"The Threat of Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space"
Bruce Gagnon at All Souls
August 5, 2007
By Phoebe Hoss
On August 5, 2007, at 1:00 p.m., Bruce Gagnon spoke at
All Souls about "The Threat of Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space." Mr.
Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear
Power in Space and author of Come Together Right Now: Organizing
Stories from a Fading Empire. In 2003, he was appointed by Dr. Helen
Caldicott as a senior fellow of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute,
where he also serves on the advisory board. This event – held in
remembrance of the August 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima, the world's
first nuclear attack – was sponsored by All Souls Adult
Education, the Peace Task Force, and the Nuclear Disarmament Task Force.
Mr. Gagnon sees the United States's
present militant stance as promising "endless war." He opened by
telling us how, as the child of a military family and a young
Republican, he became a peace activist. His transformation began when,
during 3 ½ years in the military and stationed at Travis Air
Force Base in California, he watched soldiers returning from Viet Nam
in body bags and listened to peace activists protesting outside the
base. Now a resident of Maine, he challenges the Democratic party
for voting continued financial support for the war in Iraq. How far, he
asked, should we remain slavish to a dysfunctional party taken over by
corporate interests?
In the sixty-two years since
the "immoral bombing" of Hiroshima, the United States has become the
world's biggest nuclear hypocrite. Despite its signing of the Nuclear
Proliferation Treaty and promise to get rid of nuclear weapons, our
country has fostered a new generation of such weapons, with an overall
military budget of more than five billion dollars. Moreover, weapons
are our primary industrial export, and over 50 cents of every tax
dollar goes to military production. Now space presents a new market,
and Star Wars is the largest industrial project on the planet.
In Congress, both parties are under
the control of the military-industrial complex and "corporate
globalization": freedom has come to mean the expansion of capitalism. .
Parts of the world that do not submit to such globalization -- the
Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and parts of Latin America –
are seen as a "non-integrating gap," and pressure is put on them to
conform.
American communities rely on the
military industrial complex. Every branch of the service has a space
command. Colorado Springs has five military bases, one of which is the
"Master of Space." Strategic Command, in Omaha, Nebraska, is in charge
of both nuclear and other weapons and warrantless wiretapping. We have
space warfare bases all over the planet, and space technology controls
all warfare on it.
This reality is killing American
life. Working-class kids who can't afford college go into the military.
At the same time, there is rampant disinvestment in the nation itself
– with inadequate maintenance of roads, bridges, education,
health care, and so forth. Although military production claims to
provide jobs, there are more jobs in any other kind of production.
Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs are leaving the country.
Now the United States is starting a
new arms race. Not only has it made a deal with India, helping it to
grow as a nuclear power, but it is itching to attack Iran. Also, not
only did Bush walk away from the Antiballistic Missiles Treaty; but
NATO is expanding eastward, becoming an offensive – not a
defensive – alliance and threatening to surround Russia. In
response, Putin accused the United States of: "destroying the system of
international security," and took Russia out of the treaty.
The Pentagon is against our entering
into any international treaties because they restrict our ability to
make a pre-emptive attack. As a Pentagon spokesman said: "Adolf Hitler
never had to ask permission to invade another country, and we won't
either."
With weaponization our government
has, like other governments, become less democratic. We're an occupied
country – the occupiers being the corporate pharmaceutical,
industrial, and military interests. "Corporate capitalism is literally
killing the planet."
To end this situation of endless war,
Mr. Gagnon called for a unifying, positive vision, one that can
transform the collective soul of the American people and convert the
military industrial complex to peaceful uses. He would hope that the
peace, environmental and social justice movements would join to
collaborate on such enterprises as instituting a national rail system,
installing solar collectors on every house and building, setting up
windmills, and creating jobs where workers do something positive for
the future.
Among the questions to which Mr. Gagnon responded were:
* Why did the media pay so little attention to Cindy
Sheehan's recent appearance in New York? The Democratic party is itself
promoting war by not cutting its funding, and Cindy Sheehan has
offended the party by advocating against such funding and for the
impeachment of President Bush.
* What are the chances for the establishment of a department of peace? It's not going to happen any time soon.
* What about the depleted uranium from weapons infecting
G.I.'s with cancer? Mr. Gagnon spoke of an "international genocidal
effort" on part of leaders to clear out populations, and referred to
the similar m.o., or modus operandi, when Europeans settling this
continent gave smallpox-laden blankets to the Indians.
* What about the militarization of our youth in schools?
The message of the ROTC: is that "war is an answer; violence is an
answer."
* Why aren't people in the streets? We suffer from a
"success mythology": "Keep your nose clean," "You can't fight city
hall," etc. We're committed to success and upward mobility and fearful
of being seen as trouble makers and never able to work again. "We
shut ourselves down."
To act, we need to understand the
issues, especially in the current absence of national leadership.
Cutbacks on education lower the ability to think as well as people's
expectations and readiness to rebel. We need paper ballots for voting
reform; and to achieve a grassroots consciousness of what's going on,
we need education . People need to take control of the schools.
Unfortunately for universities, money is short, and the Pentagon is the
chief funder.
A difficulty is that people
specialize and don't cross paths, making it harder to see connections
– to understand, say how Star Wars and war affect the
environment. Labor and environmental movements beginning to discuss
sustainable technology, but they need to connect with source of
military industrial complex's money. We need, thus, to "step outside
our activist box" and make connections with others.
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