News conference today at BIW
Thanks to Bob Klotz for organizing the news conference and Martha Spiess for this short video.
Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
The collapsing US military & economic empire is making Washington & NATO even more dangerous. US could not beat the Taliban but thinks it can take on China-Russia-Iran...a sign of psychopathology for sure.
Thanks for writing to share your thoughts. This is a very complex issue because of the way that our society has allowed military/industrial corporations to be established in multiple locations and because of the way these multi-state national corporations now work by inviting their parts to compete against each other. We cannot (and will not) compete with Mississippi, which throws 10s of millions at their GD subsidiary.It is certainly correct that General Dynamics does not need Maine's money. It is also correct that we have many needs for our tax dollars that are not being met under the current administration.
However, because all of the legislative leadership on both sides of the aisle signed on to this bill and because, I believe, the majority of the Legislature (all of the R's and enough of the D's) will vote for this bill, I am now attempting to make this the best bill that it can be. We are trying to make certain that any $$ BIW receives are tied to job retention and job growth. This way they cannot use state dollars to "streamline" their operations and eliminate jobs. We will also attempt to make this bill cost less in the long run.Working on it...
I think it useful to understand why the major party statehouse leadership is inclined toward supporting corporate welfare. The leaders purchase loyalty from their caucus members through funds laundered by the leadership-PAC process, funds that mostly originate with "the lobby" which are primarily corporations. Those members who are most loyal (and can be 'trusted' to follow instructions) become committee chairs, so it is not surprising that they are generally weak personalities. (Remember that half of the 15 Democrats who flipped their votes to get rid of ranked choice voting were committee chairs.)
The most vulnerable statehouse leaders are those who are seeking higher elected office; the others are not accountable to anyone.
I hope these comments are helpful.Thus the bottom line is that the corporate "lobby" really runs the show in Augusta - like in most places across the nation. The needs of the people are secondary to the wants of the corporate masters - Mr. Big as I like to call the oligarchy. The Democrats, who love to talk glowingly about social justice and fairness during election time, mostly fall in line because they want to advance. They go along to get along. The people be damned in the end.
Russia and the USA are not at war. The United States of ExxonMobil is in a fierce competition with the Russian oil industry over the control of resources and infrastructure in the Middle East. That's all that this is about. It's not about democracy. It is not in our national security interests to be in the ME. It is in the interest of weapons industry, the intelligence industry, and the oil industry to be there. It's that simple. If the US gets out of there, it will seriously depress the stock market. Russia will block the Sunni pipeline and the Shi'ite pipeline will go through. Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela will join forces to become the new economic superpower. The US and Europe will be economic backwaters. (Hey, but at least we won't be going broke paying for war all the time. We can start a domestic economy recovery.) That's what this is about. That's why a politician [Hillary Clinton yesterday in a tweet], who is pretending to be on the left, is goading Donald Trump to wage more war. If you can't see how crazy that is...
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John Morris (left) and Peter Morgan at entrance to the House chamber in Augusta |
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Cynthia Howard offering flyer to Taxation Committee co-chair Sen. Dana Dow (on left) |
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Mary and Mike Donnelly inside the capital building |
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Mary handing flyer to union representative from BIW |
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Russell Wray (left) and Jason Rawn outside the Taxation Committee work session room |
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Bruce asking Taxation Committee co-chair Rep. Ryan Tipping to vote against this bad bill to give GD $60 million |
The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) includes a long-term plan that could put nuclear cruise missiles aboard the new Zumwalt class (DDG 1000) of stealthy Navy destroyers, according to the commander of U.S. Strategic Command.
Air Force Gen. John Hyten, StratCom chief, said the plan to develop a new, low-yield nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM, or "Slick-em") would not be limited to using ballistic submarines as the sole launch platform, as many assumed when the NPR was endorsed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this month.
"It's important to know that the NPR, when it talks about the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, does not say 'Submarine-Launched Cruise Missile,' " Hyten said in a Feb. 16 keynote address in Washington, D.C., at the National Defense University's Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
In response to questions, he said, "We want to look at a number of options -- everything from surface DDG 1000s into submarines, different types of submarines" for the SLCMs.