Bruce Gagnon on Endless War & the Economy

Part 1: New World Notes #508, 29:20 (November 28)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Part 2: New World Notes #509, 28:19 (December 5)
Broadcast quality MP3 (38 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)

Aegis-class destroyer USS Oscar
Austin leaves the Bath (Maine) Iron Works. Balloons for the kiddies
of Gagnon's home town. Maine's principal exports appear to be
Aegis destroyers and potatoes.

Antiwar/antinuke activist Bruce Gagnon shows how militarism is detroying both the American economy and our lives.

In Part 1, he discusses the connections among crumbling infrastructure, unemployment, decreasing educational opportunities for working-class kids, the increasing militarization of our society, the export of war machines, aggressive U.S. foreign policy, corporate globalization, our rulers' desire to control the world's oil, ...  and the wisdom of forming alliances with the "Tea-partiers."

Bruce Gagnon (2004)

 In Part 2, he shows the bad effects of NATO expansion and of our encircling Russia and China with "missile defense" installations.

He also discusses universities' increasing dependence on Pentagon funding (for war research); ... the allegiance of both parties to capitalism, oligarchy, & military empire; ... & how spending on infrastructure creates many more jobs than "defense" spending.

-- ### --

Bruce Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org).

Recorded live by me in West Hartford, Connecticut, on April 16, 2010.  Gagnon's talk was sponsored by the West Hartford Citizens for Peace and Justice (www.westhartfordpeace.org). This program was originally broadcast in 2010.