California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

We Need a Department of Peace to Balance and Offset our War Department

by John Lawrence

Let's face it. the Department of Defense is a euphemism. It was called the Department of War until 1949. So let's call it what it really is. Don't get me wrong. There are times when war is necessary as occurred in WW II. However, we spend about $1 trillion on our War Department while spending little or nothing on peace. Is there really a Peace Corps? Yes, and its budget is about $400 million. That's about 4 ten thousandths of the War Department budget. My point is that we should be making at least the same effort towards peace as we're making towards war, and we should be putting our money where our mouth is. This doesn't mean we totally disarm ourselves. It means that we are making an effort towards creating peace in the world if at all possible and are willing to devote an equal amount of resources towards it. In our present state it's all about threatening war in order to to create a state of peace. It's Pax Americana similar to the Pax Romana which meant that you didn't mess with Rome or else you were threatened with violence. Instead of creating peace by means of a threat of war, we should be actively pursuing a peaceful world instead.

What would a Department of Peace actually do? Well, diplomacy would be under this department instead of the State Department for starters. Second, the American equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative. Building infrastructure around the world just as China is doing. But what's most important at the present time is converting the world to green infrastructure. The middle class in India is growing. They want to live just like Americans. As more Indians enter the middle class they are consuming more fossil fuels to provide the energy to do so. This is contributing to the looming climate disaster. Just what we don't need is more carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere as a result of more people gentrifying into the middle class. Therefore, a Department of Peace, which should include the Peace Corps, would step up the efforts not only to change the fossil fuel habit in the US, but to actively change it around the world. About a half a trillion dollar budget would be about right while decreasing the War (Defense) budget which is 10 times the combined budgets of the rest of the world to half a trillion.

President Biden wants a Civilian Climate Corps reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation Corps which President Roosevelt established to build parks and plant trees during the Great Depression. An excellent idea in view of the fact that planting a trillion trees would suck the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Unless we do that there is already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 410 ppm to melt both poles. Why not require participation in the Civilian Conservation Corps for people receiving welfare benefits who aren't otherwise employed or who are unemployable in the prevailing economy. I'm thinking about the homeless and others for whom this might be a first step to getting back on their feet in the so-called real world. I'm in favor of the government being the employer of last resort, and employment in a Civilian Climate Corps is the perfect solution both for them and for the environment.

Building the elements of peace around the world would entail looking out for the health care needs of people outside the US in our era of pandemics. This is also good sense in a selfish way since viruses can transmit world wide in a matter of days if not hours. They don't respect national boundaries. People to people cultural contacts with people of other nations brings about understanding and the realization that, no matter what the religious or ethnic differences seem to be, human beings are all essentially the same deep down and all have the same needs and aspirations. Helping others to realize their aspirations creates peace in the world. Cultural and educational exchanges are an important way to increase mutual understanding. There are many ways to create peace in the world. The US shouldn't be always taking the stance of trying to put down those peoples and countries who don't follow the US way of life. Others might have a different way of setting up their societies, but rather than taking this as a threat, we should engage diplomatically and peacefully if at all possible knowing that in the final analysis, if push came to shove, we also have the means to defend ourselves. A Department of Peace and a Department of War should go hand in hand. Today it is lopsided in favor of war.

Off the Top of My Head

Social Responsibility Was Not Written into the Constitution

by John Lawrence

The French demanded Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite in their revolutionary Constitution. Fraternite, social responsibility, was left out of the American Constitution. So now there are people who feel no social responsibility to get a vaccination so that they won't spread COVID to others, let alone protect themselves. A pandemic requires social cohesion, something that is unheard of in American society. Americans are extremely selfish and self-centered, something encouraged and exemplified by Republican Presidents like Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush and also by Ayn Rand and her advocates like Republican leader Paul Ryan and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, who served 4 terms as Federal Reserve Chairman, was a devoted Ayn Rand fan. He even took a six foot high floral arrangement shaped as a dollar sign to her funeral.  Rand’s conception was to create an individualist morality. Rand took traditional Christian morality, which said it was good to act in the interest of others—not in your own selfish interest—and she flipped that. She said selfishness is a virtue, and the goal of life is to grow and develop as an individual, and that a moral social system supports the rights of the individual above all. One of her books was called "The Virtue of Selfishness."

Service to our fellow man has been redefined in military terms. You serve American society by joining the military and killing other people who are not Americans. There is no conception of serving American society by joining the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or doing anything that helps the weakest and most vulnerable among us let alone to plant trees or do anything to forestall climate change and benefit the environment. This culture of militarism, as the only way to exhibit patriotism, is what led to the January 6th insurrection. Militarism promotes the waving of flags and jingoism of "we're number one." Not only is there no conception of service to our fellow Americans, there is no conception of service to our fellow man. There is only pride in domination over those who are not American and people who are suspect of being weak or not American like Barack Obama, for instance. Dominance and selfishness are considered to be paramount virtues. Ask Donald Trump. Being number 2 or 3 or whatever is seen as being weak. Being a loser is weakness personified.

Long before Ayn Rand developed her ideas, Friedrich Nietsche set out more or less the same philosophy. His was about "the emergence of the superman." Nietzsche’s idea of the superman and its religious implications, was an attack upon and a rejection of Christian religion. His attack on religious moral ideals, using the concept of the superman, sought to strip humanity/man of his religious nature. Nietzsche’s superman represents the highest principle of the development of humanity and the affirmation of man’s full potentialities. He posits the superman as a critique on Christian religion and the crisis of modernity. This is because, according to him, the Christian morality stifles the development, freedom and creativity of humanity/man, as well as making him dependent on faith. Consequently, he advocates for the total rejection and abolition of the Christian moral ideals in order to make way for the freedom of humanity/man and consequently the emergence of super-humanity. Both Hitler and Donald Trump (an Ayn Rand superfan) represented the superman that both Nietsche and Ayn Rand argued was the highest form of humanity. The January 6 insurrection illustrated how far some will go to place their superman in power. The antivaxxers represent how far some will go to maintain that they have no responsibility to their fellow man, only to themselves.

 

Off the Top of My Head

American Troops Have Left Afghanistan. So Has American Money - $300 Million Per Day

by John Lawrence

Afghanistan's economy must be in freefall. The US was spending $300 million a day each and every day there for 20 years! Now the US is spending nothing. American troops have left and, more importantly, American money has left. So can we now cut the defense budget? It would have been better if, instead of sending in American troops 20 years ago, we had sent in the Peace Corps for a fraction of the money the American military presence has cost. By now much could have been accomplished like roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water and sewage systems and other critical infrastructure. Instead we spent $300 million a day for 20 years blowing things up and getting blown up ourselves. It's a testament to the folly of warfare. Now, hopefully, diplomacy and resettlement of refugees and building infrastructure will take place both there and here at home where efforts in the domain of Peace are badly in need as well. The US has infrastructure needs, resettlement of refugee needs (think the growing homeless population), both hard and human infrastructure needs, building things up instead of blowing things up.

All the generals who were shuffled in and out of Afghanistan couldn't think of what we could have done better there because all they could think was in military terms. They couldn't conceive of the possibility that the reason they were all so unsuccessful was precisely because any and all military solutions were not the right ones. They could not conceive of building peace there, only fighting an enemy. Well, it got them substantial pay raises, and it made money for the military-industrial complex. Now we need a peace-industrial complex. If we want to save the planet and not just indulge the present American inhabitants of planet earth to the max, we need to build green infrastructure all over the world. But even before we do that, we need to solve the worldwide pandemic which we can not seem to solve even here at home because there are so many people who won't believe in the obvious solution until one of their family members dies.

Forever wars have stunted the mindsets of the American people leading them to embracing far right jingoistic and chauvinistic militarism. The mindset would be considerably different if the US had put as much energy as it has put into militarism into peace activities, if peace had even been given due consideration as an alternative to war. In fact it's not too much of a stretch to say War is Us. This mindset came to fruition on January 6 with the insurrection. Biden is trying to turn the corner but he can only do so much per unit time. He has done considerable so far ending the war in Afghanistan and doing everything humanly possible to end the pandemic. His human and hard infrastructure agenda is still pending, but I believe it will eventually pass because it has been set up in such a way that either everybody wins if it passes or everybody loses if it doesn't. The way the twin bills were constructed, one that will pass by budget reconciliation and one bipartisan, represents political ingenuity. It's making the most of the slim Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress. Even after those twin bills pass and get made into law, there is much to be done, voting rights reform in particular. I think Biden will get the major part of his agenda accomplished - probably in 2 years. After that who knows what will happen if Republicans win one or both Houses in the midterm elections.

Off the Top of My Head

How Not to Win a War

by John Lawrence

1) Invade a country. 2) Set up a puppet government. 3) Pay officials handsomely or acquiesce in their corruption. 4) Spend $300 million a day none of which alters the life of the average citizen who exists on $2 a day. 5) Hire local interpreters. 6) Hire local contractors. 7) Cycle multiple generals in and out of the war each one of which thinks they're God's gift to military science.       8) Get the local people in the cities involved on your side by paying them lots of money. 9) Ignore the majority of the people living in the countryside. 10) Leave country after puppet government collapses. 11) Get half the population that sided with you out of that country and into yours.

Can't the vast military-industrial complex teach their own interpreters all the major languages of the world so they don't have to hire local interpreters who then expect the US to get them out of the country when the US loses the war? Can't the vast military -industrial complex provide their own services so they don't have to hire "private contractors"? The US never had a clear goal in invading Afghanistan except to make it a forever war. Some Afghans were OK with that because the $300 million a day the US provided made them rich. In a country which has a GDP of $20 billion, $300 million a day ($109.5 billion a year), over 5 times the GDP, totally distorts the country economically making some people fabulously rich while leaving the average Afghan tremendously poor. In 2020, GDP per capita for Afghanistan was 581 US dollars. Such a formula for success was guaranteed to lead the average Afghan to favor the Taliban who at least were on the side of the average person.

All the generals who have been interviewed have their own ideas about what could have been done better in Afghanistan, but none of them have any perspective outside of a military one. For instance, none of them ventured an opinion that maybe sending in the Peace Corps to improve the lives of the average Afhan living on $2 a day might have done more good than sending in the world's mightiest military with all the bells and whistles at its command. The first step for the Peace Corps is of course to learn the language of the people. How else to convince them that you are actually interested in them and want to help them. Improving the lives of the average person is the last thing the military thinks of. Maybe that's the lesson that needs to be learned here. An American effort devoted to peace rather than war could be done for a lot less than $300 million a day over 20 years which is the cost to Americans for this fruitless war. The Peace Corps needs to be beefed up. Actually improving the lives of poor people around the world will do more to end terrorism than the services the world's mightiest military can provide. In addition processing Americans through the Peace Corps rather than the military will do more to diminish domestic terrorism since those who have been processed through the military have a militarized mindset which predisposes them to being attracted to right wing proto military groups.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Were There Tens of Thousands of American Citizens and Foreign Nationals in Afghanistan?

by John Lawrence

There were only 2500 American military and 50,000 American citizens? What's wrong with this picture? And now a ragtag group is taking over the whole country having defeated the world's mightiest military force? What's wrong with this picture? This is totally F-ed up. I assume that all these civilians were there to make money. Maybe there were a few who genuinely wanted to help the Afghan people, but sending in the US military to facilitate that is not the way to do it. The US should be providing aid to people in the world that have less than we do. When you have a hammer, it seems like every problem is a nail. When you have the world's mightiest military every problem seems to have a solution by sending in the military to solve it. Having 50,000 American citizens in a war zone is completely nuts. and then the only way to extract ourselves from the situation is to have a massive, chaotic airlift as we are experiencing now?

So now Biden has at least established the principal that the US military doesn't have to remain forever in every country it invades. But that seems to be the MO. There are almost 40,000 troops in Germany, 28,000 in Korea and 55,000 in Japan. The military of the United States is deployed in most countries around the world, with between 150,000 to 200,000 of its active-duty personnel stationed outside the United States and its territories. The US military maintains close to 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad. So is it even possible for the world to function without the presence of the US military in practically every country? What if they just all were withdrawn? Would the world's economic and political structure, such that it is, completely collapse?

Every empire in world history has collapsed due to its being overextended. The Roman Empire which lasted for about 1000 years (compared to the US' less than 100) collapsed because it extended itself into northern Europe instead of being content with just controlling lands around he Mediterranean. While the US vision of the world is that the US military will effectively occupy almost every country with the notable exceptions of China, Russia, Iran and now eventually Afghanistan, China's vision seems to be its Belt and Road initiative which ties many countries of the world to China economically. Can the US pivot from military occupation to peaceful economic and humanitarian development? Or even pivot to being a constructive force to ameliorate climate change in cooperation with China and Russia? Military assets could be converted to more peaceful purposes and be integrated into the Peace Corps. But that would take the incentives for glory and patriotism out of the equation. Could purple hearts ever be given to members of the Peace Corps? The principal that Biden has established that the US can leave a country is a game changer. It doesn't mean that the US will never have anything to do with Afghanistan again. It means that US involvement will be more along the lines of humanitarian assistance.

Off the Top of My Head

The Militarization of the American Mind

by John Lawrence

From seemingly rational thought processes that would make it impossible to end the war in Afghanistan to the insurrection at the Capitol to the "American movie" chock full of violence to the "well regulated militia" justification of gun proliferation, there is no end of rationalizations for the American military-industrial complex and gun culture on every level. Why does it come as a surprise to some journalists that many participants in the January 6 insurrection were current or ex military or police officers? They are exactly the ones with the mind set that believes Trump won the election, and that it was OK to do what their leader commanded them to do - invade the Capitol. The Generals who say that Biden shouldn't end the Afghanistan war on the grounds that the Kabul government will collapse are exactly the ones that argued we shouldn't end the Vietnam war because the South Vietnam government would collapse. Sure when the US sets up a puppet government and then props it up with money and a military presence, it probably will collapse when the US leaves that country which it never should have invaded in the first place. Afghanistan is Vietnam all over again or as Yogi Berra would say deja vu all over again.

The division among Americans into two tribes can be understood in terms of the two paths Americans take after high school graduation. There are those who go to college and there are those who go into the military. Those are basically the two choices high school graduates have. Those who go to college are taught to think critically to some extent, while those who go into the military are taught to obey orders. Unfortunately, Trump, as their Commander-in-Chief gave them the order to invade the Capitol, and they felt justified in following it because that is what their training led them to do. The choice to go into the Peace Corps or AmeriCorp is not really viable for most high school graduates because the perks of going into the military greatly exceed the perks of going into more peaceful pursuits, and they are less glorious. This is also a characteristic of the militarization of the American civilian mind. The military-industrial complex including, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, profits greatly from ongoing militarization and military thought processes, employs most of the college graduates and provides debate ending rationalizations for American military preparedness despite the fact that their extremely expensive hardware doesn't work half the time, and the threats to America are primarily cyber in nature as well as domestic terrorism.

The divide and contrast between high school graduates who go into the military and are taught to follow orders and those who go to college is reflected in the political divide between those on the right and those on the left.The military is all about symbolism including snappy uniforms, medals for valor in combat, saluting the flag and honoring themselves for their patriotism. On the left results in the improvement of the lives of the American people - and not just the elite civilian Officer's Corps - are more important than symbols of glory. They are more likely to question authority rather than unquestionably following orders. The January 6 insurrectionists were following Trump's orders at least that's what they were thinking in their own minds and by their own admission. I would like to see the FBI release to the public the number of insurrectionists who were military or former military. I bet that would be most of them, especially the males. A lot of ex military go into police work because of the familiarity with weaponry which they gained in the military. Since guns are a familiar way of life for them, naturally they become arch supporters of the Second Amendment, "well regulated" or not. They are used to classifying groups of people as either friendly or the enemy, and this mind set lends itself to police work.

In the final analysis, America is so used to being the world's policeman and profiting in various ways therefrom, that it is unthinkable that we should cooperate with our supposed adversaries to forestall global warming or to thwart future pandemics let alone the current one. We must always have an enemy or at least an adversary to justify our existence. A peaceful world in which everyone gets along and cooperates to solve the problems we earthlings face and have to deal with is unthinkable. Even though the US has a glut of vaccines while the rest of the world is begging for them, Americans feel free not to have their arms jabbed because after all they are free - free to be stupid, free to ignore the safety of other Americans and free to get infected with the virus and die taking others with them.. They just want to get back to normal entertaining themselves to death and ignoring totally any responsibility to their fellow citizens not to mention fellow citizens of the world, many of which they would like to maintain in their necessary roles as the enemy.

Dr. Fauci wondered why we couldn't all unite to fight the common enemy  - COVID - instead of fighting among ourselves about taking the vaccine. Uniting to fight a common enemy like COVID or climate change just isn't the way Americans and maybe humanity in general do things. We need to disagree even about things that are crucial for our continued existence as a species. As a nation we need an enemy whether it be Russia or China seemingly to justify our existence.

Off the Top of My Head

Republicans: The Party of No to Democratic Values

by John Lawrence, January 30, 2921

As Joe Biden goes through the Kibuki theater of trying to get Republicans to sign on to the COVID relief bill, realpolitik Democrats are preparing to pass it using budget reconciliation. Republicans will likely vote in a bloc against the bill, but they won't be able to use the filibuster to nix it. Good thing that the cliffhanger in Georgia produced two Democratic Senators which made Democrats the majority in the Senate. Now all Democrats have to do is vote in a bloc to pass it. But will they? There are a few conservative Democrats who don't always vote with the rest, the most notable of which is Joe Manchin of West Virginia. How is he going to vote? I suspect he will vote with the rest of the Democrats because West Virginia has a lot of poor, suffering people who need relief.

Republicans will lose this vote so why will they all vote against it? Aren't they concerned that some of their constituents will hold it against them - especially the ones who really need the relief? Evidently not. They believe they have a lock on power in their own states. Georgia should be a wake up call for them. Republicans at this point stand for nothing except loyalty to a would be dictator. They don't care about fiscal prudence or anything else except pure raw political and economic power and campaign donations from the rich. The rich want deregulation and tax cuts so that's what they stand for. They certainly don't stand for anything of value for most Americans. Supposedly, they are against deficit spending although they have no problem with deficit spending when it comes to tax cuts which benefit the rich.

So it comes to light that a great many of the insurrectionists were military or ex-military. Why should that be surprising? People that are processed through the military are proto-fascists because the military is not a democratic institution. It's a top-down command and control organization where people are trained to kill. This is the mindset to which they are trained and instructed. On the other hand I venture to guess that not too many of the insurrectionists were previously Peace Corps members. It's a totally different mindset when the group you belong too is structured so as to help people rather than to hurt, maim, kill or dominate them. The insurrectionists are jingoes, and this is the definition from dictionary.com which suits them to a T: "a person who professes his or her patriotism loudly and excessively, favoring vigilant preparedness for war and an aggressive foreign policy; bellicose chauvinist." Bellicose chauvinists are people trained in the military because the military trains them to be unquestionably subservient to those above them in command and unquestionably threatening towards anyone perceived to be the enemy. Social media and conservative media has made no bones about who they consider to be the enemy. That would be any prominent Democrat past or present.

For many ex-military their identity was forged in the military. Take retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Rendall Brock, Jr., a Texas-based Air Force Academy graduate and combat veteran, for example. Brock was videoed in the Senate Chamber "wearing several patches on his combat helmet and body armor, including one bearing a yellow fleur de lis, the insignia of the 706th Fighter Squadron. He also wore several symbols suggesting that he lived in Texas, including a vinyl tag of the Texas flag overlaid on the skull logo of the Punisher, the Marvel comic-book character. The Punisher has been adopted by police and Army groups and, more recently, by white supremacists and followers of QAnon. ... Also found [was] a recently deleted Twitter account associated with Brock, with a Crusader as its avatar. “All those things together, it’s like looking at a person’s C.V. ..." And his C.V. was forged in the military.

The US needs to own up to the fact that it has trained generations of bellicose chauvinist jingoes because it has become, despite General Eisenhower's warnings, a militaristic state that seeks to control the whole world with bullying tactics whether they be sanctions or actual military force. Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad—from giant “Little Americas” to small radar facilities. The insurrectionists that attacked the Capitol were just trying to make US domestic policy mirror US foreign policy most exemplified by Mike Pompeo dictating orders to other countries. They liked the military; they loved the military, and they want US domestic policy to reflect the life they knew in the military. That's where their characters were formed, not in the Peace Corps. The Republican party has become a party of proto-militarists who yearn for a strong Commander-in-Chief who demonstrates military values. That would be a dictator or Supreme General as exemplified by Donald Trump or so they thought.

Off the Top of My Head

Instead of Sanctioning Foreign Actors Sanction Domestic Terrorists

by John Lawrence, January 12, 2021

The best development so far post insurrection is taking away Trump's twitter account permanently. The FBI, CIA and other law enforcement are rounding up the insurrectionists and they should get lengthy jail sentences and sanctions. The biggest threat to American democracy is not out there; it's in here. Their gathering places on social media such as Parler have been taken down or will be taken down soon. If the terrorists can't meet to spout their vitriol as well as plan future insurrections, we'll be making progress. Rush Limbaugh and other domestic terrorists should be sanctioned. Anyone egging on, benefiting from, taking advantage of the poor mental health or encouraging hatred and violence of the American people needs to be sanctioned. The fact that these terrorists could overwhelm the Capitol Police was a huge security failure. The fact that it took the Pentagon three hours to supply troops shows the fact that we are wasting huge amounts of money on a worthless military establishment that does not confront the real threats to this country. Perhaps these domestic terrorists need to be reeducated. We don't have the moral authority to mock China any more for doing this with its domestic terrorists.

Right now security forces in the US are on high alert. The National Guard is out in force. There are more forces on the streets of Washington, DC now than there are in Afghanistan. They should stay on high alert for the time being. I think the situation will get under control. Massive arrests and the total deplatforming and isolation of Donald Trump and domestic terrorist social media sites needs to be carried out. If they don't have gathering places on social media, they won't be able to organize. That's important. There needs to be a recognition that the militarization of the mindsets of young Americans which happens in the military and the glorification and seeming ubiquity of war as the only way to deal with other nations is a cause of the recent problems. Instead of funneling all non-college bound youth into the military, there needs to be an upsurge in funding and encouragement for young people to go into the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps. We need to demilitarize the mindsets of the American people.

Terrorist and threatening phone calls need to be traced and the perpetrators brought to justice. No public official should have to live in fear for their lives and their family's lives because of death threats on phone calls or on social media. Social media is a big problem. They have gotten rich off the fact that their algorithms have encouraged, aided and abetted the domestic terrorists. Their business model showed that there was a lot of profit in encouraging conspiracy theories and other activities detached from reality. It's good that it has become evident by reporting on legitimate news outlets that social media is not subject to the First Amendment because that only applies to government hindrance of free speech. Social media platforms are private entities and they do not have to honor so-called free speech. Private entities also don't have to honor the Second Amendment so that there is space to restrict guns on private property which is probably 99% of the property in the US.

The next administration has its work cut out for them. Good leaders and good people will prevail. Deplatforming all right wing media and groups that espouse conspiracy theories and outright lies will be an important step. Sober analysis and critical thinking must replace narcissistic fantasy and entertainment values. This starts with children in school. They need to taught how to distinguish truth from lies. They need to be taught the value of peace and harmony not only in their daily lives but in the pursuit of that status among and between nations. They should be taught that the US has not always been but should aspire to moral and ethical behavior with regard to other nations and within its own country.

Money must be drained from the military establishment which is oriented towards either non-existant or phony threats and reoriented towards the real threats and funded at appropriate levels rather than be treated to carte blanche amounts of superfluous cash. Budgets both military and domestic need to be appropriate to their realistic needs. Right now the greatest need is in overcoming the pandemic and responding to the economic needs of the lower half of the population. Also eliminating energy production from fossil fuels needs to proceed post haste. It's obvious that the private economy can not do this at the rate necessary to save the planet from the ravages of global warming. Only big government programs in conjunction with the programs of other countries can possibly achieve the reality of zero carbon emissions by 2030.

The last word is that Trump must be denied any post Presidential influence or following by any and all legal means. This is the greatest thing that can be done to heal and deradicalize the country. America also will pay a heavy price if it doesn't get its promotion of gun culture under control.

Off the Top of My Head

My Horse, My Horse, My Kingdom for a Horse

by John Lawrence, January 9, 2021

Only in Trump's case: My Twitter Account, My Twitter Account, My Kingdom for a Twitter Account. Trump has been emasculated. He's been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Shopify and God knows what else. As well he should be. This guy was not so much a President as he was a Tweeter-in-Chief and rabble rouser. He roused a lot of rabble a few days ago when he almost had Congress persons killed and taken hostage. Who thought it was a good idea to have a rally on the day the votes for the next President were to be certified? Well, Donald Trump of course. He knew what he was doing. It's just that his doofus supporters were inept at coup planning or the outcome might have been entirely different. Trump, Rudy Giuliani ("trial by combat"? he was wrong and, according to his own words, has been made a fool of and should go to jail) and Don Jr should be criminally implicated for inspiring to riot. Trump should be criminally implicated also for not calling out the National Guard till it might have been too late. It seems that only he had the authority to do so, and he was allowing sufficient time for his acolytes to do their dirty work.

Joe Biden definitely has his work cut out for him. He has to deal with a global pandemic which may be mutating. He has to deal with 40 years of neoliberal economic policies which have made the rich richer and the poor homeless. And he has to deal with a cult of domestic terrorists. To those who think that China, Russia and Iran are the problems, I've got news for you: the American people, a huge contingent of them, are the problem. Gun violence is the problem. Trillions of dollars wasted on a sitting military, on the grounds that we have enemies who justify this, is the problem. The policies of George W Bush who caused millions of deaths in the Middle East with the result of ongoing chaos is the problem. It's enough to make your head spin. While the US is in chaos as a society, the rest of the world is moving forward. While Joe Biden must play catch up, the rest of the world is moving ahead. While much of the US citizenry is composed of cultish dingbats, the rest of the world are very clear eyed by comparison. While the US culture and militarization of mindset is descending into a cesspool of self indulgence, people in the rest of the world are using their brains and feelings of compassion for their fellow inhabitants of earth to move ahead. While religious bigots use Jesus as an excuse to do dastardly deeds in the same way that the Ku Klux Klan has always done, the rest of the world is coming from a more enlightened attitude toward ethics and morality, religion or no religion.

The result is that the US has become the equivalent of a Third World country with an outsized and bloated military. Pride goeth before a fall, and the US, if it cannot get its act together, will go the way of the Roman Empire when it descended into chaos. The best the US can hope for coming out of the putrefaction of the Trump era is to be a good partner with the rest of the world as we solve enormous problems including climate change and poverty. No more yelling "We're Number One" when clearly a significant number of us are spoiled brats and worse. Let's turn the military culture into a peace culture. Let's take megaphones away from demagogues the way Twitter has denied Trump his Twitter account. Let's police social media.

Social media has not ennobled the American people; instead it has allowed a large number of Americans to be turned into a cult the way radio allowed Hitler in the 1930s to encultify, to coin a word, the German people. Cults demand that people pay obeisance to a leader. Kim Jong Un is sitting there thinking that the US is just as big a cult as North Korea. The remedy for this is that people have to be educated to think critically and not to follow some powerful figure with a huge megaphone whether it be Hitler, Mussolini or Donald Trump. Trump's megaphone has been taken away the way a parent takes away a child's favorite toy if he or she misbehaves. Trump's following have a militarized mindset. I would lay dollars to doughnuts that most of them have served in the military the way Ashli Babbit, the rioter who was shot, did. Perhaps if young Americans were required to do two years of national service or service in the Peace Corps instead of being incentivized to become Marines, sailors and airmen, attitudes would change. Instead of their minds being molded to taking commands from superior officers, they might develop an alternative mindset in which serving the poor and unfortunate of the world would be their highest priority.

The US has become a degenerate society, composed of unthinking followers of a strongman who had promised them that they're number one, Americans are number one and we're the greatest society and nation on earth. This is misguided thinking doomed to failure. This is the fall of the Roman Empire, the people of which had become a bunch of degenerate spoiled brats. There are good people here of course. The new administration represents a great many of them. There are many changes that need to be made in US society that they will try to change. It will be a sisyphean effort. Much of what has been seen as essential to American culture will have to be discarded and we will have to join the rest of the world's nations humbly in a cooperative effort to combat global warming and create a culture of love, peace and compassion.

Off the Top of My Head

What Can Joe Biden Do to "Restore the Soul of the Nation"?

by John Lawrence, November 24, 2020

The Biden Administration has its work cut out for them. Rejoining the Paris Accords on climate change, rejoining the World Health Organization, appointing a head to the Environmental Protection Agency who is actually not trying to destroy the Environment etc etc. All of these things while so necessary are kind of obvious. To restore the soul of the nation, the number one thing Biden needs to do is to demilitarize the nation. The US spends about a trillion dollars a year on its military more than the ten next highest spending countries combined. It's not just a question of the defense budget; it's all the spending in the military-industrial complex as well. This is at a time when the main threat to the US is domestic not foreign terrorism. Dwight Eisenhauer warned about the encroaching military-industrial complex. "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. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

The violence, discord and division that we see within the United States is a direct reflection of the violence and discord the US has perpetrated in Vietnam and Iraq, two wars which Presidents of the US lied about. The 80 million refugees living in horrible refugee camps in the world are a direct result of US military policy which currently stations soldiers at nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad. The US military is the largest employer in the US. The next largest employer, Walmart, employs 1.5 million people. There were a total of 1.3 million active duty military and more than 800,000 reserve forces as of September 2017, according to Defense Department personnel data. But this doesn't count the number of civilians in the military-industrial complex employed by companies like Lockheed Martin (110,000 employees), Boeing (161,133 employees), Raytheon (195,000 employees), BAE Systems (85,800 employees), Northrop Grumman (90,000 employees), General Dynamics (107,000 employees) and many more.

The fact of the matter is that high school graduates who have neither the money nor prospects for college usually go into the military where many benefits await them like free advanced and specialty training, a guaranteed paycheck, free health and dental care, enlistment bonuses, free room and board, educational benefits, a pension and much more. Going into the military right out of high school does not deprive you of a college education. The military can help pay for college or pay off college loans. Most enlistees are eligible for up to 100 percent of college tuition through the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) while on active duty. Additionally, the Air Force has the nation’s largest community college, the Community College of the Air Force for which enrollment is automatic upon enlistment in the Air Force. Armed Forces education benefit programs include the Forever GI Bill, Army, Navy, Marine and Navy College Funds, College Loan Repayment (including Student Loan Forgiveness) and Student Loan Deferment and Forbearance. As an Uber driver I pick up a lot of military people. One Navy guy told me he joined the Navy so that after 5 years he could get free training to become a helicopter pilot at a civilian school. They even can get a pension after 5 years.

Now the high school graduates like me who have college prospects often like me,, end up in the military-industrial complex. I worked at General Dynamics Convair Division in San Diego for several years, later at the Naval Electronics Lab on Point Loma which has changed its name several times to protect the guilty as they say. So many college graduates especially in the engineering fields end up in the milkitary-industrial complex while high school graduates that don't go to college end up in the military, not because they love the military, but because they love the generous benefits. When you add up all the people in the military plus all the people in the military-industrial complex, it's clear that the US is a militarist state whose employment base is military related. This is nonsensical when a greater threat is from domestic terrorism than foreign terrorism, and there is no threat from foreign nation states only from scattered terrorists which could be dealt with with a fraction of the military and military-industrial complex budget that presently exists.

Now consider the benefits accruing to those who join the peace Corps and AmeriCorps. What there still is a Peace Corps. You never hear a word about it in the media. The Peace Corps provides each Volunteer with housing and a living stipend that enables them to live in a manner similar to people in their community of service. Unlike other international volunteer programs, there is no charge to participate in the Peace Corps. There is no application fee, although costs may only be partially covered for required medical examinations during the application process. Upon completion of two years of service, the Peace Corps provides each Volunteer with more than $10,000 (pre-tax) to help with the transition to life back home. This money is yours to use as you wish. AmeriCorps has some educational benefits after completion. The Segal AmeriCorps Education Award is a post-service benefit earned by individuals who complete approved terms of national service in AmeriCorps programs. Well, suffice it to say, the benefits of joining the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps don't compare with the benefits of joining the military and the funding available for these two programs is meager compared to the military budget.

So what Joe Biden can do is to increase the benefits for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps while increasing the funding for those programs and decreasing the funding for the military and the military-industrial complex. This will have the effect of demilitarizing the consciousness of American citizens and will actually do a lot of good in America and the world. When I was in the military-industrial complex, they encouraged you to vote Republican because Republican administrations would increase military funding while, Democratic administrations would reduce it. The message was clear: If you wanted there to be funding for your job, you'd better vote Republican. That's why there should be a pathway for transitioning to a Peace economy from the Militarist economy which guarantees jobs in the Peace-Industrial complex for those presently employed in the military-industrial complex. In the same way there should be a guarantee of employment in the renewable energy field for those losing their jobs in the fossil fuel field.

A transition to a Peace economy away from the military economy in parallel with a transition to a renewable energy economy away from the fossil fuel economy will do a lot to make the United States and the world a better place, and also, by the way, to restore the soul of the nation.

Off the Top of My Head

Expand Habitat for Humanity in Honor of Jimmy Carter

by John Lawrence, November 11, 2020

The best way to build wealth among poor people is to expand a program that gets them into a house. The debt industry profits off of poor people whether it's Payday lenders, student loan debt, car loan debt, credit card debt or mortgage debt. The debt industry, aka the banking industry, profits off of poor people's debt. That's why the poor need to build wealth which will also close the economic inequality gap. Home ownership is the main way the middle class builds wealth which is then intergenerationally transferable. Habitat says "In fiscal year 2019, we helped more than 7 million people, and an additional 2.3 million gained the potential to improve their housing conditions through training and advocacy." It's not clear how many new houses that 7 million figure represents because they also help people by doing housing improvements. Looking at Habitat's Form 990 reveals some interesting data. They have annual revenues of approximately $300 million. Revenues less expenses for FY 2018 was about $13 million. Without doing an exhaustive analysis of this Form 990, it would seem that $13 million is a paltry amount of money to build new homes if in fact it all went to building new homes. It is to be noted that the CEO made about $400,000. They also seem to spend an enormous amount on advertising and fundraising.

A government program based on the Habitat model could magnify the number of new affordable homes built per year and could be combined with AmeriCorps which is already working with Habitat. Government service building affordable homes should be an alternative to military service with comparable benefits. One drawback of Habitat is that it does not serve homeless or low income families who can't afford a modest mortgage. So a government program based on the Habitat model should look at improving on the Habitat model. Another thing is that Habitat claims to be a "Christian organization." Does that mean that religiously nonChristian families are not eligible? A government program should not have connections to a particular religion but should be open to people of all or no religions. It should be nondenominational. The people who eventually own the homes have to put in a certain amount of "sweat equity." This is good because it makes the homes more affordable. A program based on FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps could employ youths in public service for 2 years building houses in return for free college education and other benefits. These homes need to be solarized and be built in such a way as to be non-emitting of greenhouse gasses.

The best way to co-opt Trump voters is to offer them economic opportunities. Promised economic opportunities (promised but not delivered) are the thing that pushed Trump over the top in 2016 in the rust belt states. A program of building houses ala Habitat not only would help poor people, who are disproportionately minorities, but would tend to placate poor whites who are mainly Trump voters. That's why programs helping the poor can't be labeled "Black Lives Matter" programs. They can't be just for black people although black people would disproportionately benefit. To design a program only for black people would further alienate Trump voters. Bringing this country together, as Joe Biden has professed he wants to do, means that all programs to help people must of necessity be color blind. Another benefit is that people who contribute to public service in AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps will tend to vote Democratic because they will have seen how Democratic programs have benefited not only themselves but other people as well.

Many people who join the military do so for the benefits and because they have no better prospects after high school. Military service for 5 years gains them a free college education plus many other generous benefits, even a pension. They also get brainwashed to vote Republican. Even those working in the military-industrial complex are brainwashed to vote Republican. As a college graduate the jobs available to me were mainly in the military-industrial complex. Once there I was pressured to vote Republican because it was believed that Republicans would expand funding for the military and hence the military-industrial complex. It was thought that a Democratic administration would cut funding for the military-industrial complex and we could be RIFd (Reduction in Force). Expanding programs in the peace industry should have the opposite effect. I left the military-industrial complex many years ago fortunately, and my economic future doesn't depend on future funding it. Many others are not in the same position.

As the nation transitions from fossil fuels to renewables, it's important that workers in the fossil fuel industry have a path to transition to new jobs. The same holds true in transitioning workers in the military-industrial complex to the peace-industrial complex. It's also important to give young people the possibility of serving their country in a way that contributes to peace and economic stability with comparable benefits instead of serving in the military. The peace industry (like building houses here and abroad) needs to become more important than the war industry. The issue of global warming in particular means that all nations of the world must cooperate and foster a spirit of cooperation while putting their antagonisms aside. Peace, renewable energy, economic development for poor and middle class people need to replace a power structure that fosters political antagonism among the nations of the world. Jimmy Carter not only wields a hammer for Habitat for Humanity in his nineties, but also put solar panels on the roof of the White House (which Ronald Reagan took down). If we had had Jimmy Carter for a second term and Al Gore instead of George W Bush (with his fossil fuel loving vice President, Dick Cheney), we would be further along the path toward replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy and further along the path of dealing with global warming.

Off the Top of My Head

Rename Military Bases? ... Repurpose Them Instead.

by John Lawrence, 6/13/2020

Renaming military bases is all about surface level, cosmetic changes, changes at the level of symbols, but whatever we do let's not make any structural changes in American society. Just let's everybody be nice to everybody the way white people have always been nice to other white people. There are 800 military bases in more than 70 countries costing American taxpayers around $200 billion a year to maintain. There are thousands of military bases in the continental United States. Much of the military budget is allocated to operating a network of over 1,000 bases here at home. The Department of Defense is one of the federal government’s larger holders of real estate, controlling a total of over 25 million acres in the United States — roughly equal to the size of Kentucky. The Pentagon stated in 2013 that there are "around" 5,000 bases total so that figure would indicate many more bases than either the Politico or 24/7 Wall St. above referenced articles suggest. Whatever the accurate figures are, either way the US supports a staggering number of military bases at home and around the world.

How many Peace Corps bases are there? Zip, zero. Why am I even asking such a ridiculous question? The Peace Corps works in 61 countries of the world, fewer countries than the number which have military bases. While the defense budget was increased by $34 billion for 2020, after weeks of negotiations, Congress approved and President Trump signed a bill that includes level funding of $410.5 million for the Peace Corps. “While we realize our lawmakers have many difficult decisions before them when putting together our federal budget, it is disappointing they chose to flat fund Peace Corps once again,” said NPCA President Glenn Blumhorst. “Other than a very minimal – one tenth of one percent – increase in spending last year, this will mark the fifth consecutive year that Peace Corps will be forced to manage its operations with the same amount of funding. When inflation is factored in, the agency will need to sustain operations with tens of millions of dollars less in purchasing power. Peace Corps is already experiencing negative impacts, at a time when the needs and importance of international service is as important as ever.”

So while the US continues to police the world and continues to police its citizens domestically, especially black ones, a paltry pittance is allocated to create peace in the world. What we really should be doing, instead of symbolically renaming military bases, is to repurpose those military bases to provide public housing for the poor and homeless, Medicare for All facilities for all Americans, educational and training facilities to manifest and implement a Green New Deal, Peace Corps and AmeriCorps training facilities so that US citizens can help in rebuilding parts of the world that the US military has bombed out and destroyed especially in the Middle East, resettling refugees that US military operations created, implementing proper sanitation systems for the 2.5 billion people in the world that don't have them, providing clean water systems for 780 million people that don't have them.

As usual the American power structure wants to make symbolic improvements to American life rather than the substantial and structural changes that the Black Lives Matter movement at times suggests. The movement in reality is much more than just improving black peoples' lives although that is a necessary part of it. It is necessary but not sufficient. Millenials, black and white, are suffering under a ton of student loan debt. Americans are being financially bled to death by a profit oriented health care system. The lives of future generations are being destroyed by a lack of response to global warming. These are the things that matter. It's not all about Confederate symbols.

But while they're at it, why don't they rename one of the military bases after my ancestor, General William S Rosecrans, who fought against Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg at Stones River, and later outmaneuvered him in the brilliant Tullahoma Campaign, driving the Confederates from Middle Tennessee. His strategic movements then caused Bragg to abandon the critical city of Chattanooga. In 1880 he was elected to Congress, representing California. Rosecrans wrote a book, Popular Government, with a former newspaperman, Josiah Riley, which advocated registration and voting reforms. How appropriate at this time in history for the BLM movement in particular. Rename Fort Bragg Fort Rosecrans!

Off the Top of My Head

Defund the Police ... Defund the Military

by John Lawrence, June 11, 2020

Police have been given jobs social workers should be doing. They've criminalized everything from homelessness to mental illness to drug addiction. That's what defunding the police is all about. They should hire more social workers and less police. The police are asked to do a lot more than what police work should be all about. So has the military. Every problem overseas, many of which could be solved by teachers, social workers and doctors has been looked at as a problem for the military to solve. Many of these problems derive from the fact that people are in dire poverty. They need help building schools, houses, sanitation systems. Instead we send the military in to bomb them just as we send the police in at home to take them to jail by any means necessary.

We glorify police work with all kinds of TV shows just as we glorify the military. No one ever glorifies the Peace Corps though, and, if they were sent in more often, there would be more positive results. Instead of helping people, the first thought of American leaders is to send in the police or the military. The Washington Post reported:

To fix policing, we must first recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement. We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.

Police themselves often complain about having to “do too much,” including handling social problems for which they are ill-equipped. Some have been vocal about the need to decriminalize social problems and take police out of the equation. It is clear that we must reimagine the role they play in public safety.

Everything that could be said about the police could be said about the military. Instead of helping people overseas to escape from the poverty they experience, we police them instead. What a novel idea to spend less on the military and more on the Peace Corps. Let's reimagine the role they play in public safety. Policing has been the primary vehicle for using violence to perpetuate the unjustified white control over the bodies and lives of black people that has been with us since slavery. The military has been the primary vehicle to perpetuate American control over black and brown bodies in other parts of the world.

The Peace Corps budget is $410.5 million. The military budget is $934 billion. The military budget covers the DoD, overseas contingency operations, the VA, Homeland Security, the State Department, and many others that involve national security. By contrast in 2003, the military budget was less than half that - $437.4 billion. The US spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined. If the Soviet Union collapsed because of overspending on the Cold War, the US is in danger of collapse from overspending on its military when it is not even engaged in a major war. Overspending on the military is just a jobs program that Congress will not curtail. Trump for all his bluster about wanting our NATO allies to spend more on defense, nevertheless, authorized a $34 billion increase in military spending for 2020. Meanwhile, China, the world's second largest spender on its military is spending $178.2 billion in 2020 while Russia spends a mere $70 billion.

The U.S. spends some $100 billion annually on policing — most of it coming from local budgets — and an additional $80 billion on incarceration, according to a detailed 2017 report by the Center for Popular Democracy. In cities across the country, policing alone can take up anything between a third and 60 percent of the entire annual budget. Many major cities spend as much as 40 percent of their municipal budgets on policing, leaving a dwindling pool of resources for poverty prevention, infrastructure and everything else. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated this dynamic: Cities facing steep revenue declines are trying to decide which services to cut to remain solvent, and mayors are often hesitant to cut law and order spending. Welfare spending has been on a long, uneven decline, while law and order spending ballooned almost unabated until about 2010, when it amounted to nearly 2.5 percent of national income. Since then, law and order spending has fallen to a hair under 2 percent, while welfare spending stands at about 0.8 percent of national income less than half what we spend on police.

The US domestic Peace Corps called AmeriCorps has a budget of $560 million. So the US spends a paltry $1 billion on its foreign and domestic Peace Corps while spending $180 billion on police and almost a trillion on its military. Without this spending the economy would surely collapse. Military and police jobs are jobs of last resort for non college educated youth. However, this could be turned around. This money could be spent on other pursuits like housing the homeless (Habitat for Humanity), social workers, teachers, sanitation systems in foreign countries lacking them, building green infrastructure (Green New Deal), eradicating poverty, education (giving "The Talk" as part of public school curriculum), sustainable agriculture, clean water, cleaning the oceans, cleaning the rivers and more.

While the US spends a huge amount of its budgets on police and military work, China is spending its budget building infrastructure all over the world with its Belt and Road initiative (BRI). Whatever you want to say about it, it represents peaceful development of countries outside of China while the US does nothing of the sort, preferring instead to police the world with its 800 military bases in more than 70 countries. So while the US presence outside the US is mainly military in nature, China's presence outside China is basically peaceful development. This development will also lead to economic advantages for China through increased trade.

China’s overall ambition for the BRI is staggering. To date, more than sixty countries—accounting for two-thirds of the world’s population—have signed on to projects or indicated an interest in doing so. Analysts estimate the largest so far to be the $68 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a collection of projects connecting China to Pakistan’s Gwadar Port on the Arabian Sea. In total, China has already spent an estimated $200 billion on such efforts. Morgan Stanley has predicted China’s overall expenses over the life of the BRI could reach $1.2–1.3 trillion by 2027, though estimates on total investments vary.

The US has sought to demonize China's BRI and to create a second Cold War to justify its military expenditures. Throw Russia into the mix as well. The US wants to line up its group of allies in a potential contest versus China and its allies. However, many US purported allies are jumping ship as they read the tea leaves and realize that the US sees its role in the world and at home as mainly police work. Poverty alleviation is something the US doesn't do. This needs to change if we are ever to combat our common enemy, the coronavirus and climate change, and forget about creating a Second Cold War which will only drain US resources while China goes ahead building infrastructure and increasing trade.

 

Off the Top of My Head

In the Age of Pandemic Has War Become a Luxury?

by John Lawrence, April 12, 2020

Saudi Arabia and Yemen have declared a cease fire. Sailors are becoming infected on aircraft carriers. War planning requires groupings of military people. So has war become a luxury we can no longer afford? Are we really "all in this together"? Does the pandemic require cooperation among all nations since the pandemic doesn't respect national borders? Will the pandemic, when it's over, have changed the way human beings conduct their affairs in the world or will we get back to business as usual. If the pandemic engenders cooperation instead of rivalry among the nations of the world, does this mean that we will all be socialists or communists? Does it even matter?

If the pandemic makes us realize that war is a useless exercise with few benefits, will the US military-industrial complex be defunded. Will the money then go to health care workers, to Peace Corps and AmeriCorps workers who will attempt to bring clean water and modern sanitary systems to developing countries? Will there be a push to create more sanitary conditions in the world so that pandemics don't get started? Plagues and pandemics before have motivated people to build modern sanitary systems in places like London and New York in the 19th century where urban populations in close proximity created the conditions of cholera and bubonic plague. Is homelessness a social situation we can no longer afford?

Will the meaning of 'essential services' become normalized in the economy post corinavirus? What then will be considered essential and what could we live without? As long as there is no vaccine for coronavirus, new cases will continue to crop up even after the economy has "reopened." The flu epidemic of 1918 lasted 10 months and had several spikes. We can expect more spikes in the current pandemic until there are widespread vaccinations available. So what is essential? Sports events? Cruises? Rock concerts? Movie theaters? Now with Netflix and Amazon prime we can watch movies at home. Any movie we want to see. I'm catching up on all the great movies I've missed over the years. Last night I watched "To Catch a Thief" with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Free on Amazon Prime. The fidelity  both video and audio was excellent on my smart TV. I have no need to go to a movie theater where I can't control the volume. Hint: they are too loud.

Perhaps now we can grasp the concept that cooperation among peoples and nations is more important than manufactured rivalries over some nation's form of government. Perhaps now we can grasp the concept that diplomacy is more important, getting along is more important and winning isn't everything. Maybe now public health and human rights can be seen as more important than having everyone pull themselves up only by their own bootstraps. Maybe we can get on with the business of cooperating to combat the real enemy - climate change and even future pandemics. Maybe we will bring the US infrastructure into the modern world with a Green New Deal. Maybe we can finally grow up and have a consensus about what is really important, what really matters. Maybe doctors, nurses, caregivers, and social workers will come to be seen as more important that Wall Street brokers, the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps as more important than the War Corps. As Governor Cuomo says, "Love will conquer all." Happy Easter.

Off the Top of My Head

Maybe the Shut Down of Non-Essential Businesses Should Be Made Permanent

by John Lawrence, March 27, 2020

As long as we have electricity, the internet, clean water, waste water disposal, full grocery markets, pharmacies, excellent health care, gas stations, trash collection and other essential businesses, perhaps the shut down of non-essential businesses is a good thing. Already it has cleaned up the environment and significantly reduced the emission of greenhouse gasses. What about all those unemployed people, you say? Put them to work in the Green New Deal building and repairing infrastructure throughout the country. If this COVID-19 thing lasts till January 20, 2021, I'm hoping President Joe Biden will do just that. And we should help build essential businesses in other parts of the world instead of engaging in military adventurism. Billions of people don't even have clean water, adequate sanitation, the internet, full grocery markets and other essential businesses.

Once these essential needs are taken care of for the entire world's population in such a way that GHG emissions are reduced to zero, then maybe some non-essential businesses could be reestablished. The pandemic goes to show that much of the US economy is based on non-essential businesses and the provision of non-essential goods and services. In fact not only are many of them non-essential, they are downright deleterious. Consider the gambling industry: downright deleterious. The movie and TV industry: about 70% deleterious. The fast food industry: 90% deleterious creating obesity and diabetes. Why isn't the school system educating people about nutrition? Many people have essentially a fast food diet. The food is cheap and ubiquitous, and people don't have time to create nutritious meals any more the way Moms used to when they didn't have to work to pay the mortgage and car payments.

The American way of life including may non-essential businesses is sickness producing. The profit oriented health care industry makes money off of sick people, not keeping people healthy. If everyone were healthy or were encouraged to lead healthy lifestyles, there would be far less sickness. But the stress induced by both spouses having to work leads to unhealthy lifestyles. Some families need 2 or 3 jobs just to make ends meet. The children are also subjected to a competitively oriented style of learning in which they are forced to compete with other children to get good grades so they can get into the best colleges. Instead maybe they should be encouraged to think in terms of what they want to do in their lives which would be a service to society in addition to affording a comfortable living for themselves.

More businesses considered to be non-essential:

Theaters, Salons and Spas, Racetracks, Shopping malls, Bowling alleys, Sporting and Concert Venues, Liquor stores, Bars, Cruises, Golf Courses, Resorts, Hair and Nail Salons.

Highly polluting industries and activities which are non-essential:

Most airline travel, the cruise industry, the travel and tourism industry, most automobile travel (use mass transit instead), most of the trucking industry (use rail instead), the beef industry, the hog industry, agribusiness (encourage small organic farms instead), most military and military-industrial complex, the plastic industry, the fossil fuel industry.

In Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently. Here’s How. Mark Lawrence Schrad writes:

America has long equated patriotism with the armed forces. But you can’t shoot a virus. Those on the frontlines against coronavirus aren’t conscripts, mercenaries or enlisted men; they are our doctors, nurses, pharmacists, teachers, caregivers, store clerks, utility workers, small-business owners and employees. Like Li Wenliang and the doctors of Wuhan, many are suddenly saddled with unfathomable tasks, compounded by an increased risk of contamination and death they never signed up for.

When all is said and done, perhaps we will recognize their sacrifice as true patriotism, saluting our doctors and nurses, genuflecting and saying, “Thank you for your service,” as we now do for military veterans. We will give them guaranteed health benefits and corporate discounts, and build statues and have holidays for this new class of people who sacrifice their health and their lives for ours. Perhaps, too, we will finally start to understand patriotism more as cultivating the health and life of your community, rather than blowing up someone else’s community. Maybe the de-militarization of American patriotism and love of community will be one of the benefits to come out of this whole awful mess.

The same sentiments hold true for teachers and other caregivers. People that take care of people and encourage people to have better lives are the true heroes. The Peace Corps and AmeriCorps should be the preeminent national services not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines. We need to spread good will in the world by spades instead of bullying the rest of the world with US sanctions. We should develop the equivalent of China's Belt and Road initiative and start building clean water plants, sanitation plants, industries which decrease pollution and plastic trash in the ocean. We need to clean the environment around the world not contribute to dirtying it. We need to help bring home all the refugees in refugee camps and guarantee the safety and security of Latin Americans so they don't become migrants and refugees.

Off the Top of My Head

Peace Corps Veterans: Thank You For Your Service

by John Lawrence, November 15, 2019

We heap praise on the military, but how many stop to think that there are people who have served their country in the Peace Corps that never get thanked. The Peace Corps is not even on most folks' radar. Peace Corps, what Peace Corps? You mean there still is a Peace Corps? Well, you say, people in the military risk their lives. People in the Peace Corps don't. That's the difference. Think again. Peace Corps members serve in some of the most dangerous parts of the world, and they don't even carry a gun to defend themselves. Since the Peace Corps began in 1961, more than 235,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have served in 141 countries. Of these dedicated men and women, 309 have sacrificed not only their energies and time, but also their lives while pursuing the Peace Corps mission.

Peace Corps Response Volunteer Donovan Gregg, 31, of Beaverton, Oregon, died following a car accident July 23 in Rwanda. Peace Corps Response Volunteer Alan Hale, 80, of Bellingham, Washington, died in a bicycling accident in his site in the Philippines on July 11. Hale arrived in Southern Leyte province in October 2018 and worked with local officials to improve solid waste management. He delivered training to more than 2,000 people with a focus on eliminating trash burning and littering. Thomas “Tom” Maresco died as a result of a gunshot wound on Sept. 3 in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The investigation into this incident is ongoing, but at this time it appears it may have been an attempted robbery. Among 8,655 volunteers there are on average 22 Peace Corps women who report being the victims of rape or attempted rape each year.

While a lot of Peace Corps fatalities have been in automobile accidents, it is no secret that people in the world trying to make it a better place are often targeted by terrorist groups. In Nigeria villagers have reported being threatened by Boko Haram fighters to avoid the polio vaccine. And in 2013 a number of vaccinators were attacked and killed by the extremists, leading some of their colleagues to disguise their vaccine carriers or hide them under their hijabs. These vaccinators were not in the Peace Corps, but people trying to do good throughout the world are often attacked. On November 13, 2019 Patricia Ann Anton, 63, was found dead in her apartment in Cabarete, on the country's rural northern coast, with her hands and feet tied, the Dominican Republic National Police said. Nancy Coutu was murdered in the spring of 1996 during a Peace Corps mission in Madagascar.

While the Peace Corps is almost forgotten, businesses are heaping rewards on what has become a cult of the military. USA Today reports:

Restaurants aren't the only businesses showering veterans and active military with freebies and deals this Veterans Day. Businesses across the nation are offering services – everything from free haircuts, car washes, flu shots and car-care checks. While several retailers have weekly or everyday discounts, some are offering extra for the federal holiday. Through Monday, Kohl's is doubling its normal 15% discount Military Monday and offering 30% off to active and former military personnel, veterans and their families.

The Peace Corps' official mission is to provide social and economic development abroad through technical assistance. People in the Peace Corps are providing clean water and sanitation, building schools, providing health care. However, the benefits are pretty skimpy when compared to the military. They don’t earn a salary, but do receive a living stipend to pay for basics like food, some transportation, and other living expenses. On the other hand here are some of the benefits of being in the military:

• A guaranteed paycheck and Cash Bonuses
• Education Benefits like having college paid for
• Advanced and Specialty Training
• 30 days annual paid vacation
• Travel
• Option for full-time or part time service
• Tax-free room, board and allowances
• Health and Dental Care
• Use of commissary and Military Exchange stores
• Special home loans and discounts
• Unparalleled sense of patriotism, duty, honor and selfless [sic] service
• Highly sought-after skills, leadership and training experience
• A pension after 20 years

So where are the honors and accolades for those serving in the Peace Corps past and present? Where are the medals? The benefits are a sham compared to military servers. They are in a lot of danger in many parts of the world with no support system to defend themselves. So who is really a patriot? Peace Corps members are Patriots of the World. They are helping the people who need help the most while the military is only interested in vanquishing our supposed enemies. The last honorable war was World War II. Since then Korea, Vietnam, Iraq have all been dishonorable wars yet that is no reflection on ordinary, soldiers, sailors and airmen. but the cult of the military heaps praise on them while ignoring the larger picture of failed and disastrous wars that have created millions of refugees and millions of dead persons. The true patriots are people like Bill Gates who is almost singlehandedly trying to eradicate disease in developing countries by providing good sanitation and clean water, the lack of which dooms Third World children to dying of preventable diseases.

Bill Gates idea for combating global warming is a very modernized and improved nuclear power generator. His design would actually eat the nuclear waste that is already being stored. His model was developed with supercomputers whereas the last one built was designed with a slide rule. He was all set to build a prototype in China when the Trump government nixed it saying that would give China too much expertise. So while the US under Trump denies global warming, intelligent people like Bill Gates are actually using their money to make the world a better place in the same ways that the Peace Corps is doing. China is doing the same thing with peaceful development albeit at a higher technological level with its Belt and Road initiative. So there is some hope for a better, more peaceful, demilitarized world if enough people and nations decide that rather than trying to dominate each other militarily to make the world safe for rich people, the world's poor people can be brought to a higher lifestyle, and the environment can be protected from pollution and global warming.

Can peace among peoples and nations ever become a reality or will we go down in war and global warming flames? Next time you meet a Peace Corps member past or present say, "Thank you for your service."

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Will Get a Few Billion From the Defense Budget So He Can Defend the Border?

by John Lawrence, February 16, 2019

What's wrong with this picture? I am not in favor of Trump's 30 foot concrete wall, but why does the trillion dollar defense budget not include money for border security? Now what should have been a sober discussion about border security has become a magnormous political football. We spend billions on ships and planes but trifling, meager sums on sophisticated border security that would prevent drugs, illegal contraband and illegal immigrants from coming into the country. Each party has taken up political sides, and a common solution that makes sense is nowhere to be found although one is apparent and evident in plain sight.

Satellite surveillance combined with more manpower deployed at numerous stations along the border capable of rapid deployment via helicopters is the obvious solution. Better tracking of visas so people can't come in with a visa and just disappear would require merely twentieth century technology. People that argue endlessly about what should be mutually agreed upon in short order are either insane or dumb. Einstein's definition of insanity needs to be broadened a bit. He said if you repeat the same behavior over and over and expect it to give you a different result, that's insane. People that can't defend a country's borders while devoting a trillion dollars to fighting endless, pointless wars and supporting 1000 military bases in other countries are also insane. Close those 1000 military bases abroad and build 1000 stations along the US border the purpose of which is to surveil and intercept any illegal contraband and/or human beings trying to get across the border.

The problem with ultra tight border security is that it would not cost very much. The military establishment has figured out a solution to US defense needs that requires a trillion dollar budget and makes them all rich. By comparison the best border security in the world would cost only a pittance. How would they justify then the massive sums they're wasting that could be spent on diplomacy, creating friendly relationships with other countries and rebuilding infrastructure in other parts of the world that has been destroyed by American bombs?

The US should be spending more on the peace budget and less on the military budget which although called that isn't really even a defense budget. It's an exercise that wastes money and creates enemies around the world in order to justify itself.

Off the Top of My Head

How America Is Treating Hundreds of Thousands of Civilians Whose Homes and Businesses It Destroyed in the Middle East: BENIGN NEGLECT!

by John Lawrence, December 12, 2018

Nick McDonell's latest book, "The Bodies in Person: An Account of Civilian Casualties in American Wars" details the destruction of civilian lives, homes and businesses that America has brought to the Middle East and the lack of compassion or compensation following in that wake. America knows how to destroy a country; it doesn't know or doesn't care to know how to rebuild it. Is it any wonder when America spends a trillion dollars a year on its machinery of destruction, the US military, and only $410 million on its Peace Corps, which if funded at the same level as the military might be able to rebuild what the military has destroyed?

McDonell writes in Time magazine:

It is fall in Mosul, the season’s first cool breezes blow off the Tigris, and I am walking around a 12th century castle with my friend Safwan. We have spent the morning scouting on behalf of an NGO dedicated to direct cash assistance. The surrounding blocks are destroyed, but several families are trying to move back anyway, clearing the wrecked Ottoman courtyards, stone by stone. They are excellent candidates for support, but Safwan, a soft-spoken 29-year-old engineer, remains frustrated. “There is no progress with the mass of destruction,” he says. “It needs effort from foreign countries and serious work from the government. Until now, we haven’t seen that.”

Safwan’s frustration is common in Mosul. Though the city was liberated from ISIS in 2017, millions of tons of rubble are yet to be cleared; 40% of old Mosul remains disconnected from any water network; electricity is erratic; in certain neighborhoods, corpses and IEDs remain on the roadside. Sixty-five percent of the city’s housing stock was damaged or destroyed; in the less damaged quarters, spiking rents drive families into debt, while a lack of jobs leaves young men idle in tea shops. The surviving hospitals and schools cannot support the population of 1.5 million; in the street, children orphaned in the battle beg for change, then curse those who refuse them.

This is how America leaves the cities it has "liberated." What's the old saying: "We had to destroy the village in order to liberate it."? Students for Liberty write on their website:

During the Vietnam War, a U.S. major justified bombing and shelling civilian areas in Bến Tre by saying “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” This statement evolved into the famous phrase “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” This quote explains a litany of state actions. Government officials and their supporters embrace a mindset of humanitarian imperialism and justify violence against innocent people, claiming that it is necessary to save those they brutalize.

This mindset is most obvious during wars of aggression euphemistically termed “humanitarian interventions.” For example, the U.S. government fired depleted uranium at Iraqi civilian areas in the name of “Iraqi Freedom.” This process of “liberating” Iraq also involved thousands of civilian casualties, as well as torture of detainees.

In order to fulfill their “responsibility to protect” Libyan civilians from Muammar al-Qaddafi’s violence, Western governments bombed civilians. This “responsibility to protect” also apparently entailed supporting forces that engaged in mass executions of political enemies and arbitrarily arrested and abused black Africans based on their race.

Others are saying it far better than I can. The US destroys countries - in the case of Iraq, the invasion was based on a lie - and then honors the President - in this case George W Bush - who lied America into war just because he wanted to be a war time President and surround himself with glory. Then America takes no responsibility for the lives it has destroyed. Instead, under Trump, it wants to keep the less fortunate out of the country club as only the more fit of humankind are deserving of the benefits thereof, certainly not any peons from "shithole" countries.