[Mpls] antiwar and homelessness

[Gary Hoover]

This topic really pulls it all together when we consider the immediate and 
long-term future in Minneapolis.

1. Homelessness will rise.

We are likely to experience more homelessness this winter.  Heating and 
transportation costs will rise dramatically at first.  Food and clothing 
prices will rise to reflect increased energy costs.  People will lose jobs 
as various industries shrink.  "Demand destruction" in energy and other 
sectors of the economy will mean a reduction in the number of jobs 
available.

2.  More Blood for less oil.

I highly recommend this article to all local policy makers.  I believe 
Michael Klare originally published it in the Asian times and on Tomdispatch. 
It is crucial to realize that there will be much more blood shed in an 
increasingly aggressive global resource war for petroleum.  This will mean 
that more kids will be sent from Minneapolis -- desperately poor and 
minority children will be targeted as recruits. How are we preparing our 
children for increased poverty and for the military's posture as the noble 
way out of poverty? The article is here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0921-33.htm

3.  More Minneapolis youth will be recruited to die so that we can continue 
to overconsume petroleum, but some will come home maimed and permanently 
traumatized.  Here are some of the things they will encounter:  orders to 
kill men, women, and children who are indistinguishable from resistance 
fighters; orders to participate in systematic and extreme torture; a life of 
such violence that they may very well return home in need of perpetuating 
the violence of war.  Commondreams has articles today related to this.  More 
articles abound

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0923-26.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/   (see two current headers)

4.  Antiwar movement in Minneapolis

The antiwar movement in Minneapolis -- and in our country -- will only 
become effective if we are able to radically disengage from lifestyles 
rooted in radical overconsumption.  The antiwar movement I have witnessed 
does nothing to radically disengage from overconsumption of the very 
resources which are at the heart of war today: domination of oil and natural 
gas supply.

In fact the most frustrating thing about the antiwar movement for me has 
been an ongoing refusal to connect the dots between the "normal Minneapolis" 
middle/upper-middle class lifestyle and our absolute need for war.

How can we pray for peace with our mouths when our lives demand war?

-- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst -- Gary Hoover
Our culture is