find it extremely difficult to watch the debates about gun violence on the mainstream media. The call for reform is so limited as to be useless. Instead of banning assault rifles, they celebrate Trump for suggesting that he raise the age to 21 in order for people to buy a weapon of war. Instead of preventing violence from engulfing the country and schools, he calls for arming teachers and the press celebrates his willingness to entertain this issue. Instead of speaking about justice and allowing people to speak who are against deregulating laws restricting or abolishing the merchants of death, the media allows an NRA hawk to speak at the town meeting and rather than calling her out for being a spokesperson for violence rather than justice, they congratulate themselves on promoting balance.

The corporate media has become a normalizing force for violence because they lack the courage to challenge the corporations that control them. They also benefit by peddling extreme violence as a spectacle. They refuse to begin with the issue of money in politics and start instead with what one parent called non-starters. Guns disappear from the conversation and appeals to fear and security take over. Young people have to lead this conversation and move beyond the mainstream media. And when they do appear they have to flip the script and ask the questions they think are important.

Children no longer have a safe space in America, a country saturated in violence as a spectacle, sport, and deadly acts of domestic terrorism. Any defense for the proliferation of guns, especially those designed for war, is criminal. This is the discourse of political corruption, a government in the hands of the gun lobbies, and a country that trades in violence at every turn in order to accrue profits at the expense of the lives of innocent children.

This debate is not simply about gun violence, it is about the rule of capital and how the architects of violence accrue enough power to turn machineries of death and destruction into profits while selling violence as a commodity. Violence is both a source of profits and a cherished national ideal. It is also the defining feature of a toxic masculinity. Gun reform is no substitute for real justice and the necessary abolition of a death-dealing and cruel economic and political system that is the antithesis of democracy.

What are we to make of a society in which young children have a greater sense of moral courage and social responsibility than the zombie adults who make the laws that fail to invest in and protect the lives of present and future generations. First step, expose their lies, make their faces public, use the new media to organize across state lines, and work like hell to vote them out of office in 2018. Hold these ruthless walking dead responsible and then banish them to the gutter where they belong. At the same time, imagine and fight for not a reform of American society but a restructuring along the lines of a democratic socialist order.”

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Cultura de paz, presente en “Adiós a las armas. Contrabando en las fronteras”

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(Editor’s note: Since this discussion was posted, the UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament has been postponed, perhaps permanently. This appears to be the result of diplomatic pressure from the nuclear weapons states, as described in a more recent article by Alyn War: Nuclear Weapon States’ Long Arm Seen Behind Deferral of Landmark UN Conference).

Here is a response to the question from Alyn Ware. Although Alyn is a leading member of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament, this is written in his personal capacity, not in the name of the organization.

When a group of countries moved the United Nations General Assembly to commence negotiations on a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that only non-nuclear weapons countries supported, a number of the nuclear-armed and allied States announced that such an initiative was a distraction from the real business of nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament which they are actively pursuing in other forums such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Process.

This argument was fallacious and self-serving.

It was clearly false, as the nuclear-armed and allied States had themselves agreed at the 2010 NPT Review Conference that “All States need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.” The non-nuclear States who were advancing negotiations on the Prohibition Treaty were merely doing their part to fulfill this agreement.

And the argument was self-serving, as it aimed to prevent progress on the prohibition of nuclear weapons in order to allow them (the nuclear armed and allied States) to continue indefinitely with their nuclear deterrence policies and practices.

The Prohibition Treaty has now been concluded and opened for signature. A good step, but the nuclear armed and allied States have reaffirmed that they will not join, so it won’t apply to them.

In 2018, there will be another process that could elevate the Prohibition Treaty (including by increasing the number of countries signing), as well as putting pressure on the nuclear armed and allied states to adopt incremental nuclear disarmament measures that will bring them closer to commencing negotiations on nuclear weapons elimination.

This is the UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament, which aims to build global attention and the necessary political will for nuclear disarmament in the nuclear-reliant States.

Similar UN High Level conferences on other core issues for humanity have been remarkably successful. The Sustainable Development Conference (2015) adopted the Sustainable Development Goals. The Climate Change Conference (2016) adopted the Paris Agreement. The Oceans Conference (2017) adopted the 14-point action plan ‘Our Oceans, Our Future’. The Refugees conference (2016) adopted the New York Declaration. One key aspect which ensured their success was strong cooperative action by civil society.

The 2018 UN High-Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament has the potential for similar success, but appears thwarted by a lack of support and cooperation amongst civil society. Some of the same disarmament organisations that scorned the nuclear-armed States for calling the Prohibition Treaty a ‘distraction’, are now using those same fallacious arguments to undermine the UN High Level Conference calling it a distraction. To claim that the UN High-Level Conference is a distraction from the Prohibition Treaty is a use of ‘alternative facts’ as Orwellian as those of the US President. Here is a fact check: The President of the UN negotiating conference for the Prohibition Treaty has supported the UN High Level Conference as a way to advance both the ban treaty and incremental measures by nuclear-armed and allied States. Civil society should get on board, and not weaken itself and the nuclear abolition campaign through division.

The manufactured ‘competition’ between nuclear disarmament initiatives is one of the key reasons that the nuclear disarmament movement cannot garner the political traction that has led to success in other areas – such as chemical weapons, biological weapons, cluster munitions and landmines – all of which have prohibition treaties which include (current and former) possessor States, and have been instrumental in changing policies of possessors and destroying actual weapons. If the ban treaty remains stuck in its competitive silo, then it will have next-to-no impact on the States who possess the weapons.

The High-Level Conference provides a forum which can bridge the differences and advance both the comprehensive ban treaty approach, and the incremental measures, i.e. those in which there is a possibility of being adopted by nuclear armed and allied States. Civil society should come in behind this and help make it work.

Nuclear Weapon States’ Long Arm Seen Behind Deferral of Landmark UN Conference

Prague: International youth conference: Reaching High for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World

World body of parliaments discusses nuclear-risk-reduction and disarmament

United Nations: Reaching HIGH civil society ‘virtual’ conference for nuclear disarmament proposals

Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament releases Action Plan for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World

Unfold Zero: Making Use of the New Nuclear Ban Treaty

Abolition 2000 Annual Meeting: Supports Women’s March. Calls for Nuclear Risk Reduction

UN commences nuclear abolition negotiations

Civil Society and the UN High Level Conference on Nuclear Disarmament

Banning Nukes: Divergence and Consensus at the UN Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament

Here is a previous response to this discussion question:

Robin Posted: April 19 2013

I think it was Marx who said that military spending is like throwing money into the sea, since it does not produce anything of value for people.

We could saw this previously in the case of the Soviet Union that was driven into bankruptcy by the arms race, which was a deliberate and successful strategy of NATO.

But now, if we look clearly, we can see it is now the case for the United States which produces very little for export and imports enormously (especially from China), while it spends most of its wealth on arms production.

Arms production is hidden in the official government budget of the United States. First, the government adds in social security which does not come from taxes, but which is simply a form of saving by those who pay into the system. Then it hides much of military spending in other budgets (for example nuclear production is hidden under energy). And finally, it fails to mention that most of the enormous budget item of debt payment is actually the payment for previous wars and arms production.

According to the careful research of the War Resisters League (available as “pie chart flyers” at their website), almost half of the federal budget of the United States is for present and past military expenses. This amounts to over 1.3 trillion dollars a year!

For other previous responses, click here.

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Augmentation des Transferts d’Armes Tirée par la Demande au Moyen-Orient et en Asie, selon le Sipri

Crecen las Transferencias de Armas por la Demanda de Oriente Medio y Asia, Afirma el SIPRI

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Asia and the Middle East lead rise in arms imports; the United States and Russia remain largest arms exporters, says SIPRI

Global arms industry: West still dominant despite decline; sales surge in rest of the world, says SIPRI

Industrie d’armement mondiale : l’Occident toujours dominant malgré une diminution ; les ventes flambent dans le reste du monde, selon le SIPRI

Industria mundial de armas: occidente continúa dominando a pesar de la reducción; las ventas aumentan en el resto del mundo, según SIPRI

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IPB online course: Disarmament for Development

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World military spending falls, but China, Russia’s spending rises, says SIPRI

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