Laying Down Of Arms

Promises.

A few days ago the Obama administration announced plans to implement austerity measures in the military which would reduce the standing American force in personnel to levels below those of pre-World War II. This is Obama doing exactly what he promised, ending wars, reducing military spending, and focusing on the domestic agenda. But nobody really seems to care. Or rather, the conservative right and those with a vested interested in continuing the expansion of the military industrial complex care, but their whining that these cuts will reduce them to still being the biggest and best prepared military in the world, just a leaner version, are hard to have sympathy for. The truth is, this is huge. This is massive news for anyone interested in foreign policy, social welfare, or peace. This is a quiet revolution spearheaded by the White House to shift our paradigm from war mongering and diplomacy by force to...well, none of us know do we? What would a United States without major warfare look like? Can any of us picture it? How will we make out money? Will we go back to growing our own food and valuing crafts people and educators? It seems unlikely. What Obama is doing is giving us a chance to reshape a small part of our economy and ourselves. Let's do something useful with it.

Picture:
www.archives.gov
  

And It All Burns Down

Megafire.

If you haven't been paying attention to the bush fires raging in southwestern Australia, you should if for no other reason than to impress upon yourself what it will be like when drought, climate change, and years of fire suppression policy collide in our neck of the woods. These fires are not happening in the middle of nowhere portions of Australia, they are in the most populated portion of the country, where one in three Austalians live. The smoke from these fires is choking the air in major cities and the fires are destroying everything from trains to houses. Two of these fires are set to merge in the coming days producing what is being called a mega-fire. This is another modern natural phenomenon moniker adopted to describe events that occur on magnitudes not previously considered probable enough to leave room for in the naming schema. It is becoming clear that climate change is not a rural or third-world phenomenon. It is also becoming clear that we are woefully ill-prepared to protect our resources and property from these events.

It is important to realize that the nature of the climate change debate needs to change from "Is it real?' to "What are the social consequences of these events?" Climate change and the associated floods, storms, fires, and droughts have become a primary contributing factor to social unrest in the countries most effected. Destruction of farm land, interruption of commerce, loss of housing, these are the new realities. Prevention is no longer the primary objective, survival is.

To read about the relationship between climate change and violence worldwide:

http://www.amazon.com/Tropic-Chaos-Climate-Geography-Violence/dp/1568587295

Photograph:

http://www.virginmedia.com/digital/features/things-you-can-see-from-space.php?ssid=12

Violent Cuz We Want To Be

Fight.

I find it remarkable that in the discussion around societal violence there is little to no acknowledgment of the enormous numbers of people that spend time in incarceration or warfare. To be clear, I am not grouping these two populations, criminals and military personnel, together for any reason other than they are two widespread groups both of which are exposed to enormous amounts of first-hand violence and then returned to everyday life. Taken by the numbers, while a relatively small percentage (less than 1) of the population is serving in the military at any given time, approximately ten percent of the population is incarcerated at that same time. This means that eleven percent of the population is actively immersed in a violent and dangerous culture. Overall, more than 30% of the population will be incarcerated in their lifetime and more than 2.28 million of our soldiers have served in Afghanistan and Iraq alone. And we wonder where our penchant for violence comes from. We puzzle over the popularity of football, which seems to increase with its violence. We wonder about bullying and violent television content and mass shootings. We refuse to see what is plainly before us, the choices we make with our population, where to send them, how to foster their development, the things we choose to expose them to, color them forever. If we are a war faring people then we will grow a population that has faced and participated in brutality  and violent times. If we are punitive and punishing, then we will teach our citizens to expect violence to beget violence. In short, we are teaching over a third of our population to expect and participate in violence, and then wondering why is seeps into the rest of our lives. We reap what we sow. Now is as good a time as any to consider policy changes that will provide different kinds of life experiences to our population, experiences that will help us reflect more of what we really want to be.

References/:Photograph:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/13/wonkbook-11-facts-about-americas-prison-population/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/opinion/paying-a-price-long-after-the-crime.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/americans-and-their-military-drifting-apart.html

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/03/137536111/by-the-numbers-todays-military

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/wild-west-jail-high-res-stock-photography/HQ2612-001

Drones at Home

Meanwhile.

Somehow, between the renewed search for Jimmy Hoffa and the totally unrelated but curiously considered so story of James Gandolfini's death, the FBI has let slip that it has been using drones in domestic cases.  This for me goes under the category of "things we already suspected or knew in our hearts about our government but were simply relegating to XFiles paranoia".  Ultimately, we have no right to privacy and since we have a long history of believing these kinds of weapons to be useful against people in other countries, it is going to be difficult to argue why we should not use them at home.  Mostly though, I think the FBI deserves a pat on the back for the careful timing of the release of this information, just as gangsters and the mob are at the forefront of everyone' minds, just when we are all thinking about the difficulty of infiltrating or observing these tightly knit crime societies, the FBI slips this piece of information in.  Well played FBI, well played.

Photograph Courtesy of:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/future-war-drones-that-talk-to-each-other-and-coordinate-an-attack/2011/09/19/gIQA4xqogK_graphic.html

The War Dead

Memorial.

While it may be a lauded American tradition to take to the woods with our RV's, barbecues, and beer over the Memorial Day weekend, this year, according to the AAA three percent less of us actually did so.  Perhaps it was the weather, the high price of gas, or simply our 21st Century disconnect from the outdoors, but AAA was right, the campgrounds were ghost towns this weekend.  What were hopping though, were the  postage-stamp sized cemetery's of our rural communities.  This weekend those tiny memorials overflowed with blooms, family's, and babes in arms being taught to pay their respects.  I saw clutches of older men in lawn chairs circling the grave site of a lost war buddy and mothers and daughters standing silent at the foot of their solider husbands and fathers.  

We are a military-driven industrial complex.  For whatever reasons we have, as a culture, become decidedly and increasingly violent in our approach to globalization and the procurement and protection of our way of life.  We pay for these things in people.

The American Military War Dead:

Major U.S. War Casualties	U.S. Deaths	Wounded	Date
Iraq War	4,800	31,965	2003 – 2011
Afghanistan	1,803	9,971	2001 – Present
Gulf War	258	849	1990 – 1991
Vietnam War	58,209	153,303	1955 – 1975
Korean War	36,516	92,134	1950 – 1953
World War II	405,399	670,846	1941 – 1945
World War I	116,516	204,002	1917 – 1918
Civil War	625,000	281,881	1861 – 1865
American Revolutionary War	25,000	25,000	1775 – 1783
All U.S. Conflict Casualites	U.S Deaths	Wounded	Missing
Grand Total	1,343,812	1,529,230	38,159

References/Photograph:

 http://www.statisticbrain.com/u-s-war-death-statistics/

http://historyofeconomics.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/american-exceptionalism/

By the Numbers

Population

If you have not looked at population numbers for the countries of the world lately, or ever, it is time. A simple glance at the numbers illuminates all sorts of things about US foreign policy, why we go to war and where, and why we hear about some countries more than others.  It also shatters a lot of our preconceived notions about social, political, and economic dominance, our own self-import, and the idea that land mass has anything to do with population.  The top 15:

1. China

2. India

3. United States

4. Indonesia

5. Brazil

6. Pakistan

7. Bangladesh

8.  Nigeria

9. Russia

10. Japan

11. Mexico

12. Phillipines

13.Vietnam 

14. Germany

15. Ethiopia

These are not predominantly Western or Christian countries.  Many of them have incredibly high population densities and incredibly low standards of living.  They have histories riddled with militarism, questionable human rights ethics, and war.  Ourselves included.  Two of them are African nations, which I only mention because of the American tendency to justify part of our ignorance of the African continent with the false belief that few people live there.  

Sometimes numbers speak for themselves.  Think about this list the next time you listen to or watch the news.  Think about it when looking at the kinds of stories that get covered, and especially those that get ignored or obscured.  Decide for yourself what you should be paying attention to.  

Start with the numbers.

Real Time Counters:

http://www.worldometers.info/

References:

World Populations by Country:

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/populations/ctypopls.htm

Image courtesy of:

http://www.ethiojps.org/PopulationMaps.html