"Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament, designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. . . .

"While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both."

That was President John F. Kennedy speaking to the 1963 graduating class of American University -announcing that the human race was ready to move beyond war. This was the speech in which he revealed that talks on a Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union had begun, and that the U.S. was unilaterally suspending atmospheric nuclear testing.

Fifty years later, the words seem like an archaeological find - quaint, strange, shocking. Look, common sense! Perfectly preserved. Once upon a time, such a goal - disarmament, the end (good God!) of war itself -had political cred at the highest levels. 

Kennedy even had the audacity to proclaim that peace wasn't totally a matter of our enemy du jour, the Soviets, changing their behavior. "I also believe," he said, "that we must reexamine our own attitudes, as individuals and as a nation, for our attitude is as essential as theirs."

Politics that makes room for self-reflection? While he proceeds to bash the Communists for bad-mouthing the U.S., he calls their rhetoric "a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats."

This is politics outside the simple zone of winning and losing. Kennedy dared to suggest that that peace was complex, that it was not a mere matter of military strength and the power to dominate, and that "our enemy" was not subhuman. The American public was ready to hear this half a century ago. What happened? And more to the point, how do we return to this cutting edge of political sanity? 

As I listened to Kennedy's speech, which a number of people have pointed out to me recently, what struck me even more, perhaps, than the words themselves, was that the president seemed to be speaking from a position independent of the American and global military-industrial consensus. That this should stand out as unusual - that my inner political child should feel moved to ask, "Is a president allowed to do that?" - is truly unnerving. 

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, the highest levels of American government were capable of representing more than just the status quo, and were not irrelevant to real social change. Once upon a time, principles stood independent of politics. It was always shaky, of course. The Kennedy presidency was flawed; the Vietnam War was set at simmer. But once upon a time, one could look for real values in the political arena . . . and find them.

What has happened in the intervening years has been a hollowing out of those principles and of democracy itself - a moral bottoming out, you might say. What has happened is that the military-industrial consensus has taken control. No more nonsense. War wins. We're addicted to it. 

"But any awake American can see that PRISM is only one sock on a long line of dirty laundry," Erin Niemela wrote recently at Common Dreams. "The list of U.S. government abuses and failures to protect stretches far and wide. . . .

"While PRISM and the rest of the gang are individually sordid, when combined they are the track marks of a far more pervasive, widespread, life-wasting problem. One that has systematically attacked not just the Fourth Amendment, but also the First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and 10th. No matter how hard we advocate for the Fourth Amendment now, others will fall so long as this substance burns through the veins of the Republic.

"This is your government on war."

Whatever the threats that emanate from beyond or within the national borders, the overwhelming condition that concerned citizens - the ones, for instance, in sync with Kennedy's 1963 speech - must address is that the government itself is the problem, and its abuses both at home and abroad are only going escalate until its addiction to war is curbed. And the first step in this process is to declare: no future wars. The seductive rhetoric pushing "the next war" is a lie. It's always a lie, concealing the addiction. The game stops here. No future wars!

Niemela proposes a constitutional amendment: "The American people, in accordance with the promotion of international justice, peace, human rights and dignity, hereby renounce the use of organized, armed force to resolve intra- and inter-state conflict; neither war nor war-making processes shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

David Swanson, in response, proposed enforcing the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, which the United States along with more than 80 other nations signed, agreeing that the settlement of all disputes between signatory nations "shall never be sought except by pacific means."

The precedent is there. I don't doubt that the moral passion, in the U.S. and around the globe, is there as well. The idea of ending war can no longer be compromised. Can it regain the political presence it had 50 years ago? That part is up to us.

*****

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is now available. Contact him at koehlercwgmail.com, visit his website at commonwonders.com or listen to him at Voices of Peace radio.

2013 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.