Thursday, June 05, 2008

LONG HISTORY OF SPACE ARMS RACE

Day 13 of my solidarity hunger strike


We had six people on the street today for my vigil in Brunswick. Only one more day for me before I hand the hunger strike over to Mary Beth Sullivan who will take my place.

I have begun to hear from folks who are going to join the one-day fast against Star Wars on June 22. I've decided to compile a list of people who contact me. Many more of course will be fasting all over the world that day. These are the names I know of so far:

Bob Anderson (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Dennis Apel (Guadalupe, California)
Sally Breen (Windham, Maine)
David W. Chipman (Harpswell, Maine)
Kathe Chipman (Harpswell, Maine)
Michael Connelly (Rochester, New York)
Becky Farley (Damariscotta, Maine)
Bruce Gagnon (Bath, Maine)
Starr Gilmartin (Trenton, Maine)
Matt Gregory (Lincoln, Nebraska)
Regina Hagen (Darmstadt, Germany)
Dud Hendrick (Deer Isle, Maine)
Tensie Hernandez (Guadalupe, California)
Nancy Hill (Stonington, Maine) June 19-24
Tom Kircher (Biddeford, Maine)
Isolt Lea (Gainesville, Florida)
Jeanne Pahls (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Judy Robbins (Sedgwick, Maine)
Robert Shetterly (Brooksville, Maine)
Mary Beth Sullivan (Bath, Maine)
Margaret Weitzmann (Potsdam, New York)
Mariah Williams (Liberty, Maine)

This morning I got an email from the group Stop the War Machine in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are organizing to participate in the June 22 fast and will hold a day-long vigil at the gate of Kirtland Air Force Base in their city that day. Kirtland AFB is testing laser weapons for Star Wars and has many aerospace corporations located nearby doing the research and development work on these space weapons systems.

New Mexico has a long history with military space weapons work. Right after World War II former Nazi rocket scientists (100 of them along with 100 copies of Hitler's V-2 rocket) were brought to the New Mexico desert to create the U.S. military space program.

Maj. Gen. Walter Dornberger was in charge of Hitler's program and was one of those brought to the U.S. to work on these systems. It was Dornberger that had the "vision" to put orbiting battle stations in space. The former Nazi rocketeer went on to become Vice-President of Bell Aerospace in New York.

The proposed U.S. Star Wars radar deployment in the Czech Republic would be one key piece in this larger program of Pentagon "control and domination" of space. The Czech radar would help communicate with orbiting military satellites and give the U.S. the ability to launch first-strike attack on Russia. Nearby "missile defense interceptors" in Poland would then pick off any remaining retaliatory strike that Russia might fire.

This new arms race in space has long been in the making. The Pentagon clearly understands that whoever controls space will control the Earth below.

It is our job to stop them. Our taxes should be spent for health care, education, and dealing with climate change not creating a deadly and destabilizing arms race in the heavens.

June 22 will signify a day of education about Star Wars and global resistance to it. Please join us.

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