Chittenden County, Vermont Skywatch, 14 Sep 2023

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From YouTube: Skywatch: Stop the Escalating War in Ukraine, the US Funding, and the F-35

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From Skywatch:

Skywatch hosts Jimmy Leas and Danaka Katovich interview guest Medea Benjamin, who is Co-founder of CODEPINK, Women for Peace.

Opposition to the escalating war with Russia in Ukraine is growing: A CNN poll shows that 55% of Americans are opposed to any more funding for the war. Skywatch guest, Media Benjamin will talk about the campaign Code Pink is launching in Washington DC in October calling on Congress to do just that: stop the funding now. After decades of pointless wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and now Ukraine, it's time to build a new antiwar movement to take on the military-industrial complex, the endless wars, the F-35, and all such weapons spending.

9/14/2023

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A

Welcome to Skywatch co-hosted by me, Jimmy lease in Burlington Vermont and Danica katowicz in Chicago I've been working with many vermonters to stop the F-35 training here since the plan to base it at the airport in Vermont's, most densely populated cities was first announced in 2010.. We've continued to campaign since the first of 20 F-35 Jets arrived at the airport in 2019 exactly four years ago. Skywatch calls for grounding the F-35 because of its toxic noise, its climate killing greenhouse gas emissions and its purpose war.

A

Wars based on lies, 1, 300 children live so close to the runway or in the flight path and are repeatedly exposed to its dangerous 115 decibel noise that damages their hearing and impairs their cognitive development.

B

And I'm the national co-director of code pink, which is working to Halt the F-35 program nationally and internationally.

B

Today, we'll be talking more broadly about war, and specifically the war in Ukraine here with us today is Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of code pink and the author of Warren Ukraine, making sense of a senseless conflict thanks for being with us, Medea, hey nice, to be on with you, so the US just announced that they'd be sending shells made with depleted uranium a radioactive material used in nuclear weapons to Ukraine places where depleted uranium has been used by the U.S or NATO like Iraq or Yugoslavia, are still facing long-term health issues in Fallout.

B

Where does the escalation in Ukraine stop? Or do you think we're heading towards nuclear war?.

C

I think everybody should be concerned about where this is heading because it seems like this is an unwinnable war and that neither side is going to just walk away, uh and so the Biden Administration keeps upping the anti-sending weapons that they originally said. They weren't going to send I mean we can go all the way back to early on when they said they weren't going to send Patriot missiles or high Mars or tanks.

C

Then it was the F6 16s and it looks like they are going to be sent they're already, training, Ukrainian pilots on that and cluster bombs that were announced which violates International treaty, because they are such heinous weapons that kill people long after the fighting ends.

C

And now we have these cluster Munich I mean these depleted uranium Munitions, which, as you said, were used in Iraq and I've, been to Fallujah I, have seen the results of the use of those weapons and deformed children, uh terrible cancer and that's another line- that's been violated uh now the Biden Administration keeps saying well. This is not going to end up in a nuclear war.

C

We don't believe in Putin when he Bluffs about using nuclear weapons, but why should we not believe that this is where it's headed I do think that if the war keeps going in, the U.S is helping Ukraine to take back Crimea, which is seen as such a critical territory for the Russians to control that there is much more of a chance that this could turn into a nuclear confrontation, and we should all be worried about that.

A

And I think particularly uh places like Burlington, where there is a base for nuclear weapon delivery system and the F-35 is a nuclear weapon delivery system. So do you think that people who live within 5 or 10 miles of an F-35 base, including places like Burlington Vermont, should be concerned that they're on the target list for Russian or Chinese nuclear missiles.

C

Just as we can be sure that the Russians and the Chinese have already mapped out where these key points are in the United States, the people in Burlington should be very concerned that they are now a part of this and that, if indeed it turns into a nuclear war, it's not just going to be the places where nuclear weapons are stored in Europe, and there are five countries that are storing U.S nuclear weapons, including the Belgium, the Netherlands Italy Germany and turkey, and there are peace groups in those countries that we are connected with that are very concerned about uh them being targets.

C

uh So the people in Burlington should be concerned as well.

B

So what about diplomacy with you there's a diplomatic settlement in 2015 um in former German Chancellor Angel Merkel said that it was just to buy time to build up the Ukrainian military um and the U.S is, you know, tried sabotaging negotiations before in view of such bad faith. Do you think diplomacy can still work and what path do you think we're on.

C

Well, if we want to avoid a nuclear war, World War III, our only option is diplomacy, and while we should roundly condemn the Russians for this Invasion and the atrocities that are being committed, uh the we see even from uh released Pentagon documents that this is a war of attrition. We see that the counter-offensive is failing miserably from the Ukrainian side and that there are so many ukrainians and Russian soldiers being killed every day. This is really a a horrific war that makes no sense and we need to push both sides to the negotiating table.

C

There have been many attempts. You were referring back to the men's Accords that were assigned in 2015 and indeed Ukraine did not carry out its side of the agreement by allowing the Breakaway republics in the dunbas to be autonomous regions within the nation state of Ukraine. If they had done that, I, don't think we would be seeing this war today.

C

But that didn't happen, and now there have been many countries that have stepped forward from six nations in Africa to the president of Brazil to the pope and the Chinese that have put themselves forward as mediators are actually written. A potential starting points for negotiations and the U.S has dismissed all of them and has not put pressure on the ukrainians to start moving from the battlefield to the negotiating table. So I feel that the reason that the Biden Administration is not pushing.

C

That is because we're not pushing the Biden Administration enough, and that indeed, is our job.

A

So code pink has been increasingly active against the F-35 and against the uh the Ukraine war. What are some of the things code pink is doing and I understand, there's a plan for action in October. What is the plan in DC for building anti-war action.

C

Well, it's interesting Jimmy, because what we see is that public in the United States is turning against this war and, of course that happens as war is dragged on and the American people start wondering. Where is this 114 billion dollars that went to Ukraine? What could it be doing to help their lives here at home? And the Biden Administration has recently asked for another 24 billion dollars.

C

So we think it's important to step up our opposition, especially in Congress, where these people are supposed to represent us and what we've heard from Congress people is that they're not hearing enough from us so uh on October, 3rd and 4th we're having a public event on the third with Dr Cornell West, with myself uh other um speakers that are going to be rallying people for the next day, October 4th, where we're going to be in the halls of Congress, focusing particularly on the Senate, so that they do indeed hear from us.

C

And we want this to happen before the vote takes place, because we want those people in Congress to see that there is indeed a lot of opposition. And so far, the opposition in Congress is only coming from the extreme right in the Republican party and we want to call out the Democrats, especially those who consider themselves Progressive, Democrats and say you can't be a progressive and be for continuing to fuel this war.

B

Thanks Medea and for our listeners and viewers, you can go to codepink.org forward, slash urgent peace to find the event Pages for October 3rd and 4th. We have a group of vermonters coming down, so you can join them if you're watching this from Vermont. We also have a bunch of ways to engage online. If you can't make it the event on. The third will be live streamed, so you can still RSVP on code Pink's website and then, if you can make it to the advocacy day on October 4th, that would be amazing.

B

We hope to have a really big group um and for our vermonters, do you have a question for you about Bernie Sanders? um How has he been on the issue of warning the war in Ukraine? Is he speaking and voting for against U.S funding? Do we need a new Progressive anti-war leader in the Senate Bernie.

C

Sanders is absolutely key and I feel that he's been so hypocritical when it comes to this war. He had a piece in right before the Russian invasion, saying how important it was that we talked to Russia that we find a diplomatic solution.

C

uh He talked about the expansion of NATO and how this went against the National Security interests of Russia, and how would the U.S feel if a hostile foreign Alliance was amassing at our borders and then lo and behold, the evasion began and he changed his tune and he has been totally supporting every single weapons shipment to Ukraine, and more than that, he has said that you can't talk to Putin, which is ridiculous.

C

I mean you have to talk to Putin, and so we feel that it's important that vermonters join us and there will be actions both in Burlington and Washington DC in his offices, because he should be somebody taking the lead on this issue to say we need this money for so many critical needs in this country and not to keep fueling a war that he knew before. The Invasion must be settled by negotiations.

A

So I want to follow up on that. It seems to me that um going back in time, it was progressives. It was the left that was leading the anti-war movement all the way back in the opposition to the Vietnam War, which was also a war based on lies and now we're seeing Democrats and progressives largely silent or supporting this. What accounts for this shift in progressives? What do you think is really behind that.

C

Well, one is that there's a democrat in the White House and that when a group of 30 progressives signed a letter uh back in October of last year saying that in addition to the weapons, maybe we should try some negotiations. uh They got slapped down so hard by their own party that within 24 hours they did something remarkable rescind the letter, and ever since that they've not only been silent.

C

They have been voting for more and more weapons to be sent to Ukraine and they have not come out to join us in a call for a ceasefire and negotiations, and so that's one of the big reasons. Jimmy and I think that there has been so much party discipline in saying that we have to leave this to the president. He knows what he's doing.

C

We have to look strong on security and when you break down the polls that I mentioned the opinion poll the last one by CNN, it turns out that it's, the vast majority of Republicans 71 percent, say they don't want the U.S to keep sending uh more money to Ukraine, but the Democrats are in favor of it because they're hearing from their own party that this is a good position to have um I.

C

Think it's a big mistake, I think, as the election season gets closer and closer they're, going to find that this is not a positive thing in terms of how the public reacts to it. But you would think that the squad Barbara Lee Bernie Sanders people like that- would be willing to go up against their own party on this and they haven't been. And so that's um you know, that's why I say I, don't think that they have heard enough from us. They.

C

uh There is one a very Progressive congresswoman who said that the ukrainian-american community in the United States is very well organized and they are constantly in the halls of Congress uh and pushing four more weapons. And of course, we have to talk about the media, which is giving such a one-sided view of this, saying that the there is Victory possible on the battlefield saying that this is a fight between a democracy worldwide in autocracy worldwide. uh And so the Democrats and the progressives are are falling in line.

C

uh And it's very unfortunate and it has to be turned around.

B

B

um For about over a year now, with your book um for your book, tour I was just wondering how the reception has been. You know, interacting with people who come to your events or that you may meet in the cities that you go to talking about the book.

C

For the most part, it's been great people have a lot of questions and we have a lot of good discussions, but in some places there have been protests uh even cancellations of my talk, oftentimes by the Ukrainian community, that complains to the university or the bookstore, or even to one of the churches, that I am a Putin apologist, which is absolutely ridiculous, because I don't start out a talk without condemning Russia. For this Invasion and saying that it were I in Russia, I would be in prison right now for protesting this Invasion.

C

Nevertheless, it is, is there are people out there that think calling for peace talks is uh appeasing the Russians rather than wanting to end the killing and the increased militarization. So for the most part, it's been good and I've been doing this for uh about eight months now and continue to go around the country because cause I do think. It's so important that we educate people uh Jimmy. As you said, there's a lot of confusion in what was once an anti-war movement. I find people who've been Quakers their entire lives.

C

Who have suddenly said this war is different and forgetting the whole concept. That war is not the answer that, whereas the problem not the solution, so it is important that we go out and educate people but danik. As you know, code pink is not just about educating it's about mobilizing organizing and that's.

C

Why, this week of actions that we're having the first week of October, not only in Washington DC but all around the country and around the globe, because we've hooked up with groups throughout the world, particularly in Europe, and we want to do more actions as a global community, because indeed there is a majority of people on the global scale that are being affected by this war. With increase in the prices of grain, the prices of energy and gosh I mean we will all be affected if it turns into a nuclear war.

C

So we are working globally to try to put the pressure to move to negotiations in a ceasefire.

A

So um I'm going to be going down to DC to participate in that and I'm really looking forward to that, because this is really helping to initiate a new anti-war movement in this country and I think that's essential, because this war is escalating escalating and it's got to stop. We've already spent more than a hundred billion dollars for this war so far and there's no end in sight. This war could continue just like the war in Iraq which went on for 20 years in Afghanistan.

A

Similarly- and this is on top of a one trillion dollar per year budget to feed the military industrial complex, somebody is benefiting from this kind of war and it's one war right after another who do, you think, are the ones who benefit and our most ordinary Americans, benefiting or enjoying a better life from these wars and, in particular, this war to weaken Russia.

C

We see the prophets of the weapons industry Skyrocket with this war. Certainly it benefits the big five weapons manufacturers, but lots of Defense contractors that are getting more and more money, as the justification for a trillion dollar budget is because we have to fight Russia and potentially China as well.

C

We also see the dirty energy companies that are benefiting from the sanctions against Russia, where those companies have run into replace the relatively cheap energy that the Europeans were getting from Russia and their profits, both in the oil and the gas sector, have reached levels that they have never seen before. We also see some companies like Monsanto that have been buying up land in Ukraine profiting from this chaos.

C

That's going on there and we see the financial institutions, particularly BlackRock, that have already signed memorandum of understanding uh with the zielinski government to be financing the rebuilding of Ukraine.

C

So there are many companies that are benefiting from the destruction of Ukraine and there are many more companies that are already lining up to benefit from the rebuilding of Ukraine, assuming that this is not going to go into a nuclear Armageddon, but as you imply Jimmy, it's some big companies that profit tremendously from war and unfortunately have outsized power when it comes to influencing our government they're more lobbyists for the weapons industry than there are members of Congress and who is hurt by this.

C

The vast majority of people all over the world, Ukraine Russia, the African country, areas that are hurting from the higher prices, and here in this country, when we see cuts to such critical programs like food aid for people in poverty, we see critical cuts to the infrastructure that we so desperately need in this country, and we see that we don't even have a decent, Health Care system in this country. There are so many needs.

C

That's why we were able to get 1300 mayors that represent the largest cities throughout the United States, to pass a resolution saying that they need this money for their citizens and their cities, and that it's incumbent upon the federal government upon the bite Administration to come up with a solution to the war in Ukraine, so that that money stays in the United States.

A

One of the things you mentioned was polling and uh there's there was that CNN poll um in which 55 percent of the American people uh said they did not want uh to to have any more spending for this war that the 120 billion that we've spent is enough and we've got to put a stop to it. Well, 55 is a good majority of the American people. Isn't that a basis for Congress to stop funding the war? Do we have any kind of democracy in this country?

A

Why is it that the military industrial, complex controls our foreign policy instead of the American people.

C

Well, that's right and when you think about that 55, it's quite remarkable, given the media propaganda that people are hearing every day, and so people have really seen through this and those uh opinion polls uh keep moving higher and higher. As time goes by and more people recognize that a ceasefire and negotiations is the way to move ahead.

C

um Why does the military industrial complex control our foreign policy? uh It's because we don't have a democracy in this country. It's because we do have two war parties, because even people like Bernie Sanders get hundreds of thousands of dollars uh from the weapons industry, and he is just uh typical when you look at the people who are in the armed services committees or the Foreign Affairs committees, uh or the budgeting and Appropriations, they get tremendous amount of of money from these weapons companies and, let's not forget the revolving door.

C

So you have people like our secretary of defense, who comes directly from the board of Raytheon.

C

um They are are playing a such an outsized role uh and it means that uh the the uh things that are actually in the benefit of the American people get pushed aside, but I want to say something that is positive, Jimmy and that is uh that with uh the presidential election starting to heat up, uh we do see other candidates who are coming out and saying that we need to end this conflict and those are coming from the Republican party from Trump and John descent and and uh DeSantis as well as vivekan.

C

uh It's coming from the uh Democratic party from Robert Kennedy, it's coming from Green Party, Cornell West, and it's very interesting that they are seeing uh that this resonates with the American public. And so my hope is that the Biden Administration as it starts looking at these polls and what the American people are thinking and wanting will start to push in different direction for negotiations. That's, My, Hope.

A

B

You media, and you know we in Vermont and in Chicago, can see the effects of war and imperialism uh taking hold in our own communities uh as well. I think Chicago announced like a hundreds of million dollar budget deficit for next year.

B

um Our American cities don't have the resources as we need, um like you shared earlier, there's a lot of room for investment, and if the Federal Government Can can mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars for a war in just under two years, they can mobilize the same amount of money and even more for the people as well, and that's why it's so important that we all need to get together for the global days of action, starting on September 30th, going through October 8th.

B

You can join us in DC on October, 3rd and 4th and if you can't be physically there in DC, there's ways to engage online, just go to codepink.org forward, slash urgent peace to find all of that information. There's toolkits for so social media, there's toolkits for engaging if you're, not in DC and there's a lot of options. But we do have to make our voices heard in the halls of Congress and in our own cities. So please, please, join us. Codepink.Org forward slash forward, slash, urgent peace.

A

Well, that is really an important message that people can participate and there are actions to participate in, and you know, thinking back to when I first started started getting involved in the peace movement in 1965. I went to my first demonstration against the Vietnam War. It was on Boston Common and there were a thousand people. We need to do that again.

A

We need to to rebuild opposition, because we have two major parties of War, both of them dominated by the the pro-war minority in the United States, and it's violently against anything like diplomacy, us, and it continues to get us into these U.S interventions and most of these wars we lose so. The whole thing is just a huge waste.

A

We've got to put a stop to it, and so in our final I and I guess we have a couple of minutes left so in that fight in that little time Medea, maybe you could talk about what kinds of things an anti-war movement can do. I. Remember that the in the in the 60s, the actions against the war spawned a huge growth of freedom and Liberation in various ways.

A

The women's movement came out of the anti-war movement, the gay movement came out of it, uh it helped facilitate and build the civil rights movement, and it itself was a product of activists who had been in the Civil Rights Movement, so I think this kind of movement building is is really valuable. What do you think.

C

Yes, I mean let's um be clear, that it's harder right now, because there are not U.S boots on the ground, although that could be something that um zielinski starts pushing for uh it's harder, also, because Russia is the immediate aggressor and it's harder, because it's a democrat in the white house, but all of these things are obstacles that must be overcome, and when you look back at the days of Vietnam, one of the most important things was the teach-ins that were done and I think that this fall on campuses.

C

We have to have teach-ins all over the country to get many more young people involved in this. We also need to make the connections between the environmental movement that is very youth-based uh and War, and code pink has been involved in this for quite a long time and we'll be having wonderful actions this week uh when the U.N security Council is meeting and there will be big protests in New York City, with contingents that are connecting the issues of militarism and the environment.

C

We have also been reaching out to the faith-based community because it's so important that we get people involved who recognize that this. That war is a moral issue and that's why we have been organizing to support the pope and his efforts for peace. We've been putting out ads in faith-based papers around the country, we've also been mobilizing. People have traditionally been against nuclear weapon and calling for arms reduction, because not all of them are on board. When it comes to this war in Ukraine and uh and then the I think upping the ante.

C

You know we've made a lot of calls and Danica has been great in getting volunteers to be constantly making calls to Congress, but obviously calls is not enough and that's why we're excited to move into the next level of resistance in the fall doing sit-ins in offices I've been talking to people from Massachusetts and they say I'm so upset with uh our Congress, uh our Congress people, uh Jim McGovern who's supposed to be a a peace guy and he's not doing anything or Senator.

C

Warren I want to sit in in their offices we're getting people from Wisconsin who are very upset with what uh their Progressive Democrats are saying about this war, and so I think people are ready to take the next step. To start doing sit-ins, to start getting arrested in offices to really turn this into a turn up the heat on our elected officials and Danica, you probably have other ideas about what we should be doing as well. Well,.

A

I'm going to have to say that we've run out of time, though, uh and Skywatch is really proud and delighted to have had you Medea on the program, but unfortunately, we've run out of time, and so maybe we can do it again to follow up after the events in October. Thank you very much for joining us. Skywatch will be on again next month.