Letter to the Editor from WNC VFP Chapter 099 member

 

Letter: Focus on spiritual values, peace and nonviolence

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Letters

What makes you come alive and wake up in the morning, eager for the day ahead? I encourage local parents, teachers and the general public to consider what it takes to inspire wonder, awe, enthusiasm and courage to actively participate in changing our way of life. It seems to me that to achieve this, one has to examine one’s inner life — many call this the contemplative and active life.

Our local holiday parade modeled a glimmer of a coming together. A coalition of 15 local groups calling for positive changes in our society marched. I do not speak for this coalition, but I support the positive messages they displayed. These nonviolent group activists are usually described as “protest,” but their activities are directed at what is best in America.

For example, Ken Jones of the Reject Raytheon group suggests that “we can generate more jobs with investments in sustainable energy, education, health, infrastructure” [“New Plant Is Leading Us in Wrong Direction,” Nov. 30, Xpress]. I see this as a call not to merely criticize, but to actively work at discovering what we really want. Promotion of the “arms race” is a reckless way to create jobs. This suggests that we pay more attention to more meaningful jobs, meaningful work and a living wage.

My temptation here is to back up Ken’s factual information with more facts pertaining to the now Disunited States of America. But I don’t think more information will change the hearts and minds of many Americans. So, this brings me back to schooling our children, supporting families and the workers of our country. Why do we teach reading, writing and arithmetic in our schools? Is it to become better consumers of material possessions and entertainment? If so, this implies the tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort more important than spiritual values.

Do yourself a favor: As you make your way through life and learn from your experiences, practice expanding your worldview by getting out of your comfort zone. Read, study, contemplate and, if inclined, pray. Pray, not to ask something from your God, but to remind yourself what really matters. Read not merely for information or entertainment, but for inspiration to contemplate on things that really matter and pass this down to our children. There is no liberal, conservative or even one religious or American way to eat, breathe, sleep and survive. We are all human; a miracle of life.

Focus on your own lives on spiritual values such as compassion, kindness and loving relationships, friendships and family life, etc. It will positively affect your second half of life, including your retirement years. And it will be a gift to future generations.

I suggest to parents, home schoolers and teachers: Teach peace and nonviolence in school and give equal time to peacemakers. But educating our children is not a single issue. All of us can do the work of informing ourselves, even when family and work responsibilities limit our democratic participation. One resource that might help is Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life, by Peter Gray.

I offer a challenge from Maya Angelou. “I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy.”

Ask yourself: “What is calling you to the heroic in you?”

(For information on our local coalition or resources, contact esacco189@gmail.com.)

— Ed Sacco
Asheville

Letter to the editor from VFP Chapter 099 member

 Letter: Priority shift could reduce community needs

Posted on December 11, 2022 by Letters

Regarding the article “Corporate Caring: Local Companies Prioritize Hands-on Giving” [Nov. 16, Xpress], which features Pratt & Whitney employees: I am thankful and grateful for the community service of local businesses and corporations.

However, what if the USA stopped starting and supporting wars, and then some of the billions of dollars of the defense budget that go to military contractors were spent on affordable housing, food, health care, education and other necessities for those here at home who do not have access to them?

Although those working for corporations that develop, manufacture and sell weapons/weapons-delivery systems, like Pratt & Whitney and its parent company, Raytheon, worth billions, might not fare so well, the USA might possibly have fewer veterans with combat-related PTSD and a healthier, better-educated population.

Should we ever arrive at such a utopian but not unreachable goal, those military-contractor employees who lost their jobs could be trained to work in more life-giving/sustaining, rather than life-taking, professions, and the need for community service would not be so great, leaving those wanting to serve to expend their energy in other underserved areas, thus still engaged in “corporate caring.”

— Cynthia Heil
Asheville

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on December 20, 2022

 

As veterans who have learned the hard way that serving our government is not always serving our country, members of Veterans For Peace may be more likely than most to distrust pronouncements from the so-called “Defense” establishment. We remember the fraudulent use of the Tonkin Gulf incident which victimized so many of us, the WMD hoax preceding the invasion of Iraq, the use of the “bomber gap” of the 1950s and the “missile gap” of the 1960s to advance the influence of the Military Industrial Complex about which President Eisenhower warned us.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Letter to the Editor from VFP Chapter 099 member

 Letter: New plant is leading us in wrong direction

Posted on December 5, 2022 by Letters

On Nov. 16, Pratt & Whitney had a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the beginning of its administrative occupancy of its new plant. Production is expected to begin in the spring.

In its press release about the event, P&W happily stated that it has met or exceeded its own goals for greenhouse gas, water and waste management, and that the building has obtained LEED certification.

An Asheville Watchdog article said, “The company noted during the ceremony that its airfoils help improve jet engine efficiency by up to 50 percent.”

Let’s be clear that war is not green, and the burning of jet engine fuel is one of the largest contributors to climate change. No amount of greenwashing or increased efficiency is sufficient to address the existential emergency humanity is now facing.

Yet, at the gala ceremony, Gov. Cooper celebrated the growing aerospace industry presence in North Carolina and our supposed status as the most military-friendly state in the country.

And Rep. Brian Turner and the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Clark Duncan talked exuberantly about recruiting more aerospace companies to fill up the 900 additional acres that Biltmore Farms has set aside for this purpose.

What tragic tunnel vision our elected officials and business leaders have. With their eyes set only on so-called economic development, they fail to see or act on the very real threats to our very existence on this planet.

What does it matter that a plant is better at environmental design when it is intended to make products that continue to add huge amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere?

How do more military-related jobs here keep us safe from the global threat of nuclear annihilation Raytheon and its fellow war corporations increasingly provoke in their endless quest for growth in arms sales?

There is plenty of research to show that we can generate more jobs with investments in sustainable energy, education, health, infrastructure, almost anywhere other than the military-industrial complex.

Isn’t it apparent that a primary reason that P&W is moving its operation here is because it will be able to use high-tech methods and exploit nonunion labor in order to put less money into people and more into its own profits? This is what multinational corporations are good at. And our local leaders eat it right up.

The shiny object that is the P&W plant and the plans for more of the same are not economic developments that our community should be feeling proud about. They are shameful concessions to a powerful war industry that is leading us in exactly the wrong direction.

— Ken Jones
Swannanoa

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 handout for December 13, 2022

 

Photo from War Industries Resisters Network. Vets for Peace is a part of this network.

VFP Joins Over 200 Organizations to Demand End to F-35 Program

 In a time of economic uncertainty, climate crisis, and the necessity for peace and stability for people and planet, over 220 organizations join together in an international campaign to end the United State's F-35 program. Citing "harm caused abroad, cost of the program to the taxpayer, inefficiencies and failures, the environmental impact of F-35s, and the effects training has on local communities" the large coalition of organizations are joined by Ben Cohen, Roger Waters, Noam Chomsky and others in signing a joint letter addressed to President Joe Biden and members of the United States congress.

 "The global community is fed-up with overpriced, under-performing weapon systems like the F-35. It's a complete waste of tax-payer dollars that causes harm abroad and here at home in Vermont." Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Vermont local continued, "The only people this project benefits are the executives at Lockheed Martin. Real security is knowing you can see a doctor when you're sick, not a boondoggle fighter jet that can't fly near thunderstorms."

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org /  Facebook: Veterans for Peace
Western North Carolina Chapter 099Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802

Handout for WNC Veterans for Peace Chapter 099 vigil on December 6, 2022

 VFP Stop the War, Save the Climate! project:

This project is designed to alert the public to the connections between the ongoing climate crisis and militarism, especially the war in Ukraine, by having veterans risk arrest to stress their commitment to the message. Even though the U.S. has finally passed a climate bill in the form of the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” the $369 billion energy and climate portion of the bill allocates far less than the U.S. is projected to spend on its nuclear forces alone between 2021 and 2030 and is less than 1/30th of projected military spending during the same period. This ratio of military to climate mitigation spending cannot continue if the U.S. hopes to uphold its commitments made in the Paris Agreement at COP21.

To join Veterans for Peace, or to sign up for VFP e-News, go to: https://www.veteransforpeace.org
Western North Carolina Website: www.vfp099.org 

Facebook: Veterans for Peace Western North Carolina Chapter 099

Email: president@vfp099.org
Mailing address: VFP Chapter 099, PO Box 1024, Asheville NC 28802