Senator Ken Salazar wants to look like he is leading an opposition to military plans to expand Fort Carson. Unfortunately, many are buying it, but his ‘opposition’ to base expansion is without any principles behind it and is totally superficial. Just what does ‘a one year delay’ really mean, anyway?
One thing it certainly is not, is it is not any real opposition to the constant American militarism at all. Unfortunately, most of the ranchers opposing the Pentagon buying up their land also support the constant war making of the US government. In fact, both Salazar and many of the ranchers themselves, support more military bases being built and more bases being enlarged. The ranchers just don’t want it done with land they own.
A ‘one year delay’ allows Ken Salazar to placate this constituency without having him do anything of substance. Later when plans move ahead once again (as if they there will even delay at all!) he can surrender after having pretended to lead the good fight.
‘Oh sorry, Guys. We just weren’t able to win.’
The ranchers are in dire peril. This ‘delay’ is meant to disarm them and it appears to be working. The momentum they have built up in building their opposition to Fort Carson expansion is now on dry ice. What appears to be a minor victory may well turn out to be just one more phase of their undoing.
As to the pro Peace community as a whole, this episode of their activism shows how weak is their lobbying legislative approach to everything. Instead of building a movement that demands CLOSING all these damn bases down, they have tired to needle and beg a completely pro-war legislator, Ken Salazar, to play their supposed Saviour in a truly docile style. This is a strategy guaranteed to produce constant disappointment, and constant continued war.
It is our job as activists for Peace to tell the truth and to try to create new structures that would aid our work to stop the Pentagon. Instead, many of us only seem to desire to be lulled to sleep by people like Democratic Party Senator Ken Salazar. Voting sheep asleep, it seems, is all some want to be.
Base Closure Now! That is really what the Justice and Peace Commission should be demanding. We have way too many of these monsters and they are destroying the entire base of the American economy. We are not just against expansion, we are for closure of these bases. And Kenneth Salazar is not going to come along and be our friend on these issues, and it is unseemly to always be begging him and pretending that he is our friend, when he most certainly is not, never will be, and doesn’t want to be.
Kenneth Salazar is a true American militarist politician, and is much so as those who voted against the ‘delay’ legislation that eked on by. We need to get rid of these bums, Kenneth Salazar included. We need to stop hugging our enemies and start speaking the truth. A pro Peace Movement that can’t tell its friends from its enemies is not worth much at all. The Iraqi people certainly know that and so should the people working in the Justice and Peace Commission. It is sad to see people celebrating a victory while on the road to yet another set back.
