Organizing Notes

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....

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Location: Brunswick, ME, United States

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. @BruceKGagnon

Saturday, January 21, 2023

America is a political wasteland

 

 

On Thursday night eight of us stood with signs for an hour during the 5-6 pm drive time in Portland, Maine. It was fairly cold but the snowstorm that was on its way did not hit until late into the night.

We got a fair bit of positives and a couple boisterous negatives. But once again the vast majority of people just pass by with a blank look on their faces.

Maybe they've swallowed the corporate media line and think we are nuts. Or they agree with us but are far too timid to express anything. Or maybe they are just dumbed down and confused.

Earlier in the day four of us gathered during the noon hour in Brunswick (25 miles north of Portland) to do our weekly 'No war with Russia' vigil that has been underway here since mid-February of 2022.

The response rate in Brunswick has steadily been 15-20% positive reaction with very few negs. Again, mostly the blind and dazed folks pass us by with no reaction.

I love being on the street with signs - little censorship is possible in those moments. I can share my own thoughts with the many zooming by - and most of them at least read it. 

During my early years of organizing (1980s-1990s) we could actually get some mainstream media coverage of our protests. They routinely printed our letters in the paper. These days it is a different story and I am certain you all witness that as well.

RT reported days ago that some 48% of respondents (from 9 EU nations) surveyed by pollster Euroskopia said they wanted Kiev to compromise for the sake of peace. This is a step in the right direction. 

Sadly the people here in the US are not so far along. (Only 33% in the US believe Washington is “doing too much” to help Kiev, a Quinnipiac survey has found.) The likely reason is that the Dems are currently in power. We should also not forget that the US coup in Kiev was engineered in 2014 by the Obama-Biden administration. And Biden has now amped it up to the point that inquiring minds fear nuclear war could result in a desperate US-NATO Hail Mary attempt to save their misbegotten proxy war.



The bi-partisan political hacks that carry water for the war-mongers in Washington will keep this war going as long as possible. Lots of US-NATO weapons being shipped to Ukraine must of course be replaced. So says the military industrial complex.

The Washington-London-Brussels-Berlin-Paris goal is to turn Ukraine into another long-term chaotic war zone like Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan. Big agriculture corps are grabbing up the fertile land in Ukraine for planting GMOs. Most of Europe bans bio-engineered food as does Russia. So Ukraine's geography is a 'nice acquisition' for Monsanto and Cargill.

 

NATO war games increasingly being held along the Norway-Russia border

  

And of course while all the fighting is going on US-NATO are upping their game in the Arctic zone which western resource extraction corps are drooling over. They are quietly moving lots of weapons into northern Norway, Sweden and Finland. The real prize the pirate west is after is of course Russia's vast resource base. They just can't help themselves - these western neo-cons must control everything on the planet or they go ballistic. They are indeed psychopaths. 

Our Maine Senator (so-called 'Independent') Angus King is big on the US grabbing control of the Arctic. He sees big shipping business for northern Maine as the ice melts. Sen. King just returned from his pilgrimage to Kiev to stand in awe of the 'great war time leader' Zelensky. In an interview King called Vladimir Putin the new 'Hitler'. 

With an attitude like that you can't do nothing but fight WW 3. Sen. King has long been a corporate agent - and is very mean spirited despite his charming demeanor.

Thus for me my best option for reaching the people is to stand on the corner with a sign. 

Bruce

Friday, January 20, 2023

UK circumventing its own sanctions against Moscow to import Russian oil

 

 

    India’s Jamnagar refinery imported 215 shipments of Russian crude in 2022, a 400% increase in comparison to 2021, while British companies imported ten million barrels of oil from Jamnagar since February 2022, which is an increase of more than 250% of what they bought in 2021.
 

By Drago Bosnic (Independent geopolitical and military analyst)
 
 

It is now virtually common knowledge that the political West’s attempts to destroy the Russian economy through sanctions have failed spectacularly. However, what the Western mainstream propaganda machine is fighting tooth and nail to accomplish is suppressing the fact that the sanctions war has also backfired and is now ravaging Western economies, especially those whose prosperity was largely based on access to cheap Russian energy. This is particularly true for Germany, the European Union’s industrial powerhouse which is now suffering the consequences of its suicidal subservience to Euro-Atlantic Russophobia.

However, what’s much less commonly acknowledged is the fact that there are many countries that don’t seem to be too dependent on Russian energy, but are in fact suffering as a result of the sanctions war against Moscow. This is especially true for the United Kingdom, whose political establishment is one of the most fervently Russophobic in NATO. With London being one of the Kiev regime’s key backers, it would be expected to see the former colonial superpower much less dependent on any commodities coming from Russia. Still, Moscow’s status as the world’s premier energy superpower makes this extremely difficult (if not impossible) to achieve.

In order to tackle the mounting energy security issues, exacerbated not only by anti-Russian sanctions, but also by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK is now resorting to finding loopholes to circumvent its own sanctions against the Eurasian giant. The escalation of the Ukrainian crisis has led to a dramatic reshaping of European (and, indeed, global) energy markets, with the political West declaring its intention to cut dependency on Russian energy imports. Expectedly, the UK was at forefront of this effort and was even hailed as “one of the most successful countries” in achieving this after it officially stopped importing Russian oil and coal, while also imposing an outright ban on Russian natural gas.

By October last year, London’s imports of Russian energy were officially cut to almost nothing, with approximately $2.5 million of oil purchases and virtually no coal or natural gas from Russia. However, recent revelations cast serious doubt on these numbers, indicating that the UK’s claims mostly boil down to simple semantics. According to reports by various sources, the UK is not importing oil (directly) from Russia, but it still keeps importing Russian oil. This is possible thanks to third countries (India being one of them) that are now re-exporting Russian-sourced oil to the UK and others in the political West. This has provided a very convenient back door for imports of Russian oil into the country, while also being quite lucrative for third parties.

According to Kpler, India’s Jamnagar refinery, operating on the west coast of Gujarat, imported 215 shipments of Russian crude in 2022, which represents a 400% increase in comparison to 2021. At the same time, British companies have imported approximately ten million barrels of diesel and other refined oil products from Jamnagar since February 2022, which is an increase of more than 250% of what they bought from the Indian refinery during the previous year. The data indicates that this can only be explained by a much larger share of Russian oil being refined and then exported to the UK and elsewhere.

More importantly for Britain, this move is blunting the disastrous effects of energy shortages in the UK, a problem that is now affecting many other countries that have been forced to impose sanctions on Russia, often coerced into it by London itself. British companies have simply replaced imports directly from Russia with imports from third-party refineries that are buying Russian crude. Although there’s nothing illegal in such a framework, it’s still quite indicative of the UK government’s hypocrisy. London has been exerting tremendous pressure on others to stop importing Russian energy (Hungary perhaps being the best example of this), while secretly doing just the opposite.

Prior to Moscow’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression, India wasn’t particularly known for importing Russian energy, while it was even less common for its oil refineries to process Russian crude. Indian companies have always been oriented towards exporting refined oil to Europe, but their supplies to the old continent have skyrocketed as the demand is still there and someone needs to fill the gap. This is quite profitable for India, as prices in the EU are quite high, while Russia is supplying the Asian giant with record amounts of discounted crude. Meanwhile, British companies are turning a blind eye to this fact, as they need guaranteed energy supplies, so everybody seems content with this arrangement – except Kiev.

Oleg Ustenko, one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s advisers, is accusing the UK companies of “exploiting weaknesses in the sanctions regime”.

    “The UK must close the loopholes that undermine support for Ukraine by allowing bloody fossil fuels to continue flowing across our borders. About one in five barrels of the crude oil that they process is Russian. A big chunk of that diesel they produce now will be based on Russian crude oil,” Ustenko stated.

It remains to be seen if the UK will ever respond to these demands, as they don’t seem to be particularly important to London. It’s quite clear that even if one of the Neo-Nazi junta’s top overlords were to proceed with closing the existing loopholes, the idea that the UK won’t find new ones is downright laughable, as it would’ve never tried bypassing its own sanctions in the first place.

Views from an activist in Spain

Thursday, January 19, 2023

 Ukraine on ‘NATO mission’ says defense minister

 

 

Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov on right


Aleksey Reznikov has argued that Kiev is shedding blood for the military bloc and expects weapons in return
RT 

Kiev is shedding blood to carry out the mission NATO set for itself and expects the “civilized West” to provide weapons and ammunition in return, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has said in an interview for a domestic TV channel.

Appearing on the 1+1 network’s TSN channel on Thursday evening, Reznikov pointed out that at the Madrid summit last summer, NATO declared Russia the greatest threat to the US-led bloc. 

“Today, Ukraine is addressing that threat. We’re carrying out NATO’s mission today, without shedding their blood. We shed our blood, so we expect them to provide weapons,” he said.

Reznikov also claimed that his NATO colleagues have told him, both in conversations and via text messages, that Ukraine is the “shield of civilization” and “defending the entire civilized world, the entire West.”

Ukrainian officials, from President Vladimir Zelensky down, routinely make public appeals for tanks, missiles, artillery and ammunition. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told the General Staff in December that Moscow was de facto fighting the collective West. By his estimates, the government in Kiev has received almost $100 billion worth of weapons, ammunition and other supplies in 2022 alone.

Reznikov has led that effort, boasting to the US outlet Politico in October that he had figured out the Pentagon’s political process. His goal, he said, was to keep raising the bar until Ukraine received main battle tanks.

While that particular threshold has yet to be crossed, on Friday Washington announced the delivery of 50 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, the most modern armor sent to Kiev so far, as part of a $3 billion weapons package. Earlier this week, France pledged a number of wheeled ‘light tanks’ as well.

These shipments are intended to replace Ukraine’s battlefield losses. Last month, Kiev’s top general Valery Zaluzhny told The Economist he would need 300 more tanks, up to 700 infantry fighting vehicles, and 500 howitzers to conduct offensive operations. This is more than the number of such vehicles in British or German inventory.

Moscow insists that Western weapon deliveries only serve to prolong the conflict, and has repeatedly warned Ukraine’s backers that this could result in an all-out military confrontation between Russia and NATO

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

South Korean goverment raids progressive union offices

 


Korea JoongAng Daily

 

NIS goes after union for alleged violations of Security Act


The spy agency and police raided the headquarters of a militant labor umbrella organization and three other locations Wednesday to investigate possible violations of the National Security Act.
 
According to the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and National Police Agency, the NIS obtained a search and seizure warrant from a court to investigate alleged violations of South Korea’s main anti-communist law by officials of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU).
 
Members of the KCTU tried to physically stop the raid of the group’s head office in Jung District, central Seoul by blocking the raiding party around 10 a.m.
 
Scuffles broke out between the investigators and KCTU members, who insisted that the organization’s lawyers should be present during the raid. Investigators entered the headquarters after about an hour.
 
The KCTU livestreamed the raid through its YouTube account.
 
The NIS and police also raided the headquarters of the KCTU-affiliated Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union in Yeongdeungpo District, western Seoul.
 
Outside Seoul, the NIS also raided a so-called “peace shelter” on Jeju Island dedicated to the Sewol passenger ferry, which capsized off the coast on Jindo, South Jeolla in April 2014 while en route to Jeju, killing 299 passengers.
 
The raid in Jeju was intended to seize documents connected to alleged violations of the National Security Act by a man who currently lives at the shelter.
 
The man, who was not identified by name, is also the director of the Jeju Sewol Memory Hall, which is located next to the shelter. Police said the man was previously active in the KCTU’s metalworkers’ union.
 
The shelter offers accommodation to dismissed workers involved in long-term legal battles with former employers, families of victims of manmade disasters, and those who previously suffered acts of state-sponsored violence.
 
The NIS also raided the home of a former KCTU official in South Jeolla after obtaining court approval.
 
The official was a former union organizer at a Kia Motors factory in the southwestern city of Gwangju and also a KCTU executive.
 
Passed in 1948, the National Security Act proscribes “any anticipated activities compromising the safety of the State” and “endangering the existence and security of the State or democratic fundamental order” — essentially banning behavior or speech that expresses support for the North Korean regime or communism or advocates the overthrow of the South Korean government.
 
The law was famously abused by authoritarian governments in the past, but attempts to repeal it have failed.
 
The law has been used in modern times to prosecute actual cases of sedition.
 
In 2013, the law was invoked by the NIS to arrest and convict Lee Seok-ki, a lawmaker from the minor liberal Unified Progressive Party, for plotting a rebellion in the event of war between the Koreas. 

See more on this story here

How were the locals treated by the Ukraine army?

 


 

Stories of drunk, drug-laced Ukrainian troops abound. Robbing civilian homes - stealing cars and anything else of value from the local people who huddled in their basements until liberated by the Russian troops.

These are the same kinds of stories we have been hearing since the Obama-Biden orchestrated coup in Kiev in 2014. Following that the US-NATO funded, trained, armed and directed Nazis were sent to Russian-ethnic eastern Ukraine (Donbass) to kill the people. Their only crime is they are Russian speakers.

The US-NATO goal was always to draw Russia into the war. Bust the Russian Federation into smaller nations, take western control of their vast resource base and create another corporate client government in Moscow.

 


Who truly believes that Russia would or should just sit back and watch the US-UK-EU take them down without a fight? What self-respecting nation would allow a bunch of corporate pirate thugs to shoot their way into its capital, remove its government, and install western controlled lackeys?

This western obsession with taking Russia apart has been going on for centuries. Virtually every 100 years Russia was invaded by the Mongrels, Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, France, Great Britain, Greece, Finland, Italy, and the US. It never works and won't this time either.

The real question is will US-NATO go the full route and take this current war over the nuclear cliff? The west is desperate enough to do so - in a flash.

In some Euro nations we see that unions, the poor, peaceniks, vaccine skeptics, workers and taxpayers are beginning to rise up. We all should urge one another to step-up our game. 

We are facing multiple severe crisis.

Bruce 

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Bonus: Two important interviews on Ukraine

 



German journalist reports from Donetsk

Western dominance boomeranging (A giant with clay feet)

 


 


Introducing Geopolitical Economy Hour: This is the first episode of a show being hosted every two weeks by economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson. 
 
They present the program and discuss the rise of the multipolar world and decline of US hegemony.

Monday, January 16, 2023

Japan rearms under Washington’s pressure − wake up call to the antiwar movement

 


By Sara Flounders

The Dec. 16 announcement by Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of a new defense strategy, while doubling military spending by 2027 to implement it, is the largest defense shake-up in decades and a wake-up call to the antiwar movement.

The decision includes openly acquiring offensive weapons and reshaping its military command structure for its expanded armed forces. On Dec. 23, the draft budget was approved by Kishida’s cabinet.

Japan’s dangerous military expansion should set off international alarm bells. This major escalation is taking place based on intense U.S. imperialist pressure. It is the next step in the “Pivot to Asia,” aimed at threatening and surrounding China and attempting to reassert U.S. dominance in the Asia Pacific.

The movements opposing endless U.S. wars must begin to prepare material and draw mass attention to this ominous threat.

The plan to double military spending will add $315 billion to Japan’s defense budget over the next five years and make Japan’s military the world’s third largest, after the U.S. and China. Defense spending will escalate to 2% of gross domestic product, equal to the goal the U.S. sets for its NATO allies. Japan’s economy is the world’s third largest.

The Japanese government plans to buy up to 500 Lockheed Martin Tomahawk missiles and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), procure more naval vessels and fighter aircraft, increase cyber warfare capabilities, manufacture its own hypersonic guided missiles and produce its own advanced fighter jets, along with other weapons. The plan shifts from relying solely on missile defense to also embracing “counterstrike” capabilities.

Three key security documents — the National Security Strategy (NSS), as well as the National Defense Strategy (NDS) and the Defense Buildup Program (DBP) — shed some of the postwar constraints on the Japanese military.




Article 9 – a class struggle against military rearmament

Although the U.S. occupation force, after defeating Japan’s military in World War II, imposed a “pacifist” constitution on Japan, for decades now U.S. strategists have pressured Japan’s government to aggressively rearm, and especially to buy U.S.-made weapons, to act as a junior partner to U.S. efforts to dominate the Asia-Pacific region.

Article 9 of the imposed Japanese constitution prohibits Japan from maintaining an army, navy and air force. To get around this, the “Japanese Self-Defense Forces” (JSDF) have since 1952 been treated as a legal extension of the police and prison system. The U.S. occupiers considered the JSDF an essential repressive tool defending capitalist property relations against the workers’ movement.

The decision for aggressive military expansion is in open violation of Japan’s supposedly pacifist constitution.

The effort to “reinterpret” Article 9 has been a continuing political struggle inside Japan. Mass rallies of hundreds of thousands have mobilized many times in defense of Article 9, which offers a clear prohibition of Japan’s maintaining a military force. The widespread opposition to the Japanese military and to constitutional change comes from working people, mobilized by the unions and the communist and socialist movements.

This movement pointed out to everyone how the wartime militarist regime of the 1930s and 1940s carried out brutal repression and led Japan into WWII. The people know from bitter experience that these ultra-rightist forces, whose roots are in historic Japanese colonialism, are the real threat to their rights and the social gains they have made.

The present doubling of the defense budget will be funded by raising taxes. A huge military budget will inevitably mean severe cuts to the country’s limited social spending.

The Liberal Democratic Party, which has held power almost continually since the 1950s, is right-wing, pro-military and allied to U.S. imperialism, especially against China and the DPRK. They have been pushing for an end to the constitutional and legal restrictions on the country’s military.

The assassination of retired President Shinzo Abe on July 8, 2022, just two days before Japan’s election, brought additional votes to the LDP. It was able to win the two-thirds super-majority in Parliament, needed to move forward aggressively with its military plans. 

Targeting China

Japan’s military expansion fits in with Washington’s aggression aimed at China, the DPRK and Russia. U.S. strategists’ goal is to use the U.S. alliance with Japan, South Korea and Australia, just as it uses the U.S.-led NATO alliance in Europe.

The doubling of NATO’s membership and NATO’s targeting of Russia have led to war in Ukraine, when the U.S. government imposed thousands of new sanctions against Russia, and the U.S. has ruptured the European Union’s mutually beneficial trade with Russia.

China is Japan’s largest trading partner in both imports and exports. Previous National Strategy Documents said Japan was seeking a “mutually beneficial strategic partnership” with China. Suddenly Japanese strategists started labeling China “the greatest strategic challenge in ensuring the peace and security of Japan.” (U.S. Institute of Peace, Dec. 19)

Japan had expanded trade with Russia in gas, oil, autos and machinery. Previously Japan’s Dec. 17, 2013, National Security Strategy document called for “enhanced ties and cooperation with Russia.” Now Japan considers Russia a “strong security concern.” (USIP, Dec. 19)

A U.S.-Japan alliance is now defined as a “cornerstone” of Japan’s security policy. (Japan Times, Dec. 17)

U.S. praise of Japan’s rising militarism

The U.S. media praised Japan’s new security strategy document as a “bold and historic step.” U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan praised the defense spending hike, which “will strengthen and modernize the U.S.-Japan alliance.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Japan an “indispensable partner” and cheered that the changed security documents reshape the ability to “protect the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world.” (quotes, whitehouse.gov, Dec. 16)

U.S. corporate power is the immediate beneficiary of this sharp turn in policy, built on military threats and economic sanctions.

Foreign Affairs Magazine calls the announcement “a profound transformation” and states: “The new national security strategy, however, represents a stunning change. … [T]he government is enacting policies that have been debated for decades but were always blocked. Until now … Japan’s new national security strategy should be applauded. ” (Foreign Affairs, Dec. 23)

 


U.S. needs collaborators

U.S. policy toward the defeated capitalist class in Germany, Italy and Japan was remarkably similar. At the end of WWII, many of the industrial leaders who had backed these fascist regimes were quietly protected and rehabilitated in Japan, Germany and Italy, along with the fascist collaborators who fled from workers’ control in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. and later NATO used the rehabilitated fascists against a rising workers movement in West Europe and against socialist construction in Eastern Europe. U.S. corporations, who had aggressively moved into the defeated Axis countries, needed insurance that their investments would be protected from the strike waves.

By 1950 the U.S. was at war on the Korean peninsula and, while using U.S. troops in Korea, needed a military force for “peacekeeping and self-defense” of capitalist property relations in Japan. Germany, Italy and Japan began to rearm during that period.

The impact on Okinawa


A chain of 150 islands called the Ryukyu Archipelago, of which the largest island is Okinawa, 400 miles from the Japanese mainland, is in reality a colony of Japan. Its population of 1.74 million people suffers from Tokyo’s rule and from the occupation by U.S. military bases. Okinawa is geographically closer to Taiwan than it is to the main islands of Japan.

Upgrading and strengthening Japanese ground units on Okinawa is part of the new National Security Strategy (NSS). Other islands, which are part of the chain southwest of Japan, will be further militarized.

Upgrading of Japan’s 15th Brigade on these islands for future electronic warfare, cyber warfare and joint operations of the ground, maritime and air forces are clearly a sign of plans to intervene in the Taiwan Straits.

In recent years, Japan has deployed anti-ship and air-defense missiles on its southwest islands of Amami Oshima, Okinawa Main Island, Miyako Island and a missile base on Ishigaki Island, the island closest to Taiwan.

More than 50,000 U.S. troops remain as an occupying force in Japan, at present the largest U.S. occupation force in any country. More than half of U.S. troops are based on Okinawa.

Okinawa residents, the Indigenous Ryukyu people, have spent decades protesting the constant presence of the U.S. military in their daily lives. There are now 31 U.S. military installations on the island prefecture of Okinawa, which accounts for 74% of the area of all U.S. military bases in Japan, although Okinawa only constitutes 0.6% of Japanese territory.

The U.S. maintains 73 military bases and 28,500 troops in South Korea. Both South Korea and Japan are forced to pay for “hosting” these troops of occupation.

‘Using North Korea threat as cover’

Japan has previously justified its remilitarization by claiming North Korea is a threat. However, retired Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) Admiral Tomohisa Takei told the media that China has been the main target for which Japan has been preparing, “by using North Korea’s threat as cover.” (AP, Dec. 17)

Both Japan and South Korea engage on a regular basis in coordinated military drills under U.S. command threatening Korea DPRK. Massive demonstrations in South Korea and missiles fired from targeted North Korea respond to these military provocations.

This cynical admission of the planning and preparation for war, while claiming self-defense, is similar to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Dec. 8 admission that the signing of the 2014 Minsk Agreement was not a peace treaty with Russia. Merkel confirmed that NATO wanted war from the start but needed time to prepare Ukraine militarily. (interview in Die Zeit, Dec. 7)

Having goaded Russia into an invasion of Ukraine in a bid to weaken and fragment Russia, the U.S. is next seeking to turn Taiwan into a military quagmire for China. The Biden administration is facilitating Taiwan’s purchase of advanced weaponry from the U.S. and greater diplomatic ties with the island.

Telling the truth cost him his life

 

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Sunday song

 


 


Vietnam vet at Kirtland AFB gate in New Mexico

 


 

Bob Anderson served in the U.S. Air Force and saw combat during the 1967-68 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. Later, he helped form the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He traveled to Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973 to support the indigenous struggles for sovereignty. In 2006 he was arrested and banned from the University of New Mexico for pointing out it was wrong for the university to be supporting the Reliable Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RRW) without public comment. He is co-director of Stop the War Machine which has organized major demonstrations opposing Star Wars and the wars of empire. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico and regularly protests at Kirtland AFB. Bob serves on the board of the Global Network.

 

 He writes:

This angle of targeting Biden directly has a lot of Dems running for an alibi, but it really works at the base gate.  Lots of honks, thumbs up and head nodding.  I think it is not just the partisan angle but people are truly afraid of where this is going could hurt us all.  

I wore an EOD hat I picked up at a VA canteen vendor (explosive ordnance disposal, my AF job, bomb disposal) and I had one guy stop and talk to me a bit with a thumbs up.  He was an EOD at Kirtland… very interesting.  He was not partisan but just GI relating.  He looked at my grey hair and wrinkles and said Indian Head?  I said yes.  Indian Head, MD right out of DC was where we all trained in the Vietnam War days.  He knew I was an old timer.  He said he had been through the new school at Eglin, FL.  It was an interesting experience to say the least, cross generational job relation with a political message.

But I think even though we did not have a large number come out to help, due to short spontaneous organizing on my part to capture the MLK message, it was really more powerful than a large gathering. Why?  We focused on one theme and I as a GI standing there in my EOD hat really caused a lot of head turning and people asking each other in the cars, what are they saying.  This going to base gates in my view is like what helped you all stop the Vietnam War by reaching out to individual GIs and it causes a lot of problems for the war machine…. everyone going in or out will, we hear, go back and ask others what was those people out there for?  And so they get to talk on base, which is a place where such talk is not normal.  With just a few hours and a simple message sends a wave through the war machine and hopefully reaches GIs, as you know from your own work years ago.  I know it had that effect on me too.  Someone told us years ago that when there are protests outside a base a message goes to the Pentagon HQ.  If this is true it is a way to send a message deep into the bowls of the empire.  Hope.

The left type demos send a confused ideological, not direct political message of the moment.  I think for awhile I and a couple people may go around to other gates.  It is good to feel we made some inroads this week.  Thanks to you and the folks there for helping us to get out more here.