SEATTLE TEA TIME

Bring Our War $$ Home art show in Maine

I am sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Seattle drinking English breakfast tea, a block from the Amtrak station.  Leonard Eiger, from the anti-nuke group Ground Zero, is meeting me in a bit to take me to an art show by Gillchun Ko from Jeju Island who is displaying his work in a nearby gallery.  Timing worked out nicely.  Leonard has been one of the key organizers for my several days of events here in Seattle this weekend. But first I head to Bellingham later today where I speak at a local college at 4:00 pm and tomorrow night at 7:00 pm in a community event.

My time went well yesterday in Walla Walla.  Was able to speak to enviro students and show a Jeju video.  Had dinner with another group of enviro students.  Nice to be able to drop that "little" known fact that the Pentagon is the world's biggest polluter and has the largest carbon boot print on the planet.  At my talk during the evening one environmental professor took umbrage at my critique of Obama's "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific and stated that we had to vote for him in November otherwise bad things will happen.  I used that as an opportunity to introduce the story about Chicago's Crown family (big time stockholders in General Dynamics) giving the magician $500,000 in campaign donations in 2008 and additionally raising funds for him within the military industrial complex.

After Obama won the election Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine reported that he got more campaign $$$ from the weapons industry than the Republican war hawk John McCain did.  The magician rewarded General Dynamics by moving their Navy Aegis destroyers, outfitted with "missile defense" systems, to the head of the line as preferred options for surrounding Russia and China.  One has to reward their chief donors you know.

I rode the light rail system from the Seattle airport into downtown.  Very smooth ride, passing cars alongside the freeway, a model for all big cities.

Build it and they will come.