Dr. Chuck Overby

January 2009

GREETINGS -- my dear Japanese Article 9 loving friends - 2009, the year of the OX,

As I said in my November 3, 2008 note on the 62nd anniversary of the promulgation of your post World War II constitution with its wonderful "war-renouncing" Article 9 - it is not easy these days to find much about which to find hope. And now I cry in anguished anger at the new "killing exercise" in the Gaza Strip - and so it is.

Even so - this is a message of hope. In sharing this with you, allow me to begin by borrowing some words from that great 19th Century British author, Charles Dickens' 1859 novel, The Tale of Two Cities - about the terrible times of the French Revolution. Dickens opens his book with the following words - "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Permit me to reorder Dickens' words to read -- "It was the worst of times, it was the best of times." Thus in my song to you -- I begin with the "bad" and end with the "good" news.

The "bad" news is that with the recent collapse of global "financial markets," "credit systems" and now entire "economic systems" around our beautiful Planet Earth [including yours in Japan] -- I fear that huge chaos, something that will make the 1930's world wide depression look like a holiday picnic -- is about to visit us.

Continuing the "bad news"-- we in the USA [especially in the past eight years of the Bush-Cheney U.S. government] have -- driven by greed, dominantly led the way on this terrible road to chaos by excessively worshiping at the ideological shrines of "unfettered free markets," "deregulation," and "privatization" of everything, all of which destroy "community." Community is that which we humans must do collectively in order to enable a humane, just, creative, and dignified life for all of us as sisters and brothers on our beautiful Mother Earth.

In our "greed driven" pursuits we wastefully, and unnecessarily over consume Mother Earth's beautiful "resource gifts" while almost completely failing to seriously ask our engineering and scientific talents to give us orders of magnitude more resource conserving and non-polluting systems with GTBD [Green Technology by Design.] With this irresponsible behavior we in the USA have led the way on our planet in "globally warming" ourselves toward Martian lifelessness as we arrogantly and stupidly fight "oil" and "drug" wars rather than "clean up our own profligate and alienated acts.

Here are three bits of "good" news -- [1] the USA elected a new President, Barack Obama, to replace that planetary disaster, George W. Bush [Vice President Cheney's mouthpiece]; [2] a courageous Iraqi journalist, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, who while uttering these words ["This is a farewell....you dog."] -- hurled his shoes at President Bush during a mid December 2008 news conference in Iraq; and [3] a new SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement] and treaty with Iraq that appears to have a timetable for removing U.S. military forces from Iraq. This Iraqi-USA SOFA and treaty compared with your Japan-USA SOFA and treaty might enable you to set the time schedule for removing all U.S. military forces from Japan.

Thus Obama's election brings some hope, but the"corporate-military-power-structure," the money that it commands, and a compliant media that fails to inform - so dominate things such that this "hope" is a bit like that of a tiny mouse peeing in the ocean expecting to see the water rise.

I do see an Obama administration perhaps opting less for "rules of war" and more for "rules of law" than did the Bush bunch. Your Article 9 is the world's foremost example of a "rule of law" in relations between nations. With Obama I see possibly slightly less USA pressure to destroy Article 9.

Thus I hope that you might now find it a little easier to non-violently move Japan to proudly demonstrate to all nations on our dear and beautiful Planet Earth -- an "Article 9 Without Borders." That is, a Japan with Article 9 as its "badge of honor" doing multitudes of non-violent, non-militarist, cooperative thrusts for peace and justice around the world -- while encouraging all nations to adopt Article 9's words of wisdom in their own constitutions. See my books and papers for an elaboration on these matters.

　　　　　　　　Peace,

Chuck Overby