Corporate Welfare... From Sea to Shining Sea

Friends,

Boeing has proven (once again) that it will stop at nothing to increase its profits. Machinists voted to reject a contract that, while guaranteeing that the 777X project be built in Washington, would have been unfair to workers.  Even with Washington State Legislators offering an estimated $8.7 billion in tax breaks to Boeing through 2040, the company is already searching for another state to build the mammoth aircraft.  And as the Seattle Times headline indicates - "States salivating for 777X feast" - many states are anxious to "give away the farm" to lure the Corporate master to a new home.

All this unfolds as Boeing's commercial division "reported a surprising 12 percent jump in quarterly profit and raised its full-year forecast on soaring commercial aircraft production and margins, sending its shares up as much as 6 percent to an all-time high" (Reuters).

It's the age old story, whether on the commercial or military side of production, of giving away much while receiving crumbs in return.  From coast to coast, it's the same narrative.  In Bath, Maine, the story is playing out where Bath Iron Works builds some of the mighty warships that help project the American Empire around the globe.  Bruce Gagnon, of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space writes about the continuing saga. I have included his entire article below.

As you read Bruce's article, remember that Boeing builds not only commercial aircraft (on which the corporate media tend to focus), but also a vast array of systems that make it one of the largest "defense" contractors (Defense, Space & Security), right up there with General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works.

So here's the news from Bath (as reported by Bruce in Organizing Notes):

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BIW's Sails Got Trimmed a Bit 

The Bath, Maine City Council last night voted 7-1 to give Bath Iron Works (owned by the General Dynamics Corporation) a tax break for the next 15 years. The council approved a 15-year tax rebate for BIW that is expected to save the company about $265,000 annually for the first 10 years and an additional $212,000 annually for the following five years. The entire tax subsidy package is estimated to come to about $3.7 million.

The one vote against the tax break came from the one member of the council who tried to dramatically reign in the tax break but was unsuccessful when he proposed two amendments to further shorten the years of the tax break and the amount given by the city.

Initially the city considered a tax break for BIW that would have given them more than $6 million over a 25-year period. But the intervention by concerned citizens successfully trimmed the request by a couple million dollars. To the struggling city, with a population of about 8,500, that is alot of money.

About 30 people from Bath spoke up during the final public hearing before the council made its decision. The speakers were nearly evenly split with just a couple more opposing the tax break. Virtually all of the speakers in favor of the tax break were BIW workers/management.

ring the public portion of the meeting was a University of Southern Maine professor of finance who lives in Bath. The professor said she studied the city budget and "strongly recommended against" giving the

The point was frequently made that BIW doesn't really need this tax break as they have contracts to build multi-billion dollar ships for the next 10 years. (Just as the meeting began last night a story appeared at the web site of the Portland Press Herald about BIW being in the running for a $20 billion contract to build destroyers for Saudi Arabia. This clearly indicates that the Obama administration has extracted economic rewards for the US led campaign to destabilize Syria and Iran who are long-time foes of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia.)

BIW's strategy throughout this process has been to frighten the community about the boogeyman in some other state that just might steal the shipyard away if the city faltered in the "partnership" with the corporation.

During my time to speak to the city council I told the story about the Boeing Corporation in Seattle, Washington that has similarly threatened to pull out of that community unless they got more corporate welfare. I said:

The latest big deal everyone is talking about is Boeing in Seattle where the company is threatening to move manufacturing of their new 777X airplane to an anti-union state in the south unless they get big tax breaks from the state of Washington and major health care and pension concessions from the Machinists Union. Union leaders were quoted as calling the deal “crap” and in recent days union members voted to reject the Boeing proposal with 67% opposed.

But the state has voted to give Boeing the largest corporate tax break in US history. The tax breaks are expected to be worth $8.7 billion and would run through 2040. Despite this record tax subsidy, Boeing still hasn’t committed to building the 777X in Washington.

And guess what….Boeing has not been paying any federal corporate taxes in recent years…..zero.

BIW's chief council, Jon Fitzgerald, told the council, "We are gambling that we can improve our productivity, not certain that we will build the new outfitting hall.... we need this [tax break]."

Most of the city council talked about how complicated and agonizing the decision was. I'm sure that is true because the pressure on them from the public was heavy. None of the councilors told stories about hearing from the public who opposed the tax break. They only told particular stories about those who said, "Give BIW the break." But in spite of that public posturing by the council they still did vote to trim BIW's request by a couple million dollars.

They really didn't want to trim the subsidy. Bath is fundamentally a corporate colony. They trimmed it because they heard from residents all over the city and got more than 300 emails from people around Maine that opposed the tax break (thanks to Roots Action for the help).

Key in this public uprising was the door-to-door work that we did that enabled us to reach about 90% of the homes across the city. It's not easy in Bath to speak out against BIW but many people found a way to make their voices heard.

I concluded by remarks last night with this:

This truly is a race to the bottom of the barrel as taxpayers are being squeezed left and right. Its no wonder when I was helping take flyers door-to-door in Bath virtually every person I spoke with opposed these tax giveaways to BIW. I heard over and over again that people were going to have to sell their homes because they couldn’t afford to pay property taxes anymore.

Not only taxpayers get squeezed by these corporate subsidies but workers do as well. The Boeing workers in Seattle are refusing to go along with the program. Workers at BIW are seeing their health care being cut and continuing layoffs at the shipyard are forcing many workers to do the jobs of 2-3 others. In order to increase profits corners get cut in the production and quality gets impacted. At the same time General Dynamics profits are at record highs and top CEO compensation is larger than the municipal budget of Bath.

In the end this was a victory for the struggling citizens of Bath. They made it happen and they should be proud that their collective voices forced a reluctant city council to make serious adjustments to BIW's tax break request.

Our local committee, called Bath Citizens for Responsible TIF Action, did a great job on this campaign. Many of us had never worked together before but we all became friends and I would imagine we'll find other local work to focus on in the future. One of the members last night, a former BIW worker, called for the city to establish an economic conversion commission to begin planning for a new way of providing jobs in the community.

The work goes on......

"Killer Nation": The saga continues with Syria

Dear Friends,

For the first time in (my) memory it seems that every remotely "progressive" organization under the sun is sending  emails asking people to call or email The White House and/or Congress or sign a petition calling on our government to not engage in military action against Syria.

In our age of electronic social media one would think that such an approach would have a real impact, particularly if it can engage a huge groundswell of support for diplomacy rather than war-making.  I think, however, that we are deluded if we think that this approach can have any real impact on the decision to attack Syria, a decision that (in a very real sense) has already been made long before there was talk of "chemical weapons."

Bruce Gagnon describes "war" as "the soul of our nation" in his essay published yesterday in Common Dreams (The Soul of Our Nation War).  Bruce describes our situation with direct honesty; I would only add that we must ask ourselves what has become of our nation's soul that we seem to have sold off over the course of recent decades in a Faustian bargain.

President Dwight Eisenhower said (in 1953) that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."  When the Tomahawk missiles are launched by ships, already lining up for an attack on Syria, that theft will continue to feed the coffers of the weapons makers.

Gagnon puts it bluntly: "We have become a killer nation," addicted to war and the profits it reaps for corporations and the jobs that put food on the tables of our workers.  Even before one war ends we are already planning the next one.  We truly are losing our very soul.

I fear that petitions, calls and emails will not be nearly enough to stop the first salvos of Tomahawk missiles aimed at Syria, and the ensuing carnage.  Stopping this madness will require much more than a few keystrokes in the midst of our busy schedules.  It will require us to get out in the streets of our own communities (small or large) in mass, nonviolent protest.  

So let us call on all these same organizations (that are advocating for nonviolent conflict resolution) to organize local actions around the country to engage citizens in peaceful protests (and a general strike if necessary) to stop the machinations of war.

It is, indeed, a question of saving the very soul of our nation!

In Peace,

Leonard

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Click here for the Veterans for Peace Action Alert on Syria!!!

URL for Bruce Gagnon's essay in Common Dreams:  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/29-8

Thanks to Bruce Gagnon for sharing this political cartoon in his blog, Organizing Notes.

The Militarization of North American Life (by Bruce Gagnon)

***Editor's Note: Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, gave the following talk on June 1 at the Moana Nui 2013 Teach-In held in Berkeley, California.  You can read Bruce's blog, Organizing Notes, at http://space4peace.blogspot.com/.

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I live in Bath, Maine where Navy Aegis destroyers are built.  These ships are outfitted with so-called “missile defense” systems that the Pentagon is today using to help surround Russia and China.  Few people in my community, including some activists, are interested in where these ships go (places like Jeju Island in South Korea.)  It’s not popular to raise these questions – especially when Bath Iron Works is the largest industrial employer in our state.

In fact today weapons are the number one industrial export product of the US.  And when weapons are your number one industrial export product, what is your global marketing strategy for that product line? What does it say about the soul of our nation when we have to keep selling weapons and killing people in order to provide jobs?

The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the public a window into the stunning militarization of our nation. During that incident the entire domestic surveillance/military response system was field-tested and culminated in the dramatic closing down of an entire urban center.

We have become an occupied nation.  For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the US have benefited from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training.

Obama has announced that 30,000 drones will be flying around the US in the coming years.  Thirty-seven states have applied to host one of six military drone test sites planned across the country.  Much debate has begun in local communities about whether police should be required to have warrants before they can snoop on us with drones.  Should domestic drones be allowed to carry weapons? 

More than 500 aerospace companies are eager to develop this new drone market across the US.  The drone industry lawyers say we have nothing to fear – that all we have to do is ask local police and they will be transparent about their drone use. 

Infrared and radio-band sensors used by the military can peer through clouds and foliage and can even detect and hear people inside their homes. During the last few years of the US military occupation of Iraq, drones monitored Baghdad 24/7, turning the entire city into the equivalent of a convenience store crammed full of security cameras. This technology is being brought home to control us.

There is a $2 billion, 1-million-square-foot facility being built by the National Security Agency outside Salt Lake City. It’s a phone, fax, email, data storage and analysis warehouse called Utah Data Station - everything about the facility is secret. It is scheduled to open this summer. 

Today drones buzzing over Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Mali are “flown” by pilots back in the US at places like Creech AFB, Nevada or Hancock Air Field, New York.  This is possible because the military satellites in orbit link the pilot to the drone in “real time” - split-second time.  Space Command downlink ground stations spread around the globe help relay those signals.  The Pentagon brags that this high-tech warfare increases “the kill chain”.

In a way, you could call the military satellites the “triggers” that make the drones work.  These satellites allow the military to see everything, hear everything, and to target virtually every place on the planet.

In June 2012 the second flight of the new military space plane (X-37) touched down at Vandenberg AFB after 469 days in orbit.  This unmanned super drone is a first-strike attack system, part of the Global Strike doctrine now underway at the Strategic Command.  In annual computer war games at the Space Command, set in the year 2016, the Pentagon launches a first-strike attack on China’s nuclear forces and this new military space plane is the first weapon used.  It’s called the “successor” to the recently retired space shuttle, which was paraded through streets of Los Angeles in late 2012…. 400 trees were cut down to prepare its red carpeted path to a waiting museum.  It is the perfect symbol of our worship of the gods of metal.  Technology trumps nature.

A friend in Maine has a son who recently spent a year in Afghanistan; my friend worried every day.  His son was then sent to Germany and he could breathe a sigh of relief.  The son thought about getting out of the military but there are no jobs.  The Army offered him a sizeable reenlistment bonus and he took it.

In the US today 57% of every federal discretionary tax dollar goes (to the Pentagon) to fund the cancerous war machine.  Our communities have become addicted to military spending.  There is virtually no money for anything else these days as we witness austerity cuts in social programs like so many other nations around the globe.

Colorado Springs, Colorado headquarters of the Air Force Space Command) has 357,000 people living there, and 47% of the population work for the military industrial complex. 

The aerospace and military production industry in Alabama is a major job provider as well. Huntsville, Alabama now calls itself the “Pentagon of the South”.

In 1950, the U.S. Army moved former Nazi Wernher von Braun, and his team of 100 German rocket scientists, to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville to create the US space program. Von Braun and his team also took over NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and helped ensure that the “civilian” space program came under military control. The Nazi rocket team brought “culture” to Huntsville by creating the local symphony and ballet and lived on a hill overlooking the town. 

Was there an ideological contamination that came with these Nazi scientists?  One can easily note the similarity between the Nazi slogan “Deutschland uber alles” and the Space Command logo that reads “Master of Space”. 

By the way, California is currently the #2 recipient of Pentagon spending in the nation.  The Republicans and Democrats now work together to ensure an endless flow of war money into their states.  They understand that it’s the only game in town anymore for creating jobs.  Both parties get nicely rewarded with campaign donations from the weapons industry.

An activist friend in Halifax, Nova Scotia is now organizing weekly protests outside a shipyard in her community that has begun building expensive new warships for the Canadian Navy.  The funding for warship building has necessitated cuts in human needs programs.  “Progressive” political parties are going along with this largest military appropriation in Canada’s history because of the jobs issue. (The ships will be used by NATO to control the melting Arctic Region on behalf of big oil.)

The Pentagon says that our role in the US under corporate globalization of the world economy will be “Security export” – thus we won’t have conventional jobs making products useful to our communities. Instead we will build weapons for endless war and send our kids overseas to die for the oil corporations.

A couple years ago I heard that the Sears department store had a new kids clothing line so I went to see it in a nearby town. Military uniforms for young boys were on the racks – the message “this is all you can ever be” – it’s youth mind colonization.

The military industrial complex has become the primary resource extraction service for corporate globalization and is preparing the future generations for their dead end street.

In the US, approximately 40% of all scientists, engineers and technical professionals currently work in the military sector. This is a colossal waste of talent and intellectual resources as we face the coming reality of climate change.

Due to the fiscal crisis across the nation engineering, computer science, mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry departments in colleges and universities have become increasingly dependent on Pentagon funding.  At the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque there are “top secret” areas on campus these days.

The Defense Alliance in St. Paul, Minnesota seeks to expand the weapons industry’s presence in higher education, and among its members are military contractors like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.

The Navy granted the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies $150,000 to look into improving tracking, surveillance and intelligence communications systems.

In 2011 the University of Minnesota reported the Pentagon was trying to “restrict” the open publishing of research resulting from a military-funded project.  This indicates quite clearly that the Pentagon is not really trying to further the state of education but instead views the students and faculty as nothing more than military production workers doing classified work.

The militarization of everything around us is a spiritual sickness.  Lakota holy man Lame Deer talked about the green frog skin – the dollar bill – and how the white man was blinded by his love for the paper money.  His spiritual connection to the Mother Earth was broken. 

Abolitionist Frederick Douglas reminded us that power concedes nothing without a demand, it never did and it never will.  When it comes to our current dark evil economic system, called militarism, we should be talking about its conversion and the jobs that would result from that transformation.

Good jobs can be created by home weatherization, building rail systems, creating a solar society, and hiring unemployed workers to plant town and city organic gardens.  As we transform our industrial base we lessen the impact of the military machine on our lives and help deal with our major environmental crisis. 

There is no other way to pay for such a redirection without massive cuts in the war machine budget now.

Join me in saying …… US out of North America!

Arming the World... or Caring For the World?

The Nobel Peace Prize was given to the European Union (EU) earlier today in Oslo, Norway. The EU represents roughly one third of global arms exports.  President Obama, who was the previous recipient of the Peace Prize, is the president of the number one global arms exporter - the United States.

You might ask, and rightly so, just what gives here.  Yes, there is a huge disconnect.  How does arming the world, and constantly preparing for and making war have anything to do with peace???  Of course, it does not!!!  And the tragic irony is that even a small percentage of the money spent on the world's militaries could take care of most human needs around the globe.

Read David Swanson's article below to see just how much that would be.

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UN Development Goals Could Be Met With a Few Percent of Military Spending

By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/content/un-development-goals-could-be-met-few-percent-military-spending
Here's a useful new report from the International Peace Bureau. Globally, the report finds, spending on war preparations is higher than ever as an absolute amount and as a percentage of public spending (if not as a percentage of GDP). This spending is led and dominated by the United States, which of course pressures other nations to try to keep pace. The United States also dominates the manufacture and sale of weapons to other nations.

The figures that the IPB uses admittedly leave out many types of military spending. In fact, they capture less than 60% of U.S. military spending. So, the conclusions are all extremely "conservative" -- that is to say: dramatically wrong. Without knowing how much of other nations' war preparations spending is missing, one cannot do the calculations correctly. Nonetheless, IPB's conclusions are stunning and include these:

--the world's military spending is 12.7 times higher than its official development assistance, and

--604 times higher than UN budgets for peace, security, development, human rights, humanitarian affairs, and international law, and

--2,508 times higher than the combined expenditures of the UN's International Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Organizations.

--the war preparations spending of the world is $249 per day per person on earth.

--about 5% of that would meet the UN's Millenium Development Goals by 2015.

In other words, war spending does not just generate the well-known Military Industrial Complex's pressure for more war, which takes more lives, but the failure to use a little of that money for something useful means the failure to save and improve countless lives as well. Our budgets are at once sins of commission and omission. The millenium goals are goals for ending poverty and hunger, providing education, and protecting health, sustainability, and human rights.

There may not be a war on Christmas, but if our "leaders" have their way there will be several wars on Christmas, and we're paying for them in several senses of the word.

Peace on Earth. Pass the ammunition.

Fifteen Issues This Election Is NOT About (By Bill Quigley)

Bill Quigley has once again done what he does so well - cut through the smoke and mirrors to discern the rkey issues, and the stark reality surrounding them.  In this particular case he has laid out in a very concise way the striking similarities in the two candidates (of the controlling political parties) running for president.

One of the key lessons learned from this should be that no matter who ends up in The White House for another four years, We The People will have an extraordinary job ahead of us.  We face a deeply entrenched Corporatocracy and Military-Industrial Complex that continue to strengthen themselves at the extraordinary cost of this nation's (and quite possibly humanity's) future.

Fifteen Issues This Election Is NOT About was published today (September 24th) in various online publications including Countercurrents.org and Commondreams.org. 

 

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Fifteen Issues This Election Is NOT About

 
By Bill Quigley, September 24, 2012

 

Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of the death penalty for federal or state crimes.

Neither candidate is interested in eliminating or reducing the 5,113 US nuclear warheads.

Neither candidate is campaigning to close Guantanamo prison.

Neither candidate has called for arresting and prosecuting high ranking people on Wall Street for the subprime mortgage catastrophe.

Neither candidate is interested in holding anyone in the Bush administration accountable for the torture committed by US personnel against prisoners in Guantanamo or in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of drones to assassinate people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia.

Neither candidate is against warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, or racial profiling in fighting “terrorism.”

Neither candidate is interested in fighting for a living wage. In fact neither are really committed beyond lip service to raising the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – which, if it kept pace with inflation since the 1960s should be about $10 an hour.

Neither candidate was interested in arresting Osama bin Laden and having him tried in court.

Neither candidate will declare they refuse to bomb Iran.

Neither candidate is refusing to take huge campaign contributions from people and organizations.

Neither candidate proposes any significant specific steps to reverse global warming.

Neither candidate is talking about the over 2 million people in jails and prisons in the US.

Neither candidate proposes to create public jobs so everyone who wants to work can.

Neither candidate opposes the nuclear power industry. In fact both support expansion.

 

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Bill Quigley is a law professor and Director of the Law Clinic and the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans. He is also Associate Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights.  Bill is extraordinarily involved in matters of social justice both in the U.S. and in Haiti. 

Is this any way to run a world: A historian's perspective

Lawrence S. Wittner is professor of history emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual” (University of Tennessee Press).  Another of his recent books is "Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement"

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The Shame of Nations: A New Record is Set for Spending on War

By Lawrence Wittner, April 23, 2012

On April 17, 2012, as millions of Americans were filing their income tax returns, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its latest study of world military spending. In case Americans were wondering where most of their tax money -- and the tax money of other nations -- went in the previous year, the answer from SIPRI was clear: to war and preparations for war.

World military spending reached a record $1,738 billion in 2011 -- an increase of $138 billion over the previous year. The United States accounted for 41 percent of that, or $711 billion.

Some news reports have emphasized that, from the standpoint of reducing reliance on armed might, this actually represents progress. After all, the increase in “real” global military spending -- that is, expenditures after corrections for inflation and exchange rates -- was only 0.3 percent. And this contrasts with substantially larger increases in the preceding thirteen years.

But why are military expenditures continuing to increase -- indeed, why aren’t they substantially decreasing -- given the governmental austerity measures of recent years? Amid the economic crisis that began in late 2008 (and which continues to the present day), most governments have been cutting back their spending dramatically on education, health care, housing, parks, and other vital social services. However, there have not been corresponding cuts in their military budgets.

Americans, particularly, might seek to understand why in this context U.S. military spending has not been significantly decreased, instead of being raised by $13 billion -- admittedly a “real dollar” decrease of 1.2 percent, but hardly one commensurate with Washington’s wholesale slashing of social spending. Yes, military expenditures by China and Russia increased in 2011. And in “real” terms, too. But, even so, their military strength hardly rivals that of the United States. Indeed, the United States spent about five times as much as China (the world’s #2 military power) and ten times as much as Russia (the world’s #3 military power) on its military forces during 2011. Furthermore, when U.S. allies like Britain, France, Germany, and Japan are factored in, it is clear that the vast bulk of world military expenditures are made by the United States and its military allies.

This might account for the fact that the government of China, which accounts for only 8.2 percent of world military spending, believes that increasing its outlay on armaments is reasonable and desirable. Apparently, officials of many nations share that competitive feeling.

Unfortunately, the military rivalry among nations -- one that has endured for centuries -- results in a great squandering of national resources. Many nations, in fact, devote most of their available income to funding their armed forces and their weaponry. In the United States, an estimated 58 percent of the U.S. government’s discretionary tax dollars go to war and preparations for war. “Almost every country with a military is on an insane path, spending more and more on missiles, aircraft, and guns,” remarked John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus. “These countries should be confronting the real threats of climate change, hunger, disease, and oppression, not wasting taxpayers’ money on their military.”

Of course, defenders of military expenditures reply that military force actually protects people from war. But does it? If so, how does one explain the fact that the major military powers of the past century -- the United States, Russia, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and China -- have been almost constantly at war during that time? What is the explanation for the fact that the United States -- today’s military giant -- is currently engaged in at least two wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) and appears to be on the verge of a third (with Iran)? Perhaps the maintenance of a vast military machine does not prevent war but, instead, encourages it.

In short, huge military establishments can be quite counterproductive. Little wonder that they have been condemned repeatedly by great religious and ethical leaders. Even many government officials have decried war and preparations for war -- although usually by nations other than their own.

Thus, the release of the new study by SIPRI should not be a cause for celebration. Rather, it provides an appropriate occasion to contemplate the fact that, this past year, nations spent more money on the military than at any time in human history. Although this situation might still inspire joy in the hearts of government officials, top military officers, and defense contractors, people farther from the levers of military power might well conclude that it’s a hell of a way to run a world.

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Click here to access the SIPRI study of global military spending.

This article originally published by George Mason University's History News Network, http://hnn.us/articles/shame-nations-new-record-set-spending-war

Global Network Coordinator Embarks on West Coast Speaking Tour

Recognized by artist Robert Shetterly in his series Americans Who Tell the Truth, Bruce Gagnon, an international peace organizer and activist, will embark on a 30-day west coast speaking tour that will take him from San Diego, California to Bellingham, Washington. The 24-city trip will run from April 1-30.

Gagnon, who coordinates the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space from Bath, Maine, will help local communities explore and confront the reality of the Pentagon’s drive for “full spectrum dominance.” He will discuss the impact that our expanding militarism has on our natural ecosystems and our economic crisis at home. From Maine to Jeju Island, South Korea his indefatigable studying, traveling, and organizing has shown how the Pentagon’s intent to control the planet on behalf of corporate globalization has moved from land to sea to air to space pouring our natural and fiscal resources into escalating war-making and violence.

Gagnon’s assessment is: “The Pentagon will send our kids off to foreign lands to suppress opposition to corporate globalization. How will we ever end America’s addiction to war and violence as long as our communities are dependent on military spending for jobs? We must vigorously work to convert the military industrial complex to decentralized sustainable technologies like wind-power, solar, and mass transit.”

His talks will challenge communities to discuss the strategies behind President Obama’s “pivot” and expanding U.S. militarism in the Asia-Pacific region; current U.S. space technology strategy; the need to promote the conversion of the military industrial complex to sustainable production to mitigate climate change; the 2012 elections, and what Americans can do about corporate domination of Congress.

Gagnon concludes, “U.S. foreign and military policy today is all about control of declining natural resources around the world. The Pentagon is restarting the Cold War by surrounding Russia and China with so-called ‘missile defense’ systems that are actually key elements in U.S. first-strike planning. We do have a real problem today and it is called climate change. We can’t afford the pay for endless war that only benefits the mega-corporations and further pollutes our planet. During this speaking tour I intend to share a spirit of determination and non-violent resistance with people throughout the west coast. We need to make a collective demand across this nation and around the world. We are tired of war, tired of corporate domination, and determined to take back our governments. The future generations depend on our courage and our success.”

Gagnon intends to use Amtrak trains and buses for most of the west-coast travel during this tour.

You can view Gagnon’s full travel schedule at http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2012/03/west-coast-speaking-tour-schedule.html

Do the (Military) Math: It doesn't add up!!!

Friends,

Most of us semi-old folks remember "new" math back in the good old days. Well now, thanks to that madcap cartoonist Mark Fiore, there's Military Math. If you're wondering how the Pentagon budget got to be so huge, Mark's got it all figured out. So, do the math (the Military Math that is)!!!

Peace,

Leonard

Time to Occupy War Street - Here's Why!!!

Friends,

The Occupy movement is facing a huge range of inequities in our world, among them the huge Military-Industrial Complex that sucks both the spiritual and economic life from the citizenry.  Robert Greenwald has done an excellent job of succinctly presenting the GREED and dizzying influence of the corporate giants that dominate the killing industries.  Read it and then OCCUPY WAR STREET!!!

Peace,

Leonard

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Meet the 0.01 Percent: War Profiteers

By Robert Greenwald

 

There’s the top 1% of wealthy Americans (bankers, oil tycoons, hedge fund managers) and there’s the top 0.01% of wealthy Americans: the military contractor CEOs.

If you’ve been following the War Costs campaign, you already know that these corporations are bad bosses, bad job creators and bad stewards of taxpayer dollars. What you may not know is that the huge amount of money these companies’ CEOs make off of war and your tax dollars places them squarely at the top of the gang of corrupt superrich choking our democracy. These CEOs want you to believe the massive war budget is about security — it’s not. The lobbying they’re doing to keep the war budget intact at the expense of the social safety net is purely about their greed.

In many areas, including yearly CEO salary and in dollars spent corrupting Congress, these companies are far greater offenders than even the big banks like JP Morgan Chase or Bank of America.

Egregious Military Contractor CEO pay

The top 0.01% of earners make at least $9.14 million per year, a rarefied strata of income that includes defense company CEOs and Wall Street bank chieftains alike. But a deeper dive demonstrates how defense companies outpace the big banks’ knack for enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else.

Military Contractor CEO Pay in 2010

• Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush: $22.84 million.

• Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens: $21.89 million.

• Boeing CEO James McNerney: $19.4 million.

Just to put that in context, consider how these annual payoffs compare to the people we’re used to thinking of as poster children for the top 1 percent:

Financial Sector CEO Pay in 2010

• JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon: $20.81 million.

• Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf: $18.97 million.

• Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: $1.94 million.

Considering how they stack up to financial sector heads, war industry CEOs aren’t just members of the 1%; they’re the super-elite among them, the one-hundredth of a percent.

Lobbying Domination

Disgusted by the overwhelming corporate influence in Congress? Look no further than the big military contractor companies, whose flagship companies spend enough on lobbying to dwarf even financial sector titans.

War Industry Lobbying Expenditures for 2010

• Lockheed Martin: $12.7 million.
• Northrop Grumman: $15.7 million.
• Boeing: $17.89 million.

Again, just to provide some context, here are the same lobbying totals for some of the most recognized names in the financial sector.

Financial Sector Lobbying in 2010

• JP Morgan Chase:$7.41 million.

• Wells Fargo: $5.43 million.

• Bank of America: $3.98 million.

The war industry gets away with blowing our money on job-killing spending because it can bend Congress to its whim. In the process, the industry is like a vacuum sucking up brain power and engineering resources that could and would establish and grow entirely new wholesome industries. It’s no surprise that Americans confront a 9.1% unemployment rate and an under-employment rate flirting with 20 percent this year.

Want to know where all the money went that could be putting people back to work or keeping U.S. manufacturing industries competitive? The war industry CEOs dumped lobbying cash on Congress and diverted all that wealth to their private bank accounts.

Striking a blow for democracy

The war contractors’ iron grip on the wealth and politics of our country has caught the attention of our friends at Occupy Wall Street, who are targeting war profiteers in its draft list of demands with a call to bring home “all military personnel at all non-essential bases” and to end the “Military Industrial Complex’s goal of perpetual war for profit.”

We’re allies of the Occupy movement, which swells from the 99%’s disgust and dysfunction with our system. A democracy for and of the people that favors the 0.01% at the expense of the 99.99% of us is no democracy at all.

We here at Brave New Foundation and the War Costs campaign have been inspired by the incredible work of the Occupy movement, so we created our latest video to help push this critical piece of their message: war for profit has to end. We’re asking viewers to share our video with their local Occupy groups and organize a guerrilla screening at an Occupy protest in your city.

The Occupy protests have a lot to teach us, and the leaderless movement is at minimum an indictment of our political system. They’ve stopped whispering, and we’ve all started shouting.

Occupy your city and show this video to your community.

Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/10/27/meet-the-0-01-percent-war-profiteers/

Help send Ashley Joppa-Hagemann to MIC-50

Dear Friends and Fellow Peacemakers,

I am requesting your help to send Ashley Jopp-Hagemann, Staff Sgt. Jarod Hagemann's widow, to speak at the MIC at 50 conference in just over two weeks. This has all happened very quickly, so please read further to learn more.

The Short (but important) Story: Ashley Joppa-Hagemann's husband Jarod committed suicide after his seventh deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan, and before he was due to be deployed once again. Jarod was yet another victim of the lies and deceit that has sent countless men and women to fight immoral and unnecessary wars, only to have them return home physically and emotionally wounded.

Just over a week ago, on August 23rd, Ashley spoke at the State of the Soldier forum in Tacoma, and gave her testimony of her husband's struggle after multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that led to him taking his life.

Just three days later Ashley confronted Donald Rumsfeld at his book signing event at Joint Base Lewis-McChord about his lies that led her husband to enlist in the Army. All he said was "Yeah, I heard about that." Ashley and Jorge Gonzalez (who had accompanied her) of Coffee Strong, a local GI coffee house, were forcibly removed from the book signing. Amy Goodman interviewed Ashley on Democracy Now yesterday about that experience and her husband's struggle.

The organizing committee for MIC at 50, a national conference on the Military Industrial Complex after 50 years, just invited Ashley to speak at the conference on September 17th. This is an important opportunity to hear the human side of war that the people who plan wars do not include in their calculations. She has accepted the invitation.

You can watch the video of Ashley speaking at State of the Soldier, and here is the video and transcript of her interview on Democracy Now.

The Urgent Request: The conference organizers can only provide for lodging and hospitality at the conference, but cannot pay for Ashley's transportation from the Seattle area to Virginia. It took courage for Ashley to do what she has done, and she is willing to continue to tell this important story.

I have offered to put the call out for financial help and put together enough pledges before the end of this week to pay for Ashley's transportation. If I can get even close to the goal of approximately $700 (estimated cost) by the end of this week I can notify the conference organizers that it is a GO! My family is making a contribution to get things rolling.

At such short notice I do not have an organizational resource available to accept contributions, so I am asking anyone willing to help financially to:

1. pledge whatever you are able (we welcome any level of contribution; no amount is too small),
2. email me (at subversivepeacemaking@gmail.com) and let me know how much you will contribute so I can predict our success.
3. make checks payable to Leonard Eiger; write "Ashley JH for MIC at 50" on the memo line,
4. and mail your check to Leonard Eiger, PO Box 1115, North Bend, WA 98045.

I will carefully account for every dollar contributed, and will send any amount over what we spend for Ashley's transportation to Coffee Strong to further its work supporting soldiers.

Coffee Strong is a veteran-owned, veteran-operated GI coffeehouse. Veterans provide a safe place for soldiers to share the effects of disastrous wars, within 300 meters of the gates at Ft Lewis. The unique coffeehouse welcomes soldiers with a free cup of coffee. There is access to the Internet, an informative library, and many referrals are available to community resources, including GI Rights counseling and Veterans Benefits. Free legal and educational resources are available.

Please contact me with any questions. I will respond quickly. And please - if you are able to contribute - follow the instructions 1 - 4 above. I will provide funding updates at the top of this Blog as we move toward our funding goal.

Many Thanks and Peace,

Leonard

Tell President Obama: Support Peace, NOT War!

Friends,

WarIsACrime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet) is asking people and organizations to sign its petition intended to pressure President Obama to stop supporting war, which he has done at every possible opportunity since the beginning of his presidency. The petition threatens to pull support for a second term should he not abide by the terms of the petition, which are extensive although absolutely necessary to end the our nation's current downward spiral into the violent abyss.

Here is the petition's first paragraph:

We the undersigned share with nearly two-thirds of our fellow Americans the conviction that our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq should be ended and that overall military spending should be dramatically reduced. This has been our position for years and will continue to be, and we take it seriously. We vow not to support President Barack Obama for renomination for another term in office, and to actively seek to impede his war policies unless and until he reverses them.

And there is much more, which you can read and then sign by clicking here. The petition contains an extensive litany of the President's indefensible actions preparing for and prosecuting wars that make one question why he ever received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Please join me and add your name to the growing list of signers. Then share the petition with others. It will take a huge groundswell of citizen support and pressure to override the massive Military-Industrial Complex that influences President Obama. Help this petition go exponential!

Petitioning for Peace,

Leonard

Messages from Dr. King and President Eisenhower

Friends,

Today is not only the official holiday celebrating the memory of Martin Luther King Jr, but also the anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address. Dr. King warned us in 1967 that "a nation that year after year spends more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." President Eisenhower, in his farewell address of January 17, 1961, warned us of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex."

Today the monstrous military-industrial complex has a stranglehold on the nation, driving it into an economic hole as it drives U.S. foreign policy, pursuing military solutions across the board to maintain the empire.

I have extracted some of the key portions of Eisenhower's address that articulate not only his concerns about the military-industrial complex, but also our responsibilities as citizens:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together...

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war-as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years-I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight...

You and I-my fellow citizens-need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

May we heed both King's and Eisenhower's words and do all we can to convince our government to pursue diplomacy and nonviolent conflict resolution over shortsighted military solutions. If we do not, we will be doomed to an endless cycle of wars and endless spending that will make the war profiteers richer while bankrupting our nation both spiritually and economically.

Peace,

Leonard

Click here to read President Eisenhower's entire farewell address.

Click here to read Dr. King's Beyond Vietnam speech.

Merry Resistance To All

Friends,

You haven't seen much activity on this Blog lately because I have been rather busy supporting the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 whose trial ended on December 13th with their convictions on all counts in the U.S. District Court's mock trial. I say mock trial because the Disarm Now Plowshares defendants were hamstrung by the government (both the court and the prosecution), which limited their ability to utilize valid defense arguments, among them the necessity defense and Nuremberg Principles.

The government would neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at the Bangor Trident submarine base and Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific (SWFPAC) that are known far and wide to be home to one of the largest concentrations of nuclear weapons in the world.

And yet, the efforts of the Disarm Now Plowshares are not in vain. Their actions are helping build public awareness and galvanize the nuclear abolition community. Many others also resist our government's illegal activities on many fronts.

Fr. Louis Vitale and others continue to engage in nonviolent resistance to the U.S. School of the Americas (SOA), now euphemistically termed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation by the U.S. government.

Fr. Vitale is once again in jail for trying to uphold the law at SOA just as the Disarm Now Plowshares 5 did at Bangor. Our government, which would rather not have a discussion surrounding the real issues, continues to reduce them to charges such as trespassing while it continues to feed masses of innocent victims to its war machinery.

What follows is Fr. Vitale's Dec. 8th message from jail. It is a fitting Christmas message as it calls on us to declare peace amidst the cacophony of war making; to move the world towards peace in the year.

May it be so. Peace,

Leonard

Photo Credit: Fr. Louie Vitale by Cindy Callahan

***************

by Fr. Louis Vitale, Dec. 8 2010

HERE WE ARE AGAIN

Two weeks have passed since David Omondi and I began our sojourn here
at Irwin County Detention Center in southern Georgia. Some may say, "Vitale has protested himself back into the pokey below the Mason-Dixon line" and "He has been jailed again in an effort to bring peace and social justice." SF Chronicle 11/28

Many ask, "Why do you keep doing this?" We try to respond: "Because the oppression goes on and our nation is a major participant in that oppression of the poor and of all creation." Specifically this manifestation of mourning focuses on the School of the Americas (WHINSEC) at Ft. Benning, Georgia, where U.S. military have taught counter-insurgency techniques, including torture and disappearance, to Latin American military. It still goes on, as recently observed with the outrageous coup in Honduras carried out by graduates of the School of the Americas. In fact, our involvement in oppressive militarism extends throughout the world!

But why so many times at Ft. Benning (my fourth arrest and incarceration, and so far from my home base)? The School of the Americas is an icon of our intrusion into developing countries over many years and the source of horrific massacres including religious leaders and thousands of peasants. Also Ft. Benning is a major military base feeding vast numbers into the war machine. Thousands gather annually to mourn the victims and to call for an end to our war machine that continues to grow into more bases, nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities, even into space war (and the new X-37B militarized version of the space shuttle).

Are we ready to declare peace and act in its presence? Let's call - with all our energy - for nonviolent solutions now, transforming many peoples' lives and our world. Our work is cut out for us as we must be vigilant and active with nonviolent resistance. May we move towards peace in the new year.

Vitale is serving a 6 month sentence for trespass at Ft. Benning. He is temporarily at Victorville until they move him to Lompoc Prison. Until then you can send notes of support to Fr. Louie c/o the Nuclear Resister, PO Box 43383, Tucson, AZ 85733.

The Crushing COST of WAR!

Dear Friends,

Guess how much the U.S. government spends in a year to send just one soldier to Afghanistan? Thanks to hard working number crunchers at the American Friends Service Committee we have some accurate figures. While you are thinking about it ponder the approximate total number of U.S. soldiers there - 78,430 (AFSC's estimate, although I've seen numbers as high as 100,000). That number doesn't include the number of private contractors (can you say "mercenaries"?) that seem to get a rare mention in the newspaper articles.

O.K. folks. Brace yourselves for this nice, large, round number - $1,000,000! That's right; $1 Million!!! That is the 2010 cost to maintain each soldier in Afghanistan. Now, aside from the moral and ethical implications of our colonial incursion into Afghanistan, if I were the CEO of this company, the shareholders would be at my door like the angry villagers in Mel Brooks movie, Young Frankenstein.

This is insane!

According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) here are just a few positive things our nation could be doing with all that money rather than squandering it on a futile mission (whatever that mission is; can anyone tell me???). Let's do the numbers; $1 Million could provide :

• Renewable energy for 127,964,602 homes
  
  
• Health care for 588 children


• Salaries for 17 school teachers


• Head Start for 132 children


• School lunch for 1,602 children


• Health care for 227 adults


• Four-year Pell grants for 48 college students, or


• Affordable homes for 9 families

Perhaps you can think of some other peaceful uses for $1 million. And if those statistics don't shake you up a little, don't forget to multiply that $1 million by at least 78,430!!! Of course I wouldn't dream of cutting back on body armour and all the important things our troops need. I'm talking about supporting them in a different way - BRING EM HOME!!!

Despite President Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops in July 2011, Pentagon plans are in the works for three $100 million air base expansions in Afghanistan that will ensure that U.S. troops will be entrenched there for years to come.

The House of Representatives has approved the money for these bases, but the Senate still must vote on it. It's time to say STOP!!! No more money for "enduring base" construction. Send your Senators a clear message to reject any such funding.

It is time to stop squandering both our human and financial treasure on senseless wars and start spending it on programs of social uplift, both at home and around the world. Why not start today???

Peace,

Leonard

Read Air base expansion plans reflect long-term investment in Afghanistan in the Washington Post.

Learn more about the U.S. quagmire in Afghanistan at AFSC.

Deficit Doves vs. Deficit Hawks

Dear Friends,

It is becoming more and more evident that endless wars are creating endless spending that is ever so surely leading us to bankruptcy, both economic and moral. War spending keeps taking a bigger slice of the budget (and therefore tax) pie, until one day the people are left with crumbs.

A few in Congress like Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma are calling for cuts in Pentagon spending, while Florida Congressman Alan Grayson has introduced the War Is Making You Poor Act (HR5353). Others in Congress are trying to cut every social program possible in order to fund continued warmaking.

Amy Goodman calls them "Deficit Hawks", and that is exactly what they are. The following article speaks to all you "Deficit Doves" out there, and calls on all of us to speak out, confront the lies of the Deficit Hawks, and show another way.

When you have read Amy's article, learn more about HR5353 and support the bill at Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Peace,

Leonard

***********

Originally published on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 by TruthDig.com

Deficit Doves
by Amy Goodman

Getting out of the red is the new black. Deficit hawks have swooped down on the U.S. budget. This week, they attacked unemployment benefits.

Ultimately, they are going after Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, the venerable programs once considered untouchable "third rails" of U.S. politics. These have been replaced by a new third rail, the defense budget. To really deal with annual deficits and a surging national debt, we are going to need to cut military spending.

We need some deficit doves.

First, let's call it what it is: the war budget. The government formed the Department of War in 1789, and only in 1949 renamed it the Department of Defense. The war budget President Barack Obama recently sent to Congress, for fiscal year 2011, is $548.9 billion, with an additional $33 billion, which is the 2010 supplemental that is currently being debated in Congress, and $159.3 billion more "to support ongoing overseas contingency operations, including funds to execute the President's new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Recall, "overseas contingency operations" is how the Obama administration rebranded the "global war on terror."

This is just the publicly available war budget. There is also a "black budget," kept secret, for clandestine operations that former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair revealed was about $75 billion. As The Washington Post exposed this week, the post-9/11 security state has grown into a massive, unmanageable and largely privatized "enterprise."

Over 2,000 for-profit firms and over 850,000 people with top-secret clearance are engaged in military and intelligence activities, ostensibly for the U.S. government, with seemingly little or no oversight.

Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., has submitted a bill, H.R. 5353, called "The War Is Making You Poor Act." Grayson, with a few Republicans and a number of progressive Democratic co-sponsors, wants to force Commander in Chief Obama to run his two wars with "only" the $548.9 billion base budget. The $159.3 billion saved would be turned into a tax break, making the first $35,000 of income tax-free, and anything left over would be directed to paying down the national debt. The bill is in committee now and may generate genuine bipartisan support. Grayson, when introducing the bill, highlighted a fact worth repeating: The U.S. war budget is greater than the military spending of every other nation on Earth, combined.

Meanwhile, at the National Peace Conference to be held in Albany, N.Y., this weekend, people are targeting the military budget. Students are organizing around the connection between war expenditures and education budgets that are being slashed, sparking protests at campuses nationwide. Another effort, called "Bring Our War Dollars Home," promotes action at the city council and statehouse level, along with grass-roots campaigns to pressure members of Congress to stop funding war.

The cost of the Iraq war was estimated by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, with his colleague Linda Bilmes, at $3 trillion, calculating not only hard, current costs, but also the cost to society of caring for wounded veterans, and the long-term costs of having so many families disrupted by caring for their injured loved ones, or having a breadwinner killed in action. And that's just Iraq. As of May, the monthly cost of the war in Afghanistan surpassed, for the first time, the cost of war in Iraq.

Stiglitz was one of the many economists who said the economic stimulus package (at $787 billion) was too small. He argues that deficit spending, when done wisely, creates long-term returns for an economy.

Conversely, he wrote recently, "Deficits to finance wars or give-aways to the financial sector ... impos[e] a burden on future generations."

Economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research says President Obama's Deficit Commission, formally the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, is a major cause for concern. The co-chairs are former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles, who is on the board of Morgan Stanley, one of the bailed-out Wall Street firms. Baker told me: "Both are on record saying they want to cut Social Security. This should have people very, very worried. That isn't a balanced commission."

Cutting Social Security isn't the answer. Cutting war spending, and bringing the troops home, is. This is the job for the deficit doves.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

© 2010 Amy Goodman

Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 800 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December.

War Is Making You Poor - No Kidding!!!

Dear Friends,

For many years a number of organizations have highlighted (and attempted to engage in a public dialogue regarding) the cost of war. The rather indigestible pie shown below (courtesy of Women's Action for New Directions) is right out of Little Shop of Horrors; one can almost hear the man-eating plant screaming "Feed meeeeee!!!" as it devours everything in sight, including the U.S. Treasury (Your Tax Dollars).

Well, move over Tea Partyers! You've been dumping stuff off the wrong boat. You want to talk about taxation without representation??? Perhaps I should qualify that; defense contractors are definitely well (and overly) represented. For those of us who believe that this kind of military spending is unsustainable (besides making the world a far less stable place) it's like some guy just rode into town on a white horse. I'm rubbing my eyes, wondering if I'm dreaming folks.

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson has had enough of allocating tens of billions of dollars in endless defense spending without so much as a "Hey, can we talk about this???" in Congress. He has introduced legislation to change this sorry state of affairs. The War Is Making You Poor Act (HR 5353). Although he voted for the 2009-2010 Defense Appropriations, Grayson is now trying to make an important statement and begin a long-needed discussion about how we fund our global military machine and endless wars. Check out the video below where Congressman Grayson introduces HR 5353:

I find it hard to argue with Grayson's straightforward, simple math. Grayson's bill "demands that the Pentagon live within its budgeted means, cancels next year’s $159 billion budget allocation for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and gives everyone a $35,000 income tax credit (couples get $70,000)."

For those of us who want to bring the discussion and debate about military spending out into the open, here is our opportunity. If you agree, please support Grayson's bill. Click here to join the more than 29,000 people who have signed the petition supporting The War Is Making You Poor Act! Then share this with 10 more people; it's time to initiate a public debate. And don't forget to tell your Representative to support Grayson's bill.

War is bankrupting our nation! It is time to fund Peace (for real, sustainable returns).

Toward Peace,

Leonard

Note: Read more about HR 5353 (and take action) at Friends Committee on National Legislation.

You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train! Thank You Howard Zinn.

Friends,

Judging by the State of the Union (as evidenced by current events and President Obama's recent address) the United States is indeed, as many claim, a Christian nation.  This is evidenced by our devout leaders constantly calling on the protection of Our Lady of Perpetual War, the patron saint of the Military-Industrial Complex.  For anyone who still harbored any hope that Obama might lead us to the Promised land, those hopes should have been soundly dashed as he uttered the words "national security" during his State of the Union address.  He essentially sealed the coffin on people's hopes of "change we can believe in", if by that we think of reducing the role of the military (and its associated spending), increasing humanistic diplomacy and foreign assistance, and increasing spending on "entitlements" such as education, health care, social security and critical infrastructure.

Of course, it would be too easy to blame Obama for this entire mess, but he is really just another in a long line of Presidents, each of whom has continued building this house of cards for most of our nation's history.  We should know that we cannot rely on Presidents to change a system over which even they now have little real control. Nearly every member of Congress is beholden to one or more corporate interests.  Many, if not most, of those in other important positions in Washington got there through the revolving governmental-corporate doors.  And now, the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, with which we bestow the ultimate care of those documents on which our nation's foundation rests, have given away the farm (or should I say "foundation" to corporate, moneyed interests.

It should be obvious to each of us now that the people's interests mean little to those in whom we have given far too much of our trust.  It should be evident that we cannot trust our elected leaders to make sound decisions without our oversight and involvement.  And it should be obvious that we cannot trust what our elected (and appointed) leaders tell us because, as journalist I.F Stone used to tell journalism students, "GOVERNMENTS LIE."  These were, according to Stone, the only two words they needed to remember from their time with him.

Although Stone was speaking to students of journalism, those two words apply to every citizen.  We must question everything presented by our government, and test it for truth.  To do so requires more than just critical thinking skills; it requires a depth of knowledge of history, and not just the history that we are commonly taught in school (the history that is written by the victors) but the history beneath the thin veneer of the party line.

The recent death of historian Howard Zinn made me realize how few historians have dared to challenge (as did Zinn) the historical status quo that gives students a single, homogenous narrative that holds up a system that works to sustain itself rather than the spiritual, physical and economic well-being of its people.  Of course, the writing of history is not a purely objective undertaking.  As Zinn himself admits,

I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit.  And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian. (source: A People's History of the United States)

What is unique about Zinn is that he was much more than a mere historian; he believed that he could help people (particularly his history students) be:

not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it.  This of course, was a recipe for trouble. (from: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train)

In testing what we are told, or what we read about historical or current events, we must hold them up to a strong, critical light and test them for truth, using all the tools at our disposal.  And then, it is up to each of us to decide what we do with that information that we derive from such a critical analysis.  It may seem daunting to even begin to stand up to a system dominated by military power, corporate wealth and an antiquated political system, but we should always remember that we have power, should we choose to exercise it.  In his book, A People's History..., Zinn closes with the last lines from a poem by Shelley, written after the massacre carried out by the British government at Peterloo, Manchester in 1819.  Even without rest of the poem (which is powerful) these word carry Zinn's message:

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number -

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you -

Ye are many - they are few.'

Indeed - We are many, they are few.  Let us (as Zinn said) not only be better informed, but use that knowledge to speak out against injustice and for a better world.  There is strength in our numbers if we choose to be in solidarity.  As Zinn's book says, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", particularly one that is heading for disaster.  We can get this train on a different (and sustainable) track.  Thank you Howard Zinn.  We will miss you, but your works live on!

Peace,

Leonard