 Um, we are next testimony and I'm, before we do that, I want to obviously acknowledge we're running super late. There's so much to be said and, and, um, but we are going to move a couple of the, uh, taped pieces, John Hankey's piece. We're going to move that to the end to after, especially our East coast speakers and, uh, Ed Rumpel, um, please forgive me and give me a text if you don't, but we're going to move your, uh, tape to after also. And so that's going to move up our speakers a little bit and our testifiers and, um, a couple of these next testifiers have, are, uh, pretty brief. And so, but, uh, our next testifier will be, um, David Swanson and David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist and radio host. He is executive director of world beyond war and campaign coordinator for Roots action. Swanson's books include wars, a lie when the world outlawed war and others. Welcome, David. Thank you. Uh, and I'm going to go ahead and share screen if that's okay, um, except that I can't, uh, I can't. Here we go. Let me know if you're having any trouble seeing or hearing. Um, the cold war did not have a hard and fast beginning that transformed the world or that turned heroic anti-Nazi Soviets into satanic comies on a particular afternoon. The rise of Nazism had been facilitated in part by Western government's preexisting enmity for the USSR. That same enmity was a factor in the delay of D day by two and a half years. The destruction of Dresden was a message originally scheduled for the same day as the meeting at Yalta. Upon victory in Europe, Churchill proposed using Nazi troops together with allied troops to attack the Soviet Union. It was not an off the cuff proposal. The U S and UK had sought and achieved partial German surrenders, had kept German troops armed and ready and had debriefed German commanders, General George Patton, Hitler's replacement, Admiral Carl Donuts and Alan Dulles favored immediate hot war. The U S and UK violated their agreements with the U S and S R and arranged new right wing governments with bans on the leftists who had fought the Nazis in places like Italy and Greece and France. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in part a message to the U S S R among the deep and horrible flaws. One can attribute to the U S S R starting the Cold War is not one of them. The U S could have chosen hot war, but could also have chosen peace. Peace. The Cold War was not carefully and deliberately arrived at as a wise policy over a period of time. The worst president the United States has ever had Harry Truman advanced it in 1945 and announced its rapid expansion as an urgent necessity in 1947 laying out a doctrine that soon established a major permanent military industrial complex, the CIA, the NSC, the federal employee loyalty program, NATO, a permanent empire of bases, the upsurge in US backed coups, the permanent taxation of working people for a permanent war budget and massive nuclear stockpiles, all of which with some variations are still with us. The general pattern during the Cold War was one of the U S leading the U S S R in weapons and driving the arms race while pretending to be losing it as a justification for escalation. Much of the US propaganda was the work of former Nazis in the US military. Those folks Bruce was talking about a minute ago. Many of the particular lies are still used in variation today. The missile gaps, the domino effects, the reborn Hitlers everywhere. Major Cold War themes so control common thinking as to be hardly visible. They include the idea that the United States should dominate the globe, the idea that shortcomings within a foreign country are grounds for bombing its people. And if you think anti Asian hatred is mysterious, imagine how confused you'd be if people who consume US media were able to imagine they could recognize people of Russian ancestry. Or the idea that progressive reforms in the United States should be blocked if they can be associated with a foreign enemy. The Cold War was not just foreign policy. Nothing has done more to make the US public the worst off wealthy nation on earth or the idea that government secrecy and surveillance are justified. The Cold War created the habit of living with the risk of apocalypse and conditioned people through their survival over what they imagined to be a long period of time to think the threat was overblown. Many of them assume the climate threat is overblown too. The notion that the Cold War had something to do with democracy was addressed by Lyndon Johnson to the Greek ambassador to the United States when he said quote fuck your parliament and your Constitution America is an elephant Cyprus is a flea if these two fleas continue itching the elephant they may just get whacked by the elephants trunk and whacked good. The most important fact about the Cold War is its incredible stupidity building weapons to destroy the earth numerous times over while hiding under school desks and backyards should be viewed as roughly as sensible as burning witches. The second most important fact about the Cold War is that it was not cold while wealthy nations have not fought each other the proxy wars and wars on poor nations and coups have killed millions and have never led up. The US in 2021 arms trains and or funds the militaries of 48 of the 50 most oppressive governments on earth with no need of a communist threat to justify it. It's normal now. The third most important fact about the Cold War is that it was not one by militarism the USSR was damaged by its militarism and dismantled by nonviolent activism but the US was deeply damaged to the nuclear danger is now greater than ever the proximity between parties in Eastern Europe is greater and the ridiculous claims are more firmly than ever a matter of faith Pentagon officials admit to the media that they're lying about Russia or China to sell weapons and maintain bureaucracies yet nothing changes. Russia gate depicted a US president engaged in numerous acts of hostility toward Russia as secretly a servant of the Russian president in many countries a major effort would have been needed to get people to believe such a thing not in post Cold War United States that US academics can sit through two decades of devastating US wars on Western and Central Asia and then hysterically denounce a public referendum in Crimea to rejoin Russia as the greatest threat to the peaceful world order in modern times is a product of the Cold War wildly exaggerated and distorted tales about China and the Uyghurs not to mention Hillary Clinton's claiming of the entire Pacific is a product of the Cold War when Biden called Putin a killer and Putin wished Biden good health the New Yorker informed me that Putin's comment was clearly a threat that is a product of the Cold War there were serious scholars who believed that when the USSR ended so would US militarism earlier others had believed the same about the end of the wars on the Native Americans but the mad drive to dominate everyone and the corruption of the weapons business will not end because a particular sales pitch ends new spins will be found and old standbys revived until benevolent imperialism is simply normal there is sadly vastly more evidence that the United States Senate hates you and wants you to suffer then there is that Russia or China does the war business is an uncontrollable monster creates the nuclear risk civil liberties destroys self governance fuels bigotry devastates the natural environment and climate and kills first and foremost by diverting resources into war and away from human and environmental needs or what Dr. King called programs of social uplift but which we're all most familiar with under the name socialism or its earlier variation godless commie evil. So don't let them misdirect your anger stay energized but stay focused all right targets. Thanks for including me here. Great presentation David excellent very good. Thanks Frank. I don't know where Rachel went.