Woodstock Peace Economy

Moving from a War Economy to a Peace Economy

2011-12-25T10:47:00.001-05:00

"Behind every question about how to get the United States back on track and improve the lives of average Americans (the so-called 99 percent) lies the necessity for economic conversion—that is, planning, designing, and implementing a transformation from a war economy to a peace economy. Historically, this is an effort that would include a changeover from military to civilian work in industrial facilities, in laboratories, and at U.S. military bases. ..."

This is the beginning of an important article by Mary Beth Sullivan published in the January/February 2012 issue of The Humanist. Read the full article...

Military Spending is the Weakest Job Creator

2011-12-13T21:41:00.000-05:00

By Miriam Pemberton

From Foreign Policy in Focus

Even before the supercommittee’s demise, the defense industry and its Pentagon and congressional allies were making preemptive strikes on the next phase: the automatic cuts, half of them from defense, that are supposed to follow the supercommittee’s failure. And with national unemployment rates stuck near 9 percent, the effect of these cuts on jobs has loomed large in their sights.

The Aerospace Industries Association claims to be a top job creator, but independent studies show just the opposite. Photo by US Army Africa.

The largest defense industry trade association, the Aerospace Industries Association, recently funded a study predicting $1 trillion in military cuts over 10 years would add 0.6 percent to the national unemployment rate. The Pentagon then funded its own study that conveniently rounded that prediction up to an even 1 percent. The glaring flaw in these studies is that they make claims about the effect on the economy as a whole as if these military cuts were being made in a vacuum.

The real world is a world of trade-offs. If you’re serious about examining the employment effect of these cuts in the military budget, you have to ask whether doing so would cost more or fewer jobs than doing something else with the money. New analysis by economists Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier at the University of Massachusetts provides the answer. Unlike the studies from AIA or the Pentagon, it is an independent analysis. It was funded by no industry or government agency — that is, no institution with a special interest in the outcome. Updating their previous studies from 2007 and 2009, Pollin and Garrett-Peltier compared the effects on jobs of spending an equivalent amount on the military, on clean energy, healthcare, education or simply returning the money to the private economy in the form of tax cuts. Among these options, military spending was the weakest job creator.

The number of jobs in each category has changed slightly compared to their earlier work — $1 billion doesn’t buy you as many jobs of any kind as it used to — but the overall conclusion is the same. Cutting military spending would cost fewer jobs than all these other options by a factor of between 50 percent and 140 percent.

The larger flaw in the effort to head off defense cuts with inflated jobs claims, of course, is that military spending is not supposed to be a jobs program. We ought to decide which military systems effectively defend our nation, then fully fund those programs and no others. Investing in our national military is like buying insurance. Since insurance purchases don’t do anything to improve their standard of living, families should only buy as much as they need to secure themselves from disaster. Likewise, societies need to buy as much military insurance as they need, but to spend more than that is to squander money that could go toward improving the productivity of the economy as a whole: with more efficient transportation systems, a better educated citizenry, and so on.

This is the point that retiring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) learned back in 1999 in a House Banking Committee hearing with then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Frank asked what factors were producing our then-strong economic performance. On Greenspan’s list: “The freeing up of resources previously employed to produce military products that was brought about by the end of the Cold War.” Are you saying, Frank asked, “that dollar for dollar, military products are there as insurance … and to the extent you could put those dollars into other areas, maybe education and job trainings, maybe into transportation … that is going to have a good economic effect?” Greenspan agreed.

One trillion dollars in military cuts over 10 years would bring us, in real terms, to the same level we spent in 2007. More than we spent during the Cold War. As much as the rest of the world put together. More than enough insurance.

New study links TCE with Parkinson's Disease

2011-11-14T08:31:00.003-05:00

TCE, which is contaminating Woodstock's groundwater thanks to the carelessness of the local weapons contractor, has long been known to be extremely poisonous, linked with cancer, heart defects, liver and kidney disease, and more. Now a study published in the Annals of Neurology has found a six-fold increase in the risk of Parkinson's disease among people exposed to the chemical. Another civilian legacy of the war economy...

Tax Dollars At War

2011-11-09T18:18:00.001-05:00

Tax Dollars At War from the Grace Paley legacy blog.

The Military Spending Fairy

2011-10-28T09:19:00.001-04:00

by Dean Baker From CEPR Blog

Faced with the prospect of cuts to the Defense Department's budget, the defense industry is pushing the story of the military spending fairy on members of Congress. They are telling them that these cuts will lead to the loss of more than 1 million jobs over the next decade.

Believers in the military spending fairy say things like "the government can't create jobs," but also think that military spending creates jobs. Under the military spending fairy story, if the government spends $1 billion dollars paying people to do research or to build items related to the civilian economy it is just a drag on the private economy; however if the same spending goes to military related purposes, then it creates jobs.

It's not clear exactly how the military fairy blesses projects to make them helpful to the economy rather than harmful. For example, the highways were built in the 50s ostensibly in part for defense purposes. They made it easier to move troops and military equipment around the country in the event of an attack. Government subsidized student loans were also originally dubbed as defense loans since they were ostensibly intended in part to produce more graduates in science and engineering who could help us compete with the Soviet Union in defense related technologies.

Using this same logic, perhaps President Obama could get the military spending fairy to bless some of his stimulus spending so that it will be economically useful. He could again call student loans "defense loans." He could also have the research into clean energy technologies be viewed as providing alternative sources for energy for the military in the event we are cut off from oil imports in a war. (It makes as much sense as the highway story.) Then the military spending fairy can bless the stimulus as creating jobs.

For people who don't believe in the military spending fairy, the story is simple. During a downturn where there are lots of unemployed workers, any government spending will create jobs, regardless of whether or not it is on the military. In fact, military spending is likely to create fewer jobs than spending in most other areas (e.g. education, health care, conservation) because it is more capital intensive.

When the economy is near full employment, military spending is a drag on the economy. It pulls resources away from private sector uses, lowering investment and increasing the trade deficit. This leads to job losses, which are likely to be felt most severely in manufacturing and construction.

In short, for those who do not believe in the military spending fairy, military spending will cost jobs in either the short-term of long-term. If the spending doesn't make sense in terms of advancing national security, then it doesn't make sense period: end of story.

Military Spending: A Poor Job Creator

2011-09-09T09:19:00.001-04:00

By William D. Hartung
Center for International Policy
September 2011

Plans for cutting the federal deficit have raised an important question: what impact would military spending reductions have on jobs?

Contrary to the assertions of the arms industry, maintaining military spending at the expense of other forms of federal expenditures would actually result in a net loss of jobs. This is because military spending is less effective at creating jobs than virtually any other form of government activity.

The question is not whether military spending creates jobs – it is whether more jobs could be created by the same amount of money invested in other ways. The evidence on this point is clear.

• A billion dollars spent for military purposes creates 25% fewer jobs than a tax cut;
• One and one-half times fewer jobs than spending on clean energy production;
• And two and one-half times fewer jobs than spending on education.

And though average overall compensation is higher for military jobs than the others, these other forms of expenditure create more decent-paying jobs (those paying $64,000 per year or more) than military spending does.(1)

Part of the reason that military spending creates fewer jobs than other forms of expenditure is that a large share of that money is either spent overseas or spent on imported goods. By contrast, most of the money generated by spending in areas like education is spent in the United States.

In addition, more of the military dollar goes to capital, as opposed to labor, than do the expenditures in the other job categories. For example, only 1.5% of the price of each F-35 Joint Strike Fighter pays
for the labor costs involved in “manufacturing, fabrication, and assembly” work at the plane’s main production facility in Fort Worth, Texas.(2) A full 85% of the F-35s costs go for overhead, not for
jobs actually fabricating and assembling the aircraft.(3)

In a climate in which deficit reduction is the central focus of budget policy in Washington, a dollar spent in one area is likely to come from cuts in other areas. The more money we spend on unneeded weapons programs, the more layoffs there will be of police officers, firefighters, teachers and other workers whose jobs are funded directly or indirectly by federal spending.

Footnotes:
1) Jobs figures come from Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities,” Department of Economics and Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), October 2009. The study was commissioned by the Institute for Policy Studies and WAND, Women’s Action for New Directions. For a summary of these points, see “What Kinds of Federal Spending Create the Most Good Jobs?” available at http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/what_kinds_of_federal_spending_create_the_most_good_jobs and “Finding New Ways to Create Jobs” available at: http://www.wand.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/fact-jobs-08.pdf

2) U.S. Committee on Armed Services, “Hearing to Receive Testimony on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2012 and Future Years Defense
Program,” May 19, 2011, p. 14.

3) Andrea Shalal-Esa, “Lockheed, Pentagon Vow to Attack F-35 Costs,” Reuters.com, May 12, 2011.

Action Alert: Don't greenwash Woodstock's toxic weapons waste site

2011-06-17T12:07:00.004-04:00

The toxic byproducts of weapons components production at Woodstock’s Rotron factory came to the public’s attention in the early 1990s. For years, without our knowledge, our air, water, and soil had been heavily contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and other extremely poisonous chemicals from the plant. After an outcry, Woodstock’s military contractor was declared an official Superfund site, and for 16 years the New York Department of Environmental Conservation has managed a remediation program.

Now the DEC has determined (in a Public Notice dated May 24) that the site “no longer presents a threat to public health and the environment” and proposes to reclassify the site from a Class 2 site (“Significant threat to the public health or environment - action required”) to a Class 4 site (“Site properly closed - requires continued management”) on the Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites. Public comments on this reclassification are being accepted until July 1, and we urge you to submit a comment.

Overview of the remedial program

Besides TCE, a powerful carcinogen, other “compounds of concern” at the site are 1,1,1-Trichloroethane (TCA), Freon 113, 1,2-Dichlorethene (1,2-DCE) and 1,1-Dichloroethane (1,1-DCA).

•    Woodstock’s public water supply was extended to neighboring homes so that they wouldn’t have to use the TCE-contaminated water in their wells.

•    Some contaminated soil was removed.

•    Deed restrictions were put in place to restrict future use of groundwater at the site.

•    Engineering controls were put in place to limit the spread of the contamination into groundwater and bedrock aquifers:

A system of 4 recovery wells continuously pumps contaminated water which would otherwise reach aquifers. An additional pair of pumps in wells on a neighboring property (across Route 375 at Fernwood Apartments) is designed to control another contaminant plume.

A separate system of 4 trenches collects contaminated groundwater. The water from the recovery wells and trenches – about 22,000 gallons per day of it – is pumped through a filter that removes the toxic compounds. In 2010, 22.82 pounds of TCE were removed in this way, representing an average TCE concentration of around 350 parts per billion. (The EPA’s recommended maximum level for TCE is 5 parts per billion.)

In addition, some two dozen monitoring wells are checked monthly, quarterly, or semi-annually for leakage of contaminants into the earth’s water system.

Our comments

In our opinion, the site still represents a significant threat to public health and the environment for the following reasons:

•    The recovery wells and groundwater trenches rely on an active system of pumps – the pumps are on continuously. If and when they stop working the poisons will make their own way into the environment. The catastrophe at Fukushima reminds us that active safety systems are inherently unreliable. Disruption of electricity supply, and failure of electrical or mechanical components, can and does happen in unpredictable ways. Just in 2010, according to the engineer’s report, the pump in recovery well 6(4) failed, a meter in recovery well 9 jammed, and an unnamed “mechanical issue” affected the sumps in Trenches 1A, 1B and 3.

•    Large quantities of contaminated soil remain on the site. The cost of removing all of it would have been prohibitive. The Final Engineer’s Report states that “A total of up to 150,000 cubic yards of soil appeared likely to exceed soil cleanup objectives for the site.”

•    The geology of the site and the flow of water – to 2 separate streams east and west of the site, and underground – are complex and unpredictable. Monitoring well 12B continues to show high contaminant levels. Unexplained spikes in contaminant levels have been occurring in recovery well 10. While the regular monitoring schedule will hopefully identify new problems as they develop, it cannot eliminate the threat of an unexpected incident spreading contamination to bedrock aquifers.

In sum, while the engineering systems are doing the job they were designed to do, we cannot say that there is no threat to health or the environment. The threat remains. We can manage it, but the danger of significant health and environmental impacts is only mitigated, not removed. While the contamination remains, it would be false – and could lead to unwarranted complacency – to state, by reclassifying the site, that there is no longer a threat.

Address Public Comments about the Rotron-Woodstock site to:
Mr. William Bennett
NYSDEC
625 Broadway
Albany, NY 12233-7014
Phone: 1-866-520-2334
wbbennet@gw.dec.state.ny.us

Raytheon, Missile Offense & Endless War

2011-05-25T08:43:00.000-04:00

INT’L SPACE ORGANIZING CONFERENCE TO TAKE CRITICAL LOOK AT RAYTHEON

The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space will hold its 19th annual space organizing conference in Andover, Massachusetts on June 17-19, 2011. The group is made up of 150 peace groups around the world who are working to oppose the introduction of weapons and nuclear power into space. The theme for the conference will be Raytheon, Missile Offense and Endless War.

The weekend event will begin on Friday, June 17 with a protest at Raytheon in Andover from 3:00 – 5:00 pm to be followed by an evening supper at a local church. A daylong conference will be held at Merrimack College on June 18 that will feature leading activists from around the world. In the evening of June 18 a concert will be held at the Old Center Hall in North Andover at 8:15 pm and will feature Tetsu Kitagawa, one of Japan’s top folk singers. In addition local Andover resident, and Veterans for Peace leader, Pat Scanlon and friends will perform at the concert.

Activists will come to Massachusetts from as far away as India, England, Canada, Germany, South Korea, Sweden, and Japan and from throughout the U.S. Of particular interest this year will be discussions about U.S. global military expansion including its controversial “missile defense” deployments that are now being used to surround Russia and China. Raytheon plays a key role in creating many of these missile offense technologies. At their Andover facility, Raytheon builds the Patriot (PAC-3) system that is now being used by the Pentagon to help encircle Russia and China.

Global Network Coordinator Bruce Gagnon stated, “U.S. deployments of ‘missile defense’ systems throughout Europe and the Asian-Pacific are not only costing the American taxpayer an arm and a leg but are also destabilizing and will help create a dangerous new arms race. The Raytheon Co, which had 2009 sales of $25 billion, is a leading builder and promoter of the missile offense program. Our members are working hard in their communities to stop this massive expansion of U.S. militarism that Raytheon is pushing.”

The Global Network contends that the Obama administration must accelerate the pace of dismantling U.S. nuclear weapon stockpiles and close down the more than 800 military bases in the growing American military empire. In addition the U.S. must join Russia and China’s invitation to negotiate a global ban on weapons in space before a full-blown arms race in the heavens begins. Today the U.S. spends more on its military than all other countries in the world combined.

Each year the Global Network holds their space organizing conference in a different part of the world. Full conference details are available at the Global Network’s website www.space4peace.org

The Global Arms Bazaar

2011-05-25T08:31:00.002-04:00

Militarist Madness

The Global Arms Bazaar

By LAWRENCE S. WITTNER

Despite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.

According to a recent report from the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures grew to a record $1.63 trillion in 2010. Middle East nations alone spent $111 billion on the military, with Saudi Arabia leading the way.

Arms sales have also reached record heights. SIPRI's Top 100 of the world's arms-producing companies sold $401 billion in weaponry during 2009 (the latest year for which figures are available), a real dollar increase of eight percent over the preceding year and 59 percent since 2002. These military companies do a particularly brisk business overseas, where they engage in fierce battles for weapons contracts. "There is intense competition between suppliers for big-ticket deals in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America," reports Dr. Paul Holtom, Director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program. Until recently, in fact, defense contractors scrambled vigorously to sell arms to Libya.

In numerous ways, the United States is at the head of the pack. Of the $20.6 billion increase in world military expenditures during 2010, the U.S. government accounted for $19.6 billion. Indeed, between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. government increased its military spending by 81 percent. As a result, it now accounts for about 43 percent of global military spending, some six times that of its nearest military rival, China.

U.S. weapons producers are also world leaders. According to SIPRI, 45 of its Top 100 weapons-manufacturers are based in the United States. In 2009, they generated nearly $247 billion in weapons sales—nearly 62 percent of income produced by the Top 100. Not surprisingly, the United States is also the world's leading exporter of military equipment, accounting for 30 percent of global arms exports in the 2006-2010 period.

Being Number 1 might be exciting, even thrilling, among children. But adults might well ask if the benefits are worth the cost. Are they?

Let's take a look at the issue of terrorism. Much of the last decade's huge military buildup by the United States was called for in the context of what President George W. Bush called the "War on Terror." And the costs, thus far, have been high, including an estimated $1.19 trillion that Americans have paid for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus thousands of Americans and vast numbers of Afghans and Iraqis who have been slaughtered. By contrast, the benefits are certainly dubious. Neither war resulted in the capture or killing of the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who was tracked down in another country thanks to years of painstaking intelligence work and dispatched by a quick commando raid. Wouldn't Americans (and people in other lands) be a lot safer from terrorism with fewer wars and better intelligence?

Of course, there is also the broader national security picture. Even without terrorism, the world is a dangerous place. War is certainly a hardy perennial. Nevertheless, simply increasing national military spending does not make nations safer. After all, when one country engages in a military buildup, others—frightened by this buildup—often do so as well. The result of this arms race is all too often international conflict and war. Wouldn't nations be more secure if they worked harder at cooperating with one another rather than at threatening one another with military might? Even if they were not the best of friends, they might find it to their mutual advantage to agree to decrease their military spending by an equal percentage, thus retaining the current military balance among them. Also, they could begin turning over a broader range of international security issues to the United Nations.

Maintaining a vast military apparatus also starves other areas of a society. Currently, in the United States, most federal discretionary spending goes for war and preparations for war—and this despite an ongoing crisis over unemployment and a stagnating economy. Continuing this pattern, the Obama administration's proposed federal budget for fiscal 2012, while increasing military spending, calls for sharp cuts in funding for education, income security, food safety, and environmental protection. Even as congress wrestles with the thorny issue of priorities, huge numbers of teachers, firemen, health care workers, social workers, policemen, and others—told that government revenues are no longer sufficient to fund their services—are being dismissed from their jobs. Other public servants are having their salaries and benefits slashed. Social welfare institutions are being closed. Thus, instead of defending the home front in the United States, the immensely costly U.S. military apparatus is helping to gut it.

Ultimately, as many people have learned through bitter experience, militarism undermines both peace and prosperity. Perhaps it's time for government officials to learn this fact.

Dr. Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

From CounterPunch

WAR PROFITEER MARCH in GREENWICH CT

2010-10-23T08:56:00.004-04:00

A War Profiteer March will be held in Greenwich CT on Saturday Oct. 23, starting at 12:30 pm at the US Post Office at Greenwich Avenue and Arch Streets, passing through the downtown and then to the home of Steven R. Loranger, Chairman, President and CEO of ITT Corp. ITT is one of the top ten US military contractors and maker of bomb and missile release systems for drones of the type being used in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The 11 New York and Connecticut peace groups organizing the march will point out that Mr. Loranger, who was paid $14 million in 2009, has lobbied, through the Aerospace Industries Association, for continued funding for the wars in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq. They will call on him to begin lobbying to halt these wars and a halt to all war funding except what is needed to immediately return all US military and private armed forces to the United States.

The marchers will also point out that since 2001, federal tax payers in New York and Connecticut have provided a total of $126 billion for the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars with $880 million of that coming from Greenwich, $1 billion from Stamford and $7 billion from Westchester County NY.

"We will be taking our message to the home of Mr. Loranger," said Nick Mottern, an organizer of the march, "to emphasize that war is coming daily to the homes of Afghanis, Pakistanis and Iraqis, that Mr. Loranger's style of living is related to profiting from these wars and that he and his military contractor colleagues have powerful voices in war decisions, perhaps equal to those of members of Congress, if not greater."

The marchers will note that ITT spent $2.5 million lobbying Congress in 2009 and 2010, to date, and it has distributed $223,000 to House and Senate candidates in the 2010 elections.

The march is endorsed by: WESPAC Foundation, NoWarWeschester, Code Pink Westchester, Peace Action New York, World Can’t Wait, Peace Action Greenwich/Stamford, Middle East Crisis Committee (CT), Concerned Families of Westchester, Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice, Orange County (NY) Democratic Alliance and Women in Black Westchester.

How Much Is Enough?

2010-08-17T09:53:00.011-04:00

America's Runaway Military Spending
Excerpt from an article on ZNet by Lawrence S. Wittner:

... A recent Pentagon report estimated that the Defense Department relies on 766,000 contractors at an annual cost of about $155 billion, and this figure does not include private intelligence organizations. A Washington Post study, which included all categories, estimated that the Defense Department employs 1.2 million private contractors.

Of course, enormously expensive air and naval weapons systems—often accompanied by huge cost over-runs—account for a substantial portion of the Pentagon's budget. But exactly who are these high tech, Cold War weapons to be used against? Certainly they have little value in a world threatened by terrorism. As Congressman Frank has remarked: "I don't think any terrorist has ever been shot by a nuclear submarine."

Furthermore, when bemoaning budget deficits, Americans should not forget the enormous price the United States has paid for its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the highly-respected National Priorities Project, their cost, so far, amounts to $1.06 trillion. (For those readers who are unaccustomed to dealing with a trillion dollar budget, that's $1,060,000,000,000.)

When calculating the benefits and losses of these kinds of expenditures, we should also include the opportunities forgone through military spending. How many times have government officials told us that there is not enough money available for health care, for schools, for parks, for the arts, for public broadcasting, for unemployment insurance, for law enforcement, and for maintenance of America's highway, bridge, and rail infrastructure? ...

Obama Seeks to Expand US Arms Exports

2010-07-30T08:43:00.003-04:00

Published on Thursday, July 29, 2010 by the McClatchy Newspapers

by Maggie Bridgeman

WASHINGTON - The United States is currently the world biggest weapons supplier - holding 30 per cent of the market - but the Obama administration has begun modifying export control regulations in hopes of enlarging the U.S. market share, according to U.S. officials. ...

Read the full article

Protesters Arrested at Nuke-Parts Plant in Kansas City

2010-06-21T07:18:00.001-04:00

by Jane Stoever and Ann Suellentrop

from Common Dreams

The National Nuclear Security Administration's Kansas City Plant, managed by Honeywell to help make nuclear weapons, became the scene of civil disobedience for the first time June 18. Four people were arrested when they blocked the employees' entrance to the plant, while about 35 supporters blocked the plant's front driveway.

Crosses were planted along the highway and chalk bodies colored the sidewalks. A huge sheet-turned-banner told the story of death and destruction related to the plant. More than a dozen vehicles from NNSA, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Kansas City Police came to the scene, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.

"We want to shut down the plant and clean up the contamination," protester Jane Stoever explained to a guard for the NNSA. "And we want to stop them from repeating the same mistakes by building a new plant." The plant makes and procures 85 percent of the contents of U.S. nuclear warheads, including the firing sets, aiming devices and casings that carry fissile materials. ...

"The new bomb plant will make millions of dollars for a few, get the workers sick, pollute the land and build weapons of mass destruction; meanwhile, our school are crumbling and being closed," said Ann Suellentrop of Kansas City, Kan., nurse and lead organizer for opposition to the current and new Kansas City Plant. "You can't build nuclear weapons and not get sick."

Several federal agencies are now investigating contaminants at the current plant. The local NBC affiliate lists about 350 persons who have reported serious illnesses from working at the plant, plus about 30 persons whose families say they died from illnesses caused by toxins at the plant. ...

Full article

Is the Pentagon Finally Overmatched?

2010-05-21T09:44:00.004-04:00

by Christopher Hellman
excerpted from TomDispatch

... with the current economic situation bringing suffering, foreclosure, and unemployment to millions, and concerns about spiraling deficits as well as a staggering national debt, the first faint signs of a possible mood change in Washington on the issue of the Pentagon budget are appearing. Military spending may, in fact, finally be edging its way into an increasingly fierce budget debate. This could prove a rare window of opportunity, unmatched since the moment the discussion of a “peace dividend” faded into the woodwork bare years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

... virtually every major weapons program currently under development or in production -- including the Navy’s centerpiece for the next three decades, the Littoral Combat Ship, and the Air Force’s $325 billon Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, the largest Pentagon weapons program ever -- is significantly over budget and behind schedule.

A March 2009 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that total acquisition costs for the Pentagon’s 96 major weapons programs had grown by 25% over their lifetime. In addition, 42% of them had experienced cost growth of more than 25%. The GAO also found that such programs were increasingly behind schedule delivering weapons that were ready for use in combat. On average, the program delay for a major weapons system was 22 months in 2008, up from 18 months in 2003.

In making the case that constrained Pentagon budgets wouldn’t mean an erosion of U.S. military dominance to a roomful of the Navy’s staunchest supporters, [War Secretary Robert] Gates offered some startling figures about the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps "overmatch" on the battlefield (the extent to which our military forces and capabilities exceed those of other nations). It gives a vivid sense of what massive military overspending has meant in practice.

Here are some of the facts Gates offered, quoted directly from his remarks:

* The U.S. operates 11 large [aircraft] carriers, all nuclear powered. In terms of size and striking power, no other country has even one comparable ship.

* The U.S. Navy has 10 large-deck amphibious ships that can operate as sea bases for helicopters and vertical-takeoff jets. No other navy has more than three, and all of those navies belong to our allies or friends. Our Navy can carry twice as many aircraft at sea as all the rest of the world combined.

* The U.S. has 57 nuclear-powered attack and cruise missile submarines -- again, more than the rest of the world combined.

* Seventy-nine Aegis-equipped combatants carry roughly 8,000 vertical-launch missile cells. In terms of total missile firepower, the U.S. arguably outmatches the next 20 largest navies.

* All told, the displacement of the U.S. battle fleet -- a proxy for overall fleet capabilities -- exceeds, by one recent estimate, at least the next 13 navies combined, of which 11 are our allies or partners.

* And, at 202,000 strong, the Marine Corps is the largest military force of its kind in the world and exceeds the size of most world armies.

... The mere fact that even Defense Department officials are beginning to discuss fewer dollars for the Pentagon ... offers an opportunity for Americans intent on reining in rampant military spending. It is a chance that has been a long time coming, is finally on the national agenda, and, if missed, might be an even longer time in coming again.

Read the full article

Small-City Mayor Takes on the Pentagon -- War Spending Should Be Spent on Americans, Not on Killing Afghans

2010-04-12T09:41:00.003-04:00

From AlterNet:

We don't just have a revenue problem in this country -- we have a values and priorities problem.

Matt Ryan, the mayor of Binghamton, New York, is sick and tired of watching people in local communities “squabble over crumbs,” as he puts it, while so much local money pours into the Pentagon’s coffers and into America’s wars. He’s so sick and tired of it, in fact, that, urged on by local residents, he’s decided to do something about it. He’s planning to be the first mayor in the United States to decorate the façade of City Hall with a large, digital “cost of war” counter, funded entirely by private contributions.

That counter will offer a constantly changing estimate of the total price Binghamton’s taxpayers have been paying for our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001. By September 30, 2010, the city’s “war tax” will reach $138.6 million -- or even more if, as expected, Congress passes an Obama administration request for supplemental funds to cover the president’s “surge” in Afghanistan. Mayor Ryan wants, he says, to put the counter “where everyone can see it, so that my constituents are urged to have a much-needed conversation.”

In doing so, he’s joining a growing chorus of mayors, including Chicago's Richard Daley and Boston's Thomas Menino, who are ever more insistently drawing attention to what Ryan calls the country’s “skewed national priorities,” especially the local impact of military and war spending. With more than three years left in his current term, Ryan has decided to pull out all the stops to reach his neighbors and constituents, all 47,000 of them, especially the near quarter of the city’s inhabitants who currently live below the poverty line and the 9% who are officially unemployed.

A Hard Hit Rust-Belt City

Like so many post-industrial rust-belt communities, Binghamton was hard hit by the financial meltdown of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed, though it faired better than a number of similar cities, in part because Ryan, his administration, and the Binghamton City Council are a smart and scrappy crew. No doubt that’s why he earned the New York State Conference of Mayors Public Administration and Management award two years running.

These days, however, even the smartest and scrappiest of mayors still has to face grim reality. In July 2009, as the city began developing the 2010 budget, Ryan projected a $7 million shortfall. Contributing factors included a likely $700,000 decline in sales tax revenue, ever rising healthcare costs, increased pension contributions to replace funds lost in the market during the collapse of 2008-09, and a $500,000 drop in the return on the city's investment portfolio.

With worse times ahead, thanks in part to the projected end of federal stimulus money and a city drained dry of reserves, Ryan has had to face a classically unpalatable choice: raise city sales taxes from 7% to an unheard of 24% or cut city jobs. He chose jobs, as have the vast majority of mayors and governors across the country, eliminating 39 of them. In the process, he sought greater program efficiencies and wrestled with ways to increase city revenues while cutting ever closer to Binghamton’s proverbial bone.

It was in the context of this kind of local pain that Ryan was stunned to discover just how much of Binghamton’s taxes were going to the military and to our distant wars, and how little was coming back to Binghamton in the form of aid and services. “When I first saw the cost of war numbers and made the connections,” Ryan remarks, “I had to wonder if we're ever going to get our priorities straight as a nation. It's like we're facing an attack on government. As a mayor, I can see so clearly what increased federal spending could do for the people of my city.”

Ryan's message doesn't resonate with all of his constituents -- some have walked out on his public appearances -- but he's used to controversy and convinced that Americans had better get their heads straight soon. “People are hurting so bad,” he insists, “that, like it or not, we're all going to have to look at things seriously if we want our situation to change.”

Heads should swivel, he thinks, when faced with the $138.6 million Binghamton’s taxpayers are out of pocket since 2001 for the Iraq and Afghan wars. And that’s not even counting the city's share of the supplemental funds Congress will undoubtedly agree to this spring to cover the Afghan “surge” or the city's portion of the basic Pentagon budget for the same period.

For a small city with an annual budget of $81.1 million, $138.6 million would be a hefty sum, even in non-recessionary times. For the same amount of money, Ryan could fund the Binghamton city library for the next 60 years, or pay for a four-year education for 95% of the incoming freshman class at the State University of New York at Binghamton, or offer four years of quality health coverage for everyone in Binghamton 19 or younger, or secure renewable electricity for every home in the city for the next 11 years. If he was feeling really flush, he could fully fund one-third of New York State's Head Start slots for one year.

For the same sum, Ryan could also authorize a $2,900 tax refund for every woman, man, and child in Binghamton or pay the salaries of all of Binghamton's hard-hit public school teachers and staff for about two years.

For $138.6 million, Mayor Ryan could hire 2,765 public safety officers for a year, or simply refund the 12 police positions cut in the latest budget contraction and guarantee those salaries for the next 230 years. Ridiculous? These days, no one is laughing in Binghamton or other cities like it.

A Community Starved by War

As tax day looms on April 15th, Ryan increasingly thinks about where Binghamton’s tax dollars will be heading and dreams about a government system that would have the potential to raise and spend tax revenue in the service of social benefits like affordable healthcare.

He’s disturbed by how Binghamton’s tax dollars will be distributed and what they will -- and won't -- buy for his city. Consider, for instance, where the 2009 taxes paid by a median income Binghamton household actually went. That year, such a household's income hovered around $30,000 annually, while its members paid approximately $738 in federal income taxes.

According to the tax-day analysis of the National Priorities Project (NPP), an overwhelming 218 of those dollars went to pay for military expenditures and interest on military-related debt (generated, in part, by current war spending). The next highest amount -- $137 -- went to healthcare, including Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

In 2009, $67, nearly 10 cents on every tax dollar, went to an aggregated category of spending NPP has titled “government,” tripling it in a single year, largely thanks to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), otherwise known as the bank bailout, whose cost every community in America has had to shoulder. Fifty-eight dollars (8.5 cents on every income-tax dollar) went to increased unemployment insurance payments and job-training initiatives, also a rise from the previous year.

Not surprisingly, the $15 that went to elementary, secondary, higher, and vocational education in 2009 represented a drop from 2008, a loss of a penny on every tax dollar. There’s no way, of course, that Mayor Ryan's dream of free, quality education from kindergarten to college is likely to happen on but 2% of every individual federal income tax dollar. Nor will we usher in the green techno-revolution that he and President Obama both support, by spending 2.5 cents on every dollar for the combined categories of the environment, energy, and science, and another 1.3 cents of every dollar on transportation.

“It's a double whammy," Ryan says. "We have a revenue problem and a values and priorities problem in this nation.”

Some desperate city leaders have suggested that the Mayor cut workers' pensions to help close the city’s budget gap. Matt Ryan doesn't see that as a solution to anything. “I have secretaries making $25,000 or $30,000. I'm not about to cut their net, such as it is. We have to think long haul. We have to look at fundamental changes if we're going to make it as a country. We should all be talking about this -- all the time.”

A construction crew will soon arrive to install Binghamton's “cost of war” counter which will overlook the city's busiest intersection and spur conversation around tax day. During the three minutes local motorists wait at the nearby traffic light, they can join Mayor Ryan in waving good-bye to $100. And Binghamton as a whole can grapple with spending $49,650 in war costs every day of 2010.

Jo Comerford is the executive director of the National Priorities Project. Previously, she served as director of programs at the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and directed the American Friends Service Committee's justice and peace-related community organizing efforts in western Massachusetts

Yet Another War

2010-03-10T08:11:00.003-05:00

Woodblock/Collage by Pia Oste-Alexander

Cut the Pentagon, Not Real Security

2010-03-07T09:35:00.001-05:00

From FCNL:

According to some analysts, President Obama's budget will increase military spending by a lot. Over the next 7 years, the United States would spend $5 trillion dollars on the military. Meanwhile, the president wants to freeze "non-security related" spending at current levels for the next three years. This doesn't add up. Real security won't come from more military spending.

Ask your members of Congress to reject the president's proposal to increase Pentagon spending. Ask them to find ways to reduce the military budget so that the government has money to spend to provide real security for people in the United States.

Take action.

America’s Global Weapons Monopoly: Don’t Call It “the Global Arms Trade”

2010-02-18T08:45:00.003-05:00

By Frida Berrigan
Published by Tom Dispatch

On the relatively rare occasions when the media turns its attention to U.S. weapons sales abroad and shines its not-so-bright spotlight on the latest set of facts and figures, it invariably speaks of “the global arms trade.”

Let’s consider that label for a moment, word by word:

*It is global, since there are few places on the planet that lie beyond the reach of the weapons industry.

*Arms sounds so old-fashioned and anodyne when what we’re talking about is advanced technology designed to kill and maim.

*And trade suggests a give and take among many parties when, if we’re looking at the figures for that “trade” in a clear-eyed way, there is really just one seller and so many buyers.

How about updating it this way: “the global weapons monopoly.”

In 2008, according to an authoritative report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), $55.2 billion in weapons deals were concluded worldwide. Of that total, the United States was responsible for $37.8 billion in weapons sales agreements, or 68.4% of the total “trade.” Some of these agreements were long-term ones and did not result in 2008 deliveries of weapons systems, but these latest figures are a good gauge of the global appetite for weapons. It doesn’t take a PhD in economics to recognize that, when one nation accounts for nearly 70% of weapons sales, the term “global arms trade” doesn’t quite cut it.

Consider the “competition” and reality comes into focus. Take a guess on which country is the number two weapons exporter on the planet: China? Russia? No, Italy, with a relatively paltry $3.7 billion in agreements with other countries or just 9% of the U.S. market share. Russia, that former Cold War superpower in the “trade,” was close behind Italy, with only $3.5 billion in arms agreements.

U.S. weapons manufacturers have come a long way, baby, since those Cold War days when the United States really did have a major competitor. For instance, the Congressional Research Service’s data for 1990, the last year of the Soviet Union’s existence, shows global weapons sales totaling $32.7 billion, with the United States accounting for $12.1 billion of that or 37% of the market. For its part, the Soviet Union was responsible for a competitive $10.7 billion in deals inked that year. France, China, and the United Kingdom accounted for most of the rest.

Since then, the global appetite for weapons has only grown more voracious, while the number of purveyors has shrunk to the point where the Pentagon could hang out a sign: “We arm the world.” No kidding, it’s true.

Cambodia ($304,000), Comoros ($895,000), Colombia ($256 million), Guinea ($200,000), Greece ($225 million), Great Britain ($1.1 billion), the Philippines ($72.9 million), Poland ($79.8 million), and Peru ($16.4 million) all buy U.S. arms, as does almost every country not in that list. U.S. weapons, and only U.S. weapons, are coveted by presidents and prime ministers, generals and strongmen.

From the Pentagon’s own data (which differs from that in the CRS report), here are the top ten nations which made Foreign Military Sales agreements with the Pentagon, and so with U.S. weapons makers, in 2008:

Saudi Arabia $6.06 billion

Iraq $2.50 billion

Morocco $2.41 billion

Egypt $2.31 billion

Israel $1.32 billion

Australia $1.13 billion

South Korea $1.12 billion

Great Britain $1.10 billion

India $1 billion

Japan $840 million

That’s more than $17 billion in weapons right there. Some of these countries are consistently eager buyers, and some are not. Morocco, for example, is only in that top-ten list because it was green-lighted to buy 24 of Lockheed Martin’s F-16 fighter planes at $360 million (or so) for each aircraft, an expensive one-shot deal. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia (which inked $14.71 billion in weapons agreements between 2001 and 2008), Egypt ($13.25 billion) and Israel ($11.27 billion) are such regular customers that they should have the equivalent of one of those “buy 10, get the 11^th free” punch cards doled out by your favorite coffee shop.

To sum up, the U.S. has a virtual global monopoly on exporting tools of force and destruction. Call it market saturation. Call it anything you like, just not the “global arms trade.”

Getting Even More Competitive?

It used to be that the United States exported goods, products, and machinery of all sorts in prodigious quantities: cars and trucks, steel and computers, and high-tech gizmos. But those days are largely over.

The Obama administration now wants to launch a green manufacturing revolution in the U.S., and in February, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced a new “National Export Initiative” with the aim of doubling American exports, a move he said would support the creation of two million new jobs. The U.S. could, of course, lose the renewable-energy race to China and that new exports program may never get off the ground. In one area, however, the U.S. is manufacturing products that are distinctly wanted -- things that go boom in the night -- and there the Pentagon is working hard to increase market share.

Don’t for a second think that the American global monopoly on weapons sales is accidental or unintentional. The constant and lucrative growth of this market for U.S. weapons makers has been ensured by shrewd strategic planning. Washington is constantly thinking of new and inventive ways to flog its deadly wares throughout the world. ...
Read the full article

Daily Freeman: West Hurley's 2 hazardous waste sites are both arms manufacturers

2010-01-06T15:55:00.007-05:00

Daily Freeman January 6, 2010

Study lists likely sites for water

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

By WILLIAM J. KEMBLE
Correspondent

A REPORT to the Hurley Conservation Advisory Council tonight will recommend potential sites for new water sources to supply the hamlets of West Hurley and Glenford.

The council’s 7 p.m. meeting at the West Hurley Firehouse on Wall Street will focus on the report by consultant Steven Winkley of the New York Rural Water Association.

Among the report’s findings is the susceptibility of properties in West Hurley to contamination due to the underground flow of water from at least 20 locations where state Department of Environmental Conservation pollution response cases remain active.

“A number of petroleum spills have been investigated in the area by the NYSDEC Spill Response Unit,” Winkley wrote. “Many of these spills were found to not be of serious concern and their cases were closed. However, some of these spills were investigated further and cleanup activities were undertaken. Some of these spills have not been closed in the area ... (and) are either still being investigated or have not met cleanup standards.”

Other potential sources of contamination include abandoned petroleum bulk storage facilities and waste chemicals that pose problems despite longstanding state and federal cleanup efforts.

“Two hazardous waste sites are mapped in the West Hurley area,” Winkley wrote. “One is the so-called Rotron-Woodstock site located just to the north in the town of Woodstock. A groundwater extraction and treatment system and soil-vapor extraction system were installed here and continue to operate.”

The second hazardous waste site, the Numrich Arms Gun Parts Corp. off Williams Lane, was once listed as a Superfund site in the 1990s, Winkley wrote. “It is no longer on the current Superfund list and is now listed as a (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) waste handler.”

The report recommends seven sites that should be tested as potential sites for municipal water. However, the report noted three of the locations are on properties owned by the Onteora school district and should be reviewed for potential contamination.

“Data indicated two underground petroleum storage tanks exist on the school property: a 10,000-gallon fuel oil tank installed in 1990 and a 2,000-gallon fuel oil tank installed in 1987,” Winkley wrote. “Locations of these tanks should be documented as part of an environmental assessment.”

Another potential source of contamination on the school district property is an underground wastewater disposal field.

“A spill of petroleum was reported in 2000 at 76 Cedar St.,” Winkley wrote. “This property is less than 500 feet from the (West Hurley Elementary) school. The spill impacted groundwater and the case remains open as of the writing of this report.”

2009-12-22T13:45:00.018-05:00

Published by CounterPunch

Hooked on the War Economy
Woodstock's Dirty Secret
By LAURIE KIRBY

Woodstock, New York

I’m proud of my small town’s worldwide association with peace. Many times during the 24 years that I’ve lived here, I’ve stood in peace vigils on the Village Green – and provided a bit of local color for visitors’ snapshots. Tourists and other assorted pilgrims are drawn to Woodstock by peace as well as by the festival that didn’t happen here.

So I was stunned as I sat the other day in our excellent public library, examining an archive which they store in a remote closet. The documents told me that for six decades Woodstock’s largest employer has been making crucial, custom components for nuclear missiles.

In the 60s and 70s, hippies graced the Village Green. A mile away, down a banal country lane, under the benign gaze of a statue of the Buddha, skilled workers assembled fans that were "critical to the success of nearly every U.S. military missile program," as the company’s promotional material boasted. And specially-designed Woodstock fans were busy in the skies over Vietnam in B-52 bombers, making possible the "Christmas Bombings" of 1972, which were the largest heavy bombing strikes launched by the U.S. since World War II.

Today, Made-In-Woodstock components fly F-15s and F-16s and Apache attack helicopters over Iraq, rumble through Afghanistan in Bradley tanks, fire warheads from rocket launchers, and prowl the oceans in nuclear submarines.

The Iraq War provided an upturn in Woodstock’s weapons contracts, as had the Vietnam and Korean Wars ("Woodstock Company Expands For War Work" was the headline of a local newspaper in the early 1950s).

The Cold War work of Woodstock’s Rotron Inc. fueled the growth of the town and provided employment for some of its artists. The company, which also makes civilian products alongside its core military work, has been a notable supporter of community efforts such as the rescue squad. Meanwhile (although this only became known in the 1980s), TCE and other highly toxic byproducts of weapons production were contaminating the wells of neighborhood homes, who to this day can’t drink their well water or grow their own vegetables.

In 1973, the company even received a Special Award from Rockwell International, maker of the Minuteman nuclear missile. "Year after year," the award said, "the Rotron fan has performed on the Minuteman missile program without a single instance of failure."

Next to a model of a Minuteman, the award displayed a replica of one of Sir Francis Drake’s ships, likening Rotron’s contribution towards keeping the Soviets at bay to Drake’s turning back the Spanish Armada in 1588. (Today, the third generation of Minuteman ICBMs, now made by Boeing, are still a lethal nuclear threat – and still rely on Woodstock components.)

I stared at the nuclear missile and the sailing ship. What does it mean, I wondered, that for 60 years Woodstock, with its hippie-granola-peace reputation, has quietly had an economy anchored in nuclear terror and arms manufacturing?

It doesn’t mean that our tiny town is particularly evil. Rather the reverse: it means that Woodstock – like all towns – is both special and, at the same time, like everyone else.

All over the United States, in every congressional district, communities depend upon the war economy. Our own weapons-components plant, though it looms large in our local economy, is a small fish in the huge and murky pond of military contractors.

It means that, yes, even in Woodstock, too much of our hard work and creativity is expended producing products and services that go to war, that is, to desolation and waste.

And it means that, together with towns around the world, we have a responsibility to turn our local productivity in a positive direction.

Environmental, economic, and security crises are forcing us to rethink the economy. War makes all these crises worse. We can help to solve them by promoting peaceful, green manufacturing and services.

In a recession, people are naturally afraid of rocking the boat when jobs are at stake. But so many things we actually need are desperately underfunded. Fixing our infrastructure, for example, and educating our children. When money is put into these, it creates more jobs (per dollar invested) than war production.

Perhaps we shouldn’t, after all, follow the example of that plunderer and slaver Sir Francis Drake ... or any modern successors.

Laurie Kirby is a Professor of Mathematics at Baruch College of the City University of New York, and a Woodstock musician. He is a member of Woodstock Peace Economy.

Rescheduled to Saturday, December 19 at 4pm: ROTRON IN WOODSTOCK: THEN & NOW

2009-11-25T10:34:00.012-05:00

Due to inclement weather, our showing of Rotron’s promotional film from about 1960, "Rotron In Woodstock" has been rescheduled to Saturday, Dec. 19th.
This short movie, made by James Trainor, is newly rediscovered and restored after being unseen for many years. It provides an intriguing period look at the Woodstock of half a century ago, and perhaps a glimpse of some familiar faces. It will be followed by a slideshow presenting some of Rotron’s products at work, and a discussion of the issues raised by the prominent presence in the Woodstock community of this military contractor.
Did you have family members or friends who worked at Rotron in the 1960s? Come and spot them!
Do you have opinions about Rotron’s place in the community? Come and share them!
Would you like to see Woodstock join the movement to create an economy that would provide more jobs by contributing to peace, not war? Come and help find a way!
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2009
4pm at the COLONY CAFÉ, Rock City Road, Woodstock
Admission free ... Refreshments
Sponsored by Woodstock Peace Economy

The Pentagon budget: two important articles

2009-11-22T10:07:00.003-05:00

The Pentagon budget: largest ever and growing by Sara Flounders:
"... in the midst of this life-and-death debate on medical care for millions of working and poor people who have no health coverage, a gargantuan subsidy to the largest U.S. corporations for military contracts and weapons systems—a real deficit-breaker—is passed with barely any discussion and hardly a news article. ..."

Democrats Propose Surtax to Cover War Costs by CQPolitics:
"Senior House Democrats have introduced legislation that would impose a surtax beginning in 2011 to cover the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. ..."

Stop the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

2009-10-24T08:14:00.000-04:00

Video: SUNY New Paltz student, Claire Papell, speaks at a rally in Kingston, NY on October 17, 2009. Also Rebecca Baker is interviewed about her time in the military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cashing in the War Dividend

2009-10-23T10:41:00.005-04:00

Interesting interview with Jo Comerford of National Priorities Project on Democracy Now!

Hinchey boosts Predator Drones

2009-10-23T08:52:00.002-04:00

This isn't new but we hadn't noticed it before. A year ago, a press release from Congressman Maurice Hinchey boasted :
"Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today visited L-3 Communications in Binghamton, New York for a live demonstration of the company's unique Air Force Predator simulator and to announce $2.4 million in new federal funding he's secured for the company to dramatically improve the simulator to better prepare U.S. Air Force service members for operating unmanned reconnaissance missions. Hinchey used his position on the House Appropriations Committee to secure the funds, which he had included as part of the recently approved Fiscal Year 2009 appropriations bill for the U.S. Department of Defense."
L-3 Communications is one of Hinchey's biggest campaign contributors.

"The Secret About Jobs Military Contractors Don't Want You to Know"

2009-10-14T10:40:00.003-04:00

From Jennifer Doak, Foreign Policy In Focus:
A new report "shows that the federal government could generate thousands more jobs, both directly and indirectly, by focusing spending on health care, education, or clean energy rather than on defense."
According to the updated UMass report: "Channeling funds into clean energy, health care, and education in an effective way will therefore create significantly greater opportunities for decent employment throughout the U.S. economy than spending the same amount of funds with the military."
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6493

Anti-War Rally in Kingston Saturday, October 17

2009-10-13T17:47:00.002-04:00

Join us in Kingston on Saturday, Oct. 17 at a region-wide anti-war protest at Academy Green Park, 1-3:30 p.m.

The demonstration is primarily focused on ending the unpopular Afghanistan War.

The rally — which is part of a day of peace actions in a number of U.S. cities — is being organized by the New Paltz-based Peace & Social Progress Now! (PSPN), and has been endorsed so far by 20 organizations from several counties (including Woodstock Peace Economy), with more expected.

Among the speakers at Academy Green Park are Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter editor Jack A. Smith discussing the Afghan War and today’s antiwar movement; activist union delegate Donna Goodman on the labor movement and the wars; attorney Michael Sussman on the erosion of civil liberties since 9/11; author, long time Bard professor and activist Joel Kovel on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Gaza war; SUNY New Paltz student Claire Papell on youth and the wars; Dutchess County legislator Joel Tyner on the tasks confronting a progressive politician; filmmaker Dee Dee Halleck on the war industry and peace economy; Dutchess activist and organizer Fred Nagel on the GI and vets’ antiwar movements; activist Phyllis Rosner on the healthcare issue; and others as they are selected.

Topical singer Bob Lusk will perform, as will peace singers Julie Parisi Kirby and T. G. Vanini.

More details: http://activistnewsletter.blogspot.com/

Peaceful, green investment creates more jobs than war investment

2009-10-06T09:06:00.003-04:00

Source: The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending (UMass Political Economy Research Institute, 2007)
http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/78326f6be5/publication/282/

"Zip just got an idea for his next hippy punching"

2009-09-30T15:09:00.004-04:00

Some of the things written and blogged about Woodstock Peace Economy's efforts:

It isn't 1968 anymore. Stupid hippies.
Is this some ecofriendly wacko city hall? Sounds like it. ... Send in the Marines and let them take care of the situation. ... lib nitwits
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081212071640AA1WeJG

***
If I were running Ametek Rotron Inc. I would tell the old hippies in Woodstock, "Okay dude, since you don't want military parts manufactured in your wonderfull little liberal town I'm moving my plant to a town that wants the jobs. Now go protest that assholes".By Russ O'Neal http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2008/12/reading-assignments-27.html

***
"The Anti-War 60's hippies are still there, Drugged up And angry At Nixon !"
http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/archive/index.php/t-9007.html

***
Sad little pee spot in the snow that woodstock is... let these anti-American, anti-defense slobbering leftists wallow in their own excrement. Let THEM defend themselves...We culture people like this like I cultured bacteria in biology classes. And now that I think of it, they are a lot like many bacteria. Parasites of a sort with no redeeming social value that make you sick. They couldn’t exist without others to do their dirty work for them.Let these freaks defend themselves then.Sheep.Why waste energy caring about people too stupid to care about themselves. These people are sick, but hey, they are Progressives, and they just got elected to run the country. Woodstock can rot in hell with the artsy-fartsy, washed-up hippy crowd. Woodstock, NY - World Headquarters for oganic shoelaces. Failed hippies. They remain stupid. I suppose if you are a liberal parasite you have trouble understanding the productive.They should be sent to north Africa to live.Morons.Words fail me. I am simply stunned at stupidity beyond comprehension.http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2148319/posts#comment

***
minisink said: You DO NOT have a say in how other people's businesses are run! So get over it nut jobs.
minisink said: You people are nuts.http://forums.recordonline.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=th-news&tid=13090

***
Zip just got an idea for his next hippy punching, vacation spectacular
http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/page/94/

***
Every day I am astounded by another act of idiocity.....

maccabee wrote on Dec 15, '08
To bad that "they deserved Killin" isn't a good defense in court in these progressive times.

nikkirhoades35 wrote on Dec 16, '08
Ugh. Woodstock is a pretty town overrun by mostly freaky liberals. I visited there once and don't think I'll ever go back again, between the people meditating on the sidewalk, the protests along the road, and...well you get the point. This sounds like something ludicrous this town would do.
http://tcwlsn.multiply.com/journal/item/459

****
Let the hippies make wiffle balls and scented candles. REAL Americans can make the stuff that keeps our troops alive and successful.
http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2008/12/reading-assignments-27.html

2009-08-20T07:32:00.013-04:00

Report from
THE WOODSTOCK FORUM:
Building a Peaceful, Just and Sustainable Economy

It is 40 years since the historic Woodstock Festival crowned an era now associated with peace, love and rock and roll. Although the 1969 festival itself did not take place in Woodstock, but in Bethel many miles across the Catskills, the town of Woodstock, New York, nevertheless, has become a pilgrimage point for people seeking to either rekindle those years of love and music, or at the very least to buy a tie-dye T-shirt. Despite the great deal of hoopla surrounding the 40th anniversary of the famous festival, very little attention has been paid to the philosophical culture which permeated the event and its aftermath.

In 1969 the Vietnam War was a central focus for the passion of the crowd and the many songs of protest. At the Woodstock Forum, which took place August 15 and 16, 2009, well over 300 people heard and discussed the many pressing issues of OUR time. We are overwhelmed with on-going wars, continuing exploitation of people and resources around the world, worsening ecological devastation and usurpation of our communities for weaponry and repression. In 2009, although the name Woodstock is synonymous with "peace and love", the biggest employer in our own town is a military contractor. Given the perilous state of New York, the nation and the world, we need more than ever to discuss how to convert the engines of war for a peaceful future. In the sessions held at the Woodstock Town Hall on Saturday we heard from historians, poets, workers, social critics and journalists such as:

Peter Woodruff, worker in a Maine weapons factory; grass roots organizer, Mary Beth Sullivan; legendary activist Diane Wilson, author, An Unreasonable Woman and co-founder Code Pink; poet and teacher, Janine Vega; curator and gallery director, Ariel Shanberg; award winning journalists Jeremy Scahill and Jeff Cohen; economist Robert Pollin; historians Sylvia Federici, Simon Harak, SJ, and Richard Grossman; social critics Joel Kovel and George Caffentzis; filmmakers DeeDee Halleck and Tobe Carey.

The speakers painted an ominous view of how militarism has gripped our communities, our culture and our lives.

On Sunday the Forum switched from presentations on what was wrong to reflections on how citizens could right those wrongs. A day of deliberation, contentious at times but essentially forward moving, led to the drafting of an initial statement and the framing of ways to build movements, local as well as regional and national, to carry the struggle forward.

Statement from the Woodstock Forum

We, participants of the Woodstock Forum, meeting August 15 and 16, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, reclaim the authority for our lives and our communities. We reject the usurpation of our rights by the military-industrial-media complex.

We reject the actions of our country to foment wars around the world and to manufacture, export and sell weapons. Weapons are the number one U.S. export. Our cities and towns have become home to industries for death and destruction.

We declare that:

1. we will map and research the military industries that control the economies of our communities, that control the minds and pockets of our government officials, that pollute and destroy our land and waters.

2. we will draw attention to these industries of death through educational outreach to local and national media and with imaginative and creative non-violent actions.

3. we will build coalitions to convert weapons-making to peaceful manufacturing and to create meaningful work in education, the arts, health care, and ecological development.

4. we vow to take personal responsibility for the products in our workplaces and in our lives.

We will not cease our resistance to the death machines in our midst and to the laws that support them.

WOODSTOCK FORUM

2009-08-15T22:48:00.013-04:00

Over 300 people attended the WOODSTOCK FORUM. If you were there and have any comments or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you: L@WoodstockPeaceEconomy.org.

Books, CDs and films by Woodstock Forum presenters

2009-08-10T15:05:00.017-04:00

Satirical songster Dave Lippman, also known as Singing CIA Agent George Shrub (right) and Wild Bill Bailout, has several CDs, DVDs and T-shirts.

Jeremy Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Moist Powerful Mercenary Army.

Diane Wilson is the author of An Unreasonable Woman.

Silvia Federici is the author of Caliban and the Witch and other books.

George Caffentzis is the author of Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War and other books.

Joel Kovel is the author of The Enemy Of Nature and other books.

Jeff Cohen is the author of Cable News Confidential.

Robert Pollin is the author of The Living Wage and other books.

Mikhail Horowitz's CDs include Poor, On Tour, and Over 54.

The Princes Of Serendip's CDs include What She Said.

Janine Vega is the author of Tracking the Serpent and other books of poetry.

DeeDee Halleck's works include Hand Held Visions.

Tobe Carey's documentaries include Deep Water.

Buy these books and CDs at The Golden Notebook, Woodstock's independent bookstore.

WOODSTOCK FORUM: The Program

2009-08-05T14:36:00.032-04:00

Click on the image for a printable poster/schedule. Subject to change.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, Woodstock Town Hall, 76 Tinker St. (Rte. 212), Woodstock, NY

9:00-9:30am Registration, Refreshments

9:30-10:50 The Culture of War, Visions of Peace
Joel Kovel - activist, author, The Enemy of Nature; Against the State of Nuclear Terror
Sylvia Federici - Professor Emerita, Hofstra University; author Caliban and the Witch
George Caffentzis - Professor, University of Southern Maine; author, Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992

11:00-1:00 The Living Wage and the Death Industry: Plowshares vs Cluster Bombs
Robert Pollin - economist UMass; author, The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy
Mary Beth Sullivan - peace activist, Global Network against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Peter Woodruff - wind turbine advocate; maintenance mechanic, Bath Iron works
Andy Heaslet - Peace Economy Project, Saint Louis, MO

1:00-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2:45 Beyond Rock and Roll: Music and Art in the Age of Drones and YouTube: performances and analysis

Dave Lippman - comedian
Ras T Asheber - Reggae musician
Janine Vega - poet and teacher; author, Tracking the Serpent: Journeys to Four Continents
Jeff Cohen - founder FAIR; director of the Park Center for Independent Media, Ithaca, NY
Ariel Shanberg - director Center for Photography at Woodstock

3:00-4:30 Keynote speaker: Diane Wilson, environmentalist, anti-war activist; author, An Unreasonable Woman

4:30-6:00 What is the Role of Non-Violence in Converting to a Peaceful Economy?
Can a Peaceful Non-Violent Society co-exist with the production of weapons of war?
Simon Harak, Jesuit priest, director, Marquette University Center for Peace Making

6:00-6:30 Reception for The Woodstock Generation by Dennis Stock at Center for Photography at Woodstock

6:30-7:00 Excerpts from three decades of anti-war video: from the March for Disarmament to Iraq: Shocking & Awful
DeeDee Halleck, media activist; professor emerita, UCSD; author, Hand Held Visions; Gringo in Mañanaland
Tobe Carey, videographer, Deep Water, Stanley’s House

7:00 Mikhail Horowitz, poet, parodist, mensch
Keynote Speaker: Jeremy Scahill, investigative journalist, twice winner Polk award; author, Blackwater

SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, Colony Cafe, Rock City Road, Woodstock

9:30am-12:00 Forging Plowshares: Strategies Working for Peace
Workshop on community organizing

Noon Book signing with Jeremy Scahill, Richard Grossman, Diane Wilson, Joel Kovel, Silvia Federici

12:30pm Music and poetry by The Princes of Serendip and surprise guests

1:30-3:00 Building a Coalition

2009-07-30T15:08:00.003-04:00

Let us be clear, we appreciate Rotron's role as a provider of jobs in our community and the other positive contributions they make. And the concerns we are expressing here do not apply to the non-military portion of Rotron’s production. We want Rotron to continue to play a viable role in our community but we do see a need and a potential for change.

What if, instead of yet more gas-guzzling military machines, Woodstock produced equipment that contributed to solving the global environmental crisis rather than making it worse? Peaceful investment is green investment, and it creates many more jobs (per dollar invested) than military investment. Especially in the midst of our deepening economic crisis, Ulster County is crying out for more jobs. Here is an opportunity for Woodstock to take a lead in sustainable manufacturing. Representative Hinchey has spoken up in favor of stimulus measures that will help create green jobs. It can be a win-win situation.

Woodstock is not special. The war economy stretches its tentacles into every congressional district. The peace economy starts in everyone's back yard.

2009-07-30T10:34:00.024-04:00

Co-Sponsors of the WOODSTOCK FORUM include:
Dutchess Greens; Dutchess Peace Coalition; WESPAC, Peace Action/NY; Saugerties Committee for Peace and Social Justice; Real Majority Project; Mid-Hudson New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty; World Can't Wait; Murray Colow Veterans for Peace Chapter, Woodstock; Middle East Crisis Response; Code Pink; Woodstock International Walk for Peace; Voices for Peace Choral Group; CLASP; Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Social Justice Committee, Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Poughkeepsie; Military Families Speak Out; Al Warren Chapter 60 Veterans for Peace; The Common Fire Foundation; Mid-Hudson Valley 9/11 Truth Committee, and many individuals.

WAR MACHINES TO WINDMILLS?

2009-07-17T20:46:00.008-04:00

Woodstock Times, July 16, 2009
http://www.ulsterpublishing.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=490855

"The small town of Woodstock has a big reputation for peace." So it says on a flyer being passed around with information about the upcoming Woodstock Forum to be held here on the 40th anniversary of what came to be known as the Woodstock Festival celebrating peace and love.

But the Woodstock Forum is about more than peace and love. It's also about a massive nation-wide weapons industry that stands in the way of peace and how that industry could be converted into something green and sustainable. We know that Woodstock is a community that values peace. But can we claim to be for peace when our largest manufacturer is making parts used in weapons of war and we haven't said a peep about changing that?

Woodstock's largest manufacturer, Ametek/Rotron, makes parts used in F-16 fighter planes, Apache attack helicopters, tanks and missile delivery systems.

A small group of us met with the leadership of Rotron some months ago. They referred to themselves as part of the defense industry. But "defense industry" is just another name for the same huge military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in 1961 when leaving office.

Frida Berrigan, senior program associate with the New America Foundation's Arms and Security Initiative, in an article called 'Weapons: Our # 1 Export?' says the United States leads the world in exporting weaponry. "Increased weapons sales will certainly help defense contractors...but they won't help the overall U.S. economy or the security of the international community."

Defense contractors may provide jobs (green, sustainable economy would provide more) but the production and sale of military hardware has little to do with actual "defense". The very profitable production (for a few) of weapons used to rain death and destruction (on the many) keeps the business of war going on and on.

Two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner, retired Marine Major General Smedley Butler said it this way, "War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

On the other hand, for more peaceful tomorrows, the Woodstock Forum is bringing together activists and scholars from around the U.S. for two days of "building a peaceful, just and sustainable economy."

Speakers and performers will include environmental and anti-war activist and author of "An Unreasonable Woman" - Diane Wilson, top investigative reporter, Jeremy Scahill, Jeff Cohen, Mikhail Horowitz, Joel Kovel, Janine Vega and others.

According to esteemed Tibetan scholar and Woodstock resident, Robert Thurman, "Our town should be in the lead in turning America away from a self-defeating war economy to a green sustainable economy, and so the conversion of the Woodstock plant of Rotron from war component making to purely peace-product manufacturing is of vital concern to all Woodstock taxpaying citizens, including myself."

Historian and author Howard Zinn wrote, "I'm gratified that citizens of Woodstock and its environs are organizing to transform the production of components now used for frightful weapons to peaceful and sustainable purposes...perhaps other places in the country where war materials are produced will take up the struggle for a weapons-free, peaceful world.

Remember the dates: August 15 at the Woodstock Town Hall and August 16 at the Colony Cafe. On the flyer it says, "What if Woodstock made Windmills?"

What if? Be there and find out.

Tarak Kauff
Woodstock

2009-07-01T12:50:00.011-04:00

Peter Woodruff, who will be one of the speakers at the upcoming Woodstock Forum, has been an employee at Bath (Maine) Iron Works for 28 years. To see Woodruff interviewed by Bruce Gagnon about proposals for his factory to produce wind turbines instead of Aegis destroyers, go to http://www.archive.org/details/ThisIssuePeterWoodruff.

Peaceful investment creates more jobs than war investment

2009-06-18T15:48:00.007-04:00

Source: The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending (UMass Political Economy Research Institute, 2007)
http://www.peri.umass.edu/236/hash/78326f6be5/publication/282/

The Ending of America's Financial-Military Empire

2009-06-17T09:04:00.011-04:00

The Ending of America's Financial-Military Empire by Michael Hudson in CounterPunch lays out some of the international economic background which makes the transition to a peace economy even more essential. Here are some excerpts:

... At the root of the global financial crisis, he [Russian president Dmitry Medvedev] concluded, is the fact that the United States makes too little and spends too much, particularly its vast military outlays, such as the stepped-up US military aid to Georgia announced just last week, the NATO missile shield in Eastern Europe and the US buildup in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia. ...

Aside from no longer financing the U.S. buyout of their own industries and the U.S. military encirclement of the globe, China, Russia and other countries would no doubt like to enjoy the same kind of free ride that America has been getting. As matters stand now, they see the United States as a lawless nation, financially as well as militarily. How else to characterize a nation that proclaims a set of laws for others – on war, debt repayment and treatment of prisoners – but flouts them itself? The United States is now the world’s largest debtor yet has avoided the pain of “structural adjustments” imposed on other debtor economies. U.S. interest-rate and tax reductions in the face of exploding trade and budget deficits are seen as the height of hypocrisy in view of the austerity programs that Washington forces on other countries via the IMF and other Washington vehicles. ...

If China, Russia and their non-aligned allies have their way, the United States will no longer live off the savings of others in the form of its own recycled dollars, nor have the money for unlimited military expenditures and adventures.

Full article: http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson06152009.html

Cartwright: U.S. Force-Sizing, Basing Strategy Need Overhaul

2009-06-16T13:50:00.006-04:00

This is an excerpt from:
Defense News, June 4, 2009

Cartwright: U.S. Force-Sizing, Basing Strategy Need Overhaul

By JOHN T. BENNETT

Over the next few years, the U.S. military is likely to become engaged in a number of hot and cold conflicts, each spanning five to 10 years, meaning the Pentagon must "adjust" its decades-old force sizing and basing constructs, says Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs. ...

... Cartwright said he continues to press for development of a new weapon that would allow Washington to take out a fleeting target in a manner of minutes.

The Marine Corps general said he has concluded conventionally armed bombers are "too slow and too intrusive" for many "global strike missions."

Cartwright for several years has advocated for a "prompt global strike" weapon, which would be ultra-fast and fitted with a conventional warhead.

Congress, due largely to worries that other nations, like Russia, would be unable to quickly determine whether an in-flight warhead was nuclear, has refused to fund the program.

Cartwright said even congressional skeptics of the idea realize there is a "military requirement" for such a fast weapon to take out fleeting targets.

The requirements for such a weapon are "starting to emerge," he said."At the low end," a PGS weapon would probably need to be launched and hit a target within "one hour," Cartwright said. "At the high end," the time frame could be as short as "300 milliseconds."

The military might need a "hypersonic" weapon that would travel in the exoatmosphere to take out a limited number of fleeting targets, he said.

Finally, Cartwright told the audience the Pentagon is examining a new concept, called "extended deterrence," something "we're trying to force into the QDR."The idea would be to field a weapon so effective that it would dissuade enemies from carrying out a specific activity, while also "not starting a nuclear arms race" and "giving allies comfort."

The options for an "extended deterrence" capability, he said, are not limited to nuclear-armed weapons.

Full article at http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4123641&c=AME&s=LAN

SUSTAINABLE PEACEFUL PRODUCTION OR WEAPONS FOR WAR?

2009-03-09T00:41:00.006-04:00

Worldwide, people identify Woodstock with peace and music. We all know that the festival didn’t happen here. But now it turns out that Woodstock’s material contribution to war and peace in the world is weighted heavily on the side of war. We can change this.

Even as Woodstockers were dedicating our Peace Pole last year, just a mile away Woodstock’s largest employer, Ametek Rotron Military and Aerospace Products, was gearing up for another week’s production. According to the company itself, its 380 Woodstock employees make small but essential components of many major weapons systems – fighter and bomber aircraft, attack helicopters, tanks and military ships. These weapons systems have taken leading roles in wars, war crimes and human rights violations across the world.

For example, our local manufacturer claims to make parts for Apache attack helicopters and F-16 fighter planes. These were central in the disastrous and illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Did those particular Apaches and F-16s contain components with the Made-In-Woodstock label? We don’t know for sure, but at any rate we have an obligation to rethink our community’s complicity in such war crimes in the future.

F-16s were also a mainstay of Indonesia’s armed forces as that country massacred civilians in East Timor in 1999. F-16s also help to prop up another prominent human rights violator, Pakistan, and would likely be charged with delivering that country's nuclear weapons. F-16s and Apaches were in the news again recently as they delivered death to over 1300 residents of Gaza, including over 400 children, administering a collective punishment on the civilian population there. Assuming, again, that our community contributed to those particular aircraft, how do we feel about Woodstock’s gift to the children of Gaza? And what can we do about it?

Another of the many weapons systems that apparently have Made-In-Woodstock components is the Multiple Launch Rocket System. This device has been used to fire cluster bombs – by the US in Iraq, and by Israel in Lebanon in 2006. Recently over 100 countries cooperated on a treaty to ban cluster bombs. We should encourage Obama to reverse Bush’s refusal to sign on. Meanwhile we should do our bit to reverse our local contribution to their use.

Let us be clear, we appreciate Rotron's role as a provider of jobs in our community and the other positive contributions they make. And the concerns we are expressing here do not apply to the non-military portion of Rotron’s production. We want Rotron to continue to play a viable role in our community but we do see a need and a potential for change.

What if, instead of yet more gas-guzzling military machines, Woodstock produced equipment that contributed to solving the global environmental crisis rather than making it worse? Peaceful investment is green investment, and it creates many more jobs (per dollar invested) than military investment. Especially in the midst of our deepening economic crisis, Ulster County is crying out for more jobs. Here is an opportunity for Woodstock to take a lead in sustainable manufacturing. Representative Hinchey has spoken up in favor of stimulus measures that will help create green jobs. It can be a win-win situation.

In addition to overcoming our economic and environmental crises, we have a moral and legal obligation to oppose the manufacture of weapons that are helping to create those crises. International law – including the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Principles – imposes on us not just a right but a responsibility to put an end to our local community’s contribution to war crimes and violations of the laws of war.

We suggest the people and government of Woodstock come together with all parties involved to promote and encourage the conversion of our economy to sustainable, peaceful production while thereby enhancing our jobs base. It is time for us in Woodstock to live up to our worldwide image of peace.

Sponsored by Woodstock Peace Economy