New Thinking Needed – Not More Pentagon Spending

In our country the endless increases in military spending are only matched by an equally endless propensity for wars and military conflicts. Biden’s fiscal year 2023 budget proposes $813 billion for the Pentagon. This is a 4% increase over the bloated $782 billion approved by Congress for 2022 – which was a 5.6% increase from 2021. Every year “defense” spending increases. It makes no difference which party is in control. It doesn't matter what the the real threats are to the country. It makes no difference how much of this money is unaccounted for, lost to ...

The Fruits of Faulty Judgment

“I'm just a miner in the mother lode of misery, where the fruits of faulty judgment meet the spoils of bad luck.” From the song “King of Junk” by Eddy Lawrence This humorous song is about a junk yard owner who's good fortune is the result of others' faulty judgment and bad luck. He finds a “hidden trove of riches mid the mangled and the maimed” wreckage of cars. I like the poetry of the song. To me it speaks (out of context) to much of the current craziness in our society. Politics has always been ugly and partisan. But the angry divisions are getting ...

Mother’s Day for Peace

War kills. Mostly it kills innocent people – women, children, the elderly and other non-combatants. War destroys. War destroys nations, economies, and the environment. War does not resolve conflicts. It exacerbates social and political problems. War is a choice and it is always a bad choice, War is failure. Wars result from the failure of national leaders to find peaceful solutions to conflicts. The war in Ukraine is a senseless tragedy. This war could have been prevented. If the politicians had been willing to compromise, the diplomats more aggressive in ...

Statement on the Ukraine War Brainerd Area Coalition for Peace (BACP)

Statement on the Ukraine War Brainerd Area Coalition for Peace (BACP) BACP supports an armistice halting the fighting in Ukraine. BACP supports a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine ending the war. BACP opposes the U.S. arming Ukraine, training Ukrainian soldiers, imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, or sending U.S. troops to Ukraine. These actions prolong the Ukraine War and risk a war between the United States and Russia. Instead of taking measures which prolong the war or risk a war between the United States and Russia, the U.S. should ...

Ukraine: An Opportunity for Peace

“War is always a choice and it is always a bad choice.” World Beyond War in their publication “A Global Security System: An Alternative to War.” The war in Ukraine is both a wake up call about the folly of war and rare opportunity to move toward a more peaceful world. War is not the answer whether Russia is invading Ukraine or the United States is invading Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not the answer when any other nation uses military violence to pursue some political, territorial, economic or ethnic cleansing goal. Neither is war the answer when the ...

Walk a Mile in Russia’s Shoes by Phil Anderson

Walk a mile in Russia's shoes by Phil Anderson I like to read historical novels. I also like a category of historic novel called counterfactual or alternative history. This is a way of looking at history that asks “what if” questions and postulates different outcomes than actually occurred. The mental exercise of counterfactual history can provide a broader perspective on world events. This genre of fiction is often futuristic. In this article I ask the reader to imagine a fictional story about the United States in the near future. This story illuminates ...

Who Is the Aggressor? By Dave Svetlik

WHO IS THE AGGRESSOR? By Dave Svetlik Older Americans remember well the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when the US and the Soviet Union (USSR) nearly launched a civilization ending war because the Soviets had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. But what was kept from US media at the time was that a year earlier the US had installed nuclear missiles in Turkey [1], bordering the Soviet Union. Moscow and other Russian cities were easy targets. Americans also never heard that in agreeing to remove the missiles from Cuba, the USSR forced America to remove its missiles ...

Expectations of the U.S. presidency on this Presidents’ Day

All good Americans need to look at our leaders more critically, asking if we would want this person as our boss, as our public relations person, as the mouthpiece of our nation.

Cuba: Some Historic Perspective

“Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past.” Tryon Edwards, 19th century American theologian Normalizing relations with Cuba is long overdue. For over 50 years we have tried to change the government and social structure of this small, poor nation. Our animosity toward Cuba has been irrational, unnecessary, and contrary to our founding principles of liberty and democracy. President Obama's move toward normal relations was just the beginning. American involvement in Cuba began long before Castro and the current socialist ...

Cuba: A Recipe For Failure

"With God's help, a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve," President Trump “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein President Trump recently said “Effective immediately, I am canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba." With all his usual bombast and inaccuracy, Trump described Obama's normalization of diplomatic relations, and small steps toward normal economic relations, as “terrible and misguided.” Trump said his “historic“ actions to reverse these changes ...