When a few thousand people were murdered on September 11, 2001, I was actually stupid enough – I kid you not – to imagine that the general public would conclude that because massive military forces, nuclear arsenals, and foreign bases had done nothing to prevent and much to provoke those crimes, the U.S. government would need to start scaling back its single biggest expense. By September 12th it was clear that the opposite course would be followed.

Since 2001, we have seen the U.S. government dump over a trillion dollars a year into militarism, and push the rest of the world to expend another trillion dollars a year, much of it on U.S.-made weapons. We’ve seen the creation of permawars, and the normalization of long-distance, push-button murder with drone wars. All of this has generated more terrorism in the name of fighting it. And it has come at the expense of actual defense.

A government agency aimed at actually defending people from actual dangers would cease activities that are counter-productive, that cause major environmental and climate destruction, and that consume resources that could be put to good use. Militarism meets all of those criteria.

Floridians are calling on Governor Ron DeSantis to immediately take all the possible steps, along with the local and federal government, to protect farmworkers in Immokalee from the COVID-19 pandemic, starting with the following urgent measures:  

1. Set up a field hospital in Immokalee in order to provide quarantine space and treatment for farmworkers with positive cases of COVID-19
2. Provide personal protective gear and hand sanitizer to farmworkers, given that they are an “essential workforce”
3. Provide free, accessible COVID-19 tests in Immokalee
4. Allocate public funds for economic relief for Florida farmworkers

Unless these measures are taken, Immokalee will become an epicenter of contagion with grave consequences not only for the agricultural community of Immokalee but also for the agricultural industry of Florida and the food supply chain of the entire United States. 

Make no mistake: Immokalee is like dry tinder in the path of a wildfire.  

The United States has been at war almost continuously since the founding of the nation in 1783. Some of the wars were undeclared like the centuries-long eradication of the native Americans, while others – the Mexican and Spanish-American wars – were glorified by including the names of the countries defeated by Washington’s war machine. America’s bloodiest war actually has multiple names, including the Civil War, the War Between the States, The War of the Rebellion and the War of Northern Aggression, allowing one to pick and choose reflecting one’s own political preferences.

What if the vaccine that’s eventually developed is so large in scope it includes the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Pope Francis?

I revisit Guterres’ words of a week ago: “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.” We must, he said, “silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes . . . to help create corridors for life-saving aid. To open precious windows for diplomacy.”

Since the movie Twelve Years a Slave came out in 2013, there have been a number of excellent books published that focus on slavery outside of the south, and how tenuous freedom was for free born or manumitted blacks. Both categories of books force us to grapple with two issues rarely taught school children. The students in my African American History Before Emancipation class are always shocked to learn that slavery existed all over the United States and being free with the documents to prove it did not necessarily keep blacks from b eing forced into slavery through a variety of nefarious schemes. To be black and free in the north was like skating on incredibly thin ice. And thus, we come to the story of Henrietta Wood.