As we go into the fourth of July weekend, which is all about bombs bursting in air, fireworks and hotdogs, let us not get sucked up into the seductive militarism that tries to attach itself to this celebration of our revolution freeing us from the British, a celebration where, however, patriotism can get confused with imperialism, where power projection can get confused with national defense, and let us at least ponder, for a moment, what Major General Smedley Butler of the Marine Corps, in a lucid statement, once said:
WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. (source)
And now let us look at some people who also feel very strongly that war in general is not only wrong but horribly threatening and destructive to all sentient life on the planet, particularly at this stage in the planet's evolution, where resources for survival are dwindling and social problems magnifying exponentially. Let us look at people who not only talk the talk about a peaceful world, but walk the walk to create it.
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Friday, June 26, 2009
Norfolk, Virginia
I had the day off and overslept some, so I had to pick up the pace to get dressed and eat before I took off for the other side of Norfolk, at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base - the intersection of E. Little Creek Blvd. and Shore Drive to be exact. It was already hot outside when I rushed to my car and turned on the ignition. The weatherman was promising temperatures in the 90s today for all of Hampton Roads, Virginia and here it was at 8:00 am and it already felt like 80 degrees.
8:00 am! Damn, I'm late! The vigil starts at 8:00, so I would have to press the pedal to the metal some, roaring up Hampton Blvd toward Naval Station Norfolk, which is at the northern end of Hampton, but this was not my immediate destination, although it would be the ultimate one on this last day of this challenging five-day peace event from June 22-26 called "On the Road to No War: A Walk for Disarmament from Camp Peary to Naval Station Norfolk."
Previously this week a hard core band of peace and justice activists, both local and national, had 1) held a vigil at Camp Peary in York County, walked to the Gate 3 entrance of Yorktown Naval Weapons Station for a vigil and then on to a vigil at the entrance of Fort Eustis in Newport News Monday); 2) held a Tuesday, 8 am vigil at Langley Air Force Base West Gate in Hampton, followed by a long walk across town and on into Newport News for at Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding Headquarters; 3) held a Wednesday, June 24, 8 am vigil at Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon office buildings at 8000 Harbor View Rd. in the city of Suffolk, then walked to US Joint Forces Joint Experimentation and Joint Futures Lab for a vigil, then walked all the way into downtown Portsmouth to a vigil at Gate 16 of Norfolk Naval Shipyard; 4) held a Thursday vigil at the East gate of Fort Story in Virginia Beach, drove to a staging point, then walked the Main Gate of Dam Neck Annex for a vigil. So they had already walked over 40 miles before beginning today's long walk. Yes, there were some blisters and calluses!
I pulled into a big, largely empty parking lot for a mall complex across from the Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) at Shore and Little Creek. I could see some vigil signs and a flag rising above cars and through telephone poles and trees across the street as I parked and stepped out into the bright sun. Immediately north of me I saw several recognizable figures holding signs, Ann and Sara, Sara with her two kids:
Sara with one of her kids
The signs speak for themselves. Imagine what half a trillion dollars, a rough stab at the cost of devastating Iraq thus far, would do to help the destitute in America and elsewhere.
After talking briefly to the Sara and Ann, I crossed to the naval base side of the street where the bulk of the peace advocates were standing with their signs and posters, and Tom Palumbo with his Veterans for Peace flag fluttering in the slight breeze.
Plowshare activists in front of the Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk
