by Mary Beth Sullivan
I’m a social worker. I’ve organized with homeless people; listened with an open heart to the stories of women trying to survive on welfare. I’ve met those who are forced to make the choice between food and medicine in order to stay alive. I’ve been a bureaucrat charged with serving babies and preschoolers showing developmental delays when state budgets were being cut. I’ve seen with my own eyes the wonders and documented successes of Head Start and I remain bitter to this day that it has never been fully funded. I’ve held the hand of a colleague who explains her son-in-law’s Iraq deployment is a consequence of his finding no other way to provide for the critical health benefits her chronically-ill daughter needed.

Our government has created a “homeland security” bureaucracy that demands that anyone riding in airplanes take her or his shoes off for inspection. Airports build “security” machines that can see inside our clothing. They keep fear alive so that people tolerate such intrusions as community protection.

Meanwhile, some of us have been bearing witness to the real insecurity in this homeland. We organize. We faithfully make the lists to educate our neighbors about warped budget priorities—about what we could have done with that $120 billion consumed by Star Wars over the years, or that $9 billion Paul Bremer “lost” in the early days of the occupation of Iraq; or the $10 billion a month spent on the occupation of Iraq.

While levees fail, bridges fall, and subways flood in our own country, the U.S. Space Command continues to implement a military policy of “full spectrum dominance”—building a U.S. war-fighting infrastructure to “control space” as a battlefield.

I take very personally the destructive, calloused budget cuts and bipartisan policy changes that weaken our social infrastructure so that our military can dominate any country at any time and kill without conscience, enriching investors and those at the top of the weapons corporations while the rest of us are to be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the table.

The corruption and depletion of our economic resources and human talent is based on a permanent war economy. Weapons are the number one industrial export of the U.S. The military production industry needs endless war to keep its economic engines alive. Its tentacles spread throughout Congressional districts in this country as it provides jobs that pay well and provide health benefits.

Congress—Republicans and Democrats alike—continues to provide funding for weapons systems built locally—whether or not they are needed; whether or not they work.

In October, the Sun Journal reported that the first U.S. Navy ship to fire Tomahawk missiles into Iraq during “shock and awe” was built at Bath Iron Works, owned by General Dynamics.

Down in North Berwick, Pratt & Whitney makes stators, seals and ducts for military cargo planes and jet fighters, parts that keep the engines working.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, which bought out Saco Defense, has been the exclusive supplier of an Army machine gun that shoots up to 350 tennis ball-sized grenades a minute.

Previously-mothballed production lines for MK-19 grenade machine guns and M-2 50-caliber machine guns have geared up to produce ten a day of each weapon. A General Dynamics representative boasts that, “All the aircraft you see out there overseas and domestically, whether it be an F-18 or F-15 or F-16 is carrying one of the Gatling guns that is also manufactured and produced right here in Saco…thousands of guns made in Saco are “over in theater right now.” This one company has worked 24/7 for three years to provide weapons for the occupation of Iraq.

Maine ranks 8th in the nation in defense spending per capita, outranking places like Massachusetts, New York and California, according to the Center for Defense Information, in large part because of its small population, and its billion dollar naval destroyers built at Bath Iron Works.

Meanwhile, the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies and Women’s Action for New Directions has just completed an economic analysis comparing the relative effects on job creation from federal investment in military, private consumption (through tax cuts) and several alternative public programs.

The very clear bottom line is this: public dollars invested in health care, education, mass transit, or construction for home weatherization and infrastructure create more jobs than investing an equivalent amount in either the military or personal consumption. Twice as many jobs are created by equivalent spending on education and mass transit as on the military. http://tinyurl.com/26d8ly Time is long overdue to engage in the conversation about how to create real homeland security. The clear path is to move away from a permanent war economy. It is possible to create industries, here on our own soil, that build an infrastructure for a safe, secure future for our grandchildren’s grandchildren. Let’s put our scientific talents and workers’ energy making consumer goods that serve the greater community, strive to mitigate the consequences of global warming, and provide a legacy of confidence and hope rather than fear and destruction.

It is time for us to demand an end to the permanent war corporate welfare state—in the peace and justice communities; in our religious and spiritual communities; in our workplaces; in our neighborhoods; as we walk through the halls of Congress; and as we engage in the 2008 electoral campaigns. It is time that we build an industrial base in our country that rebuilds our physical infrastructure—sustainable energy, roads, bridges, public transportation, schools; pays a living wage, and provides for the health and welfare of our citizens.

Mary Beth Sullivan is Outreach Coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. www.space4peace.org She can be reached at mbsull [at] mindspring [dot] com She delivered this speech at an economic conversion conference in St. Louis, in October.