Peace activist Koohan Paik-Mander joins Marc Eliot Stein to talk about the crisis of military escalation in Europe and the specter of superpower proxy wars in Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran, Venezuela. Koohan talks about her life's work as an environmental and antiwar activist, and how a significant protest movement to stop the construction of a US military base in Korea’s Jeju Island revealed to her the deep power of solidarity. We also talk about biodeiversity, anarcho-pacifism, white nationalism in US military and police forces, Xi Jinping's appearance at Davos, massive whale deaths in the Pacific ocean from military actions, the place of technology and social media in the lives of activists, the parallels between today’s Ukraine/Russia buildup and Europe’s collapse into the first world war in 1914, and what must be remembered from Barbara Tuchman’s history book “The Guns of August”. Musical excerpt: Youn Sun Nah.
