During the past 16 months Americans have witnessed and taken part in historic and unprecedented discussions, demonstrations, protests and legislation regarding equity cultural intolerance and the damning, entrenched realities of institutionalized racism. The media coverage of these historic events has been unprecedented and one has to be hopeful that positive change will be the end result.
However, there was another historic event that occurred on Sept. 8, 2020, that demanded the same kind of citizen outrage, protest and protracted action that the murder of George Floyd elicited.
On Sept. 8, 2020, the US Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman a staggering initial contract of $13.3 billion to build 600 “modernized” inter-continental ballistic missiles – ICBM’s which if ever utilized would end human civilization as we know it. Just one of these missiles – the length of a bowling lane – can travel 6,000 miles and carries a warhead 20 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
We are paying a for profit private corporation over $13.3 billion – the cost will inevitably skyrocket to unimaginable sums — to build and modernize inter-continental nuclear weapons that can never, never be used. The word “evil” does not ever approach the obscenity here and yet the press/media coverage and citizen protest over this “nuclear modernization” has been virtually non-existent.
Liberal politicians have been about as vocal as an oil painting. Imagine just for a minute if the United States allocated $13.3 billion-plus to address the damning realities of climate change, homelessness, poverty and income inequality. Imagine a world where government funding emphasized and addressed the crucial issues that challenge human civilization like catastrophe climate change.
The military industrial complex has been woven into the very fabric of American society. This damning military integration into our culture has allowed horrors like the Northrop Grumman ICBM “modernization” contract to go both unchallenged and virtually unnoticed. We the people need to find the collective courage, energy and commitment to cast light on and challenge the realities of US nuclear war planning. There’s never been a greater or more important challenge. We can find the voice and passion and commitment to make the changes that will give humanity a chance for the future.
JIM SAWYER, Edmonds, Wash.
Why is it that extremely few folks in this corporate empire that we call the USA seem to understand what motivates this empire? Surely Jeffrey Hobbs, in his letter, “Addicted to War,” in the 9/15/21 TPP, gets it. It’s certainly not the desire for an egalitarian society. It’s not about making the world a better place for humanity to exist. It’s not about saving the ecosystem or the human race or for altruism of any kind.
Why is it that we, as a nation, can’t seem to understand what is taking this country down the road to democratic catastrophe. If one considers that the USA’s primary mission is its world-wide war mongering, which I contend exists for one reason — money — then yes, the answer seems quite simple, it’s called GREED! Corporate greed, augmented by Citizens United, politician green, augmented by the corporations and, of course, individual greed augmented by our own self-interests.
I suggest that we shouldn’t be looking so hard for the reason thast this country is destined for total failure. It seems quite obvious that GREED is the problem. It is most certainly what motivates the political right in the USA.
WILLIAM G. WEGENER, Carnegie, Pa.
In your 9/15/21 issue, several astute authors mentioned the need to mitigate global climate change. They provided the usual remedies, such as: reduce methane and greenhouse gas emissions, reduce development in fire zones, eat less beef, drive electric cars, install solar panels, etc. These remedies do not address the basic cause of global warming, there are just too many humans on planet Earth. Per freelance writer Kevin Casey, “Why Climate change is an Irrelevance, Economic Growth is a Myth, and Sustainability is 40 Years Too Late” (June/July 2020 Free Inquiry), and an article by Tom Flynn, “Good News Misunderstood” (April/May 2019 Free Inquiry), which notes, “A European standard of living could be extended to at most only about two billion people for our planet to support human civilization indefinitely.” We smart, rational humans must address the overpopulation crisis.
GEORGE J. SAUNDERS, Blasdell, N.Y.
Re: “Hell on Earth: Warming Gone Wild” (9/15/21 TPP). At a 1992 climate summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro, at which most nations agreed to do their part in the effort to prevent the worst case scenario of global warming by reducing their country’s carbon emissions, this is what our President George H.S. Bush said: “The American lifestyle is non-negotiable.”
And he wasn’t talking about a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot either. No, it was a car for dad, another for mom, and one for each teenager in the family . . . plus, a camper for vacation trips.
He was talking about the average American who eats meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He meant a TV in every room, and the latest “must have” stylish clothes.. After all, the citizenry would never have forgiven him if instead he had said, “For the sake of our planet, let’s cooperate with the rest of the world and adopt a simpler way of life.”
Just the other day, I saw an oversized camper pulling a large boat, with a sign that read, “The one with the most toys at the end is the winner.” Well, given our hunger for more and more “things,” I believe that’s also our unofficial national motto.
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
With all the commotion over the threats posed by climate change, the Biden administration should be commended for supporting a swift and general introduction of electric vehicles in this country. It has been common knowledge for decades, after all, that gas powered cars and truck contribute to the global ecological menace.
Such a transition is bound to be difficult yet nevertheless patently inevitable. The destructiveness of rampant climate change, clearly demonstrated through wildfires, droughts and melting glaciers, presuppose human remedy for human-generated mischief.
Without question, electric transportation will be beneficial over the long haul. A full measure of enthusiasm should be accorded this technological progress.
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
“What an embarrassment we are suffering because we don’t have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!” — Donald J. Trump (Sept. 8, 2021)
As an expert on being a blithering idiotic embarrassment, the self-declared “very stable genius” and former social media influencer Donald Trump loves slavery and the lost cause of Robert E. Lee’s defeated Confederacy so much, Trump just can’t keep his filthy, ignorant mouth shut for once! Best of luck running for president in 2024, fool.
And as a notoriously corrupt and frivolously litigious bankrupted businessman and legendary tax cheat, who is infamous not only for his unparalleled incompetence, but also for repeatedly refusing to pay his debts, the tangerine tyrant Trump knows a thing or two about forcing contractors and laborers to work for him without being paid for their labor.
It’s time to make traitor Trump pay for his crimes. Does any American (who is not currently in a medically-induced COVID-19 coma on a ventilator in a Republican-controlled state) have any doubt whatsoever that diabolical Donald Trump is a neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi numbskull career criminal who belongs in Rikers Island Prison, instead of in his truly tacky country club in Palm Beach, Fla.? US Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to get a move on and slap the cuffs on Trump ASAP!
JAKE PICKERING, Arcata, Calif.
The United States should use Afghanistan and Iraq to reassess how it engages the world and planet. nnFor starters, instead of war and military intervention try:
• Cooperation on climate change.
• Cooperation on water.
• Cooperation on world trade.
• Cooperation on world health (see the virus).
• Cooperation on nearly 90 million refugees,
• Cooperation on a global peace force to be used with utmost care, with a limited goal: peace and a halt to conflict.
• Cooperation on a fair monetary system.
Other nations have learned (partially) new behavior after their overseas misdeeds failed.
The United States should do the same, and while at work, encourage China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Ethiopia, India and Brazil to develop more humane steps and halt their overreach as they edge towards an equal misreading of history.
And back to Afghanistan: after the 20 years of gore, horror, death, wounds ... now attention turns to the Afghans trying to leave ...
Where was the attention when they were dying daily? Where?
EUGENE “GENE” NOVGRODSKY, Readfield, Maine
If I were asked what I think is the most important thing for Americans to know about today’s conservative-Republicans, I would have to say this: Read what 10-time award-winning and prize-winning journalist Jane Mayer (“Dark Money”) and Nancy MacLean have to say about how most of them use what they refer to as “stealth tactics”.
Also read what 2008 Nobel-Prize-winner in Economics Paul Krugman has to say about how he believes that most of them knowingly operate out of “bad faith.”
Last, read what all three have to say about how most of them believe that their “ends” and goals justify their use of any and all immoral and unethical means to achieve their ends and goals.
The second most important thing to know about them is that there is a large percentage of them who, at the national level, are “Survival-of-the-Fittest” Social Darwinists who would love to see all of the federal government social programs (including Social Security) that help the lower classes and middle-classes be abolished but who try to hide this from the public.
STEWART B. EPSTEIN, Rochester, N.Y.
When 700,000 deaf, dumb, inconsiderate, self-centered, baby-brained bikers show up in South Dakota, it may be the start of Season One’s “The Riding Dead.” They bring their own choppers and will handle bars, restaurants and porto-lets with little respect for the faring of the merchants who are cast as victims.
This bark isn’t worse than the bike.
FLORA ORMSBY SMITH, Marblehead, Mass.
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2021
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