Resisting Toxic Militarism: Vieques versus the U.S. Navy
2002; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-641X
Autores Tópico(s)American Environmental and Regional History
ResumoENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ACTIVISTS AND SCHOLARS HAVE FREQUENTLY CONdemned capitalism's poisoning of communities of color as criminal in nature (Simon, 2000). However, rarely is their critique specifically directed at United States military. Indeed, military sees itself as country's oldest, largest, busiest, and most successful company, whose 588 plants (bases) and $270 billion in budget revenues during 1999--growing to $400 billion by 2003--dwarfed all other U.S. corporate giants (Department of Defense, 2000). Patricia Hynes (1999: 49) observed that the Pentagon is largest sole consumer of energy in United States, and very likely, worldwide. By its own admission, military burns enough gas per day to drive a car 13,000 times around world, operates 550 public utilities, uses one-quarter of U.S. hydropower capacity, and generates most of nuclear waste in U.S. Moreover, Defense Department's generation of over 750,000 tons of waste per year dwarfs combined production of top three chemical companies (St. Clair and Cockburn, 2001). It seems clear that legacy of this biggest of big businesses deserves much more attention. Although U.S. government has attempted to sanction some polluters, its preferential treatment of worst polluters--the largest and most powerful corporations--reveals Washington's complicity in The military, as largest corporation and most egregious polluter, has been subject to less oversight, regulation, and sanction than any other criminal has. Before 1980, military was not subject to any environmental regulations and rarely documented or hazardous waste disposal (Zito, 2002). Not until 1988, for example, was military required to take into account how endangered species might be affected by its activities. In 1999, Congress shielded military from requirements to pay fines for breaking environmental laws, but Pentagon still complained that encroachment--the expanding protection of areas to benefit ecological or social health--was harming military readiness. Therefore, peace and justice activists were hardly surprised when war against terrorism was invoked to justify a proposed total military exemption from environmental laws. Among its many contradictions, purported military mission to protect society is violated by its activities, which endanger human and environmental health. Moreover, as befits a rigidly hierarchical institution charged with assuring global dominance by U.S. elite, these activities disproportionately threaten communities where peoples of color live and work: urban ghettoes, tribal lands, and colonized countries. If corporate criminals all too often get off with a mere slap on wrist, military is literally getting away with murder. By contrast, resistance to such criminal abuses is criminalized; activists engaging in peaceful civil disobedience to block threatening military activities are often punished with stiff fines and prison sentences. If those who try to stop abuse of colonized and oppressed peoples and lands are punished, while criminals go free, then legal system is facilitating capitalism in its most lethal form: militarism. Anti-military movements among peoples of color, linked to struggles for environmental and social justice and self-determination, are growing stronger and building networks across globe. The Pentagon has acknowledged its fear of a domino effect from such movements, which could restrict its hold on power--and corporate patrons' dollars. Challenging militarism should be central to any critique of toxic capitalism. It is particularly helpful to study and support movements that articulate criminal nature of U.S. military activities and nature of capitalism, while working toward community-controlled use and protection of resources. …
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