NATO, Ukraine, and US Foreign Policy: A Capsule summary in a power point

 

https://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx?resid=9576D2290F69B52F!2650&ithint=file%2cpptx&authkey=!AIMAF7JrVKYeGTs

 

UKRAINE: WHERE WE ARE TODAY

Harry Targ

“The United States and its allies are making preparations for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine, officials said, as the Biden administration attempts to deny Russia victory by surging military aid to Kyiv while scrambling to ease the war’s destabilizing effects on world hunger and the global economy.”

“The decision to supply Ukraine with increasingly sophisticated arms such as anti-ship missiles and long-range mobile artillery — capable of destroying significant military assets or striking deep into Russia — reflects a growing willingness in Western capitals to risk unintended escalation with Russia.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/06/17/long-war-ukraine/

From the Cuban Missile Crisis Moment

The story published in the semi-official Washington Post on June 17, suggests once again that the United States and allied countries have no intentions of negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine.

An alternative approach to endless war, and/or nuclear war, is diplomacy and creating the environment for negotiations with all parties to the Ukrainian war.  And prioritizing negotiations means “everything is on the table.” Great power confrontation between the former Soviet Union and the United States over Soviet missiles assembled on Cuban soil in 1962 may be an apt historical experience worthy of study. Studies of the Cuban Missile crisis suggest several things:

1.Informal negotiations were going on between spokespersons from the Soviet Union and the US during the crisis.

2.Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union, made compromises at great personal political costs.

3.President John Kennedy reluctantly agreed to dismantle a base in Turkey (that was obsolete).

4.In the aftermath of the crisis, with estimates of a 50/50 chance for nuclear war, Khrushchev called for “peaceful coexistence” and even JFK at American University endorsed tension reduction with the Soviet Union.

5.While JFK took another Bay of Pigs invasion off the table, Cuba was not consulted about the agreed defusing of the crisis. (Of course a US crippling economic blockade of Cuba remains).

And the Relevance for Today?

Among the lessons to be learned from the Cuban Missile crisis are the following:

1.Nuclear war has a high probability as long as “big powers” have nuclear weapons

2.Negotiations are an essential feature of conflict reduction even though the deep structures of global conflicts remain.

3.Both the Soviet Union, pulling the missiles out of Cuba, and the US, privately promising to close the Turkish base, facilitated ending the crisis.

Addressing the issue of Russian troop withdrawal, and even more so, stopping the violence have to be on the table for negotiations. Also, for sure, an end and reversal of the transfer of US/NATO arms must be on the table. In addition the issues of NATO membership, the EU, the autonomous regions, and Crimea would inevitably have to be discussed.

In my opinion the peace movement still must demand that the fighting stop, the arms transfers stop, and negotiations begin. Admittedly this is  a long shot but what the US is doing now, the opposite, is precisely a recipe for disaster in Ukraine and the world. https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2022/05/on-graduated-reciprocation-in-tension.html

In the longer term, the peace movement should begin to map out a vision of what we used to call “a New World Order”. It should include a revitalization of the UN system that gives the General Assembly more power, addresses fundamental global economic and climate issues, and establishes a new global security system that does not give legitimacy to regional military pacts instead of UN mandated security arrangements. Revisiting the impacts of regional economic organizations on global economic justice, such as the European Union, should be part of such reconsideration. In short, this could be a time for reconsidering a broken system of international relations: military, economic, climate, etc.

Finally, militarism again is expanding in the US, penetrating every institution in our society. I self-servingly post a link to one example of this, the university. And it is convenient timing now that “Top Gun, ” a movie of high tech militarism is being shown around the country.

https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-militaryindustrial-academic-complex.html

 

 

 

THE MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL ACADEMIC COMPLEX: a case

 https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/06/15/while-its-humanities-programs-suffer-from-budget-cuts-purdue-university-increases-its-focus-on-the-military/

GROTESQUE MILITARY SPENDING BROADLY OPPOSED: STILL TRUE TEN-YEARS LATER?

    Harry Targ originally posted July 18, 2012

Like a festering cancerous growth that has not been exorcised from the body politic for over sixty years, militarists continue to defend escalating military spending. This time it is former Vice President Dick Cheney visiting Washington to encourage his fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives to stand tall and oppose any cuts in military spending.

Of course, military imperatives have a long history. NATO was formed in 1949 and     the United States militarily and financially was its anchor. National Security Document 68 in 1950 called for military spending to be every president’s top priority. With subsequent “crises” in Korea, the Persian Gulf, the Caribbean, Indochina, Southern Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending continued to grow, taking up about half of all discretionary government spending.

Anticipating changes in challenges to U.S. global hegemony, President Carter in 1980 called for the establishment of a “Rapid Deployment Force” which could quickly move into trouble spots to address threats to allied regimes. Such a RDF might have prevented the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Carter’s advisers argued. President Reagan, of course, boosted military spending beyond the costs of the entire historical period before he came into office. And President Clinton, remained committed to being able to fight one and half wars and to be able to engage in “humanitarian interventions.”

The Bush Administration began a shift in defense doctrine even before the 9/11 tragedy was used to justify two huge, long, and unwinnable wars. Defense intellectuals warned of an “arc of instability” all along the equator from the northern portion of Latin America, to North Africa, the Persian Gulf and East Asia. With this new threat the military needed to be transformed into a new high speed force to move on a moment’s notice to any threatened area; a new high tech RDF.

After 9/11 the Bush Doctrine considered any military action as justified if the U.S. perceived that an enemy, state or non-state actor, might be considering an attack on the United States. The new high tech RDF required literally hundreds of military installations on every continent. Given the new technology, these bases did not have to be mini-cities like the old Cold War military installations of the past. And as Chalmers Johnson, Nick Turse, and others have documented, close to 1,000 military bases were in place before Bush left office.

David Vine, an anthropologist, (“The Lily-Pad Strategy: How the Pentagon Is Quietly Transforming Its Overseas Base Empire and Creating a Dangerous New Way of War,” at TomDispatch.com, July 17, 2012) uses an interesting metaphor, the lily-pad, to describe the latest generation of U.S. global military bases. The metaphor, Vine says, comes from the military who conceptualize bases as lily-pads, where like frogs, troops alight then jump across a pond to attack their prey. Vine describes the ‘lily-pads” as “small, secretive, inaccessible facilities with limited numbers of troops, spartan amenities, and prepositioned weaponry and supplies.”

He points out that while hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan are being closed, the lily-pads are expanding. Consequently, the U.S. today still has some kind of military presence in 150 countries on every continent, 11 aircraft carrier task forces, and untold space-based military capabilities. So while the troops are being brought home, unbeknownst to the American people, the U.S. global military presence is growing.

In Vine’s words: “Beyond their military utility, the lily-pads and other forms of power projection are   also political and economic tools used to build and maintain alliances and provide privileged U.S. access to overseas markets, resources, and investment opportunities.”

Although this story is not new, Vine suggests that opposition to military doctrine and spending is growing, an opposition that peace activists might use. “…. overseas bases have recently begun to generate critical scrutiny across the political spectrum from Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul to Democratic Senator Jon Tester and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. With everyone looking for ways to trim the deficit, closing overseas bases offers easy savings. Indeed, increasingly influential types are recognizing that the country simply can’t afford more than 1,000 bases abroad.”

A recent survey sponsored by the Program of Public Consultation, the Stimson Center, and the Center for Public Integrity reinforce the argument Vine is making about military spending. In April, 2012 a representative sample of respondents from Democratic and Republican (Blue and Red) districts were asked their opinions about cutting military spending in 2013. Respondents were given arguments in support of and opposition to such spending before they answered questions. In so-called Blue districts 80 percent of respondents supported defense spending cuts and 74 percent of those in Red districts also supported the cuts. In addition, respondents in Congressional districts which received high levels of defense spending contracts were as supportive of the cuts as those in districts where DOD spending was lower.

The Director of the Program for Public Consultation, Steven Kull said that “The idea that Americans would want to keep total defense spending up so as to preserve local jobs is not supported by the data.”

Perhaps more Americans than one expects are aware of the fact that military spending, as economists have claimed, is a job killer. United For Peace and Justice, advocating active opposition to reversing the military spending cuts agreed to by Congress in 2011, has pointed out that $1 billion in government spending for the military creates 11,200 jobs, while an equal amount spent for creating clean energy would create 16,800 jobs, and education 26,700 jobs.      

Now is a good time for peace activists to expand education about the history of unchallenged military spending, continued military basing all across the globe, the use of high technology and mobile troop formations to intervene everywhere, the consequences of military spending for making the world a more dangerous place, and the costs, not only in lives overseas but to a basic standard of living at home. The survey data indicates that a progressive peace majority might be ready to listen and act.

https://heartlandradical.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-presentation-on-united-states-foreign.html

The United States Escalates War in the Heartland of Europe By Sending Advanced Rockets: Makes Diplomacy More Difficult

Harry Targ

 

President Biden on Tuesday confirmed that his administration is sending medium-range advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, responding to a top request from Ukrainian officials who say the weapons are necessary to curb the advance of Russian forces in the east. (Rachel Pannett, John Hudson, “Biden confirms U.S. is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine”. Washington Post, June 1, 2022)

 “America’s goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression.” President Joe Biden.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.html

 

“Adversaries around the globe are becoming more sophisticated. To protect soldiers, citizens and infrastructure, our customers require the most advanced tactical missile capabilities. The Lockheed Martin High Mobility Artillery Rocket System is a strategic capability, improving homeland and important asset defense while reducing overall mission costs”(HIMARS: Protecting our soldiers with combat proven reliability)

\https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/high-mobility-artillery-rocket-system.html#:~:text=High%20Mobility%20Artillery%20Rocket%20System,Lockheed%20Martin

Opposing Imperialism and War at the Same Time

The peace movement has often been faced with a dilemma. Should it channel its energies in opposition to imperialism, including economic expansion and covert operations, or should it mobilize against war, or both. The problem was reflected in President Obama’s August 5, 2015 speech defending the anti-nuclear proliferation agreement with Iran.  On the one hand he defended diplomacy as the first tool of a nation’s foreign policy and on the other hand his defense included the argument that through diplomacy the United States “won” the Cold War, and thereby defeated a bloc of states that opposed capitalist expansion. The implication of his argument was that pursuing imperialism remained basic to United States foreign policy but achieving it through peace was better than through war.

The speech was presented at American University 52 years after President Kennedy called for peaceful competition with the former Soviet Union. In June, 1963, nine months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, which nearly led to nuclear war, and weeks after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s call for “peaceful coexistence,” President Kennedy responded by urging the use of diplomacy rather than war in the ongoing conflict with the Soviet Union. 

A small but growing number of scholars and activists in the early 1960s had begun to articulate the view that the threat of nuclear war, growing U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, and repeated covert interventions in Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, and the Congo, had to do with U.S. imperialism. The dilemma for the peace movement in 1963 then as it is in 2022 is how to respond to United States imperialism at the same time as supporting the use of diplomacy to forestall wars.

The Two Strands of Imperial Thought: Neoconservatism and Humanitarian Interventionism Lead to the Same Policies

Despite differences in political discourse since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, “neoconservative” and “humanitarian interventionist” factions of the foreign policy elite, have continued to advocate policies that have retained war as a central tool of US global goals. (This tool, of course, is a centerpiece of pressure from the arms industry). Therefore, any foreign policy initiative that reduces the possibility of war and arguments about its necessity should be supported by the peace movement. In 2015, the agreement with Iran endorsed by most countries except Israel constituted an effort to satisfy the interests of Iran and the international community without the shedding of blood and creating the danger of escalation to global war. 

Neoconservatives, celebrants of war, have had a long and growing presence in the machinery of United States foreign policy. James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense in the Truman Administration, was a leading advocate for developing a militaristic response to the Soviet Union in the years after World War II. As historian Andrew Bacevich pointed out, Forrestal was one of the Truman administrators who sought to create a “permanent war economy.” He was, in Bacevich’s terms, a founding member of the post-World War II “semi-warriors”.

Subsequent to the initiation of the imperial response to the “Soviet threat” --the Marshall Plan, NATO, wars in Korea and Vietnam, the arms race--other semi-warriors continued the crusade. These included the Dulles brothers (John and Alan), Air Force General Curtis LeMay, and prominent Kennedy advisors including McGeorge Bundy and Walter Rostow, architect of the “noncommunist path to development,” in Vietnam.

Later, key semi-warriors such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Elliott Abrams, Robert Kagan, and others formed the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) in the 1990s. They had gained their first experience in the administrations of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. The PNAC view of how the United States should participate in world affairs is to use military superiority to achieve foreign policy goals. The key failure of Clinton foreign policy, they claimed, was his refusal to use force to transform the world. For starters, he should have overthrown Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The neoconservative policy recommendations prevailed during the eight years of the George Walker Bush administration. International organizations were belittled, allies were ignored, arms control agreements with Russia were rescinded and discourse on the future prioritized planning for the next war. And concretely the United States launched long, bloody, immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Humanitarian interventionists, more liberals than conservatives, argued that the United States should use force, but more selectively than proposed by the neoconservatives, to achieve varied goals. Their goals included interventions that allegedly defended the quest for human rights. Although, advocates of humanitarian interventionism argued that the United States must use all means available, military and diplomatic, to maximize interests and values, force need not be the first or only instrument of policy. 

But in the end the humanitarian interventionists encouraged bombing Serbia, intervening in a civil war in Libya, funding rebels perpetuating war in Syria, expanding military training and a U.S. presence in Africa, and funding opposition elements against the government in Venezuela. In addition, with advice from humanitarian interventionists, the United States increased the use of drones to target enemies of U.S. interests in East Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East.

In the United States both neoconservatives and humanitarian interventionists have led the charge for war-making since World War II. Between the end of that war and the 1990s, 10 million people died in wars in which the United States had a presence. Hundreds of thousands of young men and women serving in the armed forces of the United States have died or been permanently scarred by U.S. wars. And the physical landscapes of Southeast Asia, the Persian Gulf, Central America, and the Middle East have been devastated by war. And in the United States, foreign policy elites, politicians, and think tank experts still advocate violence to address international problems. 

And the War in Ukraine Today

 Charles Osgood, a social psychologist, developed his strategy of Graduated Reciprocation in Tension Reduction or GRIT in the 1960s. He claimed it worked during the Cuban Missile Crisis and others have claimed that it has worked in other conflict situations such as US/Iranian negotiations. https://savinghumans.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/building-a-spiral-of-trust-through-grit/

GRIT’s basic point is to get one side, in this case US/NATO/Ukraine, to make some serious but not risky unilateral moves inviting the other side to reciprocate. (And that is where peace movement activism and pressure might come in.) And such de-escalatory moves should be continued but not to endanger the security of the initiating party. (And the recent conversation between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu was one example which has apparently not been continued).

The GRIT strategy would suggest that the Russians might eventually stop the killing, perhaps order troops in place, and/or pull back some troops.  One critical goal would be to get a number of nations to send representatives to negotiate a ceasefire and further tension-reduction. In this case the Minsk Accords might be a starting place.

GRIT may not work but is worth a try. And if one looks at the GRIT strategy for tension-reduction US policy is now doing just the opposite; that is the US is escalating by word and deed including more threats, more demands, more arms, and more calls for expanding the scope of the conflict.

And it is in this context that the announcement by President Biden that the United States is sending medium-range advanced rocket systems to Ukraine is a move in the wrong direction. If it is true, as Biden’s New York Times editorial claims, that he wants negotiation to end the war in Ukraine he is carrying out policies that are the direct opposite to a de-escalatory strategy suggested by Osgood and others. And President Biden has put the humanitarian interventionist gloss on the escalatory policy by declaring that the US goal is to support a  “democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine.”

So, while social psychology is not political economy or realpolitik, it might help end the killing. And for the peace movement stopping the killing and reducing the threat of global nuclear war means prioritizing “talks not war,”

http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/antisocial-behavior/grit-tension-reduction-strategy/

In sum, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is deplorable and the issues between all contending parties are more intractable today than the negotiations with Iran referred to above. And yesterday’s announcement of the reported US transfer of the new round of weapons to Ukraine has deepened the conflict beyond the Russian invasion of February 25. Russia’s engaging in violence and destruction, and the United States and NATO supplying arms to Ukraine, can only lead to more death, hunger, and the danger of escalation to nuclear war.

Therefore, in the context of a huge arms industry and global economic and political interests, any presidential initiative that uses diplomacy rather than force, declares its opposition to unilateral action, and challenges the war mindset deserves the support of the peace movement. And any military escalation should be opposed.

 

 https://tribune-diplomatique-internationale.com/mouvement_pour_la_paixdissolution_de_lotan/

 https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/04/28/peace-movement-needs-to-demand-dismantling-of-nato/#comments

 

 

A Presentation on United States Foreign Policy/Ukraine/NATO at the Unitarian Church, West Lafayette, in

 

NATO and Imperialism may 2022final (002).odp

 SOME OLD MEMORIAL DAY STUFF

 Salamis, Not Bombs

Send a salami to the troops.

Memorial Day:
'Salamis, not bombs'

By Harry Targ / The Rag Blog / May 29, 2011

Since I live in North Central Indiana I use every opportunity I can to import bagels from Chicago. In the past I have publicly defined socialism as including “bagels for all” (particularly garlic or onion ones). Also I have written about the political economy of the bagel , arguing on good authority that during periods of intense class struggle workers have used day old bagels as weapons against the ruling class.

On a recent visit to a Chicago area bagel bakery, I came across a big sign in front that puzzled me. The sign said:

Naborhood* Bagel and Delicatessen
Join Naborhood and
the USO Sending
A Salami to the Troops

(*Fictitious name.)

My first reaction was to laugh. This sign sounded pretty funny. But on reflection I began to ask myself what it meant. I began to think of different responses to the question and, after I sent out a picture of the sign, some of my friends offered their views on the subject as well.

One interpretation, the patriotic one, suggests that the delicatessen wishes to mobilize all its customers to support our troops in Afghanistan. From a delicatessen point of view, sending salamis is a way that it could support the troops. Salamis could reflect support for the troops alone or for the troops and the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

Another, perhaps more neutral, interpretation is about selling salamis, using the patriotism in the old neighborhood to make a few extra bucks. Since the salamis they sell are really good, it could entice troops and Afghan peoples to want more salamis. Before you know it, they could be hooked on them. Who knows: bagels could be next. But this view, I think, is unfairly harsh in its evaluation of the motivations of the delicatessen; too economistic.

Finally, it can be argued, and frankly this was my first thought, that the delicatessen saw the U.S. war in Afghanistan as a mistake that had to be ended as soon as possible. The salami, from this perspective, was a metaphor for a “dud,” a smelly, greasy, and heavy food that can lead to ulcers or heartburn. The 10-year war in Afghanistan therefore was a colossal heartburn in the body politic. (One of my friends wrote that Bush and Obama already had sent Afghanistan the salami.)

This intellectual puzzle, I realized, reflects the various ways in which the sign could be interpreted. Perhaps the delicatessen owners wanted to create a mental construct that could be appreciated by every side of the issue.

That is classic American politics. I bet the Democrats and Republicans who are debating resolutions on the war in Afghanistan in Congress right now would love to come up with a metaphor like this. Maybe Congress should pass an appropriations bill, HR 111: The U.S./Afghanistan Military Nourishment and Rehabilitation Act, or the Send Salamis to Afghanistan Act.

This Memorial Day, as we reflect on the pain and suffering that our wars have caused, perhaps we would all agree that sending salamis overseas is preferable to sending drones and bombs.

WORKERS' MEMORIAL DAY, 2014: WHAT WORKERS NEED

Harry Targ, Sunday, April 27, 2014

Progressive America Rising via Diary of a Heartland Radical

The stench is vomit-making as never before. The fat and plucks, the bladders and kidneys and bungs and guts, gone soft and spongy in the heat, perversely resist being trimmed, separated, deslimed; demand closer concentration than ever, more speed. A helpless, hysterical laughter starts up. Indeed, they are in hell; indeed they are the damned. Steamed, boiled, broiled, fried, cooked. Geared, meshed.

In the hog room,108 degrees. Kerchiefs, bound around their foreheads to keep the sweat from running down into eyes and blinding, become saturated; each works in a rain of stinging sweat. Almost the steam from the vats seems cloud-cool, pure, by contrast. Marsalek falls. A heart attack. (Is carried away, docked, charged for the company ambulance.) Other hearts pound near to bursting. Relentless, the conveyor paces on.

Slow it, we got to slow it. (Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio: From the Thirties, 1974)

American workplaces from the dawn of the industrial revolution to the recent past were living hells for workers.

Novelist and essayist Tillie Olsen described working conditions in meat-packing plants in the 1930s. Others have written about auto assembly lines, mines, textile assembly plants, and food-processing plants. Analysts such as Harry Braverman, in Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974), pointed out that employers have usually sought to control the minds and motions of workers. Profit-making has been seen as tied to controlling every movement of workers, the speed-up of production, and cutting costs for health and safety. After years of labor mobilization, the Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in 1970 to begin to address the problem of how dangerous it was to go to work each day.

Every April 28, workers across North America assemble to remember those workers who died or were injured on the job. Workers’ Memorial Day, initiated in the United States by the AFL-CIO in April, 1989, celebrates the inauguration of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (1970). Workers’ Memorial Day is about remembrances, reviews of progress toward safety and health, and re-commitment to making the workplace safer.

In April, 2013 the AFL-CIO issued its annual data-based report, “Death on the Job: the Toll of Neglect,” to review the current state of worker health and safety, given the administration of OSHA rules initiated over forty years ago. “Since that time, workplace safety and health conditions have improved. But too many workers remain at serious risk of injury, illness or death as workplace tragedies continue to remind us.” These tragedies have occurred in mines, oil refineries, fertilizer plants, meat-packing plants, manufacturing facilities, and on construction sites.

The AFL-CIO report indicated that 4,693 workers were killed on the job in 2011 (13 workers per day). Over 3.8 million work-related injuries were reported with unofficial estimates of such injuries doubling or tripling that total. Particular sub-groups, such as Latino workers and those born outside the United States, experienced excessively high injury rates, presumably because of their fears of raising safety concerns within the workplace.

The report indicated that workplace inspections had decreased over the years because of budget constraints limiting the hiring of inspectors. Given the numbers, federal OSHA employees could be expected to investigate a workplace once every 131 years and state OSHA inspections can be expected every 76 years. Penalties for workplace violations also are inadequate to deter violations.

The Report indicated that budget allocations for OSHA must be dramatically increased, more laws must be passed to regulate the complex reality of workplace dangers, and worker rights to protest dangerous conditions at the workplace must be strengthened.

This year, Workers’ Memorial Day events will highlight demands to address contemporary issues of concern such as

-defending the OSHA process from political campaigns to reduce workplace regulations.

-requiring employers to establish work-site safety and health programs with worker participation to address enduring hazards.

-adding safeguards against respiratory diseases from silica, combustible dust, and Black Lung.

-protecting workers who seek to challenge workplace safety hazards, particularly for immigrant workers.

-passing more legislation such as the Protecting America’s Workers Act to expand protection for workers not yet covered by OSHA rules.

-increasing worker voices on the job including creating an environment that would allow workers to freely choose to form unions.

Earl Cox, Community Services Liaison, Northwest Central Labor Council, Indiana AFL-CIO, concluded as he announced the 2014 event that legislators must be made aware of workplace health and safety “…so when a vote comes up to slash funding for OSHA, they vote to protect workers and not corporate interests.” The AFL-CIO believes that “safety laws and regulations don’t kill jobs—but unsafe jobs kill workers.”

(For those living in Tippecanoe County, Indiana Workers’ Memorial Day events will occur April 28, Inside the Depot, Riehle Plaza, Lafayette at 5:15 p.m.)

REMEMBER THOSE WHO PROTESTED WAR ALSO!

Harry Targ, Monday 30, 2011

"In a society where it is normal for human beings to drop bombs on human targets, where it is normal to spend 50 percent of the individual's tax dollar on war, where it is normal...to have twelve times overkill capacity, Norman Morrison was not normal. He said, 'Let it stop.' "(a gravesite speech by John Roemer at the funeral of Norman Morrison quoted in Hendrickson, Paul. The Living and the Dead. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1996).

On November 2, 1965, Norman Morrison brought his daughter with him to the Pentagon. Outside the office of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Morrison set himself on fire to protest the escalating war in Vietnam. His daughter, Emily, somehow was passed to others and survived the flames. Morrison, however, died as he had lived, protesting the bombing of villages in South Vietnam, killing innocent men, women, and children.

I was part of an educational tour to Vietnam last March. We were taken to a powerful museum, known as the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. On the second floor an exhibit featured images of international solidarity with the Vietnamese people during the American war. Included there was a framed copy of an American newspaper account of Morrison’s self-immolation. Earlier, in Hue, we had seen an exhibit of the automobile used by a Buddhist Monk, Thích Quảng Đức, who killed himself in protest of the brutality of the Diem regime in South Vietnam. Presumably this act inspired Morrison’s tragic protest.

I had forgotten Morrison’s dramatic act, and the acts of several others who bravely sacrificed their bodies and lives to oppose the murderous war in Vietnam. Today, Memorial Day, 2011 I thought about Morrison, the exhibit at the Vietnamese Museum, and parallel acts of self-sacrifice.

First, on reflection, I am in awe of the courage and self-sacrifice of the acts of these brave and principled people. Yet, I wish they had not made the ultimate sacrifices they did and had put their courage and willingness to sacrifice to the long-term struggles of the peace movement to end war.

However, I believe we must “take back” Memorial Day from those who celebrate war, see sacrifice only from those who kill and die, and ignore the bravery of the men and women everywhere who fight to end war. We mourn those who were sent off to fight in ignoble wars in the name of the United States. Also we must declare Memorial Day as a day to remember all the Norman Morrison’s who have said “no” to war and empire.