As activists, we must continue to respond to pending wars (I’m sure you’ve taken action against the bombing of Iran), and the current occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We must stand up to resist this violence.
But we can also choose to become the visionaries for the 21st Century.
We need to join our energies with labor and unions. Let’s speak the truth about the consequences of a permanent war economy. Let’s share the research about the numbers of jobs created when we replace military jobs with jobs that will sustain life on this planet for future generations.
We need to join with environmental activists. Sit in circles. Share. Generate consensus to support labor in advocating for union jobs that create an infrastructure for the 21st Century based on clean, renewable energy.
Let’s join with faith communities, social justice committees, social workers, health care workers. I’m tired of watching those of us who serve the elderly be pitted against those serving children, or the homeless, or those with mental illness, or veterans, or low-income families… We see the ever shrinking piece of the pie we are all expected to share as we do our work… so our advocacy becomes fighting to take care of one population at the expense of another. We need to be joining forces and singing in unison: we don’t accept this diminishing pie. We KNOW we can’t afford guns and butter – and we KNOW that the guns are destroying us all – so Hand Over those Military Dollars – and we will create REAL Homeland Security:
We will put our communities to work rebuilding our infrastructure;
We will build a rail system that connects communities across the country;
We will weatherize homes;
We will research and develop systems that harness the energy from the sun, the wind, the tides, the earth.
We will employ our communities building, installing, repairing new energy systems.
We will have health care, homes, support for the vulnerable in our midst.
The Pentagon has been a terribly poor steward of America’s tax dollars. The amount of fraud, waste, abuse – outright theft! – make it a moral imperative to intervene.
Let me close with two human stories:
I have a friend who is a navy veteran. She was 24 when she served on an Aegis Cruiser made in Bath, Maine. It was her job to keep this ship in position so that it could launch the first tomahawk missiles into Iraq for the “shock and awe” bombing on March 19, 2003. Hours later, she left the deck of the ship and went below to see images of Baghdad burning on CNN. Images that are burned into the head and the heart and the soul of this sweet, gentle woman.
We have damaged this young woman’s life. A civil engineer who went to school to build bridges and roads is haunted by the full capacity of destruction she helped unleash on a populated city. We have failed this young woman, and this generation of young people who are looking for meaningful, satisfying, life-sustaining jobs.
But then again… last spring I visited with a friend who lives in New Orleans. She told us that, since Katrina, a number of high schools have organized to send student work crews down to do some of the physical labor of rebuilding. This year, applicants to colleges in the area grew at a rate never before seen. I was heartened to hear this because I believe what the people in this country want to do is to build. To care for each other. NOT to destroy. We want our neighbors to be safe. We were appalled by the images of how our neighbors in New Orleans were left behind. Our young people want to make it right. They found meaning in caring for their neighbors. They want to recreate that feeling by being there…
We must work to create a vision. A different economy. A caring economy. The funding source is there: it is the Military Industrial Complex. Let’s join together to demand a conversion process that crates meaningful jobs that are about building a collective future.
I used to wonder: If I had lived during the time when Andrew Jackson was forcing the Cherokee off their lands through the Trail of Tears, what would I have done? If I had been a German during Hitler’s reign, where would I have put my body? Would I have taken action? What would it have looked like?
My friends, we are living in dark and difficult times. This IS our trail of tears. This IS our Nazi Germay. Our country/ our people are enslaved to an economy that depends on endless war.
Now is the time for courage. Now is the time to act.
Mary Beth Sullivan
Outreach Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, Maine 04011
(207) 443-9502
www.space4peace.org
But we can also choose to become the visionaries for the 21st Century.
We need to join our energies with labor and unions. Let’s speak the truth about the consequences of a permanent war economy. Let’s share the research about the numbers of jobs created when we replace military jobs with jobs that will sustain life on this planet for future generations.
We need to join with environmental activists. Sit in circles. Share. Generate consensus to support labor in advocating for union jobs that create an infrastructure for the 21st Century based on clean, renewable energy.
We will put our communities to work rebuilding our infrastructure;
We will build a rail system that connects communities across the country;
We will weatherize homes;
We will research and develop systems that harness the energy from the sun, the wind, the tides, the earth.
We will employ our communities building, installing, repairing new energy systems.
We will have health care, homes, support for the vulnerable in our midst.
The Pentagon has been a terribly poor steward of America’s tax dollars. The amount of fraud, waste, abuse – outright theft! – make it a moral imperative to intervene.
Let me close with two human stories:
I have a friend who is a navy veteran. She was 24 when she served on an Aegis Cruiser made in Bath, Maine. It was her job to keep this ship in position so that it could launch the first tomahawk missiles into Iraq for the “shock and awe” bombing on March 19, 2003. Hours later, she left the deck of the ship and went below to see images of Baghdad burning on CNN. Images that are burned into the head and the heart and the soul of this sweet, gentle woman.
We have damaged this young woman’s life. A civil engineer who went to school to build bridges and roads is haunted by the full capacity of destruction she helped unleash on a populated city. We have failed this young woman, and this generation of young people who are looking for meaningful, satisfying, life-sustaining jobs.
But then again… last spring I visited with a friend who lives in New Orleans. She told us that, since Katrina, a number of high schools have organized to send student work crews down to do some of the physical labor of rebuilding. This year, applicants to colleges in the area grew at a rate never before seen. I was heartened to hear this because I believe what the people in this country want to do is to build. To care for each other. NOT to destroy. We want our neighbors to be safe. We were appalled by the images of how our neighbors in New Orleans were left behind. Our young people want to make it right. They found meaning in caring for their neighbors. They want to recreate that feeling by being there…
We must work to create a vision. A different economy. A caring economy. The funding source is there: it is the Military Industrial Complex. Let’s join together to demand a conversion process that crates meaningful jobs that are about building a collective future.
I used to wonder: If I had lived during the time when Andrew Jackson was forcing the Cherokee off their lands through the Trail of Tears, what would I have done? If I had been a German during Hitler’s reign, where would I have put my body? Would I have taken action? What would it have looked like?
My friends, we are living in dark and difficult times. This IS our trail of tears. This IS our Nazi Germay. Our country/ our people are enslaved to an economy that depends on endless war.
Now is the time for courage. Now is the time to act.
Mary Beth Sullivan
Outreach Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, Maine 04011
(207) 443-9502
www.space4peace.org
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