Fellow List members: I submit that not only do we pay a high price for our regressive transportation in terms of public health, wasted time. Money and energy resources due to traffic, but we also continue to finance and support terrorism as follows.
Furthermore, I submit that well-informed citizens here in Minneapolis can make a huge positive difference locally, nationally, and globally by taking action here in Minneapolis. (You might want to check out the following links for background. One is an article from the New Republic, "How to Fund a Terrorist: Oil Price" and the other is an EVWorld Article, "Ex-CIA Chief Woolsey Says Stop Fueling Terrorists": http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020909&s=easterbrook090902 http://www.evworld.com/databases/shownews.cfm?pageid=news120902-01 ) 1. We continue to buy at least $20 billion of crude oil annually from Saudi Princes who finance terrorists. We currently continue to pay several billion dollars a year to Iraq for oil, even though sanctions are in place. Every time we fill a gas tank, we send money to people who, one way or another, insure that some of that money goes to support terrorism. 2. We (the USA) continue to prop up oppressive regimes such as that in Saudi Arabia, and are also responsible for supplying Saddam Hussien with most of his military hardware as well as the biological and chemical materials which he "used on his own people" with continuing support from Reagan and George H. W. Bush (See Kurt Nimmo's "Hating Saddam, Selling Him Weapons" at: http://counterpunch.org/nimmo0919.html ) Most people of these countries hate us for establishing, supporting, and manipulating these regimes, using them for our purposes, then destroying them if they get out of hand. Not only did we prop up evil, oppressive regimes such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, but now we take opium-dealing warlords who think nothing of rape and mass murder for our allies to displace the Taliban when it turns on us, of course. The USA has killed far more people in Afghanistan alone in the past year than died on September 11, 2,001 -- in addition to propping up a new oppressive hastily-assembled rag-tag regime. Who do you think is terrified of us? Who do you think might be enraged in Afghanistan? In Saudi Arabia? In Iraq? How about Egypt or Palestine? The USA uses Israel as a huge military proxy in the region, supplying hundreds of billions of dollars worth of arms and ignoring weapons of mass destruction, terrible crimes committed against Palestinians, and numerous violations of UN resolutions. This has already seeded generations of Arabs with hatred for the USA. The awful effects of this hatred and despair will not be undone for generations. Of course, Israel is mighty handy to multinational oil corporations who get the crude oil to refine to keep your gas tank topped off here in Minneapolis, Minnesota! 3. In order to keep control of the oil supply which lubricates our economy, the USA has turned "the War on Terrorism" into a convenient and expensive cover to secure the oil supply in the Middle East. Our nation is once again running up huge deficits -- hundreds of billions of dollars so far, and much, much more to come. Keep in mind that all of this is to keep you consuming petroleum products right here in our little corner of the "free world." Look at the links between our current record military spending, which brings deficits to us as taxpayers and terror to the rest of the world, and the war in Iraq, and oil. (Cf, for example: An interview with the Nobel-Prize-winning head of Physicians for social Responsibility, Dr Helen Caldicott http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6379 ) 4. The real eco-terrorists we support in Minneapolis are not tree-huggers in amongst the Redwoods, of course, but rather are the folks who encourage our addiction to petroleum, so that we spew out increasing amounts of greenhouse gasses and toxic wastes from the tailpipes of more and bigger and increasingly gas-guzzling machines. These people are not at all unlike the tobacco industry executives who denied that there was any harm in smoking long after we all knew better. These people have helped to insure that my young son -- like so very many other children, have developed asthma from living an increasingly polluted city. The "Asian Brown Cloud" may cover an area the size of the USA with a two-mile think blanket of pollution caused in great part by increased auto exhaust, but then that only affects the 3 billion people living around that part of the Indian Ocean, right? Do we in Minneapolis, Minnesota care that these mostly poor people, mostly darker-hued people suffer more illnesses and lose more vulnerable children or elderly people to death caused by this pollution? (See many websites, for reference including: http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.cfm?DocID=82 ) Do you think that the people there are terrified of us as we consume and pollute our way into a stupor here in Minneapolis, Minnesota? Do you think anyone living in that region of the world the (geographic) size of our nation resents the way we strategize and manipulate "the new world order" to benefit our economy despite the effect it has on them? 4. Our military hardware -- designed and made in and around Minneapolis --continues to kill innocent civilians worldwide -- from cluster bomb "bombies" still exploding in Southeast Asia to depleted uranium warheads in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo increasing cancer rates, especially among children. Many of the cluster bomb bomblets still killing and maiming innocent civilians in SE Asia today -- 30 years after they were dropped -- were dropped for no other reason than that the bombers had been diverted from their original missions by weather or enemy fire, and were ordered to simply "dump" the munitions anywhere to avoid the risk of landing with a full load of bombs. (cf., e.g. -- http://www.itvs.org/bombies/ ) The Bomblets inn SE Asia came from Honeywell in Minneapolis, while some of the depleted uranium munitions come from AlliantTech's plant in the western suburbs. Can you imagine why people might hate us? Can you imagine how it must have felt to see warplanes drop bombs on you and your village for no reason at all? Can you imagine living with the live munitions hidden everywhere by the tens of thousands, exploding by the thousands each year when a farmer steps on one, or when a child discovers a small bomblet that looks like a toy? Can you imagine knowing that the radioactive dust spread by depleted uranium in the bombs the USA uses is in the soil, water, and air of your village, and that it is responsible for increased cancer -- terrible suffering and death amoung the children of your area? (Check out: http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/du.htm ) Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark is spearheading an effort to stop the use of these evil weapons that keep on causing illness and death to our soldiers and to innocent noncombatants all around the world? Clark delineates suffering caused to our own troops and their families which is astounding -- let alone the suffering caused to civilians. But, oh, these weapons are effective at keeping you addicted to gasoline! Do you know or care how many people are harmed or killed so that you can continue to drive that little environmental machine gun called an internal combustion engine across town and back? Many people around the world know that these bombs so casually used on them came from the USA -- special delivery from Minneapolis, MN, courtesy of the most terrifying war machine on the planet. Who is terrified? Who feels powerless? Is it mostly *us* in Minneapolis, or could it be *them* in Laos, in India? O those in Afghanistan where that long-desired pipeline will now be placed so that you can drive a toxic-waste generator all through the town? We Minneapolitans support terrorism every day as we employ people to develop and make such weapons of mass destruction in and around our city. We support the eco-terrorism of the military-industrial complex and the eco-terrorism of the petroleum industry. What it costs for you to drive your car is: -- terrible pollution-induced illness -- the violence of war -- the use of nuclear weapons -- the use of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction by proxies of the US military establishment -- the despair, terror and rage induced in people all over the world -- more terrorism rooted in the poverty, despair, and rage worldwide Our local political leadership is bogged down with the status quo, building more freeways and providing infrastrucure rooted in the economic and political realities of the past, which are increasingly untenable, expensive, and oppressive. I believe that what is worse is that our national leaders have been carefully "selected" (not elected) to do the bidding of the military and economic interests they have served all of their lives. They will work to quash efforts to develop alternatives to the narrow interests they represent. "We the people" must demand to have our lives, our city, our state, and our nation back again. How do we do this? We need to take steps locally to liberate ourselves from this quagmire. Doing this will not only benefit our local economy, but will help to provide energy and models for the rest of the country and the world. We need to do the following: 1. Liberate ourselves from the petroleum economy. This process is complex and will take time, but it is doable. We have the technology now, but need the vision, will and leadership to make the radical change. Every time you turn the key to start a fossil-fuel engine, you are paying for terrorism and eco-terrorism. The alternative is to move toward active transportation and transportation using clean energy sources efficiently. We can develop many alternative fuels locally, and can increase use of human power & clean electric power for transportation. Eventually -- in 10 to 20 years -- hydrogen will be a major power source, but we must to act now with the technology we already have. (cf Woolsey, cited earlier, and also, for example: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.10/hydrogen.html ) 2. We must liberate ourselves from the military-industrial complex which dominates our current economy. We in Minneapolis need to develop small businesses that focus on the problems of providing sustainable energy, food and water to people, rather than on creating and distributing more terrifying weapons which will only earn Minneapolis a reputation as Hell's Own Kitchen around the world. Too often when I put my son to bed at night, he is wheezing from asthma. It is difficult for us to afford medicine, and I don't know how we will pay for a nebulizer if we need that. (My wife and I both work very hard, but the only kind of health insurance we can afford has a very high deductible.) I do know that I will not sit back and watch him, my daughter, and their generation grow up increasingly poisoned by the toxic environment we are creating here every day. The poison is in the air, water, and soil. It is also in the hearts, minds, and souls of people all over the world. We are poisoning our planet with toxic chemicals and our species with terrible hatred and fear. And we are being taxed to do that. We, the ordinary citizens of Minneapolis, are terrorists to too many around the world. We must change now. What is the old word for it....repent....? And if there is a new (R)evolution, can we make it a peaceful one? Another world is possible. -Gary Hoover King Field _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
