"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.