A Letter From Avens O’Brien: Support Antiwar.com

Dear Antiwar.com Reader,

I don’t want to bury the lede here: Antiwar.com is raising money, and we have matching funds for your donation right now. I’m making a tax-deductible donation in addition to my monthly pledge, and I’m asking you to do so as well. You can skip my story and go right to the donation page if you’re so inclined.

I don’t know how you became interested in the work of Antiwar.com, but I’d like to share my story of how I found myself here, as a young woman, a millennial, and a Libertarian.

I grew up in a very political family with military history. Both of my grandfathers were war veterans. My mother’s father served in WWII, and during the Vietnam War he was asked to join an effort to recruit young men for military service. He refused, saying that the government routinely lied to the American people and to those who served. My mother was a draft counselor during the Vietnam War, helping young men avoid military conscription. Antiwar activities seem to be in my blood.

My parents met in a new movement of Libertarianism in the early 70s. My parents raised me with several principles: that personal and economic liberty are the same thing, that liberty is essential to human flourishing, and that aggressive violence impedes both liberty and human flourishing.

I’d say "war is hell," but according to common mythology, hell is populated only by bad people. War is worse than hell. War is full of innocent people. War is full of people unlucky enough to be victims of aggressive violence. War is the place where human beings fail to recognize the individual humanity of one another. War is the absence of compassion. War is collective guilt and punishment of the many for the alleged sins of a few against a state. I know you know this. That’s why you’re reading this. You already know.

I was lucky enough to be raised with this understanding, but I wasn’t much of an activist until a series of events that started on a Tuesday in September of 2001.

I watched the Twin Towers collapse on television. Three days later, I watched the single bravest political act of my lifetime (and likely since this nation was founded). One lone "no" vote against giving President Bush a broad, open-ended authorization for military force.

It was Congresswoman Barbara Lee. I listened to her voice shake on television as she explained her "no." As she asked the nation to not let this spiral out of control. She was called a traitor and a terrorist for it.

It obviously did spiral out of control. It’s been 21 years, countless lives, and more than a trillion dollars.

I started going to antiwar protests, planning sign-waves and carpools with fellow Libertarians and friendly antiwar leftists who were there to protest Bush and American Interventionism. In late 2002 I stumbled on my first articles from Antiwar.com, and I remember printing editorials and putting them up on bulletin boards around my college, reading them to anyone who would listen in the student lounge. I believed that if I could only get them to read what I was reading, if I could only get enough people to see this, we could stop it somehow.

20 years later, I still try to get people to read what I’m reading. I’ve also had the honor of getting to know the team at Antiwar.com, and to call Eric Garris and Angela Keaton dear friends. The work they do is so important.

I know what my principles are, I know that war is worse than hell, but when I watch the war machine in government and media begin to churn the latest justifications for intervention, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Russia or anywhere else, it’s Antiwar.com that helps me make sense of so much of it. The information, the editorials, and the news show how horrific war is — that firepower, horror, and destruction are not acceptable answers to disagreements among government officials.

Antiwar.com amplifies the hard truths about the consequences of war, and that these consequences never go away. There is no end to violence until many more of us stand up and refuse it.

Your donations keep them running — keep them building coalitions, keep them reporting the truth, and keep them as a shining light against the darkness.

We must shine this light. We must be this light.

Thank you for reading my story, and for supporting Antiwar.com.

The link to donate is http://antiwar.com/donate and any contribution is greatly appreciated.

I’m stealing part of a sign off from my friend and former Vice Presidential candidate Spike Cohen:

My name is Avens O’Brien, and YOU are the light.

Avens O’Brien
Lifetime Member, Libertarian Party
Board of Directors, Feminists for Liberty
http://avens.substack.com

2 thoughts on “A Letter From Avens O’Brien: Support Antiwar.com”

  1. Avens has always been one of my very favorite people. This is only PART of why. Bravo.

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