Stop Weaponizing Death this Memorial Day 2020

If you had told me that 2020 would have brought with it almost 100,000 deaths in the U.S. from the novel coronavirus since March and over 11,000 deaths in New Jersey alone, I probably would not have believed you. As a nation and a state, we haven’t taken nearly enough time to mourn these deaths and to consider what went wrong.

If you had added that in the midst of this unprecedented public health crisis, worsened due to a consistent lack of resources for hospitals, or food for the millions of newly unemployed, a U.S. Senate bill co-sponsored by NJ’s Senator Booker would be released from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee mandating that at least $38 billion be sent to the state of Israel over the next 10 years, I would have been appalled.

And lastly, had you added that at about the same time, the U.S. would again threaten war against Venezuela if Iran and Venezuela successfully navigated 5 oil tankers into Venezuela, I would have stopped listening. What makes this worse is that virtually no mainstream politician, Democrat or Republican, felt the need to oppose these actions.

Memorial Day is a time when we are asked to honor those who have died in wars. Instead, the U.S. is at war with itself and much of the rest of the world. The U.S. remains involved in military action in at least 7 countries and has over 800 foreign military bases. At least ⅓ of the world’s population is suffering under illegally imposed U.S. “unilateral economic coercive measures” (sanctions) which deny food and medicine to people simply trying to survive.

This country’s economic elite either forget or ignore that what happens to one of us happens to us all. Instead of allowing this crisis to deepen along racial, class and political lines, there should be ways to honor our common humanity. Unfortunately, we’ve given new meaning to the word “weaponizing” as leaders of this country decide who lives and who dies, rather than try to bring good health and peace to us all.

Three years after the end of the Civil War, Decoration Day was established by freed black slaves to honor the Union soldiers who died helping to defend the rights of those enslaved. The holiday lasted under that name for 100 years, when in 1968, the U.S. Congress voted to change the name to Memorial Day. The stated purpose then became to celebrate all those who had lost their lives in wars.

It is ironic that the unity represented in Decoration Day has devolved into such divisiveness and hatred this Memorial Day. On the one side, there are protest groups, which include Neo-Nazis, clamoring for re-opening the country and its economy as soon as possible. These protesters place their right to get a haircut above the rights of people to feel safe and secure. This “weaponizes” the idea of freedom and rights, literally and figuratively, as protesters carried guns into the Michigan statehouse, dismissed the dangers of the pandemic, and showed no consideration for the health and safety of those who will be forced back to work. Workers on the receiving end of this feel compelled to go back to work, no matter what kind of job they have and no matter what the danger is to their health and safety. For them, not to work is not to have the money needed to take care of their family. It is unconscionable to see how super-charged the debate has become around class and racial divisions. How far have we strayed from basic principles of decency, community and humanity?

At the same time, the U.S. refusal to join an international call for a global ceasefire, even a temporary one, illustrates further how in this world we live in, economic needs for access to resources also becomes a weapon, separating first-world capitalist countries from those countries whose economic systems value community and human lives, under different varieties of socialism. The people who live in countries with large oil reserves and other natural resources become expendable under this neoliberal model -- people in Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and elsewhere get no relief from the violence of war. Even the existence of COVID-19 and its threat to public health can’t get certain leaders to abandon their need for war and economic violence.

Sanctioning a country because of their political ideology or religious persuasion, as a cover for desired regime change and access to valuable resources, is cruel in the best of times and even more inhumane under these circumstances. Now, it should be more important to take care of ourselves and the people of the world than it is to make money or obtain access to oil for some war profiteers.

But perhaps the world is fighting back. The U.S. has been at war for all but approximately 26 years of its existence. But this weekend, Venezuela and Iran worked together to bring 5 oil tankers from Iran into Venezuela, despite bellicose threats from the U.S. Perhaps international solidarity to protect the sovereignty of all nations, as called for under the U.N. Charter, is part of the solution. Perhaps taking a step back to give ourselves a chance to mourn all the victims of war is another part of the solution. At the same time, we can use the space to think about what went wrong and how we can make amends, so that the world and its people can live in peace.

Madelyn Hoffman
Green Party of New Jersey candidate for US Senate 2020
hoffmanforussenate@gmail.com