THOUGHTS BEFORE HEADING TO VANDENBERG

I leave in the morning for Santa Barbara, California to speak at a series of events over the weekend being organized by the Pacific Life Community (PLC). The PLC is a faith-based network of west coast activists, many are Catholic Workers, who are leaders in the resistance to war and violence. They feed and house the poor as well as doing excellent peace work. It will be an honor to be with them, and the Catholic priest John Dear, for these events. On Sunday there will be a march to Vandenberg AFB, which like Cape Canaveral in Florida, is a major launch base for Star Wars. Vandenberg played a key role in the Pentagon's anti-satellite (ASAT) test last week that hit the falling spy satellite.

Last night I did a radio interview on a station from Jamaica. This was a first for me and it was exciting to see their interest in our work to stop this new arms race in space. It was also great to hear that they had closely followed the ASAT test issue and wanted to analyze it. I am encouraged by this as one of the goals of the Global Network has always been to expand the consciousness of people around the world about the nuclearization and weaponization of space. It helps to know folks everywhere are paying attention!

Participation in our 16th annual Global Network space organizing conference in Omaha, Nebraska on April 11-13 is growing. We now have people coming from at least 12 countries and it has been a great challenge to try to find places for so many excellent leaders to speak. A great problem to have. Right now we are waiting to hear if a delegation from South Korea will be able to join us. Their group is called SPARK and they recently affiliated with our organization.

As I type this I am watching the MSNBC TV program called Hardball where two Democratic Party Congressmen are being interviewed about their support for Clinton and Obama. Both of them are former military officers and one of them in particular, a former Navy admiral, is calling China our next great enemy that we must prepare for. The Democratic party is now becoming so dominated by these former military people and they are helping to drive us further into endless war.