The peas are starting to bud in our back yard at the Addams-Melman House in Bath, Maine. We named our house after WWI-era peace activist and social worker Jane Addams who won the Nobel Peace Prize back in the day when you really had to earn it.
The other half of our house name comes from Seymour Melman who was professor of economics at Columbia University in New York. He is regarded as the father of economic conversion and during the late 80's to early 90's that issue of converting away from military production was driving the peace movement as the Cold War came to an end and we were promised a peace dividend.
But George H. W. Bush (the former director of the CIA and son of WWII era Nazi sympathizer Sen. Prescott Bush) got the minds of the American people redirected with the Panama invasion ('Operation Just Cause'). Soon after came the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and daddy Bush sent hundreds of thousands of US troops (and many National Guard units) to Iraq for the cakewalk it turned out to be. (During that time I drove across much of the US and virtually every small town had signs up cheering on their local sons who were sent to Iraq. The mass war indoctrination was well organized.)
Before the Persian Gulf slaughter began the US used satellites to pre-identify all of Iraq's military targets. Then in the first 2-3 days of the war the Pentagon bombed 95% of those targets leaving just a tiny sliver of capability in place that the military played cat and mouse with during the remaining weeks of the war. The bottom line is that the US Space Command called that 'war' the first space war and its primary purpose was to field test and show the world how the Pentagon could use space technology to direct the destruction of anyone that dares to stand up to corporate globalization.
During the years since the end of the Cold War we've seen the continuing escalation of US military development under the guise of fighting terrorism. Massive amounts of tax dollars have been shoveled down the high tech spying and war making rat hole. Social programs and the nation's physical infrastructure have been hollowed out - justified as debt reduction imperatives.
The corporate oligarchy doesn't need the US for manufacturing when much cheaper labor can be found overseas. Instead our role has become 'security export' as we send our youth to fight resource battles that only benefit the 1%. Our manufacturing sector only builds weapons for endless war. It's gotten so bad that industry in the US hardly has the skill to make tools anymore and doesn't presently have the ability to build rail systems and the like. This did not come to pass by chance.
The oligarchy leaves nothing to chance anymore. And if the people can be kept docile the whole process can be accelerated.
Thus we come back to Jane Addams and Seymour Melman. Their positive vision of a peaceful nation, caring society, and independently skilled work force is fading in memory by the day. Unless we stand up and hold these images of a kinder and more sustainable society in a public way they will be lost to the future generations.
Nothing can be more important in our lives.
1 comment:
So very!
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