Military Spending

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Reject authoritarian rule and the idolatry of worshiping nationalism.

October 2, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

Historically the U.S. was created — and our Constitution’s First Amendment adopted — to protect us from any official religion.  Nowadays, the Religious Right is pushing hard to make their version of Christianity into the U.S.’s official religion. That would overturn 230 years of U.S. principled separation between Church and State.  And it would hurt many people’s human rights. But some people have said that the U.S. has — in effect — the truly dominant religion of Nationalism. Extreme nationalism corrupts many aspects of that nation’s society in many ways.  It causes people to hurt people of other nations.  The […]

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Local people’s priorities for the federal budget are the OPPOSITE of Congress’s.

September 27, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

Twice in late summer 2019 the Olympia Coalition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons organized and staffed information booths at public events (Olympia’s Harbor Days from Fri. Aug. 30 to Sun. Sept. 1, and Olympia’s International Peace Day event on Sat. Sept. 21). I labeled six jars with different possible uses for our federal budget.  Our volunteers handed each visitor to our booth a stack of ten pennies and invited them to put the pennies into the various jars to show how the visitor would choose to spend the federal budget. The results (listed below) were similar for both events, except “Environment […]

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“Replace Negativity and Centrism with Bold Progress.”

September 27, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

A great many issues are important, but neither of the two big political parties is doing nearly enough to solve these problems.  While voting has some value, the most progress in solving problems will occur when ordinary people organize nonviolently, strategically, and vigorously from the grassroots. The article I am attaching below fleshes this out briefly.  For more information, see resources I’ve posted to this blog’s “Organizing” category. During 2019 The Olympian is publishing five op-eds that I am writing.  The one at this link was published in the newspaper on Fri. Sept. 27, 2019: BOC — 2019.09.19 — FINAL […]

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Fact Sheet: 2017 U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

September 27, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

In 2017 the United Nations General Assembly OVERWHELMINGLY PASSED an international treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.  Now about two dozen nations have ratified it, and we must encourage more to ratify it.  It will go into effect when FIFTY nations have ratified it. The U.S. and the 8 other nuclear nations opposed it, of course, and the rest of the world is angry with us for our arrogance. Read this fact sheet about the U.N. treaty, and do everything you can to support its ratification by the U.S. and other nations:          eng_-_factsheet_-_2017_treaty_on_the_prohibition_of_nuclear_weapons(1)      

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Save our last remaining nuke treaty with Russia. Sign up now for TUES OCT 1 briefing on New START treaty

September 22, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

We need many more people to learn about the New START treaty and push to renew it before it expires 17 months from now.  If Trump lets it expire, there will be no treaties to restrain an all-out nuclear arms race.  After Trump destroyed the INF treaty recently, BOTH the U.S. and Russia started building recklessly dangerous and provocative new nuclear weapons that the INF had been prohibiting since 1987. Please consider signing up for the TUES OCT 1, 2019, phone briefing.  See the invitation at this link before TUES OCT 1, 2019:  https://www.armscontrol.org/events           . […]

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Let’s Boldly Create the Future We Really Want!

September 9, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

I wrote this powerful, inspiring essay because we have much more potential for solving problems and creating a better future than most people realize. Regardless of which issues you care about, I encourage you to read the essay at this link: Let’s Boldly Create the Future We Really Want                

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Short article: The currently dominant worldview is hurting our society in many ways.

September 4, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

Our society is suffering in many, many ways.  The problems are all around us — and they are interconnected.  They are rooted in a worldview that has been dominating the U.S. (and some other nations) increasingly in recent decades. I wrote a long article about this.  Here is a very short article that summarizes a few of the main points.  I published it in a recent issue of Works in Progress (www.olywip.org): This currently dominant worldview is hurting us.            

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Bernie Sanders proposes a $16 TRILLION Green New Deal — and proposes how to pay for it

August 24, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

The climate crisis is extremely serious. Modest efforts (like nearly all Democrats tolerate) will NOT be enough! The cost of doing nothing will be HORRIBLE for our quality of life, for the survival of humans and our civilization, and for the economy.  (Some people don’t care about the first items here, but damage to the economy might get their attention. Bernie Sanders proposes cutting the military budget in order to fund the Green New Deal.  The military FAILS to protect us, but the Green New Deal is absolutely necessary for our protection — and our “national security” if you want […]

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Militarism is the U.S.’s national religion!

August 17, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

A retired Air Force officer who was raised Catholic wrote this powerful article. It deserves to be read widely. Here it is:  https://truthout.org/articles/military-might-is-our-national-religion/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=f6a2f5ca-73b0-41a9-bf35-b85dcd8f0210        

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Military spending HURTS job creation. Lavishing billions on the Pentagon does NOT help employment.

August 13, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

For more than half a century, economists have been PROVING that military spending does NOT create jobs. A billion dollars spent on education, housing, health, or other civilian activities creates MORE jobs than spending that billion dollars on the military. Indeed, a sentence way down in the article linked below says:  “Military spending actually proved to be the worst job creator of any federal government spending option those researchers analyzed.” If we want jobs, we should CUT military spending and INCREASE spending for worthwhile civilian activities. Now after more than half a century of articles reporting these findings, here is […]

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Does Trump think he would win a nuclear war? The Pentagon agrees with him!

August 5, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

Trump’s threats of using nuclear weapons in Afghanistan (recently) and North Korea and elsewhere are not merely his own psychologically distorted fantasies. Trump’s threats also reflect several decades of official thinking and planning in the Pentagon – and the purposes of some of the new nuclear weapons that the U.S. has been building for several decades. Just recently the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote this in a formal document:  “Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability. Specifically, the use of a nuclear weapon will fundamentally change the scope of a battle and […]

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Democratic Party FAILS TO CHALLENGE Trump’s foreign policy!

July 31, 2019 GlenAnderson 0

Many times every day now I receive e-mails from various parts of the Democratic Party asking me to donate money.  Their opening request invites me to choose my favorite presidential candidates — and sometimes to identify the issues that I care about the most. They list many DOMESTIC issues (jobs, gay rights, college debt, etc.), but ALMOST NEVER ASK ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY or the federal budget’s domination by military spending or the U.S.’s perpetual violations of human rights around the world. This implies that THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS WILLING TO GO ALONG WITH TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY! A few of these […]