Does Our President Fear the War Complex?

Would Obama Die for His Country?

Obama won the Presidency campaigning as a peacemaker but has approved $40 billion for arms sales to other countries in his first year in the White House compared to the $34.5 billion President G.W. Bush approved in his last year in office according to the US State Department. Bush, who blustered his way into war has been replaced by Obama, a smooth salesman for the US war complex, aka the military, industrial complex or defense industry. Obama has surged the number of troops in Afghanistan; deployed planes, cruise missiles and electronic attacks against Libya; and provided increasing amounts of arms to most of the countries in the Middle East, South Asia and most any other country that wants them.

The war complex relies on war and the threat of war to create their markets. Members of Congress, with defense plants and military bases in their states and districts and war complex contributions in their pockets, put defense spending cuts off-the-table while education, health care and other quality of life programs are cut to the bone. A Commander-in Chief that goes to war, okay sales and gifts of killing tools to almost any country that wants them and takes campaign contributions from the war complex is their kind of President. According to national security analyst Lawrence Korb, the baseline defense budget has grown for 13 straight years. Between fisca
l 1998 and 2011, the budget rose from $271 billion to $580 billion This doesn’t include war costs and the Afghanistan War alone costs us roughly $2 billion per week. The U.S. share of global military spending has jumped from one-third to one-half. If big money is made killing people is anyone exempt from being killed?

A lawyer friend was a White House Fellow assigned as an intern to top officials of the CIA in the late 1970s. A badge wielding agent came to my office and questioned me about his credibility for a top secret security clearance. My friend was in a position among the spooks to hear some inside stuff. Years later after a few drinks one evening he told me what he had heard about intelligence and military officials giving ominous messages to newly sworn in Presidents when they meet their Commander in Chief and explain to him their duty to provide him personal security and intelligence about national security.

Nowadays, national security bigwigs are from the United States Intelligence Community(IC) led by the Director of National Intelligence and includes top officers in military intelligence, the CIA and Secret Service. The IC collects and produces foreign and domestic intelligence, contributes to military planning, performs espionage and provides for the President’s personal security. They gather at the White House to brief the President on matters of national security like how he can authorize a nuclear attack with the black box brief case they present him. Finally, their spokesman lowers his voice in a sinister tone and says something like:

“Mr. President you are our new Commander-Chief and you have a very dangerous job. Four of your predecessors have been assassinated and six more survived assassination attempts. We will protect you but you must listen to us about matters of national security and cooperate with us for your personal safety. This video is about the safety issue.”

The new President is shown a video of John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

I learned that war is a killer and money maker as a young soldier in basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina in 1955. I enjoyed the running and calisthenics but bayonet and machine gun training made me realize what the military is all about. In bayonet training we attached our bayonets to our rifles and ran and stuck a dummy that was “the enemy”. Our trainers had experienced close up killing in Korea and they made us scream “kill, kill, kill” as loud as we could and stick the dummy as hard as we could. If we didn’t holler loud enough or stick the dummy hard enough we had to do all over again. A trainer shouted, “young soldiers this is what the Army is all about, kill or be killed!” I realized then the Army was not for me because I did not want to kill anyone and damn sure didn’t want to be killed.

Later we practiced shooting 30 and 50 caliber machine guns. When we finished the trainers shot up and wasted several boxes of ammunition. I asked my sergeant why they were wasting the expensive ammunition and he muttered, “Shut up young soldier, it’s the Army way.” Is this Obama’s way?

He has awarded 3 Medals of Honor to families of military personnel killed in
combat and said each “fallen hero…gave his life…his last full measure of devotion for our country.” Obama would be a global hero who risked his life for our country and people everywhere by saying “No” to war and the war complex.

OL' TIME RELIGION

Mother Made It New

My Mother loved her family and she loved Jesus. One of her favorite songs was Jesus Loves the Little Children and she followed a Southern tradition of picking a cute little nickname to be called by her grandchildren. She chose Sugar, perhaps hinting at “give me some sugar”, a down-home metaphor for giving or receiving a kiss from a child. A cherished early memory of Mother was her asking me to give her some sugar, which she often did. Sugar’s maiden name was Ruby May Bell which became Ruby Bell Turnipseed when she married my Daddy, George Turnipseed. She died at 83 in1993 from congestive heart failure and was a proactive, caring Christian all her life. She required my brother Sam and me to kneel by our bed-side and say a prayer every night before she tucked us in when we were little children.

Our regular nightly prayer was: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to God my soul to keep. God bless my Mother and Daddy dear and Heavenly Father draw me near. God bless me now and help me make a good little boy for Jesus sake. Amen.”

When I was a naughty boy my mother didn’t hesitate to whip my little behind. Mother’s favorite weapon for punishing us was a switch she made from a small branch cut out of a bush that would sting my bare legs below my little boy’s shorts. The switching I remember the most was when I was about 7 years old and repeated the f---word in front of her. I heard it from an older boy and had no earthly idea what it meant. Mother said I had used a dirty word and must be punished, without ever explaining to me what was dirty about the f---word. I was confused and had no idea why saying the f---word required punishment and was a bad word like taking God’s name in vain. I understood that God D---and even damn were no-nos. It was okay to say darn-it, durn-it or dog-gone-it but not damn-it. My reaction from the misunderstood switching is my excuse for my life-long fondness for cursing. My wife Judy doesn’t like me using such four letter words either and wouldn’t watch South Park with me because Eric Cartman and his fourth grade classmates were “potty mouths” who used the s---word incessantly and other four letter dirty words. The f---word is dirty, lowbrow and illicit but if you use hifalutin words like sexual intercourse it is socially acceptable even though they mean the same thing. George Carlin was my hero for ridiculing the hypocrisy about seven dirty cuss words being socially unacceptable and even illegal when multi-syllable words with Latin roots were both socially acceptable and legal for radio and television.

Mother’s strong religious beliefs ran in the family. Mother’s Dad was the Reverend Frank O. Bell, known in our family as Poppa Bell. Poppa was a full-time carpenter and part-time preacher in the Church of the Nazarene who left the poverty of rural Mississippi and came to Mobile, Alabama to make a living. We lived in a western suburb of Mobile and Mother took us to Sunday School and Church every Sunday at the First Church of the Nazarene in Mobile. In those days the Nazarenes were mostly working class white folks who believed in salvation and sanctification and would wail, shout and moan when the Holy Ghost took hold of them.

At least once a year a big revival meeting was staged every night for a week with visiting evangelists and a gospel band putting on a big show for Jesus in a huge tent with sawdust on the floor that was set up next to the small brick church. The preachers shouted that you must be saved by Jesus or burn in hell. Either get right with Jesus or suffer everlasting damnation! When I was about 6 years old an evangelist gave the altar call for salvation as everyone sang Just As I Am Without One Plea, O' Lamb of God I Come To Thee. The preacher stood at the altar and waited for the sinners to come down, crying and moaning to be saved. But if you didn't come on down, he came out into the congregation after you.

The preacher, whose slick shiny hair glistened under the tent lights, came down to me sitting next to Mother who was saved and was waving her hand and singing along with her eyes closed. The preacher grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me and shouted, "Son, Are you saved, Are you saved?" I didn't really know, because I couldn't get the feeling it appeared the others had, as they mournfully wailed things like, "Oh, Yes, Sweet Jesus." Then the evangelist said, "Son, if a drunken driver crashes into your Momma's car on the way home and you and your Momma get killed, she will go to Jesus in Heaven where the streets are paved with gold, because she is saved--but you will burn in Hell forever!" By then I was afraid and crying, but still refused to feign the feeling of salvation. I had seen articles in the National Geographic Magazine with nice looking young children who were Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists and I did not think they were going to burn in Hell because they weren’t saved by Jesus. Even at that young age I sensed that something was wrong with religion that uses our greatest fear of the unknown -- the fear of death -- to frighten folks into salvation. I now understand that some religions use the fear of our mortality to prosper.

In Sunday School we studied Joshua and the battle of Jericho. God told his prophet Joshua to totally destroy the enemy. Joshua 6: 21 says, "...they (the forces of God led by Joshua) utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox, sheep and donkey, with the edge of a sword." Then God's forces burned the city and took the silver, gold, bronze and iron and put it in the "treasury of the house of the Lord". I couldn’t understand why God would tell his prophet to kill every living thing including little children. The teacher said it was to teach us obedience to God.

I told Mother that I was afraid and did not want to go to church anymore. Not long after that, we started attending the Methodist Church, where Jesus' salvation was still the only way to Heaven, but at least the Methodists didn't scare you so much with Hell and the Devil as the Nazarenes had. Daddy’s family was mostly Methodist and his cousin became a prominent Methodist minister and Bishop. I liked Jesus' instruction to “do unto other as you would have them do unto you.” I didn’t want to hurt anyone and did not want anyone to hurt me. But many of the Old Testament teachings were about killing people in the name of God. The Methodist church was more open, less narrow minded and saw good in other denominations and faith traditions. Mother became even more spiritual and faithful as a Methodist. She sang in the choir and never missed being there every Sunday. She believed in her faith and became an advocate and activist for peace and social justice who not only talked the talk but walked the walk.

Mother was a leader of the United Methodist Women of the Western North Carolina Methodist Conference and attended so many meetings at the Lake Junaluska Methodist Conference Center and Retreat in the Smoky Mountains that we teased her about the lake being holy water for her. Working with another church program she became an avid supporter of the United Nations and its efforts for world peace and went to New York to attend its sessions. She was much less nationalistic and provincial than most of her friends and neighbors and saw the importance of the United States working with other nations to find peaceful solutions to world problems.

Mother enjoyed visiting religious sites and events in the United States and elsewhere. My two brothers and I gave her a 60^th birthday trip to attend the Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria, Germany which is staged every 10 years.

Mother’s spirituality inspired my religious journey away from narrow fundamentalism to a belief in the inherent worth and dignity of all people, everywhere. My wife Judy and I attended United Methodist and then Presbyterian churches almost every Sunday (like Mother taught me) for several years until we became Unitarian-Universalists in 1983. I was a State Senator and a progressive candidate for Congress in 1980 when I was asked to speak at the Unitarian Church in Columbia, South Carolina and discovered that several of their members were volunteers in my campaign who shared my beliefs in social activism. We began attending, agreed with its non-sectarian agenda of “deeds not creeds” and became members. I’ve visited many churches and religious gatherings throughout South Carolina to promote progressive politics and social action. Some worship services try to frighten folks to Jesus, and some are boring, but many others are interesting and inspirational with charismatic preachers and happy gospel singers who fill you with joy. Their diverse ritual and entertainment styles remind me of my own evolving religious experiences.

Mother’s example created awareness in me of the importance of spirituality in our lives. Jesus might not be the only way to the truth, but he had the courage of his convictions to give his life in his non-violent struggle for peace and justice. The stories of Jesus in the New Testament portray him as a fearless martyr for social justice and he is probably the most worshipped religious icon in human history. Along with such great prophets as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus lived an exemplary life and died for the cause of peace and justice. I never thought of Jesus as my personal savior who would get me into Heaven when I die. But Mother did, and she started me on my journey toward understanding what life is about.

I am thankful for my family and friends who have helped me along the way, but most of all for my Mother who brought me into the world. Through the years her ol’ time religion grew into a new and stronger belief in the power of love and the inherent worth and dignity of all people.

SOPHIA STEPS UP

A SOCIAL ACTIVIST IN THE MAKING

The circus was coming to Columbia, South Carolina, with all its clowns, trapeze artists, tumblers, stilt walkers, and fire eating acts. Bears, elephants and ferocious lions would soon be riding bicycles, standing on their heads, balancing on balls and jumping through rings of fire. What fun! Lots of Sophia's  friends were planning to go with their families and several had asked her about it.  But Sophia had been talking 
to her Mom and reading about how animals are treated in the circus.  Newspapers, websites,and animal rights organizations have been reporting the many ways animals are suffering at the hands of their circus trainers in the most well known circuses, large and small, all over the country.  Living in inhumane conditions, housed in tiny cages and often in chains, the animals are tortured as a training method. Sophia had  read about them all. Her Mom wouldn't allow her on the websites with graphic videos or pictures--she is only 12--but she read the descriptions.


Sophia and her family don't go to the circus.  They don't want to support a form of entertainment that provides amusement for humans created out of the misery of the animals who perform.  But Sophia wanted to do more than boycott the circus; she wanted to make a bigger difference. She wanted to inform other people about why animal circuses shouldn't continue and why people should attend only circuses that don't involve animal acts--like Cirque Du Soleil.

Sophia decided to get involved, to stand up for what she believes in, to act on her values.  On Sunday she asked the minister if she could speak to the whole Unitarian Universalist congregation during the worship hour about her concerns.  Reverend Neal granted her request with great respect and so Sophia stood before us that Sunday morning and spoke from her heart.  She and her brothers, Nohl and Drew, and several friends, held up their homemade signs as she stepped to the mic and talked to us in words that could be heard to the far reaches of the sanctuary.  Sophia asked us to stand with her in front of the Carolina Coliseum holding our own homemade signs that next weekend and bring awareness to the community about circus cruelty.  She made a special appeal to the children of the congregation.

Tom and I vowed to go to honor Sophia's commitment. I learned volumes in the intervening week. Here's some of it.

Living Conditions The animals used by the circus once roamed free in the wild, living in family units by their natural instincts.  Once they join the circus, they are separated from their families--baby elephants torn from their mothers--and live the rest of their lives isolated, often in chains or ropes, and intensely confined in close quarters where they are forced to eat, sleep, defecate and urinate in the same place, usually on concrete. Diets are not what they would eat naturally; no thought is given to climate control so that they are exposed to extreme heat and cold and they rarely receive decent medical care from veterinarians qualified to treat exotic animals.

 Travel Ringling Bros. brags that its units travel more than 25,000 miles as they tour for 11 months of the year. Their own documents reveal that on average, elephants are chained for more than 26 hours straight and sometimes are continually chained for as many as 60 to 100 hours. Tigers and lions usually live and travel in cages that provide barely enough room for the animals to turn around, often with two big cats crammed into a single cage.

bullhook

Training Animals don't willingly perform the kinds of unnnatural acts you see in the circus.  They are painful, damaging to their bodies and make no sense to them.  Trainers use brutal techniques to break the animals' spirits and traumatize them into obeying their human trainers.  The fear-induced performances are a result of using sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, routine beating and other extreme methods. Bull hooks are driven into tender areas of an elephant's body, Electric shock, whips, baseball bats, blowtorches, pitchforks, and pipes are among the tools used to force the animals to cooperate.  Some animals are kept muzzled to subdue them and prevent them from defending themselves. Some are drugged to make them manageble and some have their teeth removed. Some bears have had their paws burned to force them to stand on their hind legs.

Circuses have been known to keep topsoil ready, to camouflage the wounds and the blood on the elephants.  Some actually employ someone to apply a powder to conceal the wounds and stop the bleeding of elephants that have been hooked too hard so that the injuries are not visible during the show.  This is called "spot work."

 The plight of elephants is the saddest, I think.  Elephants are majestic creatures who are intelligent and self-aware.  They are among the most socially-bonded animals on the planet and display a complex array of emotions, including grief and compassion.  They use tools, mourn their dead, and communicate with each other over vast distances through sound.  They are genetically designed to browse, constantly on the move for up to 18 hours out of the day, even when the food is readily available.One of the most common causes of elephant circus deaths is due to osteoporosis, a condition they suffer from simply because they do not have wide spaces to move around in.  For anyone who knows about elephants, seeing these complex, family-centered animals, chained and broken, performing demeaning tricks is simply heartbreaking.

Demostrating On the corner close to the fountain,  we demonstrators respectfully stood, careful not to block their path, holding up our signs as the circus goers entered the Coliseum.  There were enough of us to make an impact.  We had our homemade signs; others had printed signs, brochures, PETA CDs, coloring books and I'm An Ele-Friend stickers. Many of the rest of the folks assembled for three shows, but Tom and I were only able to make the Saturday morning one. A lot of the families passed us by without a glance, but a good many read our signs, took the literature and some even asked for the CD--including the policeman on duty. Nobody was ugly to us.
 


Sophia's family had awesome signs and great big smiles and her brother Nohl wore a chain in solidarity with the elephants.

 

 

       

What other people are doing Circuses are licensed by the USDA and they make unannounced inspections and investigate complaints of violations of the minimal standards of care of the Animal Welfare Act, leading to fines and even license revocations.  Standards cover housing, handling, transportation, sanitation, nutrition, water, veterinary care, and protection from extreme weather and temperatures. All major circuses have many citations on record--including convictions, with fines and revocations. However listings on their website are only through 2008, so it is hard to judge what improvements have been made.


Several animal rights organizations, PETA, The Fund for Animals, Born Free USA and the Animal Welfare Institute have sued in federal court against circuses, offering as evidence eye witness accounts of former circus employees and undercover films of training sessions showing the cruel methods.  Mostly they have been dismissed because of lack of standing of the plaintiffs. Many of them have ideas posted on their websites of ways you can help.  Check out Steps To Take When the Circus Comes To Town.


Because of concerns about animal mistreatment and public safety, a growing number of communities and even states are considering banning or restricting the use of animals in circuses.  Sacramento, California passed a new ordinance in 2010 which allowed the city officials to inspect and closely monitor the care of circus animals when the Ringling Bros.most recently came to town.

Meanwhile, countries around the world--Israel, Bolivia, Sweden, Costa Rica, Austria, Finland and India--have come forward to ban or severely restrict the use of animals in circuses.

Maybe, with courageous young social activists like our own Sophia Johnson to lead the way, our city will be the next to take action.
 

TOO FAT TO FIGHT

The Battle Against Obesity

Michelle Obama broadened the battle-front when she brought her war against childhood obesity to the largest U. S. Army training center at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. Fort Jackson’s official mission is to provide the Army with trained, disciplined, motivated and physically fit warriors who espouse the Army's core values. Obama told Army personnel at the Fort that our recruits are too obese and “it’s affecting our ability to protect our freedom.” The first lady’s too-fat-to-fight remarks at Fort Jackson reflect her passion for waging war against childhood obesity in America. “Let’s Move” is the battle-cry of her project that targets America’s obese children who rank number one in the world in fattiness. She asked the military officials to support the program to combat America’s obesity epidemic and told them, “You have to get the whole country behind this.” Ms. Obama’s purpose for coming to Fort Jackson was to determine how the military is dealing with the problem and how solutions might be transferred to the general population. 40 percent of the 129,000 recruits each year are overweight, and only one-quarter of would-be recruits between the ages of 18 and 24 could even get into the military, mostly due to their weight.

To cope with the increasingly corpulent corps the Army has installed a “Go for Green” program, featuring things like switching from soft drinks to a hydration station--whatever that is--and posting nutritional information about cafeteria choices. Kim Milano is the wife of the Fort’s commanding officer and a nutritionist who works to improve the soldiers’ diets and exercise programs. Milan said “A lot of this could be transferred to schools across the country,” as she and Obama visited one of the soldiers’ dining facilities. Lt. General. Mark Hertling, who is the Army’s deputy commander for recruits, said the problem begins when the recruits are kids and spend too much time watching television, using computers and eating fast food. He said today’s youth might be smarter, but they don’t engage in enough physical activities, like playing outside. “ It’s a generational thing,” he said, “and it’s going to be hard to change a whole generation.”

A spoofy solution might be for the First Lady to host a kids’ “Biggest Loser” show with General Hertling and Kim Milano featured as trainers for the fat children. It would get great exposure for her pet project of ending children’s and soldiers’ obesity and could contribute to her husband’s efforts to win a second term. General Hertling would be training the fat kids into shape so they won’t be too fat to fight when they grow up (rather than blow up) and will have the ability to fight to protect our freedom from lean and hungry Al-Qaeda and Taliban warriors.

But Americans have a bigger threat from the fast food industry than the Taliban. According to an in depth report on CBS Evening News in November, the fast food killers spent $30 billion dollars last year on advertising which claimed their products are healthy, with mouth watering visuals of giant Big Macs and Whoppers. Two-thirds of Americans, or more than 190 million, are overweight or obese. Obesity-related diseases are a $147 billion dollar medical burden every year and childhood obesity has tripled over the past thirty years. Nutrition experts predict this could be the first generation in America in over 150 years to have a shortened life expectancy.

The US obesity rate is the highest of any country, while nearly 2 billion people in the world are undernourished according to the UK Government Office for Science.

We not only lead the world in consuming fast foods and obesity rates, we also have a bloated military budget. US defense spending surpasses the next closest country by more than eight times. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that the U.S. military budget accounts for 43 percent of the world’s total military spending. US taxpayers pay for weapons supplied to countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, and South Korea among others. Our defense budget is $720 billion, including the Pentagon base budget, nuclear weapons activities and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Too fat to fight. Bloated bodies—bloated budget. Shape up our soldiers and our children. Reduce the size of the military. “Let’s Move.”