What Could The $32 Million Per Hour The U.S. Has Spent On War Since 2001 Fund Instead?

The U.S. spends $32 million per HOUR on war. That's the best calculation of the financial impact of our policy of projecting force since 2001, conducted by the brainy folks at Brown University's Costs of War project.

What else could $32 million per hour buy that politicians are fond of telling hand-to-mouth Americans we can't afford?

• Free public education K-16 and even through medical school, as other affluent nations provide.

• Free healthcare including dental care for all, regardless of their income, as other affluent nations provide.

• Public transportation that is affordable and widely available, as other affluent nations provide.

• Sustainable energy solutions that do not accelerate climate change, historic flooding and extreme temperatures, as other affluent nations provide.

Instead, U.S. taxpayers fund the stock buybacks of already mega wealthy weapons manufacturers like General Dynamics. Why? Because their lobbyists own your representatives in Congress.

We here in Maine have said "ENOUGH!" to this polluting, undemocratic scheme for years now. Specifically, we have called for the conversion of GD's Bath Iron Works shipyard to building sustainable energy solutions to address the biggest threat to everyone's security on the planet.

Our bought and paid for reps and senators will cry, "But what about the jobs!"

They know full well that building sophisticated weapon systems like Zumwalt destroyers is an inefficient jobs program, and that investing the same amount in anything from my list above would actually produce far more jobs. Even just giving ordinary taxpayers a rebate would generate more jobs.

But defense contractors are big contributors to their campaign funds.

Below are excerpt's from peaceworker Bruce Gagnon's report back on planning to oppose the "christening" of yet another war ship in Maine on April 27. This one is named after Lyndon B. Johnson, the president who presided over the escalation of the Vietnam war after JFK was assassinated. I'm old enough to remember college students at the time chanting, "LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" in reference to large scale bombing of civilians. Naming a war ship after LBJ is an attempt to revise history and U.S. attitudes toward the Vietnam war.

Those interested in reading about past civil disobedience at General Dynamics/BIW in Bath can check out my archived blog posts here (Aegis 9) and here (Zumwalt 12).

Report from BIW 'LBJ christening' meeting

by Bruce Gagnon

Eleven people from around Maine met today in Brunswick to do more planning for the upcoming Bath Iron Works ‘LBJ christening’ of the 3rd Zumwalt destroyer at the shipyard on Saturday, April 27.

...

We discussed several scenarios for our legal non-violent protest on April 27 and decided to line up along the Washington St sidewalk just across from the post office on the north end of the shipyard at 8:30 am with signs, banners and literature. Gates for those ‘invited’ to the christening will open at 9:00 am. 

...

Our new leaflet entitled ‘Why Bath Iron Works Must Convert: Climate Crisis Demands Conversion!’ has been printed and was handed out in bulk today for statewide distribution.  If you’d like some to hand out before and/or after the April 27 BIW event please let Bruce Gagnon globalnet@mindspring.com know how many you want and he will mail them to you. 

We also want to encourage everyone to write a Letter to the Editor in your local newspaper (daily and/or weekly) about your concerns regarding the LBJ.

...

We urge those bringing signs or banners on April 27th to please consider making the theme around the conversion of the shipyard to build commuter rail, wind turbines, tidal power systems and other sustainable technologies to help us deal with our real problem – climate change.

Thank you all.  The meeting ended with a strong sense of community and commitment.  The people must act non-violently and boldly in order to create the kind of ‘social tension’ needed to open the way for real change as MLK often said.

Peace.

Too Good To Be True: Information Wanted To Be Free But...

Our relative the Kennebec River spilling out of its banks the morning after the nor'easter of October 30, 2017.

I had noted that it was eerie living in a pocket of apparent calm, uneasily enjoying a remarkably warm autumn in New England while Houston flooded and the Florida Keys were leveled and California burned and Puerto Rico went without electricity or potable water for weeks on end.

To those who choose not to see, the occupation of the entire planet by the U.S. military is largely invisible; its role in global climate catastrophe, even more so.

Let's make cider and gather leaves to till into our gardens, said the people around my neighborhood. Should we harvest the carrots and leeks yet? Then came the rogue nor'easter of Halloween eve.

My husband stands on the road I drove on my morning commute about an hour before several pine trees fell on it, taking  power lines down with them. I drove under a downed power line before encountering this barrier a half mile later. I abandoned my car after Mark rescued me by driving as far as he could from the opposite direction, and then hiking through the woods to where I was stranded.

Suddenly almost half the households in Maine were without electricity. For many, this meant without heat as well. Temperatures began to dip toward frost overnight and people were sleeping at my local school while they waited for power to be restored. Some people are still waiting, and others have been told restoration is not possible without rebuilding the infrastructure.

No showers or blogging for this household. We cooked by candlelight and scuttled around storing frozen food in various alternative spots, watching as the contents of our refrigerator slowly died. We took sponge baths with water heated over a woodstove. We charged our phones in the car or at work. First world problems.

The Hallmark card sentiment that every sunrise is a blessing could not truly be felt until I had been in darkness 12+ hours several days in a row.

Ditto the wonder of light spilling from last night's full moon.

So it is in this context that I encountered news that social media platforms are groing dim,  visibly being brought under kleptocracy's control.

I was saddened, but not surprised.

The internet with its troves of curated information always seemed to me too good to be true

Like the sexual revolution of the 60's, when for a few years pre-AIDs affluent baby boomers had access to reliable birth control, drugs that cured venereal disease, and liberation from the Puritan inhibitions claiming our sexuality and its expression were deadly sins. Something that good and free just doesn't seem to last.




Facebook began censoring two thinkers I've come to rely on -- Australian Caitlin Johnstone and fellow Mainer Bruce Gagnon -- even as Congress heard testimony that social media companies must do the dirty deeds, or be themselves punished.

From Andre Damon's reporting published on the World Socialist News website (a non-corporate news and opinion site which, incidentally, no longer appears as a source turned up by a Google search even though I've gone to it many times over the years):

Over the course of four hours, senators argued that “foreign infiltration” is the root of social opposition within the United States, in order to justify the censorship of oppositional viewpoints.

... 

Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii demanded...that the companies adopt a “mission statement” expressing their commitment “to prevent the fomenting of discord.”

The kleptocrats are worried and well they should be. Talk of gutting mortgage deductions --  the primary middle class tax shelter -- is a harbinger of austerity for the many. History shows that discord inevitably follows homelessness, hunger, or watching a loved one die from lack of affordable health care. Poor people and, disproportionately, people of color have known this all along. Those of us who've been coasting on our white and class privilege are about to have a rude awakening.

As the lights flicker on and off in the gathering gloom, I hear an out of season tree frog chirping in a warm November before dawn. Neighbors have noticed no birds at their feeders this fall. I suspect the frog's song may the requiem for our unsustainable lives on this planet.

The Path Of Most Resistance Would Oppose Wars, Too

Image from petition "Will you stand for peace?" directed at the organizers of the April 29 People's Climate March

What's wrong with this picture? It speaks a thousand unnecessary words about why war and militarism are the most clear and present threat to environmental health. 

It would be hard to think of a more effective engine of climate change than the billowing smoke of the thousands of fires caused by weapons in the oil and gas rich regions of our planet.

My friend Jenny Gray posted some wisdom today that I've lost in the flood of information; essentially, she vowed to follow the path of most resistance. I inferred her nod to the notion that the path of least resistance often leads to people supporting policies that are deadly to the planet and its life forms. For instance, men in offices blandly signing death warrants for names on a list.

The path of least resistance these days is masquerading as the path of most resistance. (Because, the demagogue with bad hair!!!) However, if you bear in mind that the way most propaganda works is not by telling lies but by directing our attention away from glaring truths, the mask falls away.

The organization World Beyond War is circulating this critique of the so-called "People's Climate March" slated for April 29 in Washington DC. Among the claims on the march organizers' web site:

There are nine points to the People’s Climate platform that were developed over the last year. They are:

• Directly and rapidly reduce greenhouse gas and toxic pollution to successfully combat climate change and improve public health

• Mandate a transition to an equitable and sustainable New Energy and Economic Future that limits the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels

• Provide a Just Transition for communities and workers negatively impacted by the shift to a New Energy and Economic Future that includes targeted economic opportunity and provides stable income, health care, and education

• Demand that every job pays a wage of at least $15 an hour, protects workers, and provides a good standard of living, pathways out of poverty, and a right to organize

• Ensure that investments are targeted to create pathways for low-income people and people of color to access good jobs and improve the lives of communities of color, indigenous peoples, low-income people, small farmers, women, and workers.

• Make bold investments in the resilience of states, cities, tribes, and communities that are threatened by climate change; including massive investments in infrastructure systems from water, transportation, and solid waste to the electrical grid and safe, green building and increasing energy efficiency that will also create millions of jobs in the public and private sector

• Reinvest in a domestic industrial base that drives towards an equitable and sustainable New Energy and Economic Future, and fight back against the corporate trade-induced global race to the bottom

• Market- and policy-based mechanisms must protect human rights and critical, native ecosystems and reduce pollution at source

Sounds good, right? Except that there's no mention of the #1 driver of carbon pollution and climate change: the military.

If you can't smell the Democratic Party bullshit at this point, you may have a head cold interfering with your olfactory organ.

Why won't people who claim to be concerned about the environment -- for instance, 350.org -- come out against wars? Probably because their political allies have taken and continue to take massive donations from the corporations who profit from building climate wrecking weapons of mass destruction.

Wars begun before the current regime took the White House will continue to get uglier, and new wars may even get nuclear. 

When will the misinformed people in the U.S. mount significant resistance to militarism as a way of life? After it's already too late?

You can join me in signing the petition to the People's Climate March organizers here, though it is unlikely they will listen as their ears are plugged up with corporate donations. But if another person sees that you signed and is led to ask a crucial question about the link between militarism and climate change, your communication will have worked.

You can also join the Natural Guard campaign by signing the pledge here. Be a communication worker and help bring news of the path of real resistance to people befuddled by corporate media messaging.

Add your name to join the Natural Guard effort from wherever you are!

I pledge to speak out about the effects of militarism on our environment, because the commons we all share that sustain life are valuable to me. 

In discussions about security and safety, I will remind others of the need to count in the cost in pollution and fuel consumption of waging wars all around the planet.

In discussions about acting soon to protect our loved ones from the effects of climate chaos, I will remind others of the need to examine the role of the Pentagon and its many contractors in contributing to planetary warming.

Lisa Savage, Solon, ME

Mark Roman, Solon, ME

Bruce Gagnon, Bath, ME

Wade Fulmer

Curtis Cole

Bob Dale

Christine A. DeTroy

Eric Herter

Ann E. Ruthsdottir

Barbara Williamson

natasha mayers

Jacqui Deveneau

Beth Adams

Thomas L. Fusco

Jason Rawn!

Janet Caldwell, Damariscotta, ME

Peter S. Morgan, Jr., Raymond, ME

Dawn Neptune Adams

Dixie Searway, Limerick, ME

Kevin James

Sidney Mitchell

Pat Taub, Portland, ME
Starr C. Gilmartin, Trenton, ME
Lora Louise Somlyo
Helen Anderson
John M. Kinsella
Anne Johnson
Martha Spiess
Janet Weil, Concord, CA

Lynne Harwood

Kirk Robbins, Portland, ME

Michelle Fournier, North Yarmouth, ME

Richard Clement, Pittston, ME

Selene Spivak, Portland, ME

Judith Hopkins

Bob Klotz

Nancy B. Baxter

David Larsen, Portland, ME

Ridgely Fuller

Pat Hynes

Ginny Schneider

Vicki Saint Amand

Mike King

Nathan James

Ken Jones, Swannanoa, NC

Sal Mangiagli, CT

Rachel Lyn Rumson

Rosalie Paul, Brunswick, ME

Margie Deschene, Grand Falls, ME

Bill Deschene, Grand Falls, ME

David Smith, Belfast, ME

Andrew Watkins, Belfast, ME

Carolyn Pressley, Belfast, ME

Adela R. Hulbert, Belfast, ME

Meredith Bruskin, Swanville, ME

Miriam Watkins, Belfast, ME

Suzanne Fitzgerald, Bar Harbor, ME

Ursula Slavick, Portland, ME

Will Thomas, Auburn, NH

Wendy Thomas, Auburn, NH

Amanda Thomas, Auburn, NH

Juyeon Rhee, Tenafly, NJ

Steve Benson, Surry, ME

Judy Robbins, Sedgwick, ME

Mary Rydingsward, Bristol, CT

Michael Cutting, Portland, ME

Debbie Atwood, Brunswick, ME

Sally Chappell

Sue Davis

Sass Linneken, Winthrop, ME

Eileen Kreutz, Industry, ME

Benjamin d'Haiti, Newburgh, ME

Connie Jenkins

Brian Noyes Pulling, M. Div., SC and ME

Paul Sheridan, Northport, ME

Peter Woodruff

Russell Wray

Peter S. Morgan, Raymond, ME

Kevin Brooks, Old Town, ME

Michael Cutting, Portland, ME

Katharine Winthrop, Portland, ME

Sally Breen, Windham, ME

S.G. Packer, Portland, ME

J. Sproul, Gorham, ME

Tim Paradis, Portland, ME

Wells R. Staley-Mays, Biddeford, ME

Beth Streeter, Portland, ME

Linden Thigpen, South Portland, ME

John W. Cole, South Portland, ME

Lesley MacVine, Falmouth, ME

Nancy Aldrich, Cape Elizabeth, ME

Gail Scott, Portland, ME

Jessica Moore, Portland, ME

Dusan Bjelic, Portland, ME

Joe de Rivera, Brunswick, ME

Glenna Macwilliam, York, ME

Eric Rustad, Bath, ME

Joanne Krejsa, Bath, ME

Sally Trie, Portland, ME

Davida Ammerman, Madison, ME

Douglas Lane, Lewiston, ME

Dianne Burns

Susan Hopkins, Westbrook, ME

Selma Sternlieb, Brunswick, Me

Dixie Searway

Stephen Soucy, Ellsworth ME

Cynthia Howard, Biddeford Pool, ME

Richard Brown Lethem

Jonah Watt, Brunswick, ME

#PentagonClimateCrime Accountability Could Be The Best Thing To Emerge From #COP21

Image: Anthony Freda

Finally! The silver lining in an otherwise tepid and ineffective climate agreement out of Paris this month: military carbon emissions will no longer be exempt from official reckonings. 

The Pentagon's exemption was a terrible legacy from the Kyoto Protocol which extended the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change but did not stop temperature rise or climate chaos unfolding around the planet.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviewed a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War in the streets in Paris on the last day of climate talks there:

DEREK MATTHEWS: Well, the U.S. military is the largest polluter in the world, and so I think it’s difficult to have an agreement, at the COP agreement, that excludes U.S. military’s pollution.

AMY GOODMAN: How is it excluding?

DEREK MATTHEWS: Well, they’re not tracking the amount of pollution that is emitted from the U.S. military as part of U.S. emissions. In addition, the U.S.—the military, militaries across the world help enforce extractive economies. And so, when people, local communities and frontline communities are trying to build movements to keep extractive corporations from taking the resources out of their lands, it is the military, the police and militarism, in general, that is stopping that from happening.

People suffer on the frontlines of opposing corporate profiteers greedy for even more fossil fuels to burn. And failure to address carbon pollution is a death sentence for many in poor communities where drought, flooding, and megastorms destroy livelihoods and housing. 

Image: IndigenousRising.org from "Official Response to COP21 Agreement"

Indigenous peoples came to Paris in large numbers because they understand that the matters under consideration are a matter of life or death for human beings.

Meanwhile, liberals in the U.S. congratulated themselves on a deal they characterized as "important progress" -- even though they conceded it won't get the job done. Most of them are kept busy bickering over which warmongering candidate they would support in next year's presidential elections, and vilifying the other corporate war party's candidates. It's easy to do as that party's candidates deny climate change is even occurring (or is caused by human choices) and are openly contemptuous of the rights and prospects of anyone except rich white people. 

But is it any safer to pretend that the Pentagon and its wars are worthy of at least half of every federal budget while decrying climate chaos -- which is driven by militarism? 

Where does the path of denial of the real causes of climate change lead?

My artist friend Kenny Cole created this print entitled "Iceberg/Last Run" in response to folks in Maine fiddling while Rome burns i.e. focusing on their upcoming ski holidays while wars they failed to oppose raged on. (You can see a better photo of it and buy a copy here.)

This year they will have a hard time finding any snow in Maine to ski on. It's December 15 and my lawn is still green.

Climate change is alarming scientists who study northern New England, but my elected "representatives" are most excited about jobs building weapons of mass destruction for the Navy. Maine's senators applaud the concessions made by the workers' union at General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works shipyard in order to hold onto those Pentagon contracts.

Because our collective quality of life in the U.S. depends on our full participation in global militarization -- right?


The Indigenous peoples have the solution, and they will have the last word: "Any solutions that do not talk about cutting emissions at the source, or keeping fossil fuels in the ground, are false solutions." Dallas Goldtooth, Dakota/Dine

Maine Peace Walkers Call For Portsmouth Naval Shipyard To Convert From Building Weapons Of Mass Destruction

I was delighted to have a day to join the Maine Peace Walk: Militarization of the Seas on Saturday October 24, 2015. A high energy opening circle kicked off the final day of the walk which began two weeks prior in Ellsworth, Maine. Jun-san's joyful dancing and her leadership along with other members of the Nipponzan order of Buddhists was much appreciated. And everyone enjoyed the tunes offered by the Leftist Marching Band.

The band followed the walk all the way to the front gate of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine where we stood across the street during the shift change. Hundreds of workers saw our message:

Concern for our fellow species was a major theme of the peace walk drawing attention to the Pentagon's abuse of the world's oceans. 

Crossing Memorial Bridge from Portsmouth, NH to Kittery, Maine. Veterans for Peace flags flying make me remember those brave enough to stand up to war machine.

Once the peace walk was standing on the sidewalk across the street from the gate of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, local police showed up and photographed us. They hung around for about an hour until the walkers departed. 

Mary Beth Sullivan of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space opened the remarks by saying "compassionate commitment -- that's why we walk."

Doug Bogen spoke about his 20 years of advocating for the shipyard to stop building weapons of mass destruction and start building renewable energy systems, such as offshore wind turbines.

Bob Klotz of 350 Maine spoke about the deep connection between climate change and militarization of the planet.

Veteran for Peace Eric Wasileski spoke movingly of the moral injury of participating in war, and how this is a factor in the 22 veterans suicides per day in the U.S.

I spoke on the folly of depending on building weapons of mass destruction as a jobs program. When I find a video of my remarks, I will add it in. 

With much gratitude to Bruce Gagnon and Jason Rawn, lead organizers of this year's walk, I dedicate this blog post.

Bombing Over There Allows U.S. To Ignore The Effects On Our Shared Planet #Hiroshima

Source: JF Ptak Science Books, archival newspaper for sale

A major reason that people in the U.S. tolerate decades of bombing civilians at their expense is that, in their minds, the explosions, pollution and death happen "over there."

Take the immense environmental crime that occurred 70 years ago today, the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima, Japan.

That the Japanese were on the point of surrender is now a documented historical fact. Their own war machine was crushed and their civilian will or even ability to continue fighting had been much reduced by starvation and the fire bombing of other locations.

But the U.S. was looking down the road at its frenemy the U.S.S.R., and a show of strength in the form of a weapon more destructive and deadly than anything yet conceived was ordered.

Source: konnichiwa.pl

A show of scientific prowess in weaponry is why Nagasaki was bombed with a different type of nuclear bomb just two days after Hiroshima. When the surrender of imperial Japan was really, really imminent. 

Of course Japan was a rapacious force that had sneak attacked the U.S. military at Pearl Harbor (except the attack wasn't actually a surprise). Its military had raped, murdered and burned a path through East Asia and the South Pacific for decades. The U.S. could count on public opinion to tolerate if not support any hell that rained down on Japanese heads.

In 1945 it was easier to believe that the planet we live on actually had zones that were remote from one another, and that what happened in one hemisphere did not affect the climate and overall health of people all over the world. 

Source: "20 Countries the U.S. Has Bombed Since WWII" by Jennifer Markert, 10/18/14

You would think that now, in 2015, we could no longer engage in that particular illusion. Yet the effect on climate change of our frequent bombing of other countries is treated as if it didn't exist. 

Blogger Robert Scribbler on the climate effects of wildfires that have increased in the 21st century:

Lofting large amounts of brown carbon into the Jet Stream level of the atmosphere is an amplifying feedback to human-caused warming. One occurring in addition to the added rate of carbon release generated by these wildfires as well as to a transient negative feedback coming from generating thick, low level clouds, that block out sunlight.  

High level clouds alone aid in the heating of the Earth — allowing visible sunlight to penetrate while trapping long rave radiation rebounding from the Earth’s surface. Painting these clouds dark through brown carbon smoke particulate emission into the upper atmosphere provides an added heat kick by further lowering cloud albedo and by re-radiating an overall greater portion of the transient heat. As a final insult, the brown carbon aloft eventually precipitates down to the surface. When such precipitation lands on ice sheets and northern hemisphere snow cover, it darkens the snow and enhances melt. A kind of ominous global warming fallout.

The macabre silver lining for climate change in the nuclear weapons era ushered in by Hiroshima? Even a "limited, regional" nuclear bombing would decelerate global warming rapidly. Per a 2013 study by the International Red Cross:

Recent environmental research using previously unavailable climate modeling techniques indicates that even a limited regional nuclear war could cause global climate cooling that would cut food production for many years and put one billion people at risk of starvation worldwide. 

This research also estimates that a large-scale nuclear war would create ice-age conditions likely to eliminate most of the human race. 

Addicted To Militarism Means Addicted To Climate Change #PentagonClimateCrime

It would be extremely challenging to quantify the Pentagon's lifetime carbon footprint. But it is a number worth reckoning.

We are approaching the 70th anniversary of the shameful bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the planet's first nuclear weapons. Of course radioactive pollution is the kind of harm to the environment and living beings that we think of in connection with these events.  But I also wonder, how much did those bombs and all the others dropped since then contribute to climate change? 

The Pentagon does not want you to know.

Nagasaki, Japan   August 8, 1945 

Ukawa village, Japan

Meanwhile, friends are in Japan right now supporting local residents who object to having U.S. military bases ruin their coastline and livelihood. Ukawa village has mounted a spirited resistance to having a missile "defense" site aimed at China located on their land. 

Besides CO2 emissions, the Pentagon also blankets the planet in noise pollution.  As reported by Bruce Gagnon:

A historic Buddhist temple was our first stop which is now virtually surrounded by the military base barbed wire fences.  We were told that the public now largely avoids the once popular temple because of the extreme noise coming from the generators providing power to the radar. 

CO2 price tag for all the generators used by the Pentagon? Probably part of the overall carbon emitted from burning 90,000,000 barrels worth of petroleum fuel each year i.e. approximately 38,700,000 metric tons in 2013.

Warmer oceans and other waterways are bad for many species. This week brought news that Sockeye Salmon are dying in droves as they try to spawn in water that is the wrong temperature. About half have died this season, and wildlife experts predict as many as 80% will ultimately perish.

Tomorrow I'll blog about the many, many ways that my fellow Americans rationalize their inability to reckon the Pentagon's impact on catastrophic climate change.