A BANNER YEAR FOR KILLING — Maybe Not
The week Greg Hayes, the CEO of Raytheon Weapons Manufacturer had this to say ”We are seeing, I would say, opportunities for international sales. We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE And of course, the tensions in Eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea…. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.”
For the 80 Yemenis that won’t be coming home to supper any time soon, rest in peace. Tough for the over 200 Yemenis wounded, death and mayhem is good for business, according to Greg Hayes. We are not saying what’s good for him. Not in a free country.
War may be great for business, but Mother Earth is in acute pain. You can feel that pain with every footstep as you walk on her skin. War is not good for her climate. Imagine what the transport of 3,000 troops from U.S. bases to the Ukraine does to foul the air we breathe, as U.S. media fans the flames of war hysteria, and our government does everything it can to get us into a nuclear war. Elsewhere, Germany has refused to send weapons in support of this latest murderous NATO adventure, and Pres. Macron of France has initiated diplomacy in face-to face meetings with Pres. Putin of Russia. The Russian people don’t want war, any more than 76% of Americans who are sick of war.
We like to say there’s no Planet B, but there’s no atmosphere B, and we are breathing the exhaust from all that jet military transport. Just yesterday, Common Dreams published this headline: Scientists Fear Soaring Methane Levels Show Climate Feedback Loop Has Arrived. If you know anything about feedback loops, they are irreversible. Read Climate Collapse.
Meanwhile in this week’s other news, we read that for the past five years, the death rate among the homeless, the so-called “unhoused” has increased by 76%. Why are the “unhoused” not placed in concentration camps? Because it’s cheaper to let them die on the streets. The mean age for death on the streets in present-day United States of Anguish is 48, just like the death rate in Europe in the 12th, 13th and 14th Centuries. Why our government has returned us to the Middle Ages!
And to add to its very own quaint Medievalism, in a move that sidles right up next to the diktats of such enlightened potentates as Ghengis Khan, the White House is scheming to grab 7 Billion of Afghani assets that the U.S. has frozen to settle 9/11 victims claims, reserving only half of that for starving, beyond desperate Afghani families who, to survive Afghanistan’s fierce winter, must resort to selling their kidneys and their children so that they can buy food. Those of us who have never known a day of hunger ought to be out in the street, day and night, raising Cain in support of our sisters and brothers — and children — against starvation.
If there is any uplifting news this week, it comes from Holland where the Dutch promise to ‘egg’ the Bezos yachtzila if, once it’s built in a Rotterdam shipyard, a bridge gets dismantled to let it through to the open seas.
When will we ‘egg’ our very own democratically ‘elected’ Mediaeval government?
SIGN Bernie’s petition: Prevent what could be the worst European war in over 75 years between nuclear armed opponents.
CALL on the Biden administration and key Congressmemebers to unfreeze Afghan funds to pay salaries of Afghan techers and health workers and allow people to buy food at
DEMAND Congress get off their sorry duffs to take climate action now.
DEFEND Planet A against climate catastrophe and make Wall St. protect our planet.
URGE somnambulist Joe to drop #45’s policies in Yemen.
BAN Congress from trading stock while in office
Ecuador’s Constitutional Court publishes ruling in favor of Indigenous people’s right to decide the future of their lands in the Amazon.
France’s Macron flies to meet Putin in risky bid to avert war.
Peace Boat docks in San Diego in observance of the one-year anniversary of he UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Xi and Putin issue statement.
Argentina proposes ending debt dependency on U.S.
Mexico GM workers vote in an independent union.
A bridge too low: Dutch vow to egg Bezos $500 million yachtzila if bridge is dismantled to let it pass.
Colombia announces huge victory against aerial crop eradication.
Scathing Amnesty Apartheid report may lead to change in Israel’s criminal practices.
Wet’suwet’en approach UN over militarization and rights violations.
Snoqualmie Tribe acquires 12.000 acres of ancestral forestland.
South Africa scientists reproduce Moderna’s COVID vaccine such that patents must now be shared.
Stock ban proposed for Congress to stop insider trading among lawmakers.
Experts detail deadly consequences of U.S. drone strikes to Senate.
Antiwar groups nationwide rally to stop U.S. from being lied into war with Russia.
Ilhan Omar blasts ‘unconscionable’ Biden plan to seize Afghan assets.
Montana plaintiffs announce first children’s climate trial in U.S. history.
To avert ’full blown war’ coalition urges Biden to rejoin Iran deal.
Biden administration sides with tribes over North Dakota in mineral dispute.
Biden reinvents migrant detention (using home confinement and curfew) with the aim of curbing for-profit detention spaces.
Biden must nominate justice beholden to people not corporate power and that’s Ketanji Brown Jackson.
White House considers expanding limits on ‘no-knock’ warrants following murderbycop of Amir Locke.
Senate finally to move to renew Violence Against Women Act.
Thousands of students from various Minneapolis high schools protest fatal police shooting of Amir Locke.
Journalists win $825,000 settlement and ban on police attack.
Progressives call on Democrats to endorse 21st century economic bill of rights.
USDA offers $1 Billion to help farmers and ranchers fight climate change.
Bipartisan infrastructure bill helps plug some of off-coast 35,000 abandoned wells.
Katie Porter introduces legislation raising fees of polluters extracting from U.S. public lands, protecting the environment, and saving taxpayers money.
Despite Dejoy’s mandate to fossil fueling new fleet, House passes bill to repeal ‘debilitating’ USPS refunding retirement mandate.
IRS abandons plans to subject website users to facial recognition.
Judge orders U.S. to pay $230 million to victims of 2017 church massacre.
On the basis of climate Federal court rules against Oil Lease Sale #257. the largest sale of public waters for offshore oil drilling in U.S. history.
Big week for oil wins as Mountain Valley Pipeline approvals are revoked, new oil wells banned in LA, and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Sen. Capito, Rep Rodgers ask GAO to assess NRC’s review process for advanced nuclear reactors.
Appalachians build Green New Deal for themselves.
North Carolina elections board assert power to bar Cawthorn from 2022 ballot.
New Hampshire House Committee on Science, technology and energy votes unanimously to uphold 500 meter setbacks from cell towers and antennas.
Drug decriminalization works in Oregon.
After months of CPUC debate, solar energy and storage issues, a judge on commission rules matter is suspended, meaning rooftop and small-scale solar are safe for now in California.
Solar panels to be installed above California canals.
Immigrant communities breathe sigh of relief after Georgia sheriffs terminate ICE agreements.
Teachers in Puerto Rico strike for wages, benefits.
Construction stalls as concrete workers strike for wages, health care.
Lobstermen form a union co-op to claw back fair prices.
Capitol Hill staffers organize unions.
Jericho Movement, Boston, United American Indians of New England, and Boston BDS call for standout in front of Boston’s Federal Building to call attention to freeing Leonard Peltier, the U.S. longest incarcerated political prisoner.
Zuck could face jail time under new law.
Turkeys create nightmare at NASA’s Ames Lab