Woodstock Peace Economy: The Best We Can Do?

Howard Zinn

"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. The bucolic setting of Woodstock is such a contrast with the ugliness of arms production. It is especially horrifying that this is taking place in a town whose heritage is peace and harmony. I support your work and hope other people will rally to your campaign to remove this blight from your areas, and perhaps other places in the country where war materials are produced will take up the struggle for a weapons-free, peaceful world. Thank you for what you and your friends are doing."

David Swanson

"Woodstock Peace Economy is providing the necessary answer to the claims of senators and congress members that they cannot shift funding from weapons to human needs because weapons mean jobs. While we know theoretically that non-military investment creates more and better-paying jobs while avoiding all the damage done by unnecessary weaponry, until local communities demand conversion from swords to ploughshares, and local workers demand conversion from swordmakers to ploughmakers, mere facts are not going to get in the way of legislators' loyalties. If other communities follow Woodstock in pursuing a peace economy, we just might all live to tell about it."

Saturday, February 2, 2019

The Best We Can Do?

A letter to the Woodstock Times, 1/31/2019:

Thanks to DeeDee Halleck for her letter about Rotron’s expansion. Here’s a bit more on that from woodstockpeaceeconomy.org, "The Rotron facility has the distinction of being Woodstock's only Superfund site, after Rotron poured TCE in the groundwater for decades -- the byproduct of earlier generations of Rotron ballistic missile, tank, fighter jet, rocket launcher and warship components. . . The TCE is still there."

Sure, jobs are important. Bills have to be paid, kids have to go to school, play ball, rents have to be paid etc. Essentials and more. Rotron does a good job of supporting all that in our community. It’s just a shame that in order to survive and thrive families here in Woodstock are dependent on jobs that contribute to the horrific and inexcusable deaths of other children and families in places like Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Niger, Somalia, and Palestine – Rotron also sells essential parts for weapons to Israel. Rotron also sells warplane parts to Saudi Arabia, even as it bombs Yemen.

Is this the best we can do?

It all comes down to dollars, huge profits for weapons manufacturers, doesn’t it? Do those executives making millions from war give a damn about the workers, or about the thousands of innocent children being injured and dying from our global war-making? Are these wars about democracy and freedom or about profits and power?

OK, what about jobs? Yes, Woodstock needs all the jobs it can get. How about jobs that don’t indirectly contribute to death and injuries? Green economy, funding human needs creates more jobs (per dollar spent) than funding military technology. Rotron has the technology, with a little effort, to lead the effort for conversion to a “Green Economy.” If we want that, it’s we, the people, that must demand it. See saisjournal.org/posts/the-transition-to-a-green-economy for more on that.

Tarak Kauff
Woodstock, NY