A Just Foreign Policy

YES Magazine, Summer '08 Edition, has a number of really good articles, and an interview, that should be read and obsorbed as to some of what we should be putting into public discussion as we try to turn this ship of state around and head in a direction that should already have been. These articles touch on a number of important issues, Very Important, not only for us, as a country, but our place in the world and for the world as a whole. They are also a matter of our Security and the Security of the planet

This one with Shultz might sound abit familiar for any who heard him talking when they returned from this conferance, but this is an Extremely Important subject and not only for us, and our National Security but the Security of everyone.

George Shultz: No Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons abolition is not only possible, but necessary for our security and perhaps even our survival.

It starts of thus:

George Shultz was there when nuclear disarmament slipped through our fingers. Today, he says, action is even more urgent. Sarah van Gelder interviews George Shultz, former Secretary of State.

This near the end stood out:

Shultz: I’m not trying to prescribe for the next president. We’re trying to get the building blocks ready. We’ve talked to people from some other countries, and they’re interested enough so that if the United States, working with Russia, were to take this initiative and get other people to join, it might be pretty exciting. And it might once again put us in the role of doing something that people feel good about.

"Doing someting the people feel good about." Not just something, for we have an awful lot to do, but this issue would bring back much of what we lost in our Moral Standing as a world neighbor. The Neo-Cons, or whatever label one would smack on them, have not only destroyed the arms talk tables, they are developing other uses, under the Nuclear Umbrella, for ordinance, with no worry as to the damage it will inflict nor the long term lasting effects, all for the Now, in Power and Blood Wealth!

Smart Security and the End of War
David Korten's thoughts on a just foreign policy and an emergent social movement calling the world’s parliaments to adopt the principles of Article 9 added to the Japanese Constitution following World War II.

This touches on a number of important issues and leads off thus:

David Korten’s thoughts on a just foreign policy (the theme of the summer 2008 issue of YES! Magazine). “We humans have arrived at a defining moment. We must bring ourselves into balance with one another and Earth or suffer the consequences of social and environmental collapse. It creates a unique opportunity for bold action to end war as an instrument of foreign policy, convert to a peace economy, and create a world that works for all.”

He breaks this down to topics on:

The End of Excess

A Defining Challenge

The Last Superpower

Getting Smart

A Global Movement

A Smart Security Policy for the United States

And ends it with this:

It is an opportunity to at once increase our security, improve the quality of our lives, and regain a position of principled global leadership.

Talking NAFTA and Immigration.

Reclaiming Corn and Culture
For 14 years, NAFTA has displaced farmers and spurred migration. The answer from Mexico’s grassroots: co-ops and fair trade.

Mexicans doing it themselves, and to help solve the immigration problems We should be helping them.

They have sounded their voices loudly in Mexico’s capital, while quietly developing their own answers to NAFTA in farming communities throughout the country—working models of “fair trade” that consider people and the environment, not just profit margins.

Who are the losers.

By 2003, 1.3 million Mexican peasants had lost their livelihoods because of NAFTA. Many of the displaced farmers came north in search of work. Mexican migration to the U.S. increased an estimated 75 percent in the five years after the trade agreement took effect.

And in the name of Corporate, not to mention others seeking lowscale wage earners, profits and to force wages down, what has been presently going on.

Pickard has been a vocal critic of a new trade initiative under the Bush Administration that broadens NAFTA with increased emphasis on border security and corporate access to natural resources. The initiative, called the “Security and Prosperity Partnership,” or SPP, was launched two years ago in a series of negotiations with the Mexican and Canadian governments. Because the SPP is not a treaty, there is no congressional oversight, nor any process for citizen comment. The only input comes from a council of 30 advisors, ten selected by each government. The list reads like a Who’s Who of corporate North America, including the CEOs of Bell Canada, Chevron, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Home Depot/Canada, Kimberly-Clark/Mexico, Lockheed Martin, Scotiabank, and Wal-Mart.

Just the Facts: Military Spending versus Foreign Aid
The U.S. spends piles of money on foreign aid, right? See how the spending actually stacks up.

Just The Facts Poster in PDF

The top link above gives a smaller version of the tables on spending, the PDF can be downloaded and saved.

Raiding the War Chest
How to cut billions in unneeded weapons systems—and redirect the money towards health care, the economy, and climate.

It’s called “defense” spending, but how much of it is actually about defense? Here’s how we could save billions, and still have billions left to make the U.S. and the world more secure.

This speaks for itself, our continuing wasteful Huge and ever growing Defense Budgets, Questions Never Asked, Schrugs when coruption comes to light, and back to continuing growth of budgets, lining the pockets of the few rather than giving Us what we led to believe we are getting.

An economy slouching toward recession, or—depending on who you talk to—already there, has produced two seemingly contradictory effects. It has pushed the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history off the top of the list of citizen concerns. And it has simultaneously gotten those citizens, and even their members of Congress, talking much more about that disaster’s economic costs.

And how much are the 'Look the other way' Representatives, Our Representatives, reaping.

Since 2001 the Administration’s military budgets have more than doubled. Congress has approved every one, sometimes even expanding them a bit

No accountability for the "Worst Foreign Policy Disaster in U.S. History!", just rubber stamp what's requested, and tack on more, to continue the disaster, the disaster not only for us but especially for those we reaped it upon

Just some of what should be eleminated.

A half-dozen items that top this list are:

* The F/A 22 Raptor:
An obsolete, ever-more-costly aircraft designed to counter a Soviet model that was never built.

* Ballistic Missile Defense:
A system that doesn’t work for a threat that doesn’t exist.

* Virginia-Class Submarine:
Any conceivable mission for this new sub can be handled by the existing fleet.

* DD(G-1000) Destroyer:
Another cost-escalating program whose missions are well-covered by existing ships.

* V-22 Osprey:
This hybrid plane-helicopter is being rushed into service in Iraq despite safety, technical, and cost problems, both old and new.

* C-130J transport plane:
Has 168 documented deficiencies that render it unsafe.

And closes with this:

And while we’re repairing the damage to our relations with the rest of the world, we will need to put some of the money into repairing the social contract with our own citizens, by investing in our battered economy.

Just investing in our infrastructure would reap benefits across a number of area's, and investing in other much needed area's would expand those benefits and keep expanding them.

You can go here:

Theme Guide :: A Just Foreign Policy

To catch the ones above and a few more, all in the same issue, and online.

Superpower? Get Over It

Five years into the occupation of Iraq, the American public has had it. Add in an overstretched economy, spreading nuclear arms, climate disruption, and scrambles for scarce resources, and many are ready to ditch the superpower role and join a world of equals to confront our common challenges.

bet you thought I was through passing on some good reads and important information, well I'm not

The ACLU Releases Navy Files On Civilian Casualties In Iraq War (7/2/2008), this will take you to the Press Release.

Public Has A Right To Unfiltered Information About The Human Cost Of War, ACLU Says

Today's documents are available online

Attorneys involved in this project are Bargzie, Ben Wizner and Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU National Security Project. In a separate lawsuit, the ACLU sued for records concerning the abuse of prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. To date, that request has resulted in the release of more than 100,000 pages, all of which are available online

And another documentary of importance:

The Trailor

ON THE LINE is an inside look at the people behind one of the largest nonviolent movements in America today: the movement to close the School of the Americas/WHINSEC, a U.S. Army school that trains Latin American soldiers. In a world where politics, passion, and Constitutional rights collide, protesters discuss their activism, the dark side of U.S. foreign policy, and the challenges of protesting since 9/11.

The principal cast includes:

* Martin Sheen, actor

* Susan Sarandon, actor

* Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Founder of School of the Americas Watch

* John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman

* Bob Barr, political analyst and former US Congressman

* Gerry Weber, ACLU-Georgia

The film is 55 minutes long.

"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy