They didn't give up, and they understood the probable consequences of their actions, and took their action with joyful hearts and were fully prepared to accept those consequences. Supposed justice was “blind” to the wrong things in this case, and every other case of this kind. The judge’s intention by giving such long prison terms for such minor offenses was to dissuade others from doing the 'right' thing. We should all 'do the right thing'. Remember that the jails aren't big enough to hold all of us...Read More at the end of this blog...
Just lie down and die. Concede defeat. Surrender.
Under present circumstances, it appears that there are no 'good' options - no 'real' choices. The corporate run free enterprise system has taken over completely and we can only 'go along' to see where it takes us. We can easily see where we are headed. Environmental degradation is progressing at alarming rates and the list of projected extinctions of species grows with each new study. As global warming proceeds at accelerated speed, our own extinction is a distinct possibility - and is extremely likely. From almost every angle, it seems to already be 'too late' to take corrective action of any kind.
Under present circumstances, it appears that there are no 'good' options - no 'real' choices. The corporate run free enterprise system has taken over completely and we can only 'go along' to see where it takes us. We can easily see where we are headed. Environmental degradation is progressing at alarming rates and the list of projected extinctions of species grows with each new study. As global warming proceeds at accelerated speed, our own extinction is a distinct possibility - and is extremely likely. From almost every angle, it seems to already be 'too late' to take corrective action of any kind.
And, that just brings us back to the starting conclusion... yield, submit, 'raise the white flag'...
So, in the face of 'no hope', we could embark on the impossible. We could aim to make 'our dreams come true'. That we are destined to fail shouldn't be a factor in our decision because failure is already the only outcome we can see in front of us. "Damned if we do & damned if we don't" presents us with doing as the best path forward. Let's collectively do it.
Doing 'it' requires recognizing our goals as a society and gathering ourselves together and moving directly toward those goals.
As the most inequitable society in the modern industrialized world, seeking equality is the most natural thing for us to pursue. The divide between rich and poor in this nation is inexcusable in the first place and, when we stop to think about it, only exists this way because we have permitted it.
We voted for the wrong people while knowing it was against our own self interest. We failed to group ourselves together for the strength of our collective energy. We turned the other way when the injustice was effecting 'someone else'. We avoided facing the distress of others because we were focused on 'getting ahead' for ourselves. We stepped past poor people seeking assistance with an attitude of distain as the media has directed us to do. When dead soldiers were returned from some far off battlefield, we weren't concerned since it wasn't our own child that had been killed.
It is almost like we have been on drugs for a very long time. Comatose describes the nature of our society. And now we look up and realize that the 'game' is just about over - and we have lost. But, fortunately, there may still be a few seconds left on the 'play clock'. We may be able to pull off a 'hail Mary' with our last effort. Or, we could just lay down and die.
To achieve our stated goal of reversing the inequity that dominates our country today, we want to understand the actions that have produced our current situation. Recognizing and understanding are our primary tools.
History is a surprisingly good friend. And as we look at our own history, we can see that we have squandered everything in our national quest for 'world empire'. Our military surrounds the entire planet. Our military budget spends our every penny. We've got to change that. We absolutely must bring home those overseas troops (who haven't been able to win a war, anyhow) and we absolutely must transform military spending into social spending.
We actually have the resources necessary to do the job. We simply need to re-prioritize.
With whatever time is left, we need to collect ourselves into groups large enough to withstand the assault that we know will be directed at us for wanting to change directions. As large as the prison system is, it is not large enough to contain all of us. As brutal as 'law enforcement' is, even they are not capable of 'gunning down' all of us. We must stand together. We know what it is that we want.
|  |
We will no longer tolerate the total control of all of our wealth by a tiny number of corrupt people who have installed themselves at the top. We will no longer dedicate all of our resources to murdering random populations around the world. First and foremost, we will eliminate poverty and suffering right here at home. Education, healthcare, housing, and nutrition will become the focus of our efforts. We will transform our swords into plows.
Perhaps we will surprise ourselves and find some level of success - it's possible, and that's the truth !!!
civil disobedience is essentially our only tool...
How Can We Turn Military Spending Into
a Budget for the People?
from Truth Out by Frida Berrigan, Waging Nonviolence
One year of military spending could hire every unemployed person in the United States and put them to work in a high paid infrastructure rebuilding job.
Connecticut is the only state in the union that does not have a budget, and the state's bills are being paid in emergency supplementals -- or going past due. The state is budget-less, so my town of New London -- one of its smaller urban communities -- doesn't have a budget either. That means a hiring freeze at our local schools, budget cuts and tax increases from City Council, the farmer's markets not accepting senior citizen vouchers this summer, the downtown library cutting its hours, a smaller pool of money to pay for the heating needs of low-income people this winter and several other important city-funded offerings.
So far, this belt tightening has resulted in longer lines at the food pantries and an added weight of stress to already vulnerable and burdened people. Eventually, if it goes on long enough, the people impacted by these cuts -- and the bigger ones on the horizon -- will look across our river to the big industrial facilities that mar our otherwise beautiful view. The General Dynamics Electric Boat corporation isn't tightening its belt or trimming its excess or trying to make more with less. It just got a $5 billion contract to build a new class of nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines.
Have you been worried about the United States not having enough nuclear submarines? Me neither. But Electric Boat is booming. The same can be said for most of the bad old military-industrial complex. President Trump's 2018 budget is a brutal behemoth that proposes giving more than $700 billion to the military -- a lot of it going right into the very pockets of the military-industrial complex.
That would be bad enough, but the problem isn't that we are spending more on the military -- it's that it comes at the expense of just about every social good imaginable. Over the next decade, the Republican-held White House and Congress are planning over $5 trillion in cuts to the safety net.
Comparisons to the military budget abound: We spend more than the next seven nations combined; one year of military spending could hire every unemployed person in the United States and put them to work in a high paid infrastructure rebuilding job; if you took the military budget in $100 bills it would circle the equator 500 times. (OK, I made that last one up.) But here is one that is pretty profound: According to the math of Alex Emmons, a reporter for The Intercept, just the increase to the military budget from 2017 to 2018 ($80 billion) that the Senate approved would be enough to make "public colleges and universities in America tuition free."
Let's pause here. The budget situation in Connecticut is so severe that one version of the budget being promoted by state Republicans would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding for the University of Connecticut system. University representatives and Democratic leaders responded by saying that such cuts would essentially shutter institutions where lower-income, first generation students seek higher education. Why cry poverty when there are billions that could be gleaned out of the military-industrial complex?
Getting there is the hard part, but -- thanks to the People's Budget -- we have a map to follow.
More than 100 representatives voted for the People's Budget earlier this month, which limits investment in the military and pumps money into jobs, education, health care and climate resiliency. Of course, the resolution was not binding and was voted down by the House. Nevertheless, the ideas in the People's Budget provide a clear, concise plan for mobilizing the significant resources of the United States in the service of its people -- which is kind of how it is supposed to be, right?
The document comes courtesy of the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- they compile it every year -- but it is more than a Washington effort. The breadth of organizational support for the People's Budget is impressive: from Planned Parenthood to Network: The Catholic Social Justice Lobby to VoteVets to Peace Action to dozens of other organizations representing the interests of hundreds of thousands of people, all setting aside policy differences to work together to achieve a different kind of national security.
Their aims include a $2 trillion investment in America's energy, water and transportation systems; higher taxes on Wall Street firms and corporations that offshore jobs; a minimum wage hike and stronger union rights; auditing the Pentagon budget; and making debt-free college "a reality for all students."
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the People's Budget would add 2.4 million jobs and increase GDP by 2 percent in the near term. And when it turns its attention to the military, the Progressive Caucus' budget "prohibits any expansion of US combat troops in Syria, prohibits an increase in defense spending and slashes wasteful Pentagon spending."
Peace Action senior director for policy and political affairs Paul Kawika Martin sees something fundamentally hopeful in this annual process. "Every year, it gets better," he said in a recent interview. "More Democrats vote for the People's Budget and we push the party closer to representing our ideals."
Up against the Pentagon's pervasive reach and endless resources -- not to mention the military-industrial complex's practice of strategically citing its manufacturing in key congressional districts and spending millions on lobbying every year -- this has to count as real progress.
Still, it can't just happen inside the Beltway. The People's Budget also provides an opportunity to organize locally and to ask the questions: What is security? How much should it cost? Is it walls? Impregnable borders? Militarized police forces? Pervasive surveillance? Guns? Or is it local autonomy, affordable housing, accessible medical care, livable wages, truly representative government, and a sense of well-being that doesn't cost a lot, but sure is priceless? With the war in Afghanistan entering its 17th year, swaths of our country digging out of damage from fires and hurricanes, and communities trying to find sanity in the wake of another mass shooting, it is a critical question.
Frida Berrigan serves on the board of The War Resisters League, a 90-year-old pacifist organization, and helped to found Witness Against Torture, a nonviolent direct action group focused on shutting down Guantánamo and ending torture. She long served as a researcher at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative in New York City, writing and speaking on the topic of militarism. She writes the "Little Insurrections" blog for Waging Nonviolence.
Related Stories
War, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing: The Literal Truth When It Comes to War, US-Style
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
A Preemptive Strike on North Korea Would Be Catastrophic and Illegal
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout
Under Trump, Neocons Push for Massive Military Spending and Global Domination
By Mike Ludwig, Truthout
a Budget for the People?
from Truth Out by Frida Berrigan, Waging Nonviolence
One year of military spending could hire every unemployed person in the United States and put them to work in a high paid infrastructure rebuilding job.
Connecticut is the only state in the union that does not have a budget, and the state's bills are being paid in emergency supplementals -- or going past due. The state is budget-less, so my town of New London -- one of its smaller urban communities -- doesn't have a budget either. That means a hiring freeze at our local schools, budget cuts and tax increases from City Council, the farmer's markets not accepting senior citizen vouchers this summer, the downtown library cutting its hours, a smaller pool of money to pay for the heating needs of low-income people this winter and several other important city-funded offerings.
So far, this belt tightening has resulted in longer lines at the food pantries and an added weight of stress to already vulnerable and burdened people. Eventually, if it goes on long enough, the people impacted by these cuts -- and the bigger ones on the horizon -- will look across our river to the big industrial facilities that mar our otherwise beautiful view. The General Dynamics Electric Boat corporation isn't tightening its belt or trimming its excess or trying to make more with less. It just got a $5 billion contract to build a new class of nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines.
Have you been worried about the United States not having enough nuclear submarines? Me neither. But Electric Boat is booming. The same can be said for most of the bad old military-industrial complex. President Trump's 2018 budget is a brutal behemoth that proposes giving more than $700 billion to the military -- a lot of it going right into the very pockets of the military-industrial complex.
That would be bad enough, but the problem isn't that we are spending more on the military -- it's that it comes at the expense of just about every social good imaginable. Over the next decade, the Republican-held White House and Congress are planning over $5 trillion in cuts to the safety net.
Comparisons to the military budget abound: We spend more than the next seven nations combined; one year of military spending could hire every unemployed person in the United States and put them to work in a high paid infrastructure rebuilding job; if you took the military budget in $100 bills it would circle the equator 500 times. (OK, I made that last one up.) But here is one that is pretty profound: According to the math of Alex Emmons, a reporter for The Intercept, just the increase to the military budget from 2017 to 2018 ($80 billion) that the Senate approved would be enough to make "public colleges and universities in America tuition free."
Let's pause here. The budget situation in Connecticut is so severe that one version of the budget being promoted by state Republicans would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding for the University of Connecticut system. University representatives and Democratic leaders responded by saying that such cuts would essentially shutter institutions where lower-income, first generation students seek higher education. Why cry poverty when there are billions that could be gleaned out of the military-industrial complex?
Getting there is the hard part, but -- thanks to the People's Budget -- we have a map to follow.
More than 100 representatives voted for the People's Budget earlier this month, which limits investment in the military and pumps money into jobs, education, health care and climate resiliency. Of course, the resolution was not binding and was voted down by the House. Nevertheless, the ideas in the People's Budget provide a clear, concise plan for mobilizing the significant resources of the United States in the service of its people -- which is kind of how it is supposed to be, right?
The document comes courtesy of the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- they compile it every year -- but it is more than a Washington effort. The breadth of organizational support for the People's Budget is impressive: from Planned Parenthood to Network: The Catholic Social Justice Lobby to VoteVets to Peace Action to dozens of other organizations representing the interests of hundreds of thousands of people, all setting aside policy differences to work together to achieve a different kind of national security.
Their aims include a $2 trillion investment in America's energy, water and transportation systems; higher taxes on Wall Street firms and corporations that offshore jobs; a minimum wage hike and stronger union rights; auditing the Pentagon budget; and making debt-free college "a reality for all students."
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the People's Budget would add 2.4 million jobs and increase GDP by 2 percent in the near term. And when it turns its attention to the military, the Progressive Caucus' budget "prohibits any expansion of US combat troops in Syria, prohibits an increase in defense spending and slashes wasteful Pentagon spending."
Peace Action senior director for policy and political affairs Paul Kawika Martin sees something fundamentally hopeful in this annual process. "Every year, it gets better," he said in a recent interview. "More Democrats vote for the People's Budget and we push the party closer to representing our ideals."
Up against the Pentagon's pervasive reach and endless resources -- not to mention the military-industrial complex's practice of strategically citing its manufacturing in key congressional districts and spending millions on lobbying every year -- this has to count as real progress.
Still, it can't just happen inside the Beltway. The People's Budget also provides an opportunity to organize locally and to ask the questions: What is security? How much should it cost? Is it walls? Impregnable borders? Militarized police forces? Pervasive surveillance? Guns? Or is it local autonomy, affordable housing, accessible medical care, livable wages, truly representative government, and a sense of well-being that doesn't cost a lot, but sure is priceless? With the war in Afghanistan entering its 17th year, swaths of our country digging out of damage from fires and hurricanes, and communities trying to find sanity in the wake of another mass shooting, it is a critical question.
Frida Berrigan serves on the board of The War Resisters League, a 90-year-old pacifist organization, and helped to found Witness Against Torture, a nonviolent direct action group focused on shutting down Guantánamo and ending torture. She long served as a researcher at the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative in New York City, writing and speaking on the topic of militarism. She writes the "Little Insurrections" blog for Waging Nonviolence.
Related Stories
War, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing: The Literal Truth When It Comes to War, US-Style
By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch
A Preemptive Strike on North Korea Would Be Catastrophic and Illegal
By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout
Under Trump, Neocons Push for Massive Military Spending and Global Domination
By Mike Ludwig, Truthout
“YOU CAN JAIL THE RESISTERS BUT NOT THE RESISTANCE.”
Read More about those who were jailed for 'doing the right thing'. We all need to get involved and to act - while there still may be time enough to make a difference. And many thanks to these 3 heroes who stood up for all of the rest of us. Let's learn to stand up for ourselves.
Read More about those who were jailed for 'doing the right thing'. We all need to get involved and to act - while there still may be time enough to make a difference. And many thanks to these 3 heroes who stood up for all of the rest of us. Let's learn to stand up for ourselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment