Peace Economy? What is it? Why do we need
one? How do we get there? These are some of the questions Peaceworks is out to
explore in 2012. We encourage you to join us in working for a sustainable
economy that puts all to work with meaningful, productive employment.
Today’s economy is highly militarized,
but it wasn’t always so. Prior to World War II, the United States demobilized
after each war. For the past seven decades, however, our economy has been on a
permanent wartime footing. We’ve squandered tax dollars like a drunken sailor
on shore leave. While our population is only 4.5 percent of humanity, we pay
for nearly half of the planet’s military expenditures. U.S. bases ring the
world—more
than a thousand of them—with a presence on
every continent, on every ocean, in the skies and outer space.
Hundreds of billions expended each year
on the Pentagon has led to under-investment in other areas. We see crumbling infrastructure,
failing schools, and a nation falling far behind Europe or China in efforts to
transition to sustainable energy technologies. And our wars and weapons are not
making us more secure.
Overall military spending, not counting
interest on the debt, is now in the range of $870 billion a year. When we
factor out the $117 billion earmarked for the Afghan and Iraq wars, our non-war 2012 military spending level, inflation
adjusted, is higher than all
military spending during
the peak of the Vietnam War (when we had more than half a million troops
deployed in southeast Asia). For more info, visit National Priorities Project and
War Resisters League.
Diverting so much money, year after year,
away from productive investment is deeply problematic. It’s clearly not our
only economic problem, however. A Peace Economy needs to be a Just Economy.
Currently, we face a seriously flawed tax code and a structural deficit. Tax cuts
for the wealthy leave us with too little revenue to pay our bills. We face
growing inequality, with the growth in income over the past three decades going
overwhelmingly to the richest Americans. Meanwhile, working class and middle
income citizens face mountains of debt and, if they are lucky enough to be
employed, a paycheck that barely keeps pace with inflation.
A movement for a Peace Economy would
address these concerns and reject the bipartisan push for austerity. While
selective cuts in spending, particularly in the military budget, are desirable,
the effect of general spending cuts, at a time when the economy is already
severely depressed, is a prolonged period of profound dislocation and real
suffering for tens of millions of people.
As Sen. Bernie Sanders said recently in a
Senate Budget Committee hearing, “This country does in fact have a serious
deficit problem, but the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars —
unpaid for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in this
country. It was caused by a recession as result of the greed, recklessness and
illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if those are the causes of the deficit, I
will be damned if we’re going to balance the budget on backs of the elderly,
the sick, the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”
We invite you to join Peaceworks in our
work for a more peaceful, just and sustainable economy. Please check out our
upcoming Peace Economy Film Series and our People’s Economics class. Consider
joining our Peace & Justice Committee. Please contact us for more info. Positive
change will only come when enough of us seriously engage the system in a sustained
way. Join us.
As almost everyone
knows, this Friday, Nov. 25, is "Black Friday," the day that kicks off the orgy
of American consumerism known as the "Holiday Season." It's a day
of "door-buster" sales and stampedes at malls and big box stores
around the country.
Many are rightly
critical of the excesses of seemingly mindless consumption. Some, led by the
Adbusters Foundation, have attempted to remake "Black Friday" into "Buy
Nothing Day," a day to take a holiday from consuming. For more info on BND
please see http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_Nothing_Day
We, here at
Peaceworks and the Peace Nook, respect the sentiment of BND. We also recognize
that the answer is not to avoid all shopping on one day of the year, but rather
to change our relationship with consumption more thoroughly. And to do so
year round, rather than on one particular day.
We all need to
consume some things. Most of us certainly can consume less. And most can make
changes in the mix of what we consume, as well as reexamine our attitude towards
consuming, so that it's a more deliberate process, rather than one that is
spurred on by advertising and the manipulation of
our desires.
It seems to us that
we each need to find our own healthy balance. Some of the general suggestions we
might offer regarding gifts and the holiday season include:
Buy local, when possible. Support your
community.
Buy durable goods that are produced in a
sustainable fashion. Avoid excessive packaging and products whose production
involves significant environmental pollution.
Buy things that are made using fair
labor practices, and, when buying imported goods from developing countries, look
for Fair Trade items.
Support non-profits and organizations
doing good work (this includes making donations in the name of a loved one in
lieu of buying things, especially for folks who might already have more things
than they need)
Give of
yourself. This can include making at least some of your gifts yourself and also
giving services (e.g. babysitting, massage, help with chores,
etc.).
SUPPORT THE PEACE NOOK: The Peace Nook, the
non-profit store operated by Peaceworks, meets a number of these criteria. We
are local and non-profit. We offer Fair Trade imports and environmentally
friendly products.
We are here for you,
our community. We wouldn't be here without your support. We really hope you will
choose to patronize the Nook during the holiday season, as your purchases at
this time of year are critical to our financial health and therefore to
Peaceworks ability to do educational and advocacy work.
If you are observing
BND, we respect this choice. We hope to see you when it works for you to come
down to visit the Nook on a different day.
If you are not
observing BND, and would like to visit us this Friday, we will be open. No, we
won't have any 4 a.m. door-busters, but we'll be keeping our usual 10 a.m.
to 9 p.m. hours.
We thank you, our
community, for 21 years of support and are hopeful that your support will
continue and grow. In many ways, shopping at the Peace Nook is a gift to the
community.
Here's an opportunity to come out for peace doing something fun and social. It's this Sunday afternoon, Nov. 20, gathering at 2:30 p.m. Bring friends. Bring family. Bring anyone you know who's for peace and loves a parade, especially not just watching, but being in one.
Join Peaceworks and our Columbia Peace
Coalition peace advocates in a walking and cycling contingent in
Columbia's annual Holiday Parade. This is a wonderful, positive way to
put our desire for peace before our community.
We welcome
participants of all ages. We are especially encouraging
parents and grandparents to bring children, as they represent our hopes
for a peaceful, just future. Strollers and wagons are most appropriate.
We should aim to gather by 2:30 p.m. The parade starts at 3 and, as the route is short, less than 3/4 mile, we should be done by 3:30. Our contingent is the parade is #4-D. We are to form up just west
of the Doctors' Park Building on the corner of E. B'way & William on
the south side of Broadway, about three blocks east of College Ave. If
this is at all confusing, please give us a call at 573-875-0539.
BASIC BACKGROUND: As part of the agreement this past summer to lift the debt
ceiling, Congress and the Obama administration agreed to a seriously flawed
deficit reduction process. They established a Super Committee (formally, the
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction), and charged this small group with
coming up with a plan to cut at least $1.5 trillion out of the projected
deficit over the next decade.
There are 12 committee members, three Democrats and three
Republicans from each house of Congress. They are supposed to come up with a
plan that at least seven of the twelve can agree to by Nov. 23. If such a plan
is agreed to, this will then be sent to Congress for straight up or down votes
(no amendments) in both houses. If either the committee cannot come to
agreement, or if their proposal is not supported by both houses, then an
automatic cut of $1.2 trillion, half from the military and half from
non-military spending will go into effect. (More on the committee at www.deficitreduction.gov)
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? There are several serious flaws in the
process:
1) The economy is in
the midst of a deep economic downturn, with real unemployment and
underemployment close to 20%. Cuts in government spending now, putting more
people out of work, would seriously hurt the chances for economic recovery,
prolonging the misery so many are now living through.
2) Due to repeated
tax cuts, benefiting primarily the most well to do and large corporations, we
have what economists call a “structural deficit,” meaning that even at full
employment, we fail to collect sufficient taxes to cover our expenses.
3) While there is
some wasteful spending, primarily in the area of wars and bloated military
budgets, as well as subsidies for dirty energy, most of our government’s
programs serve the interests of the vast majority of citizens. Social insurance
programs, environmental and consumer protection, education, transportation,
nutrition, housing and more should not be on the chopping block.
4) Balancing the
budget, at full employment, should be a priority, but this entails increasing
revenues. It can be easily done by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy,
eliminating tax loopholes benefiting corporations, treating unearned income as
income, taxing capital gains at the rate that wages or salaries are taxed,
and/or putting a tax on financial transactions. Unfortunately, the six GOP
members of the Super Committee have all signed a pledge not to support any tax
increases, period.
5) This means that
the committee, should it agree on anything, will be coming back with a
recommendation that relies entirely, or almost entirely, on cuts, most of these
to essential programs and services. The GOP is reportedly looking for $2.2
trillion in cuts, significantly more than is mandated, much of this to
essential programs. Those who are now hurting—virtually all of us, working
people, the elderly, students, the unemployed—all will be hurting more if these
draconian cuts are passed.
5) It’s not just the
Republicans who are putting social insurance and other essential programs on
the chopping block. According to our friends at NOW, “Not to be seen as tax-and-spenders, the Democratic members are
reportedly proposing a whopping $3 trillion spending cut. The Democrats' plan
would cut the Social Security COLA, make deep Medicare and Medicaid cuts, and
not raise close to enough revenues to even have a balance between budget cuts
and new revenues.
“Super committee members are reportedly ready to shrink your
Social Security retirement and disability benefits by reducing the
cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and are proposing to carve a big chunk out of
Medicare, placing a higher burden on seniors to pay for increasing health care
cuts. A Medicare cut would also be imposed on health care providers, meaning
that fewer doctors would want to care for seniors.”
THE 99% or THE 1%?
TIME TO OCCUPY OUR CONGRESS?
Over the past three decades, almost all the growth in real
income has gone to the most wealthy among us. Wealth and power are both now
more concentrated in the hands of a few than at any time since the Gilded Age.
It is this trend, brought into sharp relief by the financial collapse, that has
spurred the emergence of the Occupy Movement.
There are many threads that tie together the broad
dissatisfaction so many are feeling. It is not just that the big banks were
deemed “too big to fail” while working people—the little guys—were foreclosed
upon. It’s not just that not a single top bank, brokerage or insurance
executive has been convicted of anything, despite their obvious deception and
manipulation, all of which fueled the bubble and the crash. It’s not just that
tens of millions are underwater, deeply in debt due to untenable mortgages and
home equity loans. Nor is it simply that tens of millions more are buried under
a mountain of student loan debt even decades after finishing school.
Besides all of this, many millions of us are aware that the
political system is a stacked deck. Who gets nominated and who gets elected is
largely determined by money. With the well heeled doing most of the giving,
they’re getting most of the access. So, when Congress is preparing to make major
cuts that will affect all of us who make up the 99%, it is outrageous, albeit
not shocking, that the 1% end up with far more input than the rest of us put
together do.
WE NEED YOU TO JOIN IN SHIFTING THE BALANCE TO THE
PEOPLE:
It doesn’t have to be this way, but for it to change, we all
need to make some noise. We might not all need to physically “occupy”
Congressional offices, but it sure is a help when we show up there regularly,
and in significant numbers. That’s why Peaceworks and our Peace Coalition
allies have been turning out daily, for nearly four weeks now, for noon-hour
“Deliver a Message” meetings with the staffs of Sen. Claire McCaskill and Sen.
Roy Blunt.
We’ve been urging our senators to call on their Super
Committee colleagues to pursue a much different, more progressive, agenda that
includes significant additional taxation levied on those who can afford it,
ending the wars and making deep cuts in other wasteful military spending,
cutting subsidies to polluters, and keeping their hands off our needed
programs.
WE NEED YOU TO JOIN US: Now, as the Super Committee moves into the
home stretch, it’s imperative that we crank up the volume. We need many more
people to join us for the 45 minutes it takes (noon to 12:45 p.m.) to make
these daily visits. It would really help for the numbers to increase daily,
right up until Nov. 22.
It would be great if you could contact us in advance at
573-875-0539 or mail@midmopeaceworks.org
to let us know you’re coming, but it’s also fine to just show up any weekday
you can between 12 and 12:05 at the Wabash Bus Station at 10th and
Ash in downtown Columbia. (Note: Friday, Nov. 11 is a federal holiday, so the
offices will be closed.)
IF YOU CAN’T ATTEND IN PERSON: We urge everyone to communicate with our
elected officials. You will find addresses, phone numbers and web links for
both Missouri U.S. senators, and all three House members who represent
mid-Missouri at http://blog.midmopeaceworks.org/p/resources.html Please call and write to them today.
CONTACT THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS DIRECTLY: None
of the 12 Super Committee members are from Missouri, but given their central
role in making decisions that impact everyone in this country, it’s a good idea
for all of us to be calling and writing them too.
Super Committee Members and Contact Links for Senators:
House members do not take e-comments from people living
outside their districts. They can, however, be called by phone and all their
numbers are available at http://house.gov/representatives/
BECOME A MESSAGE AMPLIFIER: Share this message
with friends, family, neighbors, work colleagues, co-parishioners, fellow
students, friends on Facebook, etc. Urge everyone you know to recognize our
common interest in stopping this awful assault on everything that our
government does that’s good.
We urge you to remind folks that we’re talking about clean
water and safe food, national parks, school lunches, housing for the needy,
social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare for all of us, and
so much more.
Some want to shrink government so small they can “drown it
in a bathtub.” Most of us in the 99% recognize that this serves powerful
corporations, and harms the rest of us. Time to say “No Way!” and put Congress
on notice that they can vote to gut all these programs only at their own peril.
If they want to be reelected, they need to start listening to the people who
elected them, not just their wealthy contributors.
