The real work is choosing to defend life on this lovely planet.
Our men and women in uniform, our scientists and engineers, need to shift gears from collectively creating the meanest SOB in the valley of the shadow of death — the U.S. military — to bravely facing and struggling with the multiple real crises we face.
It won’t be easy, but in my humble opinion, we should:
• Pledge no first use of nuclear weapons.
• Reduce tensions by withdrawing NATO military bases from Russia and China’s borders.
• Remove from power those who disregard or violate the rights of others.
• Negotiate a global treaty eliminating nuclear weapons and their delivery systems.
• Reduce everyone’s energy footprint by installing solar panels on every roof.
• End Monsanto’s control of the Food and Drug Administration. Glyphosates must be banned.
• Help Japan stop the radiation leaking out of the three reactor cores in contact with groundwater in Fukushima, according to nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer of Fairwinds Energy Education.
This is the real war we should be fighting.
• Shrink the CIA/National Security Agency cancer on our democracy.
Embedding pro-war propagandists in spinning the news and spying on all of us must stop.
• Strengthen the health of our ecosystem on which we absolutely depend.
We must turn away from constantly sharpening our ability to annihilate each other.
This national about-face will require that we throw up the endless propaganda that says we are the exceptional nation that allows one president after another to smash around all over the planet.
Let’s reinvent ourselves as a people, smile on our brothers and sisters, wage peace and end war.
Doug Milholland,
Port Townsend