Heather Knight plugs the Bay Lights

 Heather Knight is trying to sell us the Bay Lights. Perhaps Ms. Knight has become a convert to the cult of Illuminate.  She is fund-raising for Ben Davis on the front page of the Bay Area section of the Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle (Knocking ‘Lights’ out proved arduous, March 19, 2023).  Davis is the self-described Founder & Chief Visionary Officer of Illuminate, the private non-profit that pays him a six figure salary to promote himself and Illuminate.  According to Propublica, Davis was paid $169,623 in 2021. Illuminate calls itself an arts organization but Davis is the only person getting paid.

Do we really want a lead reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle boosting this glorified promoter?  In the very first paragraph of her article, Ms. Knight tells two untruths: that the Bay Lights are “stunning” and “famous”.  They are neither.  Ms. Knight has featured Davis prominently in her reporting.  In addition to the Sunday Chronicle feature on March 19th, replete with a photo of the dashing Ben Davis in hardhat, there was an article on March 4th, S.F.’s Bay Bridge lights are about to go dark by Ms. Knight, also with a photo of Davis, this time dressed very haute couture and dramatically lit as he poses beneath the Bay Bridge.  Also, an article, on March 13th, Bay Bridge’s light display has gone dark again. What happened?  This last, mercifully, without a photo of Davis.

That’s not all. The Chronicle can’t get enough of Davis and the Bay Lights. Last chance to see: Bay Bridge lights turn off on Sunday byJordan Parker

March 2, 2023.  Here’s Heather Knight again: S.F.’s famous Bay Bridge lights will come down soon — unless $11 million is donated for an even better version, Jan. 7, 2023. Was it just that these were slow news days?  Don’t we have more important issues in San Francisco than fundraising for the light-polluting, energy-wasting Bay Lights? This is a shameless promotion of a private arts organization, run by one man, who serves as a front for a group of elite businessmen seeking to influence government policy in San Francisco and the Bay Area.  Usurping public space is part of their agenda and, unfortunately, Phil Ginsburg of SF Rec and Park has helped them do it. 

For example, “The city has extended the permits for his Golden Mile on JFK Promenade in Golden Gate Park — featuring yellow Adirondack chairs, Doggie Diner heads and a whimsical whale tail — through Leap Day 2024. ‘I’ve heard it described as the happiest place in San Francisco,’ Davis said” (Knight 3/19/23).  In typical self-congratulatory fashion, I might add.  A “whimsical whale tail.”  Isn’t that cute?  Something’s not right here.  And really, aren’t there better uses for the $11 million they’re trying to raise?

Ben Davis, in his endless quest for self-aggrandizement, co-opts the very idea of art and of beauty.  The Bay Lights, in his self-serving reality, represent art and beauty,  I’m surprised he didn’t add in truth.  In addition to taking over the Bay Bridge, he is trying to take over Golden Gate Park.  It’s his special property now; his “happy place.”  He has even co-opted the City of San Francisco: “Los Angeles is the City of Angels. San Francisco is the City of Awe.” says Davis (Knight 3/19/23)  Illuminate has rebranded San Francisco as the “City of Awe”. It’s the first thing you see on their website now.  Here’s Heather Knight, ” But the loss of  ‘Bay Lights’ would be a setback for a city that, more than ever, needs not only beauty and art, but affirmation that it still brings the biggest dreams to life.”  Are you kidding me?

Where would Ben Davis and Illuminate be without the dark of the night sky? Without the dark, the Bay Lights and Illuminate’s lighting displays would be meaningless, invisible. They depend on the dark, they need the dark, but they have no respect for it. They take it and use it to their advantage, pay nothing for it and do nothing to mitigate the damage they may be causing. They are exploiting a natural resource that belongs to everyone. The Bay Lights are also a waste of energy. Our resources are precious, and we shouldn’t be using them in lighting displays that serve no practical purpose.

The lights of Illuminate are like sugary sodas or candy.  They initially provide a rush akin to the sugar rush and a pleasurable sensation but, just like too much sugar degrades the human environment and results in diabetes and illness, too much light degrades the natural environment and also human health. “In ways we have long understood, in others we are just beginning to understand, night’s natural darkness has always been invaluable to our health and the health of the natural world, and every living creature suffers from its loss.” The End of Night by Paul Bogard

We need to reduce energy use and light pollution. Both can be accomplished by letting the Bay Lights go dark.

The Millionaire’s Arts Club of San Francisco

by David Romano

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied to a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects me directly affects all indirectly.” – Martin Luther King, Jr

“We need to reinvent our relationship with planet Earth. The future of all life on this planet, humans and our societies included, requires us to become effective stewards of the global commons—the climate, ice, land, ocean, freshwater, forests, soils, and rich diversity of life that regulate the state of the planet, and combine to create a unique and harmonious life-support system.” From a statement by a group of academics including 13 Nobel laureates issued on April 29, 2021 (as reported in the SF Chronicle)

There is a millionaire’s club at work in San Francisco, bringing corporate money and corporate influence into public spaces, grabbing public resources and exploiting what little remains of our green spaces and our night sky in the City. This millionaire’s club goes by the name of Illuminate and is, ostensibly, a non-profit arts organization. Its mission: “Illuminate rallies large groups of people together to create impossible works of public art that, through awe, free humanity’s better nature” (from the Illuminate website). What on earth does that even mean? There is so much wrong with Illuminate, on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to begin.

You do not create art by rallying large groups of people. Millionaires plus technocrats plus electric lights do not equal art. It is not possible to create “impossible” works of art. It’s not possible to create “impossible” anything. But it is clever, if deceptive: if you do make something that you had previously said was impossible, why then you must be a creative genius. Right from the start you get the impression that Illuminate is laughing at us; we can tell these fools anything if we dress it up in some new age jargon. David Hatfield, part of the three-member executive team, has the title, Chief of Opportunities.

Illuminate is a group mostly composed of elite white capitalists who hire contractors to put up electric lights in public spaces”

Illuminate’s Ten Principles include, “Live or die with integrity. Never compromise for corporate dollars, even if that means failing.” Are you kidding me? Is Iluminate like Doctors Without Borders whose members risk their lives to bring life-saving medicine to victims in conflict zones? Is it like Greenpeace whose members risk their lives and possible jail time defending whales and dolphins from slaughter? Is it like the tribes trying to stop the oil pipelines who are putting their lives on the line to save the planet from fossil fuels? No; Illuminate is a group mostly composed of elite white capitalists who hire contractors to put up electric lights in public spaces. I don’t think “dying with integrity” really enters into it, unless someone is accidentally electrocuted.

So, who are these guys, anyway? I have to ask, with all due respect, how are these people qualified to sit on the Board of a non-profit arts organization that’s taking in tens of millions of dollars and using its spending to influence City officials to favor its projects? 

A quick look at some of the Illuminate Board members tells you that art is likely not their strong point: 

John Combs, Founder/Principal RiverRock Real Estate Group; Jeff Jungsten, Jungsten Construction, President; Ken Maxey, Director of External Relations Comcast NBC Universal; Matt Mullenweg, Founder/CEO Automattic Inc.; Dickon Pinner (chair), Partner, McKinsey & Company; Patricia Wilson, CEO, P.S. Think Big, Inc.; Lisa Vogel, Director of Asset Management, Wareham Development.

Illuminate’s most prominent supporters are: The Lisa & John Pritzker Family Fund at $3 million plus and Tad and Dianne Taube at $2 million plus. “The Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund seeks to improve the trajectories for young children in San Francisco, by investing in their health and learning” (from their website) so it’s a bit of a head scratcher why they would give so much to Illuminate. The Taubes give money to youth programs, pediatric cancer research and the San Francisco Opera, amongst others, so it’s also puzzling why they would donate so much to fund lighting projects that diminish children’s experience of the night sky and their ability to see the stars, moon and planets. Artificial light only obscures the celestial lights, which have always been humanity’s true source of awe and wonder.

More from Illuminate’s Ten Principles: “Be free to all. Create nothing that requires paid admission.” Shouldn’t be hard to do when all you do is put up lights in public places and you’re funded by donations. “Take worthy risks.Try difficult things and be transparent in sharing all lessons.” Again, are you kidding me? What risks is Illuminate taking? What lessons are they sharing?

It goes on: “Bring light to shadow. Pursue positive expressions that address real-world shortcomings.” “Be in it for others. Self-sacrifice toward the greater good.” Such noble sentiments! These people are veritable saints. “Always aim high. Seek to unite all people around higher values of love and equality.” And the way to do this is by putting electric light displays in our public spaces, causing untold amounts of wasted energy and light pollution?

Somehow, all this quixotic double-talk has also translated into putting lights in Golden Gate Park. Illuminate is lighting up the bandshell for the next two years with bright, colored lights. Also, they apparently plan to light up the Conservatory of Flowers indefinitely “…the dazzling light projection on the historic building’s exterior continues nightly into its third year.” (from the Illuminate website.)

“In ways we have long understood, in others we are just beginning to understand, night’s natural darkness has always been invaluable to our health and the health of the natural world, and every living creature suffers from its loss.” The End of Night by Paul Bogard

We need this? Perhaps Illuminate is thinking that the destitute and disenfranchised individuals who congregate on Market between 6th Street and Van Ness will be so mesmerized by the lights they’ll forget about their plight?”

Ben Davis, the CEO of Illuminate, asked if he could address a Zoom meeting of San Franciscans for Urban Nature, (I am a member) and we agreed. Once the meeting had begun, he announced that he had invited Dana King to join us and shortly afterwards handed his presentation over to her. He was looking to get our support for Illuminate’s latest project, putting an electric light installation across the facade of the bandshell. Dana King is the creator of Monumental Reckoning, a newly installed sculpture in the Music Concourse. A few weeks later he again asked to speak at our meeting and, after the meeting had begun, again announced that he had invited Dana King, and he let her do the talking.

It may be a somewhat underhanded way of doing business, but it is very effective. Who’s going to dare to oppose what a celebrity African American woman artist says? I guess that’s why Mr. Davis gets paid the big bucks. According to ProPublica in 2018 his compensation was $169,623. Total executive compensation was $249,056 (38.7% of total expenses); other salaries and wages were $202, 805 (31.5% of total expense). For 2019 Mr. Davis made a more modest $137,066. 

So be aware, if Ben Davis asks to speak to your group, he will likely produce Dana King in his place once he arrives. He won’t tell you ahead of time.

**************

“… light pollution poses a serious threat to nocturnal wildlife, having negative impacts on plant and animal physiology. … The rhythm of life is orchestrated by the diurnal patterns of light and dark, and disruption of these patterns impacts ecological dynamics.” Connie Walker, A Silent Cry for Dark Skies, The Universe in the Classroom.

Illuminate’s current big project is Lightrail – “Lightrail will be the world’s first subway-responsive light sculpture. Designed with more than 20,000 LED lights, it will run for two miles along San Francisco’s iconic Market Street, from Van Ness Avenue to The Embarcadero.“(Illuminate website). We need this? Perhaps Illuminate is thinking that the destitute and disenfranchised individuals who congregate on Market between 6th Street and Van Ness will be so mesmerized by the lights they’ll forget about their plight?

“Working with local artists George Zisiadis and Stefano Corazza, an extraordinary technical team, a range of city agencies, and the SF Board of Supervisors, Illuminate holds a major encroachment permit to install Lightrail, a two-mile-long piece of artwork that will run from One Market Street to Van Ness Avenue” (Illuminate website). May I point out that it is not artwork; it is light pollution and a wasteful use of energy we should be trying to conserve. It is ironic that as part of the same project, Illuminate “plans to retrofit the … streetlights–from the Ferry Building to the Rainbow Flag–with new energy-efficient LED bulbs that will cut energy use by “80%” Yes, exactly; we need to cut energy use and direct lights downward. But if this is going to cut energy use by 80%, why isn’t the City taking care of it? Why is our public space being co-opted by Illuminate who, otherwise, plans to produce only more light pollution using ever more energy? Dana King may be willing to lend her name and credibility to Illuminate, but the City should not cede rights to our public spaces to a non-profit “Arts” organization propagating ecologically damaging activities.

The stakes are very high and San Francisco is on the wrong path. Has no one at the Recreation and Parks Commission or the Mayor’s office heard of Greta Thunberg? I guess what Greta has to say is just an inconvenient truth. What would Greta think of Illuminate’s projects? Jason Mark, the editor-in-chief of Sierra, makes our situation very clear in his editorial, Writing the Future, “The twin threats of the climate crisis and the extinction emergency mean that the decisions we make today will reverberate on a geologic time scale.” What does Illuminate do to mitigate the climate crisis or the extinction emergency? Sad to say, thus far, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Illuminate can yet become a good steward of the Earth by turning it’s creativity, imagination and technical knowledge toward reducing the negative effects of artificial light in our public spaces.

“Artificial light at night disrupts a wide range of natural processes. Recent research has shown significant impacts of coastal lighting reducing foraging of intertidal invertebrates, disrupting marine food webs, suppressing movement of juvenile fishes, increasing predation on nesting seabirds…” Dr. Travis Longcore, Associate Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

Everything we do matters. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. It’s past time to recognize this.

The Pentagon and Climate Change

I listened with disbelief and dismay as Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey told the world, from the forum of COP26, that increasing the Pentagon budget was a good way to fight climate change. Yes, you read that correctly. Congressman Pallone thinks that we can help fight climate change by increasing the Pentagon budget. He has just been told, by Abby Martin of the Empire Files, that the Pentagon is a bigger polluter than 140 countries combined, and is exempt from the COP26 climate talks. Ms. Martin then asks, how can we justify an increase to an already massive Pentagon budget?

The question is being put to Nancy Pelosi but Rep. Pallone can’t wait to jump in. “There is no reason why what we’re putting together with Build Back Better and other things can’t respond to the Defense Dept. and have some impact in terms of reducing emissions.” What, exactly, is he saying? How does this address the issue of pollution or the massive increase in the Pentagon budget. Compounding his Orwellian doublespeak, Rep. Pallone goes on to say, “I don’t see what we’re doing, in any way or, you know, increasing the defense budget as being something that’s inconsistent with climate action.”

The Empire Files @EmpireFiles.@AbbyMartin confronts Nancy Pelosi at #COP26 for overseeing massive increases in the Pentagon budget—a bigger polluter than 140 countries combined—while touting “historic” leadership on climate change November 9th 2021

Not only is the Pentagon exempt, apparently, from any resolution coming out of COP26, it is also exempt from EPA regulations. It is free to pollute as much as it wants and there are no consequences. If another country polluted our land, air and water the way our military has, we’d declare it a terrorist act and go to war with them. It is the supreme irony that our military is damaging the very country they are pledged to protect. One example was recently reported in the San Francisco Chronicle,

“Amid a continuing crisis over fuel contaminating the Navy’s tap water at Pearl Harbor, Honolulu’s water utility said Friday it shut off one of its wells so it doesn’t taint its own supply with petroleum from an underground aquifer it shares with the military. The Honolulu Board of Water Supply said it acted shortly after the Navy on Thursday disclosed that a water sample from one of its wells had shown the presence of petroleum. The well is near a giant World War II-era underground fuel tank complex that has been the source of multiple fuel leaks over the years. The tap water problems have afflicted one of the military’s most important bases, home to submarines, ships and the commander of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region. They also threaten to jeopardize one of Honolulu’s most important aquifers and water sources.Nearly 1,000 military households have complained about their tap water smelling like fuel, or of physical ailments like stomach cramps and vomiting. The Navy water system serves 93,000 people. Nearly 1,000 military households have complained about their tap water smelling like fuel, or of physical ailments like stomach cramps and vomiting. The Navy water system serves 93,000 people. (Honolulu utility shuts well to prevent fuel contamination by Audrey McAvoy, Associated Press)

So, not only is the Navy polluting the water of nearby residents, it is poisoning its own personnel and their families. Don’t you think, Rep. Pallone, that the Navy needs to clean up it’s act and be subject to EPA regulations, if it’s going to lead on climate change?

The true story of the US invasion of Afghanistan

“In 2001 when the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11 terror attacks …” So begins Sandip Roy’s August 25th report on “Women of Afghanistan” on National Public Radio. We invaded in retaliation for the 9/11 terror attacks. Of course, it seems logical and almost like common sense; they attacked and we invaded. There’s just one problem; no Afghans attacked us. Neither the citizens, nor the government of Afghanistan played any part in the 9/11 attacks. The US has never said otherwise. And yet we invaded, and have occupied, Afghanistan for 20 years.

Our reason for going to war was that the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden. Actually, the Taliban asked for some evidence of bin Laden’s participation in 9/11 before handing him over. We had none; there is no evidence. The FBI never charged bin Laden with any crime. There was no warrant issued for his arrest because there was no evidence linking him to 9/11.

In fact, bin Laden denied repeatedly that he had anything to do with 9/11:

“In a statement issued to the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, bin Laden said, “The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it. I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons,” bin Laden’s statement said (as reported by CNN in 2001). We might have been able to question him about it but the person purported to be Osama bin Laden was killed in his home in Pakistan by Navy SEALS and the body dumped into the ocean at night.

Twenty years later we are no further along. “A Taliban spokesperson has claimed there is no evidence that the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks against the United States. Zabihullah Mujahid made the claim during an interview with NBC Nightly News. There is no evidence. Even after 20 years of war, we have no proof he was involved,” (Newsweek, September 2021)

So, not only is Afghanistan not implicated in 9/11, it can’t even be established that Osama bin Laden was involved. No matter that bin Laden wasn’t ever found in Afghanistan and likely wasn’t there within weeks of our invading. We made war on the people and country of Afghanistan for the next 20 years.

And we invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Beach Chalet Soccer Fields

See my article at https://westsideobserver.com/news/beachchaletsoccer.html#jul20

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

Examples of the artificial turf migrating from the Beach Chalet Soccer Fields to the Park.

20200714_131822_resized.jpg

20200714_131725_resized.jpg

20200714_131720_resized.jpg

20200714_131516_resized.jpg

20200714_131600_resized.jpg

20200714_131607_resized.jpg

20200714_131619_resized.jpg

20200714_131413_resized.jpg

Homelessness

Money that could have been used to create infrastructure, jobs and a better educated and healthier America went, instead, to the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us against. Hundreds of billions of dollars that should have gone to meet the needs of the American people disappeared in Afghanistan and Iraq.  In 2016, 57% of the federal budget was spent on the Department of Defense, wars and weapons programs, according to the American Friends Service Committee; 6% was spent on education.

A federal report from 2011 shows $60 billion lost to war zone contractor waste and fraud alone. Disabled and traumatized veterans return home and don’t get the support or treatment they need. Homelessness and opioid addiction is the result. “About 11% of the adult homeless population are veterans. Roughly 45% of all homeless veterans are African American or Hispanic, despite only accounting for 10.4% and 3.4% of the U.S. veteran population, respectively,” – National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

The prison-industrial complex, where corporations run prisons for profit and poor people and people of color are the main “clients” makes it even harder for those on the margins to maintain homes and get jobs. The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. The self-serving actions of bankers and government officials during the housing crisis complete the picture of the looting of America’s tax revenues and the eviction of people from their homes.

According to Forbes magazine “The Special Inspector General for the Toxic Assets Recovery Program (TARP) summary of the bailout says that the total commitment of government is $16.8 trillion dollars with $4.6 trillion already paid out.” That was in 2016. The banks got the money and have grown even larger but the regular wage earner can’t get financing for a home purchase. With easier credit after 2008, people would be in houses now, not out on the street. The taxpayer’s money bailed out the big banks. Nobody could get a home loan while the banks bought back their stock, bought other banks, and bought the houses they foreclosed on. Does anyone think that might have something to do with the current housing crisis?

The federal minimum wage is $7.50 an hour. California’s minimum wage is $10.50 an hour. “Experts estimate that still buys only about half of what a minimum wage did in 1980,” – San Francisco Chronicle.

The leading cause of bankruptcy is medical expenses. Single payer universal health care would cost less and provide better care than a system that is drowning in paperwork and regulation. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq marked the beginning of the privatization of military services and supplies. The contract to build Guantanamo went to Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s old company.) An unintended irony of the so-called war on terror: the inmates of Guantanamo get better medical services than most Americans, as Michael Moore shows in his film, “Sicko.”

“U.S. spending on the Afghanistan nation-building project over the last dozen years now exceeds $104 billion, surpassing the $103.4 billion current-dollar value of Marshall Plan expenditures, which helped rebuild European nations after World War II”(“U.S. aid to Afghanistan exceeds Marshall Plan in costs” San Francisco Chronicle, August 2014). Imagine if $104 billion had been invested in preschools, education, job training, and social services in the US?  Helping individual homeless people is important, but if you really want to change people’s lives for the better, take a look at where our tax dollars are going and imagine where they could be going.

David Remnick vs. Dwight Eisenhower

In The Talk of the Town (The New Yorker, Mar. 20, 2017) David Remnick writes, “One does not have to be ignorant of the CIA’s abuses — or of history in general — to reject the idea of an American Deep State. Previous Presidents have felt resistance, or worse, from elements in the federal bureaucracies; Eisenhower warned of “the military-industrial complex …”

These statements need a little unpacking. Leaving aside, for the moment, the almost Jamesean qualities of the first sentence, the most striking thing is the airy disregard for Eisenhower. With a wave of his hand, David Remnick dismisses the parting words of the man who was Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WWII and a two-term President. I can’t help but feel that Eisenhower might know a little more about politics, government and the role of the “military-industrial complex” than Mr. Remnick gives him credit for. Eisenhower’s final address was his legacy to the nation he devoted his life to serving. His words deserve better than to be dismissed out of hand. They should be taken to heart.

The import of Remnick’s remarks is to dismiss “the military-industrial complex” along with “the idea of an American Deep State.” Earlier in his piece, he tells us that the term “Deep State” has its origins in Turkey and is defined as “a clandestine network, including military and intelligence officers, along with civilian allies …” Now, I would say that is an excellent working definition of what we have in the United States, but Remnick comfortably disregards Eisenhower’s warning as just another example of what isn’t a Deep State. Like the Deep State in Turkey, the Deep State in the United States is hidden in plain sight. According to Remnick, in Turkey, its “mission was to protect the secular order established in 1923 by …. Ataturk.” So it is possible to know the participants (if not always their actual names) and the mission, of the Deep State.

Let’s return for a moment to Remnick’s remarkable first sentence. How shall we consider the person who is “ignorant of the CIA’s abuses.” He doesn’t have to be ignorant to reject the idea of the Deep State yet, if he is ignorant … he can reject the idea just as well as the informed person. Have I got this right? He “doesn’t have to be ignorant” but that still allows room for him to be ignorant, I take it.

As for “history in general” it is difficult to imagine “one” who is ignorant of history in general. Is there such a person? Or, conversely, “one” who is not ignorant of history in general? One thing we do know is that history is being written, and rewritten, all the time. Isn’t that what is happening in this piece, rewriting history? Ambiguity, multiple levels of meaning, opacity, and contradiction can all be effective literary devices but they don’t really belong in a piece about realpolitik. Remnick is seized with the same incoherence that many writers experience when trying to explain away the “unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.” Contorted and mysterious prose often features in reporting on the Deep State so Remnick is not alone in this.

The Deep State in America is revealed if we look at the people and organizations that made the decisions to invade Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. In short, it is the war machine, whose mission is to create wars and spend ever more on armaments in a self-perpetuating cycle. They even want to weaponize space. To what end you might ask? The end, so to speak, is plain to see for all who care to look; to dominate the world militarily and control the world’s resources.

What were the imperative reasons we went to war? What was the public good these wars produced? Was our nation in danger? Tell me again why we needed to invade Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam.

What Remnick does not grasp is that the existence of the military-industrial complex is not in question; no one doubts its existence. What makes it synonymous with the Deep State is the“unwarranted influence” that was actually the substance of Eisenhower’s warning.

Here is the text of Eisenhower’s final address:

As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. (from Wikipedia)

Defund the CIA

According to the Federation of American Scientists the US “fiscal Year 2020 budget request included $62.8 billion for the National Intelligence Program, and $22.95 billion for the Military Intelligence Program.”  What, exactly, does this almost $90 billion buy us?  “Details of the overall United States intelligence budget are classified,” (Wikipedia), so we can never really know what the money is spent on. “Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.” (The Washington Post.)

What we do know is the CIA has it’s own air force, secret air bases and landing strips all over the world and predator drones that have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen and Pakistan, to name just a few of the nations that have been subject to these attacks.  Extra-judicial renditions (kidnapping) and black sites where suspects are tortured are the hall-marks of the CIA. The CIA and American democracy are simply incompatible; you can’t have an unaccountable, secret organization at the heart of government. Democracy requires transparency and public accountability.

The CIA engages in clandestine activities to subvert democratically elected governments all over the world. The American people would not countenance this as public policy if it was brought into the light of day. The worst part is the CIA is a colossal failure.  Despite the hundreds of billions spent on what amounts to a covert foreign policy, the CIA has not made us, or the world, safer.  The list of failures is staggering and the costs of our invading Iraq and Afghanistan incalculable.  Where was the CIA when these truly ignorant and foolish decisions to invade were being made?  Decisions to engage in actions that only created more terrorists and destroyed innocent lives?  Iraq was never a threat to the United States. The disastrous results are with us to this day.  And the greatest failure of all, 9/11.  A small group of young men from Saudi Arabia is able to come to this country, go to flight school and utterly defeat the greatest military and intelligence apparatus the world has ever seen. The main finding of the 9/11 Commission: “a failure of communication,”  was responsible for the success of the attacks. No one lost their job, no one was even demoted.  And the CIA is still with us.

Culture of Violence

The media pundits puzzle over why there are increasing numbers of mass shootings. Who is immune to the culture of violence? The glorification of killing that has been trumpeted by politicians and the Main Stream Media (MSM) makes heroes of Navy Seals who are ordered to assassinate suspects in their homes and then dump the bodies at sea. No trial, no judge, no jury and justice was not served.

There is little question as to who created this climate of violence in the 21st Century. It began with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan by Bush and Cheney & Co. The enormous sums diverted to the war machine, and the complicity of the MSM in every act of state sponsored terrorism committed by the west, complete the picture. There was no ISIS before the invasion of Iraq. We created ISIS. The bellicosity continued under Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace prize. If he had a shred of honor he would give it back. Does anyone remember the “peace dividend” that was supposed to come with the end of the cold war? The war machine made short work of that. The so-called “war on terrorism is endless.” And now we have a President who makes it a priority to increase military spending and sell arms to everyone he can. This will not improve the prospects for peace.

The media won’t give peace a chance. The relentless violence of TV and movies continues unabated. It is acceptable to punch, kick, stab and shoot a woman in the chest but not to see a woman’s breast being kissed; that’s x-rated. When you foster a culture of violence it’s small wonder that people will respond to it in ways you might have been able to predict.

The battle for Mosul

Dear New Yorker:
It is sad, inexcusable really, that in all his long article, one of the longest I’ve read in the New Yorker, Luke Mogelson makes no mention of the vibrant and vital Mosul that existed not very long ago, before the US invasion of Iraq.  By focusing on one small heroic band of battered, dispossessed Iraqis, “The Avengers of Mosul” (Feb. 6, 2017) misses the big picture of the tragic consequences of our invasion.  No mention is made of the (even at that time) readily available satellite pictures showing the before and after, the ruined, bombed out, devastated city that Mosul had become. That is the context in which we need to view the battle for Mosul. The loss of Mosul is the direct result of the inept and misguided wartime administration of Paul Bremer.  If there had been no US invasion, there would have been no ISIS.