Sustainability catch phrase for profiteers

COLORADO SPRINGS- At Rosamund Naylor’s CC lecture “Where’s the Beef?” about the basic unsustainability of beef, whether corn or grass fed, we discussed three facets of the sustainable equation: biophysical, economic and social. The Southern Colorado Sustainability Conference taking place today and tomorrow is more interested in a fourth: military sustainability, or how to sustain its mission. The PPSBN event is a green wash for area businesses, primarily weapons industry contractors, and Fort Carson, to claim for example, that setting aside land for a firing range will ameliorate urban growth. Their keynote speaker this year is Nancy Tuor of CH2M Hill, one of the top war profiteers in Iraq and Afghanistan, implicated among the disaster profiteers of Hurricane Katrina.

A sustainable army is a very, very small one. There is no sustainable offensive capability, nor even as deterrence. A big stick is only sustainable as a plowshare.

A blimp-neck military type’s concept of sustainability is fertilizing the status quo.

But a word about Rosamund Naylor’s lecture. Gates Common room was overflowing with students and locals who seemed already very much up to speed about the grass-fed versus industrialized beef agriculture. I was almost completely impressed by the caliber of the students, when a tangle-haired student seated in front of me posed this question: “Could developments with GMO grasses produce greater yields which in turn could make grass-fed beef more feasible?” Naylor answered that GMO development was unlikely for perennial grasses because where’s the profit for Cargill? But the boy defended his question, as if Naylor’s answer had come from a Luddite, and the little innocent reaped back slaps from his friends all around.

3 thoughts on “Sustainability catch phrase for profiteers

  1. I can’t help but notice that little Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission paid office boy, Steve Saint, was on a panel with Mayor Rivera yesterday about Fort Carson ‘sustainability’! They seem to have no shame this group, and will do anything almost to hug the cops and military in this city.

    Instead of trying to get the city council andRivera to pass a resolution condemning US occupations in other countries and US war making and use of torture, Steve is helping Fort Carson do PR about how ‘Green’ they supposedly are! Disgusting!

    This weasel used to whine to me often about how hyper critical I was about his silly activities, whining about how nothing he did was ever pleasing to me! What a wussy slime ball! He misses almost all demos in the city and does everything in the world to keep the J&P as mild and accomodating to the Local Powers as possible. PLUS, he holds onto his salary for dear life as he dictates to others how this group should be undemocratically run (by him).

  2. It’s like patting yourself on the back for getting an alcoholic to talk about alcohol, though he’s praising it, posing for a Captain Morgan commercial.

  3. Maybe I’m being unfair to Steve, since he’s not even a liberal really but a centrist ‘eco’ guy. The other J&P office people in the past were almost the same, not even being liberals but more like just being centrist salary pullers at best. The real scoundrels behind these office hacks that misrepresent the Peace community so badly are the professional sad sack, pacifist Church liberals who put these people into the office to represent themselves. It’s most churchy how they do it like this. People like Steve act like that they represent some minimally liberal religious denomination instead of really being serious antiwar or ecologist activists who seriously try to promote rebellion against the status quo.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *