Tag: arms industry

When will they ever learn?

Posted on by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

I cannot even say those words (“When will they ever learn?”) without Pete Seeger’s ballad, “Where have all the flowers gone,” flooding my brain. We had such optimism in the sixties, despite the vile and catastrophic assassinations of JFK , MLK,, and RFK, such hope that people would study war no more.  But the current era is more bloodthirsty and terrifying than ever as the government, the people behind the government, the arms industry, the NRA, and other war profiteers promote and benefit from deadly weapons and the sacking of lands far from our shores.

As is typical of bullies, those responsible for sending our young men and women to kill civilians (that’s who almost all the victims are) refuse to take responsibility for their devastating assaults on human beings and environments.  If the power brokers learned any lessons from Vietnam, it was how better to cover up dirty deeds and blame their victims for the violence unleashed upon them.

The Sacking of Falujah: A People’s History by Ross Caputi (a frequent guest author on Engaging Peace), Richard Hil, and  Donna Mulhearn takes you behind the scenes of a more recent major bloodletting by the U.S. The book  is not only engrossing, but dares to speak truth to power, to describe events as experienced at Falujah not only by the three authors but by dozens of Iraqis who suffered from the second invasion of Iraq and its endlessly deadly aftermath.

Reading this book will not only provide you with hitherto unavailable information about the sacking of Falujah by the US and “Coalition Forces” but also about the events that led up to it—events that the US government is not eager to share or take responsibility for—and the role of that sacking and related events in the rise of ISIS. It will get you thinking about sociocide and urbacide, and information wars. It may also motivate you to think more about our government’s current rhetoric concerning “enemies” in other parts of the world and its threats regarding the selected enemies of today’s regime. You know who the current targets are. Can you ask your Congresspeople to resist complicity?

To view a video of my interview with Ross Caputi about The Sacking of Falujah, go to https://youtu.be/H7KatbFAI6U and send us your comments on this and all engaging peace posts.

Honor Thy Children (to save humanity)

Posted on by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

Cloe Axelson in a WBUR Cognoscenti article tells us, “The kids have something to say, and we should listen.” And she’s right.

Axelson’s article focuses on student activists who survived last February’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 died.

Parkland was not the first example of a mass school shooting in this country; given that the United States has become a nation in which nearly 100 people die daily from guns, it is unlikely to be the last. [I hope you are as horrified to read these words as I am to write them and are thinking of ways to fight the NRA’s deadly work for the arms industry.]

One of the highlights of Axelson’s article is her reminiscence about another young student, Mary Beth Tinker, who was suspended from her middle school in Iowa in the 1960s for wearing a black arm band to school to protest the Vietnam War. The ACLU took her case on behalf of student rights to free speech all the way to the Supreme Court, where she won her case in a 7-2 decision. 

I have same hypotheses about the child-rearing Mary Beth and other student activists experienced.  I believe that in general, they were not bullied and beaten by their parents.  They were not sent off to military schools to straighten them out.  They were not told to shut their traps, mind their own beeswax, watch out or they’d get what was coming to them, obey…or else.

More likely, young activists like these are allowed to ask questions, wonder about injustices, read widely, educate themselves about society’s ills, and even speak out about problems they see in their communities and beyond—nurtured rather than suppressed, taught to love rather than to hate, urged to strive for a better society rather than become bullies themselves.

“Beating the devil” out of kids is not a path to a better world. Corporal punishment can beat out a lot of potential for developing a universal ethic and sense of justice—and perhaps destroy our only hope for survival of the planet. If you want to stop violence in and to the world, work to end violence in the home.

And inspire yourself! Hear Mary Beth today in this brief video.

https://nowthisnews.com/videos/news/mary-beth-tinker-talks-about-her-role-in-the-history-of-student-rights

Peacemakers, Warmongers and Fence Sitters: Who Represents You?

Posted on by kathiemm


 Yet as early voting gets under way across the country, Congressional campaigns have focused mainly on domestic issues and personality politics, with almost nothing to say about the war in Yemen or other critical questions of war, peace and record military spending. (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

 (Photo: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

By Nicolas J. S. Davies, Medea Benjamin

 Originally published on Tuesday, October 23, 2018, by Common Dreams

As a foreign policy crisis explodes over the apparent Saudi assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, the failure of the U.S. Congress to assert its constitutional war powers over three years of illegal U.S. military action in the war on Yemen and booming U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners is finally coming home to roost.
The UN already reported two years ago that a child was dying every 10 minutes in Yemen, wracked by the war and its consequences, including malnutrition, diphtheria, cholera and other preventable diseases.  Data already showed that more than a third of Saudi-led airstrikes were hitting schools, hospitals, markets, mosques and other civilian sites. But none of the dire warnings by UN agencies and NGOs could trigger the constitutionally required debate and decisive action by the U.S. Congress.  Even now the Trump administration is trying desperately to salvage its blood-soaked arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Yet as early voting gets under way across the country, Congressional campaigns have focused mainly on domestic issues and personality politics, with almost nothing to say about the war in Yemen or other critical questions of war, peace and record military spending.

The elephant in the room that none of them want to discuss is that Congress keeps handing more than 60% of discretionary federal funds over to a military industrial complex whose recent wars have only succeeded in plunging half a dozen countries into intractable violence and chaos, leaving vital domestic priorities permanently underfunded.

To fill this dangerous vacuum and help voters make critical decisions at the voting booth, the CODEPINK 2018 Peace Voter’s Guide and Divestment Record has gathered data on arms industry campaign contributions from Open Secrets and the peace voting records of every Member of Congress from Peace Action, and published them all in one place for easy reference.

We invite voters to check out the Peace Voter’s Guide to see where your Senators and Representatives stand on critical issues of war and peace.  How much money have your representatives collected from the arms industry in this election cycle? How have they voted on critical bills and amendments for war, peace, weapons and military spending during their time in Congress?

You can use the Guide to compare your representatives with their colleagues. You can check out the differences between Democrats and Republicans, and see who are the real hawks and doves in each party.

Figures show that arms companies, including their PACS, have contributed about equally to Democrats and Republicans in the Senate in this election cycle, giving an average of over $180,000 to each Senator. In the House, however, they have given more to Republicans (an average of $46,000 each) than to Democrats ($31,000 each).

The Senators who are most indebted to the arms industry tend to be high-ranking members of committees key to Pentagon funding. In 2017-18, the senator receiving the most weapons industry contributions, $969,550, was Richard Shelby (R-AL). Shelby chairs the powerful Appropriations Committee, the committee that allocates funding for all federal agencies.

The number one recipient on the Democratic side, with $675,8287 in contributions, is Jack Reed (D-RI), ranking member at the Armed Services Committee. Other major recipients, all on key committees, are Tim Kaine (D-VA) with $607,850; Dick Durbin (D-IL) with $550,161; James Inhofe (R-OK) with $478,249; Lindsey Graham (R-SC) with $458,893; Mark Warner (D-VA) with $399,928; and Bill Nelson (D-FL) with $391,800.  The arms industry’s most favored House Reps are Armed Services Chair Mac Thornberry (R-TX-13), with $402,250; Appropriations Committee member Kay Granger (R-TX-12) with $368,410 and another Appropriations member Peter Visclosky (D-IN-1) with $328,583.

When it comes to critical votes on war, peace and militarism, the differences between Democrats and Republicans are more stark. In lifetime voting records tabulated by Peace Action, the average House Democrat has a 72% peace voting record, while the average House Republican scores only 10%. In the Senate, the difference is 69% to 14%.

There are noteworthy outliers, like Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI-3) with an 82% peace voting record and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA-31) at only 18%. In the Senate, Republican Rand Paul (KY) has a better voting record (62%) than Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana (16%), although even Rand Paul would be below-average if he was a Democrat.

And then there are real champions for peace and disarmament in Congress: 16 Democrats and 10 Republicans in the House who have run this year’s campaigns with no arms industry cash at all; and progressive leaders who stand up to vote for peace at almost every chance they get, like Barbara Lee (CA-13), with a 99% lifetime peace voting record, Katherine Clark (MA-5) at 98%, Jared Huffman (CA-2), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-11) and Earl Blumenauer (OR-3) at 96%, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin with the highest score in the Senate at 94%.

At the other end of the scale, there are 22 Members of Congress (all Republicans) with a 0% peace voting record, meaning that they have never once voted as requested by members of Peace Action, CODEPINK and our partners in the U.S. peace community. They are Senator Tom Cotton (AR) and Representatives McSally (AZ-2), Walters (CA-45), Curbelo (FL-26), Carter (GA-1), Allen (GA-12), Bost (IL-12), LaHood (IL-18), Brooks (IN-5), Poliquin (ME-2), Bishop (MI-8), Emmer (MN-6), Stefanik (NY-21), Katko (NY-24), Rouzer (NC-7), Russell (OK-5), Costello (PA-6), Ratcliffe (TX-4), Hurd (TX-23), Brat (VA-7), Comstock (VA-10) and Newhouse (WA-4).

We invite you to explore the CODEPINK 2018 Peace Voter’s Guide and Divestment Record before you vote. We hope it will help you to find incumbents or challengers where you live whose campaigns are not tainted by big contributions from the arms industry, and whom you can count on to reflect your values by casting decisive votes for peace, diplomacy and disarmament in the coming years.  Please vote wisely. Millions of lives depend on it.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Whoa! Take notice! It’s back again!

Posted on by kathiemm

by Kathie MM

It’s 9-11.

A day that changed everything. A day that changed nothing.

A day when a terrifying new threat thrust itself into the consciousness of millions of people who, perhaps, had not been paying enough attention.  Sort of like when the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the first atomic bombs. Think about what that event triggered—the “Cold War,” bomb shelters, and lessons to school kids about hiding under desks if the United States was bombed by those dirty Commies.

Or consider the fallout from that ominous non-event, that unconscionable non-attack on the U.S. in the Gulf of Tonkin that led to the Vietnam war and the loss of thousands of American and millions of Indochinese lives–plus the gains of millions of dollars to the arms industry and other war profiteers.

The beat goes on.  New enemies, old enemies, new losses, new profits.

Remember the lyrics, “When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn”? Ask yourself, have you learned yet that violence only breeds violence (and profits for the rich and powerful)? Have you studied war no more, preferring to put your time and energy  into studying politicians’ records and promises kept and forgotten?  Have you educated yourself about the new threats–e.g., drones— to innocent lives being carried out on innocent men, women, and children elsewhere by the U.S. military and CIA ? Have you heard that those who live by the sword often die by the sword?  Have you enlightened yourself concerning the resurgent threat of nuclear arms that rest in the shaky hands of unscrupulous power-holders in the United States and other rogue states? Have you looked ways to resist war–e.g., here at engaging peace and other sites?  ?

Which side are you on, babe, which side are you on?  Life?

Or death?

Find a way to act now.