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David Swanson: The Peace Monument the United States Needs

The Peace Monument the United States Needs

By David Swanson
http://davidswanson.org/the-peace-monument-the-united-states-needs/

Washington, D.C., needs a three-dimensional, sculptural Guernica dedicated to and with explanatory in-formation about the victims of U.S. bombings in over 30 countries that the United States has bombed.

And it needs such a monument to the victims of wars now, to help move the country away from war. We can’t wait to create the monument after having achieved a society willing to make room for it among the war-glorification monstrosities gobbling up more and more space in the U.S. capital.

With land unavailable for peace in the land of war temples, the obvious solution is a rooftop. The Method-ist Building across from the Capitol and the Supreme Court, or the nearby FCNL building, or any other prominent building with a roof could radically alter the DC skyline and worldview.

Bureacratic hurdles would have to be cleared, height kept below that of the Capitol dome, etc. But a roof-top could make a monument more visible, not less. An external elevator could take people close-up to view, learn more, and photograph.

A plan to build such a monument would allow a design competition that could attract major artists, which in turn could attract major donations sufficient to fund the project.

While we’re paying attention to the problem of Confederate monuments, we might expand our concern to include the monuments to every other side of every other war, and every participant glorified in D.C. stat-uary. As powerful, or moreso, than ripping them all down, would be to add a peace monument to the mix.

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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.

Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.

Help support DavidSwanson.org, WarIsACrime.org, and TalkNationRadio.org by clicking here: http://davidswanson.org/donate.

Sign up for these emails at https://actionnetwork.org/forms/articles-from-david-swanson.


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