A Weapon of Mass
Destruction, F-35 Also Destroys the Democratic Process
By William Boardman Email address removed
[NOTE: Written before the public meeting on July 8, about F-35 basing in Vermont, this piece predicts the outcome. The prediction is correct, but most of the post-meeting coverage has less detail, background, and context than this pre-meeting exercise. The meeting drew about 150 people, lasted almost four hours -- see end for outcome.]
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F-35, At $400 Billion
And Counting, Is a Symptom of Much Greater Disease
When the city council in a city of just 18,000 people reverses a vote it took a year earlier, it's not usually off national significance, but if the South Burlington City Council votes as expected on July 8, in support of basing the F-35 strike fighter in Vermont, it will illustrate how deep the tentacles of national power reach into local government in this country.
The F-35 nuclear-capable bomber, designed for aggressive
war, is one of the more obvious tumors of the military-industrial-political
cancer that has metastasized throughout the American system, from Congress and
the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., all the way, now, to the five member city
council in South Burlington.
In 2012, the city council was led by a retired Air Force colonel who at first supported having the F-35 as a noisy
neighbor -- until she researched it carefully. After Col. Rosanne Greco, a former Pentagon planner,
presented her findings to the council (and the public), the council voted on
two separate occasions -- 4-1 and 4-0 -- that the F-35 should be based
elsewhere.
F-35 Boosters Bought
the Government They Wanted in South Burlington
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