The Greek Tragedy

by Peter Deccy

Much has been reported about the decline of the Greek economy. Some Republicans have enjoyed using the tragedy to warn the same fate awaits the US unless it cuts its social spending, often implying the social safety net in Greece supports a lazy society that prefers drinking on the beach and handouts to hard work and productivity.

Nice try. What’s been missing in mainstream media coverage is the fact that Greece is the 3rd largest importer of weapons in the world. That’s right, China, India, Greece.

Greece is largest importer of weapons among the NATO allies. While NATO countries spend an average of 1.7% of their GDP on ‘defense’, Greece has been spending 4%. That’s roughly $1,500 per person.
It has a standing army of 156,000 men, more than the UK which has 6 times the population of Greece. Military service of nine months is compulsory.

And who is selling them the weapons? No, it’s not the world largest weapons trafficker (the US) this time. It’s France and Germany, the belt tighteners who have been pressing Greece to accept a bread and water diet to solve their financial crisis.

Of course, you need a threat of cosmic proportions to justify runaway military spending. For Greece, that’s Turkey. But wait, isn’t Turkey Greece’s NATO ally? Yes, they are, but don’t look behind the curtain. The extreme right in Greece has long used the dispute over Cyprus to justify their militarism. That sounds vaguely familiar.

So the Republican’s have it half right, which is twice their average score. If we don’t watch out we’ll end up in the same mess Greece is in. But it won’t be because we’re taking too good care of our people. It will be because of our addiction to militarism.

A few Peace Action media hits around the Obama visit to Afghanistan and Bin Laden anniversary

Peace Action West’s Political Director Rebecca Griffin’s excellent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle focused on public opinion and opportunities to end the war while stressing diplomacy, political and economic development support for Afghanistan.

Field Director Judith Le Blanc’s response to the president’s speech from Kabul addressed the cost of the war to both the Afghan and U.S. people (watch for this piece, it could show up in your local paper, as it is being distributed nationally by the Oregon Peace Institute’s op-ed service, and it was also published with a different headline on Counterpunch).

Executive Director Kevin Martin and U.S. Labor Against the War’s Michael Eisenscher called for the troops to come home now, not at the end of 2014 or worse, 2024, in an essay on Common Dreams.

Martin again, on Chicago public radio station WBEZ’s excellent Worldview program yesterday, spoke of the president’s trip in the context of the public’s clear support for ending the war rapidly, upcoming congressional action on Afghanistan, and the NATO Summit in Chicago later this month (my segment is from yesterday, 5.2.12, and begins 16 minutes into the program, lasts about 22 minutes, with two good callers!)

Corporate War Profiteer Socialism – Lockheed Martin Throws Its Weight Around (Again)

Here’s a terrific article written by Peace Action national board co-chair and Montgomery County, Maryland Peace Action coordinator Jean Athey on the unmitigated chutzpah of the world’s biggest war profiteer, Lockheed Martin, published by our friends at Foreign Policy in Focus.

http://www.fpif.org/articles/lockheed_throws_its_weight_around_again

In Montgomery County, Maryland — just outside of Washington, DC — the county executive recently proposed, as a part of his annual budget, a no-strings-attached grant of $900,000 to Lockheed Martin, the largest military contractor in the world. Citizens of the county objected to the handout in public hearings that the county council held on the budget.

One member of the council, after hearing citizen testimony, commented that the county could probably find better ways of spending $900,000. This was the only public comment any member of the council made on the issue.

Yet The Washington Post immediately criticized the county council in a vitriolic editorial in which it accused the council of engaging in “demagoguery masquerading as social justice.”

Lockheed Bites Back

Lockheed Martin and its friends at The Washington Post are still outraged that in 2010 the Council refused to pass a special law to give Lockheed Martin a unique tax advantage that would have cost the county $450,000 per year — at a time when the county was faced with draconian cuts to critical services. The county executive, at the behest of Lockheed Martin, had asked the council to change the legal definition of a hotel, specifically to exempt the patrons of Lockheed Martin’s new luxury hotel in Bethesda, MD from paying the county’s 7-percent hotel tax. The proposed law would have applied to no other facility in the county.

After hearing from citizens on this outrageous bill, the council tabled it and never voted on it, effectively killing it. As a result, patrons of the hotel, called the Center for Leadership Excellence (CLE), must pay the lodging tax, just like the patrons of every other hotel in the county. The Washington Post and Lockheed Martin consider this situation grossly unfair. The proposed grant is designed to recompense Lockheed Martin for two years worth of the tax.

Let’s put this tax exemption proposal in perspective by taking a quick look at Lockheed Martin’s finances. In 2010 the company took home $3.9 billion in profits from the portion of its business that is paid directly by taxpayers (84 percent). Lockheed Martin’s CEO, Robert Stevens, received $21.9 million in compensation in 2011.  So this company is doing quite well for itself, thanks to the taxpayers, and our largesse will continue into the future. One example: It is now estimated that the F-35, a Lockheed Martin product, will end up costing taxpayers a total of $1.5 trillion dollars. If you laid out $1.5 trillion end-to-end in $100 bills, you could circle the Earth at the equator 59 times.

Despite the extraordinary wealth of this company, The Washington Post believes that council members are being “craven” in requiring the CLE to remain subject to the county’s hotel tax, given that only Lockheed Martin’s personal invitees can stay at the CLE — that is, members of the public can’t make a reservation there. Let’s consider this argument a bit more closely.

When Lockheed Martin’s own employees stay at the CLE, according to the Post, the corporation passes on the costs of the hotel tax to the appropriate federal contract. In other words, Lockheed Martin is already compensated by the federal government for any lodging costs the company incurs, and given federal procurement regulations, the company can charge indirect costs on top of the local taxes it pays. This means that Lockheed Martin gets its money back, with interest, on its employee lodging costs.

Even if Lockheed Martin didn’t get that money back, it would still make no sense to exempt this extremely wealthy company from paying a tax on employee lodging costs. The company also invites contractors and vendors to stay at the hotel. Why should these people not be required to pay a tax that they would pay if they instead chose to stay at the Marriott?

In reality, Lockheed Martin rents rooms to more than its employees, contractors and vendors. It uses its world-class conference center for . . . conferences. For example, the law school of the University of Southern California will hold a conference at the hotel in October. A registration form, available online until recently, asked conference participants to indicate whether they intended to stay at the CLE and pay a nightly rate of $225 during the conference or whether they would find their own accommodations. Since Lockheed Martin claims that the hotel is used almost solely for its employees—the bizarre rationale for the proposed tax exemption—this conference looks a bit suspicious. After citizens presented a copy of the conference registration form to the Montgomery county council during the public hearings on the budget, documenting that Lockheed Martin’s definition of “employee” is quite expansive, the form was removed from the website.

It is extraordinary that the company would make an issue of this tax. Although the amount of money—$450,000 per year—is significant to Montgomery County, it is essentially a rounding error for Lockheed Martin.

There’s more: not only are Lockheed Martin and The Washington Post furious at the county council for questioning the wisdom of a special million-dollar gift to Lockheed Martin to compensate it for having to pay the tax. They are also still irate that in 2011 the council briefly considered a non-binding resolution asking Congress to support the needs of local communities and cut military spending. Lockheed Martin suddenly had a job for a few of its 91 lobbyists: kill the resolution, which they did. Within a few days of Lockheed Martin bullying the council, a couple of council members were “persuaded” that the resolution was a bad idea. Since the resolution no longer had majority support, it was not brought up for a vote.

The Politics of Jobs

In its recent editorial, the Post once again castigated the council for having had the gall to briefly consider a resolution that never even came up for a vote. “Last fall,” the Post editorialized, “council members flirted witha resolution urging Congress to spend less on national defense. They backed down once it dawned that defense contractors such as Lockheed are among Montgomery’s biggest employers. In effect, council members were advocating layoffs for their own constituents.”

Contrary to The Washington Post’s assertion, the council did not decline to pass the resolution because it suddenly dawned on them that Lockheed Martin employs about 7,200 people in the county. Council members backed down under extreme political pressure, brought to bear on them from Lockheed Martin. In fact, the county is home to NIH, FDA, and other large federal agencies that employ far more people in the county than does Lockheed Martin. Without a reprioritization of federal spending, many people working in these agencies are quite likely to lose their jobs.

Even worse, the Post’s argument implies that the availability of local jobs supported by federal military contractors should deprive citizens of the ability to advocate a change in foreign policy and a say in the allocation of federal resources. Large military contractors, in fact, have distributed their subcontractors and their factories throughout the country in a politically astute manner. Economist and former Pentagon official Alain C. Enthoven once observed, “The ideal weapons system is built in 435 congressional districts and it doesn’t matter whether it works or not.” In the 2009 fight by a coalition of advocacy groups to kill the F-22, a plane made by Lockheed Martin that no one in the Pentagon wanted—from Rumsfeld to Panetta—Lockheed Martin placed several full-page ads in The Washington Post that consisted solely of a list of every congressional district in the country, alongside Lockheed Martin’s estimate of how many jobs would be lost in each district if the F-22 was cancelled. So much for subtlety. The plane doesn’t work, it’s extremely expensive, and we don’t need it for our “security,” but note to Mr. or Ms. Congressperson: fund this plane or we’ll see that jobs will be lost in your district—one of which will be yours.

The Washington Post and Lockheed Martin are working in lock-step to intimidate anyone who questions the idea of a reallocation of federal resources away from the current excessive level of military spending. Moreover, they are also using their extraordinary power to coerce a local council to do their bidding in a blatant corporate welfare scam.

Chicago May 18 & 19 – 99% vs War and Injustice

By Judith LeBlanc
Peace Action and the American Friends Service Committee have initiated a network of peace, faith, economic and racial justice groups to convene a Counter Summit for Peace and Economic Justice in Chicago on May 18 – 19.

While the NATO Summit meets at McCormick Place in Chicago we will gather at the People’s Church on 941 West Lawrence from Friday morning until Saturday afternoon.

While they discuss the Afghanistan war, we will map out campaigns for a future free of wars, occupation and the costs of a militarized foreign policy.

The conference will bring together representatives of the 99% from the US and around the world who oppose the policies which generate wars and impoverish our communities. Register now.

Find out more information on the NATO Free Future website. http://www.natofreefuture.org/

Join the low volume announcement list to get updates on plenary speakers and workshops.

We will raise our voices with an alternative vision to NATO’s wars. One that is premised on diplomacy and international sovereignty. Between now and May 18, you can invite speakers to come to your area and be a part of the dialogue.

In the months leading to the  NATO meeting and the G8 meeting at Camp David, it is an opportunity for popular education about NATO and  the G8 and the impact on our communities.

Check out the speakers bureau. In every region of the country there are experts, historians and organizers who can come and speak at events, or your own local Counter Summit for Peace and Economic Justice.

Join us in Chicago!

More Good Local Media Work by Peace Actionistas on Cutting Pentagon Spending

New Jersey Peace Action Executive Director Madelyn Hoffman in the Bloomfield Life

The Pentagon cuts would account for nearly half of the total of automatic cuts mandated by the debtdeal. If the Pentagon is immune from cuts, it will force greater cuts in domestic programs, like education, environmental protection, health care, veterans’ benefits, college scholarships and more.

The Pentagon already spends almost as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. The total budget for the military in 2011 was almost $800 billion. A modest 25 percent cut in those funds would free up $200 billion, enough to eliminate every state’s budget deficit with funds left over! This is the time for these mandatory cuts to take the pressure off federal and state budgets.

A recent announcement by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta suggested that American combat troops could be withdrawn from Afghanistan as early as mid-2013. That move could save hundreds of billions of dollars while keeping our troops in Afghanistan for one more year will have minimal impact on the Afghan Security Forces.

According to a Jan. 27 article in The Hill, through draw-downs in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and reductions of troops in Europe, the United States should be able “to reduce our 1.5 million member active-duty military by much more than the roughly 100,000 troops stated as a goal.” It costs almost $1 million per year per soldier, so these reductions would also save significant money.

NJPA urges you to contact U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell at 973-523-5152; U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg at 888-398-1642; and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez at 973-645-3030 to tell them not to shield the Pentagon from spending cuts. Genuine security depends on towns like Bloomfield having enough money for education, affordable housing and health care, and clean air and water. It’s time to prevent the military-industrial complex, warned of by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, from draining dry the rest of the economy.

Let’s advocate for our communities, move the money and make our communities the nation’s top priority.

The writer is executive director of New Jersey Peace Action, based in Bloomfield.

Recall Walker!

A few weeks ago, Peace Action staffers Judith Le Blanc, Jonathan Williams and I had the delight of stopping by the Recall Walker (that would be the union-busting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker) table in the middle of the Milwaukee Airport! (We were in Milwaukee for a terrific weekend training retreat with our Peace Action affiliates from Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Missouri/Kansas.) The petition signatures to force a recall election were delivered yesterday.

Enjoy this video of an MLK Day address by Law professor Sherrilyn Ifill at the Wisconsin Capital with Walker listening to her excoriating conservative policies.

Ending Iraq War: Op-ed in Bloomfield (NJ) Life newspaper by New Jersey Peace Action Executive Director

 

BY MADELYN HOFFMAN

GUEST COLUMNIST

Bloomfield Life, December 28, 2011

 

As 2011 ends, it is time to reflect upon continuing U.S. involvement in overseas wars and the impact that involvement has here at home. It is a good time to reflect on the role that protest played in getting us here and what those protests still want to achieve so the U.S. is genuinely safe and secure.

On Dec. 17, the last U.S. soldier was photographed leaving Iraq and the media proclaimed an end to the war which began on March 19, 2003 – almost nine years ago. The war cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $800 billion and claimed 4,483 U.S. soldiers’ lives. At the war’s height, the war in Iraq was costing taxpayers $12 billion each month.

Additionally, more than 1 million Iraqi civilians died, and 4.5 million became refugees. And during the last two years, more U.S. soldiers died by their own hands than in combat. On average, we lose 18 veterans to suicide each day.

So while it is important to mark the “official end” to the Iraq War, it is difficult to muster many cheers. Instead, it is critical to conduct an honest assessment of what happened.

First, we must acknowledge that U.S. presence in Iraq has not ended. The Project On Government Oversight argues that taxpayers will now provide funding for 14,000 to 16,000 contractors in Iraq. According to POGO, some of the companies who will provide contractors in Iraq – KBR, DynCorp and Blackwater – are in the POGO Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (www.contractormisconduct.org). All three contractors have extensive misconduct histories, yet they continue to operate.

Second, U.S. presence in Afghanistan remains – and may extend past 2014. According to a Dec. 20 article in the New York Times, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, suggested that American forces could remain in the country beyond 2014, despite increasing public opinion to withdraw forces from Afghanistan at an accelerated pace.

Lastly, we need to acknowledge the role that “The Protester,” Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year,” played in changing the course of this war, and what these protesters would like to see in 2012.

Bloomfield-based New Jersey Peace Action opposed the war in Iraq starting in the summer of 2002, many months before the war began. More than 800 protesters marched in Newark in December 2002, drawing the connection between the tremendous costs for war and how each dollar spent on the war would be a dollar taken away from programs and services that cities like Newark require.

Hundreds participated in national marches in Washington, D.C., and millions rallied worldwide on Feb. 19, 2003, trying to prevent the war in Iraq from ever beginning. That anti-war movement continued even after the first bombs were dropped, in an effort to end the war as quickly as possible.

Bloomfield residents started a weekly peace vigil in front of the Bloomfield Public Library shortly after the war began and continued it for years, as part of this national and international effort to stop the war.

While the consistent activism did not stop the United States from starting a war against Iraq, the ongoing activism did influence public opinion to the point where, by 2006, the majority of those polled were against the war. The 2006 elections, when many pro-war elected officials were beaten by anti-war challengers, were seen as a reflection of this shift.

Public opinion against the Iraq war deterred decision-makers from authorizing an invasion of Iran.

Protests to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and to treat returning veterans well upon their return continue today. NJPA is part of a national “Move the Money” campaign to take at least 25 percent of the money from the military budget and move it into funding programs that address community needs.

According to the National Priorities Project, war spending for Iraq and Afghanistan for 2011 was $169.4 billion. This is more than enough money to erase every state’s budget deficit. No deficits mean more money for towns like Bloomfield and a lighter burden on local taxpayers.

NJPA, joined by Bloomfield residents, recently participated on day 170 of the People’s Organization for Progress’ Campaign for Jobs, Peace, Equality and Justice. The campaign honors the 381-day, 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., which led to the desegregation of city buses. POP’s call is for jobs – with the understanding that the overseas wars must end, so that money can be used to help create much-needed jobs.

All are invited to participate in the these efforts to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring the war dollars home for our communities – for education, housing, jobs, health care and more.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The author is executive director of Bloomfield-based New Jersey Peace Action.

Restore the American Dream for the 99%

For the past year, Peace Action has collaborated with civil rights, labor and community groups to fight for The Dream that Dr. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement fought for.

The Dream is plain and simple, the right to a decent life in a more peaceful and just world.

This week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) introduced the Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act which creates more than 5 million jobs in the next two years and saves more than $2 trillion over 10 years.

The bill would cut wasteful weapons spending, ends the wars overseas, strengthens Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and implements emergency job creation measures and establishes fair taxation rates,

The Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act is inspired by The Contract for the American Dream – a 10 point plan created over the summer by more than 130,000 people in house meetings around the country and endorsed by 300,000.

With the collapse of the Congressional Super Committee and the continuing doomsday commentary by the highly paid military-industrial-complex lobbyists, our allies on Capitol Hill have to stand strong for The Dream of justice and peace.

Join us to fight for The Dream!

The goal now is to help get more than 100 Congressional co-sponsors, and prove that there’s a better way to solve the economic crisis than laying-off first responders and cutting health care.

Time is now for the rich to pay their fair share and to cut the Pentagon budget and end the wars.

It is the right time to join with community and labor to fight for The Dream.

Click here to endorse the Restore the American Dream for the 99% Act.

Pass it on!

Nov 17: Power to the Peaceful 99%

You can’t evict the 99%. Agnes from Community Voices Heard, an East Harlem based organization of low-income people, working to improve the lives of the community said,  “Don’t get it wrong. They’re fighting for us, for my granddaughter.”

After the eviction of Occupy Wall Street from Zuccotti Park early yesterday morning, Agnes and thousands of labor, clergy and community groups flooded lower Manhattan in solidarity. We must all be there for Occupy Wall Street November 17.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said, “They can take away the tarps and the tents, but they can’t slow down the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

You can’t evict an idea whose time has come!

The 1% have created havoc in the economy, in our communities and around the world with wars and occupations. Time for economic and racial justice. Time to move the money from wars and weapons back toour communities. Time to take a stand in New York City on November 17.

Today we are challenged to become more than organizers for peace, we must be organizers for peace and justice.

1. Call 212-New-York or (212-772-1081) to express your outrage to NYC Mayor Bloomberg. 2. Mobilize for an outpouring of the 99% on Thursday, November 17.

Are you in CT, NJ, Eastern PA?  Come to NYC to make it the biggest action in the country. Or find a solidarity action in your area.

They can’t slow us down now. The Occupy movement has changed the political terrain. The systemic inequalities have been named. Now we must stand in solidarity with the right to occupy by making clear that we need to fund our communities and not the Pentagon, war profiteers or the rich and their corporations. We must organize the peace and justice movement for the needs of the 99%.

In New York City, we will gather at subway hubs in the 5 boroughs and Occupy the subways as we head toFoley Square for a 5 PM peoples assembly. Then a festival of lights will encircle the City Hall and proceed across the Brooklyn Bridge. Join us!

Power to the peaceful,

Judith Le Blanc
Field Director
Peace Action

Move the Money and Super Committee Toolkit

NEW Peace Action Move the Money Toolkit 

The US Labor Department announced that the economy created 80,000 jobs in October.  Economists say that twice that number of jobs need to be created every month for the next ten years to bring the unemployment rate down from 9% to 5%. There is no better argument for “moving the money” from weapons and wars to fund jobs creation and community services.

The Congressional bi-partisan “Super Committee” has been visited repeatedly by lobbyists representing the military industrial complex as the Pentagon decries a “doomsday scenario” if their budget is cut.

Maximum public pressure is needed now to press for cutting into the 58% of federal discretionary spending the goes to the Pentagon and for nuclear weapons complex.

Peace Action’s Move the Money Toolkit includes background and materials to use, if your Senator or Representative is on the “Super Committee’.

No matter where you live, send a message to the “Super Committee”  using the social media info in the toolkit.

As the Committee’s November 23 deadline approaches for sending their proposals to Congress, we need to gear up for the “full court press” on all the members of Congress.

Move the Money Toolkit has military budget background background information, educational materials and leaflets. Download leaflets and add your local contact information.

Circulate the link for the Move the Money Toolkit  http://www.peace-action.org/move-the-money-tool-kit on community and activist listservs.

We gathered  great material from Peace Action affiliates, created new pieces or borrowed from sister organizations. Thanks to Upper Hudson, NY, NH, NC, Montgomery County and NJ!