STANDING VIGIL AMONG THE SPACE WARRIORS

We had two vigils in Colorado Springs today. The first held at noon on a busy downtown street. The second at 5:00 pm at the entrance of the Broadmoor Hotel where the Space Foundation launched its annual space symposium. Both vigils were organized by Citizens for Peace in Space, a co-founding affiliate of the Global Network.

The local newspaper reported this morning that 7,500 people would be attending the space foundation conference this year. The cost of putting on this event will be more than $25 million - mostly taxpayer money that is handed over to the aerospace industry to build space technology to "protect" us from our "enemies." The question remains, who will protect us from the waste, fraud, and corruption that is endemic within the military industrial complex?

This evening a community forum was held at the public library where we heard from three speakers who have come to this city to join the protests. Jan Tamas, a leader of the movement to oppose the U.S. Star Wars radar in the Czech Republic, reported that 70% of their citizens oppose the radar base. J. Narayana Rao from Nagpur, India talked about his organizing efforts to bring the space weaponization issue to the Indian peace movement and the public at large in his country. Mary Beth Sullivan, the Global Network's Outreach Coordinator, explored what an alternative sustainable technology future of windmills, solar, public railways, and more would look like instead of building weapons for control and domination of space.

We go back out to the entrance of the Broadmoor first thing in the morning. Once again we will hold signs and banners and hand out leaflets to those entering the space warfare confab.

Today Brendan O'Connor, who took a Greyhound bus from upstate New York to join us, dressed up in my old Darth Vadar costume and stood by the entrance. One man became angry at us being there and walked up to Brendan and shoved him with all his might and the mask flew off Vadar's face exposing a surprised 27-year old who handled it all very well. It was the perfect example of one of the "space warriors" thinking that these "peaceniks" had no right to be there holding our signs and banners.

The idea of replacing violence with non-violence is too much for some folks who make a good living preparing for the destruction of the world.

It is so important for us to be here in Colorado Springs to remind the space weapons industry that growing numbers of people around the world are catching onto their dangerous and expensive game and are standing against the madness.