the funnies

Pax Americana & the Weaponization of Space

Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space is a documentary film by Denis Delestrac with a music score by Amon Tobin. 

The film deals with the issue of space weapons and their politics, featuring interviews with several key US military personal, academics such as Noam Chomsky and others, including actor Martin Sheen. 

Three members of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space were also interviewed.

The film won the Best Documentary award at the Whistler Film Festival and was selected in a number of international film festivals.

It aired on public access TV throughout Europe and Canada and in movie theaters in Latin America and beyond.

The film was blocked from wide distribution in the US.

It's a fine and fascinating documentary film.

Vulture equity funds buying up housing globally

 

Hundreds of protesters gather outside Spain’s Parliament, demanding action over soaring rents and a lack of affordable housing. 

The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal fueled days-long protests, and now her death has stoked that anger ahead of snap elections. 

What is the deal with the new 'Moon race'?

So the new 'nuclear space race' is on. The US team verses Russia and China. What are they after? Helium-3 for potential power back on Earth and using the moon as a military staging base to control the 'Earth-Moon gravity well' as a way to decide which nations and private corporations can move into space to mine the planetary bodies. 

We should recall that Obama signed a law to give American companies and wealthy individuals the 'right' to mine planetary bodies essentially in violation of the Outer Space and Moon treaties that said the planetary bodies were the province of all humankind.

This is the kick-off of the race to carry the 'bad seed' of greed, war, domination, and colonization that was long ago planted into the soil on Earth into the heavens. The taxpayers have paid the R & D for these programs and now that the space tech has advanced, the self-centered capitalists are intent on grabbing all they can for themselves. 

This will move the Earth-bound global war system into the heavens. When they add nuclear power into the equation these people are asking for trouble.

In addition to reactors on the moon they will next want nuclear reactors to power orbiting battle stations to 'protect their assets' on these planetary bodies. This is largely what Trump's 'Golden Dome' is all about. Not so much about projecting us from attack back on Earth. It's more about controlling the pathway on and off our planet Earth. Deciding who can go out and mine the sky. Like the front gate of a military base.

In the end its a disaster in the making. From the Earth, where the Department of Energy has a horrible track record of worker, air and water contamination while fabricating space nuclear devices, into space this entire nuclear system is a tragic mistake.

The nuclear industry views space as a new market. They don't give a damn about the dangers involved. These greedy aerospace corporations are salivating as they look at the profits to be made.

Bruce  

Masters of Space: Deep Space Strategy in the Age of Trump

This article was written during the first Trump administration on June 25, 2020 soon after the creation of the US Space Force was announced. Much as changed since then as additional billions have been added to the budget for the nuclearization and weaponization of space. In addition Trump has announced the full bore campaign to build the massively expensive and destabilizing 'Golden Dome' program to deploy orbiting battle stations just above the Earth. Our work is more needed than ever.

By Karl Grossman

The United States “must be capable of winning wars that extend into space,” asserts a just-released “Defense Space Strategy” report. It is the first space strategy document issued by the U.S. since President Donald Trump, after declaring that the U.S. must achieve “dominance in space,” signed a measure this past December authorizing establishment of a Space Force.

The U.S. space strategy is highly aggressive.

“The Department of Defense is embarking on the most significant transformation in the history of the U.S. national security space program,” the report says. “Space is now a distinct warfighting domain, demanding enterprise-wide-changes to polices, strategies, operations, investments, capabilities, and expertise for a new strategic environment.”

“The Department,” it continues, “is taking innovative and bold actions to ensure space superiority and to secure the Nation’s vital interests in space now and in the future. Establishing the U.S. Space Force as the newest branch of our Armed force and the U.S. Space Command as a unified combatant command, as well as undertaking significant space acquisition reform across the DoD, has set a strategic path to expand space power for the Nation. It is a path that embraces space as a unique domain of national military power that, together with the other domains, underpins multi-domain joint and combined military operations to advance national security.”

A rationale for the strategy is the claim in the report that “China and Russia each have weaponized space as a means to reduce U.S. and allied military effectiveness and challenge our freedom of operation in space.”

However, China and Russia, for decades now, have sought to expand the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, put together by the U.S., the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and now signed on to by most nations on Earth, declaring space a global commons to be used for “peaceful purposes” and outlawing weapons of mass destruction in space. China and Russia along with U.S. neighbor Canada have been seeking to widen that to ban all weapons in space under a Prevention of an Arms Race in Space (PAROS) treaty. But the U.S. has voted no to the proposed PAROS treaty, affectively vetoing its enactment at the United Nations.

The new U.S. Defense Space Strategy is “aggressive,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement following the report’s release on June 17th. “This document confirms the aggressive course by Washington in the space sphere,” it said.

“Space is seen by the U.S. side as an arena of war,” it continued, calling this a “destructive” approach which “provokes an arms race in space.”

“Russia holds the diametrically opposing position, giving priority to using and study space only for peaceful purposes,” said the Russian foreign ministry statement.

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space  commented that “this ‘new’ Pentagon Space Strategy is really nothing new. At least since the 1997 U.S. Space Command’s ‘Vision for 2020’ report, Washington has been declaring that it will ‘control and dominate space’ and ‘deny other nations access to space.’ The big difference is that in 1997 there were actually no real competitors to U.S. in space as the former Soviet Union had recently collapsed and China had not fully grown into the economic and military rival it is today.”

As for the PAROS treaty, “the idea” has been “to close the door to the barn before the horse gets out.” But the U.S. during “both Republican and Democrat administrations” have taken the position: “There are no weapons in space—we don’t need a new treaty.”

“Of course, this is disingenuous and this blocking posture is largely motivated by the aerospace industry which views space as a vast new market for profit,” said Gagnon. “The nuclear industry similarly views space as we see the current drive to ‘privatize’ space so wealthy resource extraction corporations can ‘mine the sky.’ They are planning nuclear-powered mining colonies on celestial bodies and nuclear-powered rocket engines providing heavy lift capability to get to Mars and beyond.”

He said, “The aerospace industry has long maintained that an arms race in space, ‘Star Wars,’ would be the largest industrial project in human history. Some years back the aerospace publication, ‘Space News,’ ran an editorial stating that the industry needed to come up with a ‘dedicated funding source’ to pay for all its desired projects in space.” It said, Gagnon related, that the aerospace corporations were “sending their vast team of lobbyists to Washington to defund the ‘entitlement programs’ that officially are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and what is left of the social safety net.  The industry is like a pirate—grabbing the national treasure chest so they can be the ‘Masters of Space.’”

“So what are Russia and China to do? We know that whomever controls space will control the planet below and also be able to control the pathway on and off the planet. Moscow and Beijing have requested new treaties, asked for stability, and warned that they cannot allow the US to ‘control and dominate’ space,” said Gagnon. “So today we hear the Pentagon screaming that Russia and China are now trying to dominate space and that the Pentagon needs even more of our tax dollars to ‘defend’ the heavens from these ‘existential enemies.’ The plan is in motion, the U.S. is leading the pack to weaponize space, and ever so ‘innocently’ accuses its primary competitors of doing what Washington itself is doing. Thus, we are on the edge of a cliff and the aerospace industry is pushing the whole planet into a chaotic abyss.”

To challenge this, “to beat this insane and provocative plan,” said Gagnon, “we must starve the beast. We can do that by fighting for social progress—programs like health care for all and funding to deal with our real problem today called climate crisis.”

The “Defense Space Strategy” report also declares: “Great power competition defines the strategic environment. Space is both a source of and conduit for national power, prosperity, and prestige. As a result, space is a domain that has reemerged as a central arena of great power competition, primarily with China and Russia. More than any other nation, the United States relies on space-based capabilities to project and employ power on a global scale. Today, U.S. reliance on space has increased to the point where space capabilities not only enhance, but enable our way of life and war of war.”

It says: “The creation of new space-focused organizations in DoD offers an historic opportunity to reform every aspect of our defense space enterprise. The USSF [U.S. Space Force], the newest branch of the Armed Forces, will bring unity, focus, and advocacy to organizing, training, and equipping space forces.”

Under a heading “Strategic Approach,” the report says the Pentagon will “pursue the following prioritized lines of effort….1) Build a comprehensive military advantage in space. 2) Integrate military spacepower into national, joint, and combined operations. 3) Shape the strategic environment. 4) Cooperate with allies, partners, industry, and other U.S. Government departments and agencies.”

“Specific objectives,” the report continues, “include: Build out the U.S. Space Force. Develop and document doctrinal foundations of military spacepower. Develop and expand warfighting expertise and culture.”

In its “Conclusion,” the report says: “Successful implementation of this strategy requires embracing space activities as a unique source of national and military power and incorporating the principles of joint warfare into space operations.”

~ Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.

Pistol Pete's space rap during 'Arsenal of Freedom' tour

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks during a nationwide Arsenal of Freedom tour stop at Sierra Space in Louisville, Colorado on Feb. 23, 2026.

This is the speech where Hegseth declared that the US must have 'orbital dominance - plain and simple'. He claimed he was not interested in 'orbital equity or orbital parity'.  (This part begins around 9 minute mark.) 

You can get a real feel for the arrogance and pure stupidity of the leadership inside the White House, Congress, the Pentagon and the aerospace industry.

They are like drunken gamblers at the bar, ready to punch the face of anyone who challenges their big shot talk and tough guy swagger. 

It's easy for Hegseth to talk like this when Trump stands behind him encouraging this bullshit.

I've long said the only good thing that will come from Trump's presidency is that he will show the whole universe what the US has always been about. And at the same time reveal to any US-American, if they are willing to look deeply, our own individual complicity with this colonial imperialism.

Some past presidents hid it better - but Trump in a way is more honest, but also more dangerous, as he takes great pleasure in this psychopathic behavior. 

These people must be stopped - now. It's beyond Hitler.

Bruce

Space launch impacts on Mother Earth

A deep dive by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space into the impacts of space launches on our Mother Earth..

It's not good.

We are often told that space launches are helping gather info to protect life on Earth.

Sadly it's the other way around.

Take a peek and help us keep space for peace and protect our planet from military and corporate space launch degradation.

Bruce

Space week events at Reva University, Bengaluru, India

 

I was invited to be a keynote speaker on space issues at a conference by the School of Legal Studies at Reva University in Bengaluru, India by Global Network board member Dr. Aruna Kammila. She directs the Legal Department and is hosting this Space Law conference.

As a preliminary activity her department had first year students make posters about the need for vigorous space law in small groups of 2-4 each. They presented the posters with clear explanations to MB and I. We were asked to pick one as the best of them all.  We couldn't do it. So I took them one at a time and said this one is the best - one after the other. The students faces lit up as they saw each of their creations rewarded.

Yesterday I spoke to about 60 third year law students and answered questions. And tomorrow the formal conference begins where I will give my talk to a larger group.

We heard that 150 papers were submitted, many from students wishing to address the conference from India and other nations including from the African continent. I'm not certain how many were accepted but it will be a moving day to hear from these very bright young people.

It is an honor to be with them all.

Bruce 

History lesson: South Korea Joins US Space Force

A growing citizen movement (People Opposing Space Militarization and Rocket Launches) throughout South Korea is now underway to stop their nation from becoming an agent in the overall US global space warfare coalition.

Because of the massive cost of space militarization, one key Pentagon strategy has been to recruit the allies to become 'partners' in the program.

But the US will remain in command of the 'tip of the space warfare spear'.  

Check out our Global Network video library on YouTube for many more short space videos covering the many new angles of the story.