Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Bruce Gagnon:
America needs a new industrial policy
Is America addicted to endless war? Hardly, you might say. But the evidence is clear that weapons production is now the number one industrial export of the U.S. And when weapons are your #1 industrial export, what is your global marketing strategy for that product line?
Maine's Senator Susan Collins recently sent around a news release proclaiming that she has helped to bring jobs to our state. She reported the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved, for fiscal year 2007, $3.4 billion for DDX destroyer ships at Bath Iron Works and an additional $50 million for smaller military contracts throughout the state.
Industrial jobs in the U.S. are drying up fast. We have no industrial policy in the U.S. anymore, except military production. Why isn't our Maine Congressional delegation fighting to bring funding to our states to build rail systems, solar, windmills and the like?
We've been told repeatedly the past couple of months that we are now experiencing the hottest summer in the recorded history of the U.S. Global warming is a fact of life. That being the case, why then aren't taxpayers demanding that our tax dollars be used to expand the production of sustainable technologies? What are we doing to ensure that our children have a future?
What does more military production do to alleviate global warming? How will we be able to get to work when gas peaks out at $6 or$7 if we don't have public transit? Maine used to have a rail system that connected the state. Why can't we do it again?
Imagine the jobs created by building the industrial capacity to put a solar system on every house and business in the U.S.! A solar supplier in Penobscot last year told the New York Times that he couldn't get enough solar products to fill customer orders. Japan is the world's leading producer of solar power and Germany, who consumes 39% of all solar panels in the world, is buying up most of the existing stocks. Why can't we build solar in Maine?
In Copenhagen, Denmark they have converted a shipyard that has become the world's leading producer of windmills. Germany now generates 5% of its electricity with wind power, and apears on track to meet government targets of 25% by 2025. Why can't we build windmills in Maine?
Why don't the peace movement, the environmental movement, and the labor movement get together and create a unified demand to convert the military-industrial complex to peaceful production? It's a win-win for everyone!
What are we waiting for? We will never end war as long as making weapons for endless war employs growing numbers of people in the U.S. This is the direction that the corporate militarists are taking our nation as they now determine that "security export" will be our role under corporate globalization. What does it say about the soul of our nation when we have to make weapons of destruction in order to employ people so they can put food on their dinner tables?
The idea of moving the arms race into space, what the Pentagon says will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet Earth, has the weapons industry drooling. Again, how will we ever end war as long as we allow a new arms race in the heavens to happen?
The Congress is ultimately responsible for allowing the disinvestment in American peacetime industry. We make hardly anything in our country anymore. Look in any Wal-Mart store and see for yourself. But what we do make is weapons.
We must demand over and over again that we want our tax dollars to be used for peaceful and sustainable production. We need to call on our politicians to support conversion of the military-industrial complex. The time to speak up is now.
Bruce K. Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, based in Brunswick.
America needs a new industrial policy
Is America addicted to endless war? Hardly, you might say. But the evidence is clear that weapons production is now the number one industrial export of the U.S. And when weapons are your #1 industrial export, what is your global marketing strategy for that product line?
Maine's Senator Susan Collins recently sent around a news release proclaiming that she has helped to bring jobs to our state. She reported the Senate Appropriations Committee has approved, for fiscal year 2007, $3.4 billion for DDX destroyer ships at Bath Iron Works and an additional $50 million for smaller military contracts throughout the state.
Industrial jobs in the U.S. are drying up fast. We have no industrial policy in the U.S. anymore, except military production. Why isn't our Maine Congressional delegation fighting to bring funding to our states to build rail systems, solar, windmills and the like?
We've been told repeatedly the past couple of months that we are now experiencing the hottest summer in the recorded history of the U.S. Global warming is a fact of life. That being the case, why then aren't taxpayers demanding that our tax dollars be used to expand the production of sustainable technologies? What are we doing to ensure that our children have a future?
What does more military production do to alleviate global warming? How will we be able to get to work when gas peaks out at $6 or$7 if we don't have public transit? Maine used to have a rail system that connected the state. Why can't we do it again?
Imagine the jobs created by building the industrial capacity to put a solar system on every house and business in the U.S.! A solar supplier in Penobscot last year told the New York Times that he couldn't get enough solar products to fill customer orders. Japan is the world's leading producer of solar power and Germany, who consumes 39% of all solar panels in the world, is buying up most of the existing stocks. Why can't we build solar in Maine?
In Copenhagen, Denmark they have converted a shipyard that has become the world's leading producer of windmills. Germany now generates 5% of its electricity with wind power, and apears on track to meet government targets of 25% by 2025. Why can't we build windmills in Maine?
Why don't the peace movement, the environmental movement, and the labor movement get together and create a unified demand to convert the military-industrial complex to peaceful production? It's a win-win for everyone!
What are we waiting for? We will never end war as long as making weapons for endless war employs growing numbers of people in the U.S. This is the direction that the corporate militarists are taking our nation as they now determine that "security export" will be our role under corporate globalization. What does it say about the soul of our nation when we have to make weapons of destruction in order to employ people so they can put food on their dinner tables?
The idea of moving the arms race into space, what the Pentagon says will be the largest industrial project in the history of the planet Earth, has the weapons industry drooling. Again, how will we ever end war as long as we allow a new arms race in the heavens to happen?
The Congress is ultimately responsible for allowing the disinvestment in American peacetime industry. We make hardly anything in our country anymore. Look in any Wal-Mart store and see for yourself. But what we do make is weapons.
We must demand over and over again that we want our tax dollars to be used for peaceful and sustainable production. We need to call on our politicians to support conversion of the military-industrial complex. The time to speak up is now.
Bruce K. Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, based in Brunswick.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
GULF WAR AND CHILD: A CURSE
He is sleeping, his fingers curled,
his belly pooled open, his legs gathered, still
in their bent blossom victory.
I couldn't speak of "war" (though we all do),
if I were still the woman who gave birth
to this soft-footed one: his empty hand,
his calling heart, that border of new clues.
May the hard birth our two heartbeats unfurled
for two nights that lasted as long as this war
make all sands rage, until the mouth of war
drops its cup, this bleeding gift we poured.
Annie Finch
He is sleeping, his fingers curled,
his belly pooled open, his legs gathered, still
in their bent blossom victory.
I couldn't speak of "war" (though we all do),
if I were still the woman who gave birth
to this soft-footed one: his empty hand,
his calling heart, that border of new clues.
May the hard birth our two heartbeats unfurled
for two nights that lasted as long as this war
make all sands rage, until the mouth of war
drops its cup, this bleeding gift we poured.
Annie Finch
