Bringing
our war dollars back home.
Radio
Ecoshock 101224 Holiday edition.
The
Christians call their founder "The Prince of Peace." Yet America, which loudly proclaims it's
Christianity, has been at war for decades, all over the world, during most of
my life.
Now
American cities and towns are broke.
They are laying off services to the most needy, cutting off even
essential things like police and firemen.
The media says America is too poor to deliver universal health care
delivered by every other developed country.
Following the real estate and banking crash, the States are going
broke. While delaying payment of bills,
States depend upon constant cash infusions from the Federal Government, which
owes to many trillions, it prints money on demand, while buying their own
bonds, through the Federal Reserve.
At least
half of all available tax dollars, after the interest is paid on the massive
Federal debt, goes into maintaining over a hundred military bases all over the
world. By published figures, ten to
twelve billion dollars a month to into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others speculate the real bill is much
higher.
Why don't
Americans demand their war money back?
To spend it on rebuilding their own declining services? A finish to endless war, and the
self-appointed role of Policemen of the World.
Will America withdraw from militarism gracefully, or spend to the end,
as the Soviet Union did?
--------------
A world
at peace, with nobodies soldiers, in other people's lands. That is my idle day-dream. Peace seldom makes the newspapers, the
television, or the violent movies and games.
Who could talk about real peace?
My mind
goes immediately to Bruce Gagnon. He is
the coordinator of the Global Network
Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. Bruce has a blog,
a world campaign, a public access television show in Maine, and appearances in
alternative video. He speaks, writes and protests. Bruce Gagnon has a lifelong commitment to the unsung underdogs of
another American Dream: Disarmament, and Peace.
Even in
my own mind, I'm not sure a less armed world is possible.
Here are some
of the obvious objections to American withdrawal, the ones activists like
Bruce Gagnon must hear all the time.
Against closing U.S. bases around the world, and resigning as the
self-appointed "cop" of global affairs. In our extended Radio Ecoshock interview, Bruce and I go through
questions like these, although we don't get to them all, and new ones arise:
1. Would
rogue states and dictatorships, rise up, worse than the Americans, possibly
arming themselves with long-range nuclear missiles? There are plenty of bullies, and weak social structures facing
insurmountable problems in some countries already. Would the move to Peace
create worse monsters than we have now?
2. Will
China simply dominate the world?
3. What
happens to the defense of Germany and Japan, if the Americans close their bases
and go home?
4. What
happens to all those nuclear weapons?
Maybe America depending on nukes for their only defense might be more
likely to start or take part in a nuclear exchange, devastating cities?
5. What
about the impacts on unemployment.
Joining the Armed Forces has been a traditional safety valve for the
poor. U.S. unemployment is already near
record highs. Would the country implode
with the release of hundreds of thousands of soldiers?
(perhaps
they can help back home?)
6 Also on
the economy - what else does the U.S. still manufacture except weapons and
violent entertainment? Without the
military-industrial complex, what happens, what will disappear?
7.
Bottled water costs more per gallon, or liter, than gas at the pumps. Why?
Because the American military dominates the richest oil producing of the
world by brute force. If we withdraw
the troops, won't oil rise to a crippling price, ripping up the remains to the
U.S. economy?
8. What
about Peace and climate change? The
U.S. military is the single largest consumer of oil products in the world, with
all those emissions damaging the atmosphere.
How can there be a climate campaign that is not also a Peace campaign?
9a .
Bruce , does America even have a Plan B?
Have you seen reports on how to demilitarize, without collapsing the
nation?
9b. Would
closing the overseas bases represent "defeat" - or a new beginning
for America, and the rest of the world?
10. Where
is the tipping point, when the Americans at home realize they are losing
essential social services, like fire, police, adequate schools and health care
- because half of all available spending goes to the military and the overseas
apparatus of control, or empire?
11. What
could we do with all that money, the Peace dividend we were promised after the
Soviet Union collapsed?
I'm Alex
Smith with Bruce Gagnon, the long-time Maine peace activist now fighting
against the militarization of Space.
Read his blog at space4peace.blogspot.com
12. A
recent article in the blog Tom's Dispatch, called "Taking
Down America" is by Alfred W. McCoy.
He's a Professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The article suggests four scenarios, ways
that America might handle it's declining role in the world. In one,
by 2020, a desperate America faces
off with rising China, or even India, in space warfare.
I'm going
to take a minute to read this quote from McCoy's article:
"To
check China, and extend its military position globally, Washington is intent on
building a new digital network of air and space robotics, advanced cyber
warfare capabilities, and electronic surveillance. Military planners expect this integrated system to envelop the
Earth in a cyber-grid capable of blinding entire armies on the battlefield, or
taking out a single terrorist in field or favela. By 2020, if all goes
according to plan, the Pentagon will launch a three-tiered shield of space
drones -- reaching from stratosphere to exosphere, armed with agile missiles,
linked by a resilient modular satellite system, and operated through total
telescopic surveillance.
Last
April, the Pentagon made history. It
extended drone operations into the exosphere by quietly launching the X-37B
unmanned space shuttle, into a low orbit 255 miles above the planet. The X-37B is the first in a new generation
of unmanned vehicles, that will mark the full weaponization of space, creating
an arena for future warfare, unlike anything that has gone before."
That was
a quote from Alfred W. McCoy, a professor of history at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, as he looked at possible futures. McCoy has convened a group of 140 historians, to examine the Fall
of past empires, in the hopes of finding a soft landing, not just for the
United States, but all the client military states, which include greater
Europe.
Bruce
Gagnon, the subject of Space Weapons happens to be one of your
specialties. Is a coming space war
likely, and what can we do to stop it?
My
thoughts: When it comes to space wars, we may not need armies any more. The drones in space can attack anyone, any
time. They can control "them"
- and us!. Who ever has the keys to the
launch code, and it may be countries, corporations, or oligarchs. Some billionaires have already begun their
private space programs. One of them is
launching for NASA these days. With miniaturization,
and the spread of technology, in the future hackers and violent believers may
get the code, holding us ransom.
We are intent on entombing
ourselves in a skin of violence, at the edge of the upper sky, poised always to
rain down upon us. Space warriors.
McCoy
also talks about the long history of last-ditch attacks by empires in their
last gasp. The last stupid war, with
humiliating defeat. It has happened
over and over. Can America avoid
it? Has it already passed, in the unwinable
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Tell us
about the film "Pax Americana".
(Winner
best documentary at Whistler Film Festival: "Pax Americana: and the Weaponization of
Space")
When it
comes to local action, what is going on in Maine, with the campaign called
"Bring Our War Dollars Home"?
Their
video page is here.
Bruce, in
your blog, you recommend against trying for National legislation, or even
action in Washington D.C. Why do you
want more local action?
Have you
heard of other campaigns, or reports we should know about, leading in the
direction of demilitarization, and we hope, World Peace?
Finally,
Bruce Gagnon, as we wrap up, let's try and dream a little. It's hard, because you and I have always
grown up in fear of nuclear annihilation, and now terrorism. The arms trade is flourishing
world-wide. Weapons research funds many
Universities. Military Bases support
towns and even whole States.
But...
suppose we can. Talk to me about the
world we want, the human civilization built on Peace. What would it look like?
I'm Alex
Smith, dreaming of Peace, with long-time Maine activist Bruce Gagnon. Find out more at http://www.space4peace.org/. Bruce has an organizing notes blog at Blog
at http://space4peace.blogspot.com/
He also
does a public access TV show. From his
blog:
"I
taped another edition of my public access TV show, This Issue, today. I've just
completed my 7th year of broadcasting the program that plays on eight TV
stations across Maine."
Here is
Gagnon's blog entry on the campaign to bring the troops home:
"Last
night I was on a national conference call - to discuss the growing movement
that is making the connection between endless war spending, and economic
collapse here at home. People from coast-to-coast were on the call, and they
shared what they have been doing locally around this concern. It is clear that
Maine's Campaign to Bring Our War $$ Home is a model of sorts, for other groups
around the nation, who are just beginning to move into this particular
organizing focus."
And yet
Bruce doesn't believe in trying to organize for national action for Peace. It's all about organizing at the local and
regional levels. Is a decaying national
government not yet capable of action?
That seems to be the case for both military waste and climate change.
As
student fees go up, as businesses go down, as welfare is cut off and pensions
cut - people all over the world are calling for an end to wasteful military
spending. On 17th November 2010 Stuart
Parkinson, executive director of Scientists for Global Responsibility, addressed
the Sheffield CND AGM on 'Arms Conversion
for a Low Carbon Economy'. I run a
small sample, taken from the hour-long presentation.
My thanks
to Sheffield Indymedia for sharing
and posting this speech, at radio4all.net.
Slides for that speech on Arms Conversion are
here.
Even
though the UK is close to bankrupt, like the United States, it still has the
fourth largest military budget on Earth.
The new Conservative government is trying to cut back a little. For example, they are sharing aircraft
carriers and other naval vessels with France, almost unifying their
navies. But services are being cut to
the bone in Britain, even as the military spending goes on and on.
When will the people ask
why? And will they ask politely, or in more
riots?
I hope
you enjoy this program, trying to show that "peace pays". For a bit of nostalgia, try Pete Seeger
singing in the Vietnam War days, "Bring 'em Home"
You tube
video of Pete Seeger live "Bring 'Em Home" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4-w2FYIJbw&feature=related
Whether
you are religious or not, we wish you the oldest and greatest blessing: Peace
on Earth, and Goodwill Toward Men, Women, children, and all the innocent
species of this amazing Planet.
Alex
Smith