Blocking construction at Camp Schwab

We arrived early this morning at the gates of Camp Schwab at Henoko.  We held the great banner made by fellow Mainer Russel Wray (Hancock) as GI’s and Okinawan civilian employees began arriving for work.  The line of cars was long so entering the base was slow going which made it possible for the car drivers to get a good look at the banner.

Soon enough two Stryker assault vehicles (produced by General Dynamics) tried to leave the base carrying several decked-out combat Marines on top of each of them.  We moved out in front of the gate and blocked them for quite a while.  When the Japanese police were finally sent in to move us we all sat down in the road and the police tried to move us but we held on tight to each other.  They finally moved the Stryker’s around us so we just got up and continued with holding the banner. 

                                                                                                                  

At 8:15 am we moved to the construction gate entrance and were joined by about 100 Okinawan people (mostly elderly).  We all sat down and waited for the construction trucks to arrive.  About 8:45 lots of police came and began trying to tear us apart as we locked arms and legs.  One by one they dragged and hauled us away to a nearby cage that was guarded with many Japanese police.  

After sometime in the ‘cage’ we devised a plan to create a diversion at one part of the cage so that the police would be drawn there and then several of us lept over the fence and ran into the middle of the road and laid down in front of a couple construction trucks. Right behind me dove in VFP board member Monisha Rios who grabbed ahold of my leg and held on for life.  One of our guys, Miles Megaciph who is a former Marine who was once stationed at Camp Schwab (and is a rapper), dove under the truck that we were blocking.  The police worked hard to drag me and a couple of our other VFP folks back to the cage.  Miles was arrested for going under the truck and taken to the local jail house.

After a couple minutes I jumped the fence again, put on a side-step football move to get past the police, and got in front of the truck again.  After a bit the cops threatened to arrest me too and one of the protest leaders came and asked me to not be arrested.  So, I got up and moved back to the cage which was really hard for me to do under the circumstances.

All in all, we held up the line of construction trucks for maybe 30 minutes but when you figure that every day people are blocking the gates and slowing down the process to build the twin-runways for US Marine aircraft right on top of Oura Bay it makes it all worthwhile.  This whole movement is slowing down the war machine and forcing them to spend a lot more time and money.

Around mid-day we got a report that another Marine helicopter accident happened at Futenma where we protested yesterday.  The story is that a window fell out from a chopper and landed on top of an elementary school.  So, it’s almost like a daily occurrence now that parts of these US Marine choppers are falling from the sky and landing on schools and day care centers.  A quickly called protest was planned for this evening at the Futenma base but we are now an hour north of there and could not attend.

We’ve not had decent Internet connection for the last two days so its been tough to get out all the photos and video that our crew have been taking.  Every one is chomping at the bit to get the word out but we are doing the best we can to share information.

We heard that Trump’s Senate candidate Roy Moore in Alabama lost the special election today which will be a real set back for the Donald.  Nice to get some good news now and then.

Bruce

American arrogance at Futenma

 

I am writing this from the Henoko area where we are staying tonight in a lovely traditional Okinawan house – seven of us sleeping on the floor on bamboo mats.  The rest of our group is in another house about five miles away.  Early in the morning we will gather at Camp Schwab (US Marine base) for the daily gate blockade.  It is at this base that the twin-runways are being built on top of pristine Oura Bay.  Protests have been held here daily for over three years.

This morning we went to Futenma (US Marine air base) in Ginowan city and joined local community activists for their daily protest as US military forces came into work.  They have been protesting at this base every day for the past 16 years.  Talk about a serious commitment.

Futenma is famously called the most dangerous US base on the planet.  The airfield there is plunked down in the middle of an urban area – surrounded by schools, day care centers, shops and civilian homes.

Every airport and military airfield in the world has an area called a ‘clear zone’ at both ends of the runway.  A clear zone means no one can live in that area or no schools or stores can be located there.  The problem at Futenma is that on each end of the runways the clear zone is not clear.  For a long time the US military has refused to deal with this very serious problem.

Over the years US military aircraft have crashed near the base - one chopper once landing on top of a local university.  Just last week, on December 7, a piece of a Marine helicopter accidentally fell off and it landed on the roof of a local day care center – missing children playing in the back yard by just a few feet.  This was just one more case where the local population, who want Futenma closed, feel utter frustration with the US military.

As aircraft from Futenma circle the base they routinely fly over the Okinawan neighborhoods but avoid passing over the US military housing areas on the base.  Imperial forces have the privilege of relative quiet while the local population be damned.

While at the base several of our younger VFP (Veterans For Peace) members took the microphone and spoke directly to a handful of US military police who were 'protecting' the front gate of the base.  Some of our guys were themselves in the Marines and shared stories of having been young GI's who knew nothing about US foreign policy when they joined the military.  They urged the current Marines to learn more about why the local Okinawan people oppose the base and suggested they stop viewing the local population as an enemy as they are often warned to do by their commanders.

One of the local protest leaders that I had met on my previous two trips here asked me to move down the fence line with him where an American, dressed in civilian clothes, was trying to untie their banners from inside the base that they had hung on the fence. I joined the people in fixing the banners and the arrogant American began sticking his camera up to the fence taking my picture.  I told him I was not intimidated by his camera and he challenged me to a fight at the front gate.  I told him I thought he was an arrogant bastard.

It's a shame and an embarrassment that Americans inside the base treat the local people with so much disrespect.  

I am reminded of a time when I was a kid living in Wiesbaden, Germany playing baseball inside our air force base.  This particular part of the base was also plunked down in the middle of a residential neighborhood.  I noticed an old German man with his face pressed up against the base fence staring at us playing our strange game of baseball.  He had a look on his face that said to me, "Take your baseball and go away and give us back our peaceful place."  

Today at Futenma I felt good joining with the locals as they demanded their neighborhood be returned to them as a peaceful place.

Bruce 

Witnessing the deep peace movement in Okinawa

Our very diverse Veterans For Peace delegation had a good start today with an orientation and then made several stops at key sites that remember the 1945 Battle of Okinawa which saw 1/3 of all civilians on the island killed when the US attacked and knocked out the Japanese occupation.

The legacy of the war is so powerful that one of our local guides told us that the protests against US base expansion currently underway on Okinawa are heavily motivated by the strong memories from the epic 1945 battle.  People here have deep scars from the war - unlike most people in the US who've never experienced such catastrophic loss.

In all my travels I've concluded that the Koreans are pound-for-pound the best organizers I've ever seen.  But Okinawa, since the early 1950's, has the broadest and deepest movement that I've witnessed anywhere.  The governor and most of the mayors on the island are part of the peace movement.  There are war museums all over the place.  Even the caves that the Okinawan people hid in during the US invasion in 1945 have become shrines.

Okinawa Prefecture Peace Park

Bus loads upon bus loads of school students from the Japanese mainland were seen everywhere we went today as the effort to remember this horrible nightmare of war on Okinawa gets embedded in the next generation.

The right-wing Japanese government of Shinzo Abe, now in complete partnership with the US imperial war project, is working hard to reclaim its own imperial past.  Coupled together the US and Japan are making outrageously provocative military moves in this part of the world to encircle China and Russia.  Most people here in Okinawa see that this US-Japan strategy is a danger to world peace and could very well lead to WW III.

North Korea is being used as a foil - a distraction from the real agenda.  The US-Japan (along with an aggressive NATO) are trying to ensure that China and Russia do not challenge Washington for global power.  China and Russia keep saying that want a multi-polar world rather than the US model of uni-polar corporate control.

The US is on a collision course and if Washington decides to roll the dice and go to war it will likely be the last one.

I wish the American people could wake up from their deep sleep and see what harm our military empire is causing here in Okinawa and other places around the planet.

This VFP delegation is committed to doing all we can to pull the curtain off the face of the war machine.  It would be great if more people cared - and acted in concert with the long suffering people of Okinawa.

Bruce

Sunday Song

Tell the truth....

Israel Has No Conscience

Heading to Okinawa for VFP solidarity trip

I am heading today to Boston from where I will fly to Okinawa to join another Veterans For Peace (VFP) delegation that will once again stand (and sit) with the people trying to stop US base expansion on their beleaguered island.

In 2015 I traveled to Okinawa with a VFP delegation and we protested outside several of the US bases on the island.  (Photo of us above at Camp Schwab where the US is having twin-runways built on top of pristine Oura Bay. See my previous Okinawa posts here.)

There are presently 32 US military bases scattered throughout Okinawa taking up about 20% of the total land mass on the island.  And the US wants to take even more land due to Obama's 'pivot' of 60% of US military forces into the Asia-Pacific region to encircle China and Russia.  Trump is now continuing that policy which means more ports-of-call are needed for Navy warships, more runways are need for US warplanes and more barracks are needed for American troops.

Earlier this week VFP sent around an article about Okinawan protest leader Hiroji Yamashiro, 64, chairman of the Okinawa Peace Activity Center.  He was arrested Oct. 16, 2016, and kept in prison for several months.  During his incarceration, Yamashiro was stuck in solitary confinement for four months with no natural light after guards covered up his windows.  He is now on trial and Japanese prosecutors seek a 2½-year prison sentence.  Remarkably the Stars & Stripes military newspaper has just done a story about Yamashiro which you can find here.

This will be VFP's third delegation to stand in solidarity with the Okinawan people.  They have been protesting regularly since 1953 against US military bases but you'd never know about that from the media in the United States.  They've elected a governor and many mayors who are actively opposing the US military expansions which are destroying their environment and damaging their culture.  See an excellent documentary film on the Okinawan story here.

I'll do my best to post as often as possible while there.  The way we defeat this US military empire is to cut the military budget in Washington which has now reached one trillion a year.  It's a difficult task but we also need to break thru the media silence about US bases overseas (there are more than 800 of them) and help the American people see how much global resentment and rage our military empire is causing.

One thing you can do is come to Baltimore, Maryland on January 12-14, 2018 and attend the national Conference on U.S. Foreign Military Bases.  We will be talking about Okinawa and many other places around the globe where the US military is occupying lands. I will be there participating in the plenary panel on US bases in the Asia-Pacific region.

Bruce

Stop $60 million subsidy to General Dynamics from Maine treasury

The latest edition of This Issue features Orlando Delogu, emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Southern Maine Law School. Orlando discusses the outrageous request by General Dynamics/BIW for a $60 million tax subsidy for their operations in Bath. Orlando sued General Dynamics in 1997 when they asked, and received, a similar subsidy from the state of Maine in the amount of $197 million. Orlando writes a regular column in The Forecaster weekly newspaper that is available throughout much of the state. He urges all Maine citizens to contact their state legislators immediately to share your feelings about this proposed tax subsidy.
 

This Issue has been on public access TV in Maine since December 2003 and is produced by Eric Herter.  Camera work for this edition of This Issue was done by Peter Woodruff and Dan Ellis while Eric worked in the control booth.

This Issue runs each week during the following days/times on Brunswick's Cable TV Channel 3. 

Wed  6:00 pm

Friday  2:30 pm

Sat  2:01 am

Sunday  8:30 pm

This Issue also runs on Bath, Harpswell, Portland, Phippsburg, Freeport, Madison, Skowhegan, Anson, North Anson, Solon, Belfast, South Portland, New Castle, and Biddeford public access cable TV at random times.  Check local listings. 

Feudalism is back with a vengeance

Neo-Feudalism

This time around
we get
a car
a 'smat' phone
a wide screen TV
lots of meds
and huge
credit card debt

People
on the street
are miserable
angry
ready to blow
guns are
exploding

Dog-eat-dog
culture
is rampant
even inside
families
people
compete
with one another
for food,
love,
and recognition

We've
lost our way
little connection
to nature
to a spiritual
center
capitalism
has turned
us into
zombies

Some still
claim
'America
is the greatest
country
on the Earth'

Some fight
and die
for the corporations
that have turned
us into
slaves

Much of so-called
resistance
is
'Democratic party'
front groups
sheep herding
the depressed
flock
back
into the corral
paid for
with $$$$
from Wall Street
and Soros
the feudal
masters

People ask
Where is
the hope?

I'm still looking.....
in the meantime
I'm pushing
the rock
up the hill......

Bruce

Radioactive legacy of U.S. nuclear addiction

Thousands of cubic metres of radioactive waste lies buried under a concrete dome on the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the legacy of over a decade of US nuclear tests in the Pacific.

This is a very moving documentary and should be watched by every human being on the planet.  The pure arrogance of power by the US government to use the people of the Marshall Islands as guinea pigs, along with the Atomic American veterans, is unconscionable.

If anyone doubted that the US government does not give a damn about the people then this film will change their thinking forever.

Cherry-picking Toward War with Iran

Now CIA Director Mike Pompeo speaking at the 2012 CPAC in Washington, D.C. February 2012.

Consortium News
By Paul R. Pillar

Although nobody knows exactly where Donald Trump intends to go with his campaign of seeking confrontation with Iran, his administration already has provided disconcerting parallels with the techniques an earlier U.S. administration used in selling its launching of a war against Iraq. Among these techniques is the cherry-picking of intelligence not to inform policy-making or to enlighten the public but instead to inculcate false perceptions among the public and thereby to muster support for a policy already chosen.

The parallels have become remarkably close as the Trump administration has tried to get people to believe there is some sort of cooperation and common purpose between Iran and Al Qaeda. The President made this insinuation in his speech on Iran in October. Then his CIA director, Mike Pompeo, ordered a tendentious re-exploitation of already exploited documents captured in the raid at Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama bin  Laden.

This time the purpose was to find any possible connection between bin Laden’s group and Iran. Pompeo took the highly unusual step of giving an advance look at the selected documents to an advocacy organization: the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a leader of efforts to kill the agreement that limits Iran’s nuclear program.

FDD duly did its part in the insinuation by highlighting a single document that it depicted as suggesting some sort of Iranian assistance to Al Qaeda. This was despite the fact that the thrust of the Abbottabad documents as far as Iran is concerned is that Tehran was in conflict, not cooperation, with Al Qaeda. This remains the judgment of experts who follow the terrorist group closely.

Even the very document FDD highlighted did not say what those highlighting it contended it said. It held no evidence of any Iranian assistance to Al Qaeda.

This entire effort to manipulate public perceptions has been remarkably similar to the efforts by promoters of the Iraq War to use whatever scraps they could find to suggest that there was, in George W. Bush’s words, an “alliance” between the Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda that in fact never existed.

More Cherry-picking

Now Colum Lynch and Dan De Luce at Foreign Policy report that the White House, in the latest bit of cherry-picking, “is pressing to declassify intelligence allegedly linking Iran to short-range ballistic missile attacks by Yemeni insurgents against Saudi Arabia.”

Our antennae ought to be raised very high regarding the motives and reality lying behind anything that comes out of this attempt to manipulate public perceptions.

Imagine that, in a parallel universe that Donald Trump did not inhabit, the White House was sincerely trying to help the public understand whatever was the foreign policy problem at hand. The problem in this case is the Yemeni civil war, which originated with discontent among northern tribes about how their interests were treated by the central government. The education of the public would note that large-scale intervention led by Saudi Arabia — which has a long history of conflict with, and demographic and security concerns about, Yemen — turned the civil war into bigger carnage. An aerial assault by Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates, together with a Saudi-imposed blockade, has further turned Yemen into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Meanwhile, some Iranian assistance reportedly has gone from Iran to the principal northern tribe, known as the Houthis. By any reasonable account, the physical impact of any such aid is minor compared to the Saudi military offensive. The lesson to the public might note that the Houthis have been among the staunchest adversaries of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. It might also note that the Houthis have been allied for most of the war with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who during more than three decades in power became known as America’s man in Yemen.

The Saudi air war has devastated Yemen. Is it any surprise that those now in power in the Yemeni capital of Sana (i.e., the Houthi-led coalition) would try to get off a few shots at Saudi Arabia in response? Should we even condemn this effort to strike back, any more than the much bigger strikes in the other direction?

The Trump administration’s efforts to highlight this one facet of a much larger war serve two of its objectives. One is to continue its overall campaign to pin on Iran all blame for any mayhem in the Middle East. The other is to distract as much attention as possible from the indefensible U.S. support (which began during the previous administration) for the Saudi offensive against Yemen. Meanwhile, the cherry-picking conveys to the public a false impression of what the Yemeni war is all about and what has caused it to take the shape that it has.

Lynch and De Luce report that the effort by the Trump White House to make public cherry-picked intelligence about Houthi-fired missiles is intended to influence not just a domestic audience but also opinion at the United Nations. Here is yet another parallel with the selling of the Iraq War. Specifically, it evokes the presentation to the Security Council in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who — against Powell’s own better judgment and contrary to the judgment of the U.S. intelligence community — laid out some scraps intended to persuade people that the non-existent alliance between Iraq and Al Qaeda really existed.

Such misuse of intelligence means foreign policy is being made on the basis of badly mistaken premises. The public sales job makes the misunderstanding all the worse, both because misperceptions are infused into a larger audience and because salesmen who are strongly committed to their cause — as was the case with the chief promoters of the Iraq War — come to believe their own propaganda.

The misuse also represents a subversion of the proper function of the intelligence agencies. Intelligence is supposed to inform policymakers to help them in making decisions they have not yet made. The agencies do not exist to be tools to sell publicly policy that already has been made.

The Trump administration is not the first to commit such misuse, but the misuse fits a pattern of how Trump has handled other government departments and agencies. That pattern, featuring many fox-running-the-henhouse senior appointments, has been one of subverting rather than executing the mission of agencies.

~ Paul R. Pillar, in his 28 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts. He is author most recently of Why America Misunderstands the World.

Update on General Dynamics tax cut campaign

We had 14 people from around the state gather at the Addams-Melman House yesterday in Bath to discuss the proposed $60 million tax subsidy from the state of Maine to General Dynamics which owns Bath Iron Works (BIW).

We reviewed what has been done so far and underscored the urgent need for all Mainers to directly contact their state legislators and urge them to vote against more tax give-aways for one of the richest weapons corporations on the planet.

We discussed our goals as we move forward with this effort.  They included:

• Stand up against corporate welfare
• Call for conversion of BIW to help us deal with our real problem - climate change
• Underscore the unfairness of giving tax breaks to General Dynamics which spent $9.4 billion between 2013-2016 buying back their own stock.  See here for more info on that.
• Transparency - if General Dynamics needs $60 million so badly from a poor state like Maine then let them open their accounting books for public review before granting them more money.

The US Senate just voted to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent.  Isn't that enough for General Dynamics?  In spite of all their profits they still want even more from the taxpayers of Maine, Rhode Island and Connecticut where they have military shipbuilding operations.  It's crazy.

If you are a Mainer and would like to contact your state legislators just click here

See a short video that tells this whole story here

Please help us spread the word.

Bruce

We must change our culture

Sunday Song

The banksters run the world

Jeremy Corbyn leader of the UK's Labour party on the banksters......

Turning the U.S. into a failed state......

Increased military spending
More tax cuts for the rich
Expanding US military bases around the world
Empire grows abroad
and collapses at home

800 million jobs
will be
lost by 2030
due to robots

Capital has gone global
they don't give
a damn
about country
or the people
anymore

Pentagon
says
every country
will have a different role
a different job
under corporate globalization

The role of the US
will be
'security export'
make weapons
make war
all on behalf
of corporate interests

No jobs at home
young people
have to join
the military
if they hope
to find work,
personal self-worth
or $$$ for education
the 'economic draft'

The growing
military 'mission'
requires even more $$$
where will it come from?

The war machine
has a plan
Cut Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid
and finish off
other social programs
turn the country
into a failed state

Bruce

Tell Your Maine Legislators to Reject General Dynamics' Request for $60 Million

Tell Your Maine Legislators to Reject General Dynamics' Request for $60 Million. Share this action on Facebook Share this action on Twitter General Dynamics (which owns Bath Iron Works) is embarking on a statewide public relations campaign to ask the state legislature in Maine for a $60 million tax break over the next 20 years for its operation in Bath. Click here to email your Maine legislators to say No! Already over many years General Dynamics has received more than $200 million in state and local tax breaks for BIW. In 2013 General Dynamics asked for another $6 million tax break from the City of Bath, but a local campaign persuaded the city council to reduce that to $3 million. Now General Dynamics is back to ask an already financially strapped state of Maine for an additional $60 million. How badly does General Dynamics need the money? Not at all! General Dynamics spent $9.4 billion between 2013 and 2016 buying back its own stocks. William Lazonick, an economist at UMASS-Lowell and an expert on stock buybacks says, "I think, as taxpayers, we're being taken for fools. At a minimum, I would have a rule saying, 'You're not getting any subsidies if you're doing buybacks. You're showing us you don't need the money.'" General Dynamics last year paid CEO Phebe Novakovic $21 million. Click here to easily email your Maine legislators to tell them what you'd like your money spent on instead of more riches for a mega-wealthy weapons corporation you're already funding with federal taxes. Before General Dynamics gets any more state taxpayer dollars it should be required to begin a transition process to build commuter rail systems, tidal power and offshore wind turbines to help us deal with our real problem - global warming. We have the right, and the responsibility, to speak out and demand this nonsense stops now. We are handing a collapsing nation, facing the ravages of global warming, to our children and grandchildren.  The least we can do is call upon on state legislators to go to Augusta and say no to General Dynamics. Enough is enough. Let General Dynamics take back some of the extravagant pay increases and bonuses from its top executives before it comes poor-mouthing to our already financially barren state treasury. After emailing your Maine legislators, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends in Maine. This campaign is supported by: Americans Who Tell the Truth (Brooksville) COAST (Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats, Hancock) Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (Bath) Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks Green Horizon Magazine (Topsham) Island Peace & Justice (Deer Isle) Maine Green Independent Party Maine Peace Fund (Portland) Maine Veterans For Peace Maine War Tax Resistance Resource Center (Portland) Maine Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (Brunswick) Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine (Bangor) Peace & Justice Group of Waldo County Peninsula Peace & Justice Center (Blue Hill) Resources for Organizing & Social Change (Augusta) This work is only possible with your financial support. Please chip in $3 now. -- The RootsAction.org Team P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others. Background: > Bruce Gagnon: Bath Iron Works In Poor House, Asking Maine For Welfare Check > Providence Journal: Defense firms spend big on lucrative stock buybacks   www.RootsAction.org

U.S. Threats & War Games are Illegal and Criminal

Protests in South Korea against US war games aimed at North Korea

1. The US government threats of “preventive warfare” against DPRK are illegal and criminal. The Nuremberg Tribunal in their Judgment of 1946, which the US helped organize, condemned “preventive war” when the Lawyers for the Nazis made the argument on their behalf. This is an illegal and criminal threat in violation of international law. According to the World Court in its Advisory Opinion (1996) on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, the legality vel non of a threat stands or falls on the same legal grounds  as if the threat were carried out.

2. The repeated US government threats to “destroy” or “annihilate” DPRK are an international crime under the 1948 Genocide Convention to which the United States is a party. These genocidal threats are also illegal and criminal under the rationale of the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion mentioned above.

3. The United States has an absolute obligation under UN Charter article 2(3) and article 33 to open “negotiation” with DPRK in good faith in order to produce a peace resolution of this dispute. Instead, the US government has repeatedly rejected these obligations under the UN Charter.

4. The proposal by Russia and China for a “dual-freeze” is an excellent basis to produce good faith and direct negotiations between USA and DPRK as required by the UN Charter.

5. The United States is deliberately provoking DPRK, ratcheting up these provocations in the hope that they will provoke the DPRK to commit an act of aggression against the United States that the USA can then use as a pretext for war.  Pursuant to the terms of their mutual self-defense treaty, China has stated that if the US attacks first it will defend DPRK, but that if DPRK strikes first, China will remain out of any war. So the United States is trying to provoke DPRK into striking first.

6. It is an extremely dangerous situation. It is really up to the United States to take the first step down the Ladder of Escalation that it has constructed here. Instead it appears that the Trump administration is going to escalate up the Ladder of Escalation in the hope and expectation that DPRK will capitulate. This is what  International Political Scientists call a Game of Chicken -- with cosmic consequences. Who will blink first? Anything can go wrong. Thank you so much for being here today to prevent World War III.

Francis A. Boyle
Professor of Law
University of Illinois College of Law

End the Empire - Close U.S. Overseas Bases

Activists outside Beale AFB in northern California hold banner where recon drones, U-2 spy planes and 'missile defense' radar are stationed.

The US military empire is costing our nation and arm and a leg and is a direct reason why social progress and our physical infrastructure are being dismantled.

A National Conference on U.S. Foreign Military Bases on January 12-14, 2018 will be held at the Learning Commons Town Hall, University of Baltimore (1415 Maryland Avenue) in Maryland.

A slew of excellent speakers will be headlining the event including:

• Ajamu Baraka, 2016 Green Party candidate for vice president of the United States; President of Black Alliance for Peace

• Ann Wright, Retired US Army Colonel, and former US diplomat; Leading member of Veterans For Peace and CODEPINK

•  David Vine, Associate Professor of Anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, and author of Base Nation

See much more here 

The corporate money-go-round

Excellent video produced by Will Griffin (Veterans For Peace) about GD/BIW request for more corporate welfare from state of Maine.