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What Todd Akin Left Out, Sylvester Brown Jr.
Cut Military Spending to Preserve Services, Sylvester Brown Jr.
Media pundits have criticized the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement for its disharmonious demands that range from taxing the ultra rich to addressing social and economic injustice. Long-time activist and labor organizer, Michael Prokosch, dismisses these critiques with a different perspective:
"The Occupy movement, with its 1 percent vs. 99 percent thing, is brilliant. Let's face it, the Right Wing's strategies have been brilliant, too, their slogans are just vague enough for people to read their own stuff into it," Prokosch said. "The pundits who are on the Occupier's case for not being specific enough are just wrong. Their messages leave room for diverse groups of people to join in."
Prokosch, head of the New Priorities Network (NPN), will be in town Nov. 10. He plans to discuss community and labor organizing and the relationship between military spending, unemployment and the nation's budget crisis. One of the first Occupy demonstrations Prokosch observed in Boston, his home town, touch on all the topics his organization champions.
"People started chanting: 'How do we solve the deficit? End the wars, tax the rich.' So, there is consciousness there. It's just a matter of building relationships and getting this on the national agenda as part of the solution."
The Peace Economy Project, a local group that advocates conversion from a military-based to a "more stable, peace-based economy" is hosting the free event at the Regional Arts Commission. PEP is one of the nearly 30 peace, racial and economic justice organizations that joined forces with the New Priorities Network. According to the agencies literature, the Pentagon's budget has doubled since 1998 to a staggering $725 billion, which is more than all other discretionary spending combined. The groups cross-collaborative agenda is to convince Congress to drastically cut military spending and "move the money" into areas that will create jobs and restore vital public services throughout the country.
Prokosch maintains that the diverse crowds showing up at the Occupy demonstrations reflect vast constituencies with different agendas but shared interests.
"The thing that's happening with this dynamic is that because we have been working beyond the peace movement with union and community organizations on fair tax issues, on budget issues ... now everyone is starting to come up with the same platform, which is create jobs, save services, tax millionaires and corporations, end the wars and cut the Pentagon's budget."
Mainstreaming left-leaning movements, he stresses, is the only way to become a formidable, long-lasting force against the savvy far-right political machine and the litany of lobbyists stumping for current or increased levels of military spending.
"There's no doubt that the right has cleaned our clocks. They out-organized us in every way because they're basically very single-minded," Prokosch explained. "The moment I think we're in now, is one where labor unions, community organizations, environmental groups and other change organization have realized that single issue and single constituency organizing don't work for us anymore. It's killed us and kept us apart. It doesn't allow us to go to the working person with a program that encompasses their lives. Whereas, an overall approach to solving economic and racial injustice problems allow us to build something much bigger."
Prokosch points out that "taxing the rich" is a seductive approach for some but it's still a single-issue strategy that will not create jobs or protect vulnerable citizens.
"What good is it to tax the rich if the Pentagon eats up all the additional taxes?"
The challenge for the New Priority Network and other progressive organizations, he says, is to avoid "transactional organizing" -- strategies with that focus on specific pieces of legislation rather than "big values" changes. It's a limited appeal, he says, that won't encourage bi-partisan and common-interest collaborations.
"Every year, Congress decides how to make cuts, and each year (as it pertains to discretionary spending) the far right says 'cut more, cut more, cut more'," Prokosch explained. "Now, we have the opportunity to mobilize a very broad movement that says 'create jobs, save services, tax millionaires and rich corporations and cut military spending' to keep a hospital in St. Louis from closing, to hold onto the programs that we have, to have some sort of job creation."
Prokosch, 63, has been an activist of various causes since the late 1960s as a Harvard University student. The Occupy and NPN's movements have gained traction mostly due to the economy's woeful state. For longevity, however, activists must never underestimate "brotherhood" and common interest, he adds. It's the valuable lesson that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., shared in his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech:
"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain."
Justin Stein, What A Peace Economy Looks Like For Me
I cannot say I have an exact blueprint for how I would like the world to look within the context of a “peace economy.” I am at a point in my life where I find myself with more questions than I do answers. I do have ideas, however, and I hope to share those with you.
I arrived in New Orleans nine months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. In reality, it was not the hurricane that destroyed the city and produced the subsequent human suffering but rather years of institutional neglect, systemic racism, and capitalist exploitation. I lived in the city for close to two years while working as a community organizer with a local health clinic that was established after the storm. I saw and heard about cases of police brutality and the National Guard patrolling the streets. I saw the effects of land speculators and real estate developers who entered the city to take advantage of the situation while local New Orleanians could not return home. I saw the cost of living skyrocket along with the level of homelessness. I saw the housing authority demolish almost all of the public housing infrastructure in the city. Most importantly, I saw the majority working class African American population of New Orleans denied their basic human rights and the ability to control decisions that intimately affected their lives.
Before I moved to New Orleans I had spent several years active in the local peace and justice movement here in St. Louis. I had become politicized in high school after the invasion of Afghanistan and was active in the movement to stop the U.S invasion of Iraq. I could not comprehend how a country that seemed so benevolent, even if imperfect, could consider carrying out such a horrible act. I had not yet learned about the long history of U.S imperialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the power of multi-national corporations and exploitive economic policies facilitated by institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, or the overwhelming amount of money the U.S spends annually on its military.
I am from St. Louis and have seen for a long time, even if I have not been able to adequately articulate it, the effects of racism, classism, sexism, and militarism on our city. The logic that says it is justifiable to bomb innocent civilians in Iraq to open markets for U.S based multi-national corporations is the same logic that says it is okay to keep Black New Orleanians from returning to their communities. It is the same logic that says it is okay for banks to kick people out of their homes and for the police to target and harass people of color in St. Louis. In essence, I believe the United States is engaged in a war at home and abroad.
I do not mean to focus overwhelmingly on the problem or succumb to the trappings of nihilism and despair. There is still too much beauty in the world, and there is most certainly beauty in struggle. A peace economy to me is a world in which there is no war, no militaries, no borders or nation states to defend. A peace economy is a world in which all people are able to express and celebrate their cultures and histories in cooperation. It is where we as human beings permit ourselves to live with each other in a way the world has not yet seen. A world where conflict does not translate into violence or domination, a world in which all people are affirmed for their inherent worth as humans, a world where we understand our relationship to the earth to be one of codependence and not blind consumption. A peace economy is one in which all people receive what they need to live full, happy, and balanced lives. It is a world in which people have control over the decisions that intimately affect them.
It is a reality that already is interweaved within the fabric of our struggles today. It can be found in conversations on the picket line, blockades of arms manufacturing plants, Saturdays in community gardens, Second Line parades in New Orleans, and the silence of vigils against the death penalty. It can be found in every space where people come together and say “we can do better.” When in need of inspiration I often turn to the words of author and activist Arundhati Roy – “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” Let us start welcoming her.
My Vision of A Peace Economy: The Only Pragmatic Solution, Austin Dillon
In his speech at Stanford University in 1906 the philosopher William James outlined what he called the moral equivalent to war: a “peace economy” that devotes itself to the service of others and the menial tasks of society but is fueled by the “martial values” that animate power-hungry nations, such as obedience to command and intrepidity. James’s critics, both past and present, have admonished such unrealpolitik theories as being uncomfortably counterfactual and romantically idealistic. They’ve argued that an altruistic market could hardly exist for long, let alone thrive in a world of conflicting state interests and power jockeying. And surely James’s detractors felt vindicated when eight years after delivering his speech a world war broke out among the great powers.
But while labels such as “incompatible,” “counterfactual,” and “starry-eyed” are often attached to the arguments for a peace economy, the current world order is a testament to the growing need and feasibility of peaceful economic programs. In fact, it could be argued that now more than ever a peace economy is the only pragmatic alternative to our current system of malevolent government contracts. In the typical military-industrial fashion that Eisenhower warned against, government policy (in the form of defense contracts) has sustained and incorporated incredibly powerful companies such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Halliburton, and Blackwater, who in turn pay millions of dollars, $27 million last December, to send lobbyists to Washington to sustain and incorporate even more beneficial policy, which in turn creates more defense contracts, which begets more lobbyists…you can see where I’m going with this. Even with a liberal, highly diplomatic president in office, the ouroboros still seems to be in full force. For 2011, the defense budget will increase to $708 billion, a staggering number considering the US deficit has climbed to $13.8 trillion, 93.2% of the US GDP.
So let’s ask the important question. Why does the US need such a high defense budget? There are two responses that come to mind.
The first one is that unfortunate catch phrase…terrorism. So I ask you, do you think we can stop terrorists from blowing themselves up by building more fighter jets? Are we going to catch bin Laden with another warship? Sadly, it seems most American officials, and the public for that matter, have forgotten the lessons of Vietnam. No matter the force of violence, America cannot defeat an idea, especially one that promises freedom from foreign oppressors and spiritual fulfillment to boot. And especially when our military actions do nothing but confirm their notions of America as an evil empire.
The second response is that five letter acidulous word that looms in the mind of most Pentagonians: China. America’s second largest trading partner, China, with $44.2 billion in imports and exports, is moving up the list both economically and militarily. Last week The Economist produced a 14-page special report, “The dangers of a rising China.” The title itself implies a wary Western stance towards Chinese economic and military prowess, especially considering recent developments in the area, such as its current dispute with Japan over rogue Chinese fishermen. Moreover, political realists are distraught with the growing possibility of two strong-willed powers going at it in an arms race. Recent Pentagon assessments warn of a threat to Taiwanese and American bases. As a result the US Navy has deployed more vessels in the Pacific. But what might be defensive posturing in the US’s eyes could easily be perceived as offensive restructuring in China’s. Security, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.
Although China might raise eyebrows in the Pentagon, the sheer interconnectedness between our respective economies warrants a reexamination of current realpolitik motivators. In the second quarter of 2010, the Bureau of Economic Analysis estimated the current US current-account deficit at $123.3 billion. This number, although disheartening to economists and middle class workers, does have a bright side to it. The amount of money and goods flowing across the Pacific is enough to make any president second guess going to war before exhausting all diplomatic options. Going to war with China could sever a vital ligament in the world economy and send international finances into a tailspin. And with the amount America owes to the rest of the world (well, China that is) it cannot afford to interrupt both financial and material trade.
Another good reason for shedding our extravagant defense budget is very much tied to this idea of trade, and particularly trade with China, so we’ll call it a relevant tangent. The dollar is slowly losing its position as the world’s reserve currency. Why is this important? Well, this position is a great advantage to our trading capabilities. If the rest of the world wants to buy something like oil, first it has to manufacture and import goods to earn the dollars—only then can it buy the oil it needs. The US doesn’t have to do this. Instead, we can just print more money. Also, it alleviates our worries about trade balances (although some would say too much). If other countries import more than they export, they have to borrow more dollars to cover the excess. But that’s really expensive, as Clyde Prestowitz points out in his book, The Betrayal of American Prosperity and so usually they are forced back into equilibrium. But America does not need to balance (for this reason at least). Instead it can, again, print more money.
But, at our current spending rate it looks like the world might rebel against the greenback. In 2007 Kuwait stopped pegging to the dollar, and now OPEC is debating whether to do the same. Russia, Thailand and Malaysia are reducing their dollar reserves and China, our $2 trillion debt holder, wants to replace the dollar with a unique currency of the IMF. Since our military spending is out of control, it only serves to exacerbate this very unnerving development. America keeps printing money not only to buy from and support arms manufacturers, but also to pay countries in return for international bases and patrolling rights. If the dollar were to fall from this significant and advantageous position, our economy would be ill prepared to handle such a huge sink in imports.
So what does this all mean? With the decreasing practicality of military action, perhaps we should focus our money towards more serious problems that plague the world as a whole. Environmental sustainability is the first program that comes to mind. Global warming affects everyone. If the US were to invest in sustainable technology (not to mention its declining public science education) it would set a laudable precedent for other Western countries. It’s not absurd to even imagine China taking more action to combat greenhouse gases, considering its recent signoff on the Kyoto protocol.
But first, the US must show the world its goodwill. If we are to promote international trade, responsible sustainability, human rights and stymie terrorism then we should redirect our coffers to the most pragmatic choice: a working peace economy.
Tila Neguse: What does a Peace Economy look like to me?
I feel like for the first time in years, people are talking about lowering defense spending in this country and this is big! Conservatives and progressives, democrats and republicans alike are realizing that this issue is intrinsic in the progression of us as a human race. When I interviewed for the position of Director of the Peace Economy Project, one of the first questions I was asked is what made me want to work with PEP; what made me want to work on the issue of defense and military spending in this country? And my response was and still remains, the human interest in this project. It is so easy to become entrenched in numbers, statistics, and agendas. But we have to look at this inorganic information in correlation with its human component, to understand it fully.
I chose to share my poem, Castle by the Sea, because I believe that the poem, at its core, reflects the elements that are essential to my vision of a peace economy and the human interest in such an environment. I remember distinctly when I was living and studying in Cape Coast, Ghana, touring the slave castle in Elmina and hearing the story of how the gun, brought by the Europeans, was the most alluring thing to the African traders, inciting them to turn over human chattel in exchange for this strange foreign weapon. Little did they know the magnanimous dynamics of such an exchange. The arms trade is a powerful thing and comes wrought with suffering, as it did over 500 years ago and as it does today. Will we ever learn? This narrative poem functions as my imagined historical perspective of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, and by extension of the dangers of foreign arms dealing. I hope to create both a literal and figurative image that represents the fundamental ideas of the human aspect of the arms trade, both past and present. Again, will we ever learn?
My vision of a peace economy is one where we learn from the mistakes of our past and don’t barter with violence as our currency.
Tila Neguse
1482. The Portuguese landed in Elmina
And built a Castle by the Sea.
Amankwa to the natives.
But the Portuguese tongue
Could not form the sound,
Accustomed to rolling over
R and gliding over S.
So they called it São Jorge da Mina,
This Castle by the Sea
With white mortar walls
And limestone paneling,
Built upon fresh soil
Still burning from the fires
That cleared the land. More...
A Way Forward: Meeting Community Needs by Reducing Military Spending
by Andrew Heaslet
July 5th, 2010
Costs of Military Spending
States are facing a collective $180 billion budget shortfall for the coming year. What does this mean? It means massive layoffs and job cuts from state service providers – in the last 18 months, 212,000 have been laid off by state and local governments– and more pink slips are to come. On top of job cuts, services the states were providing, often used to help those who can’t find work, are becoming rare.
I find the amount of this shortfall particularly compelling because $180 billion is roughly 25% of what the US plans to spend waging and preparing for war next year. Looking at it another way, total requested funds explicitly for war in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011 tops the projected state budget shortfalls by more than $10 billion.
These very similar numbers illustrate the simple economic principle of Opportunity Cost: With a limited amount of funds, one must choose some things over others. What you cannot purchase because you have chosen something different is called your “Opportunity Cost.” One of the opportunity costs of our billions in war spending is that the federal government is unable to help states in these tough times.
More...
THE FIRST HALF OF 2010: GLIMMERS OF HOPE, PLENTY OF PESSIMISM
Charles Kindleberger
7/1/2010
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? In the months since the beginning of this year evidence has shown that you have reason to be both. This article traces some of the developments concerning the threat of nuclear war and the military industrial complex over the past 6 months, from the perspective of those who believe in a peace economy.
Nuclear Weapons. In mid January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, reduced ever so slightly the Doomsday clock with a decision to change the clock from 5 to 6 minutes. The group, which contains 19 Nobel laureates and has maintained the clock since 1947, saw reasons for hope.
START. On April 8th there was again reason for hope with the signing of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by President Obama and President Medvedev. If ratified, this treaty will reduce total nuclear weapons to 1550 and deployed delivery systems to 700 for each Russia and the USA. Not since the 1960s have the numbers been this low. Members of the peace community believe that they must go a lot lower, as do many others. For example, Gary Schaub Jr. and James Forsyth Jr., professors at the Air War College and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies respectively, recently wrote an Op Ed article in the NYT (An Arsenal We Can All Live With, May 21, 2010). There they argue that 311 warheads is more than enough for an effective nuclear deterrent – 100 Minuteman III ICBMs, 12 Ohio Class Submarines (8 on patrol at any given time with 24 Trident D-5 missiles per ship) and 19 nuclear cruise missiles each on a B-2 Stealth Bomber. Still a huge and dangerous deterrent. Our challenge is to get not just to those numbers but to continue on to zero.
What happens next? In the United States, ratification of a treaty takes a favorable vote by two thirds of the Senate. Thus considerable Republican support will be necessary to approve the treaty, and most of them do not appear in a hurry. Moreover, some will apparently use this issue to fight for a new generation of nuclear weapons (so called Reliable Replacement Warheads). Others on the far right have already begun promoting conspiracy rumors, demanding to see the classified annexes to the treaty and arguing that the new START is nothing more than a gift to the Russians who, they claim, can barely maintain any missiles and bombers today.
(Click More to see the rest of this article) More...
Urge Local Political Leaders to Support a Sustainable Economy – Not a War Economy
By Jess Mitchell
July 2010
After studying and teaching English in Thailand for almost a year, it was time to head back home to St. Louis, find an apartment, start my internship, and begin summer classes.
I returned to St. Louis worried because of the major protests that had been going on in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital city, for the previous eight weeks. Men, women, and children from the countryside had decided to set up living quarters in the streets of the biggest financial and tourist districts, refusing to leave until their basic needs were met by a government that would not provide adequate education or health care to its poorest farmers.
Expecting the same sort of ‘no-end-in-sight’ politics in America, I came home to find St. Louis faced with some problems that are, although similar to Thailand’s because they are based on politics, problems whose origins are known and whose solutions are visible.
Some short time abroad has given me new thoughts on what a “peace economy” would look like and how we could easily make these changes in our own communities, with efforts focusing on what we can do in terms of asking our representatives to hear our voice. This has little to do with Republican or Democrat, Tea or Coffee, but more to do with where tax money is spent, something which desperately needs to be addressed.
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Feasible Spending Reductions
By Jess Mitchell, International Affairs Intern
6/29/2010
While US federal austerity initiatives have focused on belt tightening in services, other countries are taking steps towards fiscal responsibility by tightening their bandoliers.
Ten such countries are also involved in wars abroad, are experiencing recessions and environmental crises, and face internal pressure to maintain their military might; yet, they have created plans to cut down on defense spending because of rising debt, the need for improvement in public works, and the rising demand for fiscal accountability.
More...
New START: Good News for U.S. Security
Steven Pifer, Brookings Institute Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe
from Arms Control Today
MAY 2010 —
On April 8 in Prague, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new strategic offensive arms agreement to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expired in December 2009.
If the Senate and the Russian Duma consent to ratification of the treaty, the United States and Russia each will be limited to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than 800 deployed and nondeployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles—a steep cut from START I levels, which permitted each side 6,000 warheads on 1,600 delivery vehicles or launchers. The New START limit on deployed strategic warheads is 30 percent lower than the warhead ceiling of 2,200 set by the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).
The new treaty is supported by a set of effective verification measures, which should provide high confidence that any militarily significant violation would be detected in a timely manner. The verification regime, however, differs from the 1991 agreement. For example, New START is a simpler agreement in several ways, requiring less-demanding monitoring measures.
The new treaty is good news. It will reduce Russian and U.S. strategic forces while allowing the United States to maintain a robust nuclear deterrent. It will provide transparency and predictability regarding Russian strategic nuclear forces. Its conclusion demonstrates that Washington and Moscow are fulfilling their nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments on the eve of the May NPT review conference; that will strengthen the administration’s hand in seeking to tighten the nonproliferation regime. The treaty also should give a boost to the overall U.S.-Russian relationship. Finally, it provides a framework for further reductions in strategic nuclear forces.
This article describes New START, its principal numerical limits, its monitoring measures, and the ways in which it will advance U.S. national security interests. Read the entire article on Arms Control Today.
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