[Occupymendocino] my letter to Feinstein re military budget

[Eduardo Oberweiser]

Dear folks here is a letter I sent to Dianne Feinstein after she sent me
one justifying her vote in favor of the huge bloated military budget.

I would highly recommend starting a similar dialog with her and Senatar
Kamala Harris and representative Jared Huffman

Ed Oberweiser
OPC Chair
Member Veterans For Peace

December 30, 2017

Senator Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510


Dear Senator Feinstein:

I received your military spending justification letter (December 14, 2017).
I disagree with your viewpoint. The U.S. military is deploying more than
300,000 troops overseas in 150 different countries.  This covers 75 percent
of the world’s nations. The military is engaged in active combat in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Nearly 40,000 military personnel are assigned
to classified missions in locations that the US government refuses to
disclose.

The United States cannot afford to be the next empire. No military in the
history of the world has been more widely deployed as the United States.

We the People cannot afford this unnecessary expenditure of our hard earned
tax dollars. The Department of Defense says the DOD owns “more than 600,000
individual buildings and structures at more than 6,000 locations on more
than 30 million acres of land.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S. we do not have complete medical care for all our
citizens as most modern industrial nations do. We have many homeless people
many of whom are mentally ill, wandering the streets in every city of the
country. Our infrastructure is falling apart.

Our youth cannot afford to go to college and get the education necessary to
become tomorrow’s leaders. They need more not less education to become
equipped to face the challenges facing our country and the survival of
human civilization. Humanity is overpopulating and overpolluting the Earth,
our life support system. Politicians and the wealthy seem to think it’s
possible for an infinitely growing economy on a finite planet.

All women need to be given absolute control over their bodies and right to
decide whether or not to have children. This is not a religious issue it is
a survival of the species one. More educated women do not have too many
children.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has given the U.S.
infrastructure a near failing grade, a bleak cumulative ranking of D. The
ranking grades the conditions 15 infrastructure entities such as roads,
bridges, dams, drinking water systems, schools, transit systems and
wastewater treatment.

According to the government, there are 70,000 bridges that have been deemed
structurally deficient. Each American family is losing $3400 of disposable
income every year but to poor infrastructure.

Along with its gloomy assessment of the country’s ailing infrastructure,
ASCE also offered suggestions to help fix it. Among them were increasing
investment from federal, state and local agencies from 2.5% to 3.5% of GDP
over the next decade, raising fuel taxes and educating Americans about the
true cost of providing robust infrastructure.
"Our infrastructure has fallen behind the rest of the world, threatening
our economic vitality and even becoming a danger to our citizens. We can't
rely on the same-old way of doing things. We need to bring a renewed spirit
of innovation and purpose to this challenge. We believe the Making The
Grade report provides the right framework, fresh ideas and infusion of
energy needed to jumpstart this discussion and create action as a unified
industry.  We look forward to working closely between the private and
public sector to start implementing our recommendations with all due
haste."  -- Terry D. Bennett, LS LPFMRICS ENV SP LEED®AP, senior industry
strategist for infrastructure, Autodesk

The outrageous amount of resources used by the military expenditures to
prop up the U.S. empire is morally reprehensible. The military activities
are mostly used to support the obscenely wealthy and their corporations
become even more wealthy while failing to support and care for most of the
nation’s citizens. We The People know this and are outraged.

Until you seriously acknowledge this problem which could be seriously
addressed by massively cutting the bloated military budget, I will never
vote for your or any other Congressperson’s reelection. There will be
nothing for the military to defend if our infrastructure collapses as it is
rapidly doing. You need to do what you were elected to do - represent and
support the people who voted for you and not the wealthy elite and their
corporations.


Sincerely




Edward M. Oberweiser
Chair, Ocean Protection Coalition (ocean protection.org)
Member Citizens for Appropriate Coastal Land Use
Member Veterans For Peace
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.mcn.org/pipermail/occupymendocino/attachments/20180102/9373700e/attachment.html