Washington Liberals

Turnout for last month’s election was low — under 37% nationwide and under 50% in Washington State. National turnout for youth (18 -29) was at about 21.5% according to The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Under 30% of registered voters voted in Texas and New York.

Why was turnout so low?

Disillusion with politicians in general is one explanation.

Thomas Frank blames Republicans’ patented brand of  fake populism.

Howard Dean blames gutless Democrats.

Jamelle Bouie in Why Democrats Can’t Win Over White Working-Class Voters  says that working class white people think “The Democratic Party is too associated with blacks and too associated with welfare to win over enough whites to make a difference.”  Kevin Drum  makes the same analysis in Mother Jones (“Can We Talk? Here’s Why the White Working Class Hates Democrats“):

[Social welfare programs] benefit the poor but barely touch the working class. Does it matter that the working class barely pays for most of these programs in the first place, since their federal income taxes tend to be pretty low? Nope. They’re still paying taxes, and it seems like they never get anything for it. It’s always someone else.

Socialist Mike Whitney makes a convincing case for Obama being to blame for low turnout.

The New York Times also blames Obama … Obama Is Seen as Frustrating His Own Party.

It’s hard not to hold Obama largely responsible.

In 2008 the public was disgusted with Republican corruption, mismanagement, and war-mongering. They were ready for real Change that Obama promised.   (But here’s a scary thought: 45.7% of voters voted for McCain and Palin in 2008.)

While Obama was never going to live up to the unrealistic hopes raised by his masterful campaign, it’s clear that he barely even tried to enact real change. Democratic partisans who blame just Republicans for the failures of Obama’s leadership are in major denial.

The electorate voted for change in 2008 and instead got a president that surrounded himself with Wall Street cronies and Bush holdovers; a president that protected the war criminals and Wall Street crooks and prosecuted the whistle blowers; a president that promoted a health care plan devised by the Heritage Foundation; a president that expanded the power and activities of the military and the surveillance state; and a president who compromised early and often so that 90% of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent.

Obama himself said, “My policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”

Obama tried to be post-partisan and to “look forward.”  Instead he got crushed.

What’s most perplexing is Obama’s failure to communicate clearly who’s to blame for our problems.  He’s a great speaker, but he mostly allowed the GOP to control the messaging.

As William Kuttner wrote in HuffPost in 2010, “Let’s stop pretending. Barack Obama is a disaster as a crisis president. He has taken an economic collapse that was the result of Republican ideology and Republican policies, and made it the Democrats’ fault. And the more that he is pummeled, the more he bends over.”

In fact, Glen Ford made a good case that Obama’s talk about post-partisanship was just a smokescreen to justify corporate-friendly policies. In Psycho-Babbling Obama Ford wrote, “Rather than face the fact that Obama is not a friend of the people, leftish commentators insist on conducting a psychological analysis of the president.” .

I think Obama’s central mistake was his decision not to prosecute Bush officials for war crimes — the worst sort of offense: starting a fraudulent war that killed 100s of thousands of people and wasted trillions of dollars.  In general, nobody was held responsible for that disaster or for the economic crash of 2007 and 2008.  This kept the truth hidden and allowed the wrongdoers to recoup and roar back to life.  By 2010 Republican had won back the House. What a disaster!  Thomas Frank bemoaned the debacle in his book Pity the Billionaire.

No wonder people didn’t bother to vote.  People voted for change and got more of the same.

And it annoys me to no end when Obama supporters pretend Obama did a good job.

So, my hypothesis in this article is that turnout was low largely because of Obama’s failure to lead and because of peoples’ disillusionment with politics in general.   I’d be curious to see objective evidence about this hypothesis.    Have political scientists and pollsters done interviews to figure out why people didn’t vote?    I know many of my coworkers ignore politics because, they say, it’s too depressing and there’s nothing they can do about it.

Of course, you can’t just blame Obama.  He couldn’t have changed much alone, even had he tried.  The corruption is endemic in D.C. and extends to the highest reaches of the Democratic leadership. For example, in this New Yorker article, Ryan Lizza quotes former Virginia Senator Jim Webb, who may challenge Hillary for in the Democratic primary in 2016:

There is a big tendency among a lot of Democratic leaders to feed some raw meat to the public on smaller issues that excite them, like the minimum wage, but don’t really address the larger problem. … [They’ll] say we’re going to raise the minimum wage, we’re going do these little things, when in reality we need to say we’re going to fundamentally change the tax code so that you will believe our system is fair.

Lizza writes, “He added that one Northeastern senator—Webb wouldn’t say who—’was literally screaming at me on the Senate floor'” in anger over Webb’s plan to tighten regulations of Wall Street. Who was the screaming senator? Chuck Schumer? Hillary?

Hillary is even more friendly to the Pentagon and Wall Street than Obama, but at least she probably wouldn’t have been such a push-over.  But if she’s the standard bearer for the Democrats in 2016, the Dems are in for a lot more trouble.

Anyway, it’s clear that Obama barely tried to enact change.  Had he fought and lost it would have been better than compromising and repeatedly losing. His compromises didn’t earn him one iota of concession from the GOP. Instead, his compromises disheartened and confused the voters and allowed the GOP to control the messaging.

And it pissed off a lot of erstwhile supporters who lost hope and faith in the democratic and Democratic process.

In the future it will be a lot harder to fool voters and Democratic activists into believing the populist rhetoric that candidates spew when they’re running for office.  Obama tricked me, I admit. I volunteered, donated to his campaign and celebrated his victory. By 2010 I was angry.

Democrats sometimes deliver, on wedge issues such as gay marriage, gun rights, and marijuana legalization.  (On the other hand, Obama merely followed and didn’t take the lead on these issues.)   But on the central issues of economic justice, the Democratic leadership mostly serve the 1%, despite their rhetoric.  So, in 2016 the Dems are gonna have trouble tricking progressive again.

We really need to stop Hillary and take back the Democratic Party from the corporate Dems.

I’m reading David Stockman’s book The Great Deformation — the Corruption of Capitalism in America. Stockman was Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He criticizes the GOP for its militarism and its whoring for the rich. He says there was no need to bail out Wall Street. The speculators who would have lost out deserved to lose and the contagion wouldn’t have spread beyond the canyons of Wall Street.

Progressives would agree with much of what Stockman has to say.

“[T]he Republican Party was hijacked by modern imperialists during the Reagan era. As a consequence, the conservative party cannot perform its natural function as watchdog of the public purse because it is constantly seeking legislative action to provision a vast war machine of invasion and occupation.” (p 688)

“The Republican Party has totally abdicated its job in our democracy, which is to act as the guardian of fiscal discipline and responsibility. They’re on an anti-tax jihad — one that benefits the prosperous classes.”  “How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich”. Rolling Stone.

But Stockman is a true conservative.  He doesn’t believe the government should be involved in bailing out business or stimulating the economy.  He opposes Keynesian macro-economic policies and thinks that government does more harm than good when it meddles.  He also opposes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the minimum wage.

“At the heart of the Great Deformation is a rogue central bank that has abandoned every vestige of sound money. In so doing, it has enabled politicians to enjoy ‘deficits without tears’ by monetizing massive amounts of public debt.”

Stockman calls the bailout, the stimulus, and the Fed’s printing of money “a de facto coup d’etat by Wall Street” whose purpose was to re-inflate the financial bubble.

“The Detroit-based auto industry was debt-enfeebled house of cards that had been a Wall Street playpen of deal making and LBOs for years, including my own. “  He thinks the there needs to be a rollback of the “preposterous $100,000 per year cost of UAW jobs.”

Stockman spent twenty years after leaving the White House in the leveraged buyout business.  He was indicted for fraud when a business he invested in went bankrupt. After a two year battle, prosecutors decided to drop charges. Stockman says the business failure was due to stupidity (his) and market decline, not fraud.

In the last chapter, Stockman proposes the following radical policy changes which, he admits, have almost no chance of being enacted in the current political climate.  Some of the changes (such as overturning Citizens United, the establishment of federally funded elections, and a wealth tax on the rich) would be eagerly welcomed by progressives. Other changes (such as the elimination of Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes) would be strongly opposed by progressives.

1. An end to the Feds expansionist monetary policy and a return to a gold-backed dollar.
2. An end to deposit insurance and an end to Fed’s lending federally insured money to speculating banks.
3. Adopt “Super Glass-Stegall II”, erecting a wall between investment banking government funds (“insured deposits or access to the Fed discount window”).
4. An Omnibus Amendment that limits Congress members to a single term of six years in office and eliminates the Electoral College (“bringing the nation into the modern world of one person, one vote”).
5. Require Congress to balance the budget, except in case of a declared war.
6. End Keyesian macroeconomic expansionism and allow the free market to set wages and levels of production.
7. Abolish social insurance bailouts, and economic subsidies.
8. “Eliminate the Departments of Energy, Education, Commerce, Labor, Agriculture, HUD, Homeland Security, the SBA, DOT, and the Ex-Im Bank.” Also eliminate Fannie Mae, Freddie Mae, the FHA, the homeowner’s tax deduction, and subsidies for Amtrak.
9. “Erect a study cash-based means-tested safety net and abolish the minimum wage.”
10. Abolish all forms of health insurance, including Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare, and replace them with “cash-based transfer payments.”  Also eliminate tax subsidies for employer-funded health insurance. All these forms of insurance, says Stockman, mostly serve to prop up the corrupt medical-industrial complex. “The cancerous growth of the medical care complex would be halted and reversed.”  He believes the free market will devise innovations to provide efficient care. “The one necessary concession to socialism would be a system of federally licensed catastrophic insurance funds would automatically cover the means-tested safety-net population.”
11. “Replace the warfare state with genuine national defense.”
12. Establish a 30% wealth tax on the rich in order to reclaim the trillions they extorted from the US Treasury and the middle class. “Needless to say, $14 trillion of national debt reduction could never be achieved under any known ordinary fiscal device; it would require a one-time wealth tax, essentially a recapture of part of the windfall wealth gain that has accrued to the top of the economic ladder during the age of bubble finance.”
13. Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment (income taxes) and finance “the beast” via consumption taxes.

By the way, Stockman isn’t the only former Reagan economic adviser to argue against GOP tax policy. Former Labor Secretary Barry Bluestone thinks the GOP tickle-down economic policy is a failure. He says “The wealthiest people spend maybe 30% of their income. Poor people spend 100%, working people spend 98%, so as we move money away from working families towards very wealthy families, we take more and more consumption out of the economy, means slower and slower growth, means higher and higher an extended unemployment.”

I presume Microsoft would benefit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.  Rep. Suzan Delbene and her husband, Kurt DelBene, both used to work for Microsoft in senior management positions. Both of them have personal ties to the company and presumably own considerable stock in Microsoft. Shouldn’t she recuse herself from votes concerning the TPP? Or were the DelBene’s required to sell their stock?

Last I heard DelBene hasn’t committed to opposing TPP or the fast-tracking thereof, despite the Washington State Democratic Party platform’s opposition to TPP.

From FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) and https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=134733849408 (June 30, 2009). See the section in bold for how the bill benefits Microsoft and for Rep. Ross Hunter’s role in promoting it. Hunter also led the charge for tax breaks for Microsoft.

Under a new Washington State law, foreign guest workers — and their families who are in the United States — will be allowed to attend college by paying in-state tuition, even though the law does not extend that same benefit to American citizens who are from other states.

The law — which started as H.B. 1487 in the Washington State Legislature — was signed into law by Governor Christine Gregoire on April 25 and will take effect on July 1. The new law permits foreign workers with certain work visas, including H-1B visas, to access in-state tuition benefits. The law reduces Washington’s in-state residency requirement from three years to one year for foreign workers and also eliminates the requirement that students must attend a Washington State high school to qualify for in-state tuition. The new rules also provide reduced tuition to family members of certain visa holders. (WA Bill Action, 2009 Session; Seattle Times, June 22, 2009; and Bellingham Herald, June 22, 2009).

Critics point out that the law could not have come at a worse time for Washingtonians. The law is expected to contribute to a loss of revenue for the state university system. Initial estimates predict that the University of Washington will lose $430,000 in tuition revenue and that Washington State University could lose approximately $215,000. (Id.). Beyond revenue loss, others have pointed out that the law also reduces the number of educational opportunities available to Washington State residents at a time when more people are looking to return to school to obtain advanced degrees.

Critics have dubbed the bill, which was proposed by a former Microsoft executive (State Rep. Ross Hunter (D-Medina)), the “Microsoft subsidy bill,” because the Seattle-based software company will garner the bulk of the benefit from the new law. Recognizing that this law is nothing more than a corporate welfare bill at the expense of state residents, State Rep. Bob Hasegawa (D-Seattle) said: “We only allow X amount of [admission] slots for resident tuition rates and we are displacing those residents with H-1B visa holders, their families and dependents. Microsoft can well afford out-of-state tuition for its people.” (Id.).

At the same time, the new law discriminates against American citizens because it does not extend in-state tuition benefits to U.S. citizens living outside of Washington State. Accordingly, under the bill, an H-1B visa holder could send a family member to a state university for a total annual cost of $7,677 during the next academic year, compared to the annual out-of-state tuition cost of $24,352 that an out-of-state American citizen would be forced to pay.

Washington State’s move to reduce college costs for foreign born students comes on the heels of a recent New York Times article which concluded that American college students will have a harder time paying for college this coming school year. According to The Times, “Students looking for college scholarships are going to have a harder time this year as providers, hammered by falling investment returns and declining philanthropic support.” (New York Times, June 26, 2009). The current economic climate has “led foundations, corporations, state governments and colleges themselves to reduce their support of providers of scholarships, and in recent months programs have been reduced or canceled outright. The cuts come as economic conditions make it harder for families to pay for college and as more unemployed people look for financing for retraining.” (Id.).

 

 

 

• Microsoft Admits Keeping $92 Billion Offshore to Avoid Paying $29 Billion in US Taxes
• Microsoft could find payoff, take high road by paying up taxes
• Microsoft doesn’t need our tax break
• Microsoft’s Staggering Tax Dodge Alone Would Fund the Entire State of Washington for Two Years
• Microsoft’s tax avoidance schemes: national and in Washington State
• More corporate welfare for Microsoft

 

The just-concluded elections helped to resolve nothing in our state.

We will have a small Republican majority in the state Senate and a small Democratic majority in the state House. They won’t agree on much of anything.

Perhaps the Legislature can take a few hints from other states and cities around the country. In Arkansas, the Republicans enjoyed a clean sweep of all statewide offices, all Congressional seats and increased their majorities in the State Senate and the State House. At the same time, the people voted by a 2-to-1 majority to increase the minimum wage in their state by $2.25. In South Dakota, the Republicans swept all offices, and the people voted to increase the minimum wage by $1.25, effective on January 1, and, taking a tip from our state, made sure that the minimum wage keeps up with inflation after that. In Nebraska, GOP victories for U.S. Senate, governor, secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor, auditor, and other offices were accompanied by a strong victory for raising the minimum wage by $1.75 to $9 by 2016.

Alaska voters elected Republicans as U.S. senator and Congressperson, an independent former Republican as governor, and kept Republican majorities in their state Senate and state House. And Alaskans also voted more than 2-to-1 to increase the minimum wage to $9.75 as of January 2016, which will be higher than our current minimum wage in Washington state. On the East Coast, Massachusetts voters elected a Republican governor and put into law a statewide paid sick days law modeled on Seattle’s ordinance. And ping-ponging back to our coast, Oakland, California, passed an ordinance raising the minimum wage to $12.25 and requiring businesses to provide five paid sick days a year.

Something is happening here, and it is pretty clear what it is. When voters are faced with a clear-cut decision on actual policy, they vote for their own economic security and that of their neighbors and friends. When they are faced with candidates who promise everything (and often deliver nothing, or even the opposite of what they promise), they swing back and forth between Republicans and Democrats. Candidates of both parties hype themselves to the voters, with rhetoric and platitudes. And once they are in office, they often stand down from their own promises.

In Washington, our elected public servants in the state House and state Senate have a chance now to turn campaign slogans into actual policy. If the voters in both conservative Republican-controlled states and Democratic-controlled states have endorsed new policy for increasing the minimum wage and for making paid sick days a labor standard, our political leaders should be able to do the same thing here. These issues have support across party lines. It should be simple. In fact, legislation for paid sick days was introduced in the House last year, sponsored by state Reps. Mike Sells, D-Everett; Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish; Luis Moscoso, D-Bothell; and Cindy Ryu, D-Shoreline. The Democratic-controlled House passed this bill to the Senate, and the Republican leadership of the Senate let it die.

So, in considering the votes across the country for paid sick days, why don’t we just consider that inaction a Mulligan, and take a do-over this year. The Democratic House can pass it over to the Senate, and this time, the Senate could actually consider this bill and take an up-or-down vote on it. That would be refreshing.

While they are at it, the Legislature might want to consider increasing the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour over a three-year period. This was introduced by Rep. Jessyn Farrell, D-Seattle. It made it through one committee and stopped there. Some members of the House thought that they had done enough for workers by passing the paid sick days bill. Increasing the minimum wage was just too heavy a lift for them. But our minimum wage is still less than what it was, adjusted for inflation, in 1972. Raising the minimum wage is good for workers. It also adds a bit of equilibrium to the growth in productivity, ensuring that is not just hogged by the top echelon of executives. The people know this, and so they support it. But will our Legislators do the right thing?

Originally published at the Everett Herald

Contact: Julianna Dauble

206-856-1357
November 12, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Black Friday: Boycott Microsoft and Picket to Demand Tax Fairness ”

Seattle – Washington Badass Teachers Association (WA-BATS) a grassroots group of career educators protecting our public education system from further degradation is holding a public protest on Friday, November 28th, 2014 at the overpass on NE 40th St in Redmond, a block from Overlake Transit Center and near 156th Ave and 136th St. (Here’s the google map location). The public is encouraged and welcome to attend from 5:30-7:30.

Because the average citizen is unaware of how public schools are funded and how regressive Washington state’s tax system is, organizers will be artfully drawing attention to the corporate tax loopholes enjoyed by Microsoft through creative messaging.

Microsoft has avoided paying at least $5.34 billion in state taxes since 1997 thanks to dodging the state royalty tax. Microsoft admits to holding $92 billion in earning offshore to avoid paying $29 billion in U.S. taxes.

The theme of the picket is similar to a funeral procession. Attendees will carry candles for the lost lives and lost learning due to the underfunding of safety net programs and our public schools.

Large lit signs will be visible to traffic on the freeway below. A chorus will perform. Solidarity with all workers will be demonstrated through planned activities on the public sidewalks.

A mock trial and dramatized ‘conviction and sentencing’ of greedy profiteers will be held to signify the injustice to citizens at 4:00 on this day. An audience is encouraged for this event as well.

As public servants and compassionate humans, protesters are demanding the following:

1. Microsoft pay back taxes owed from their manipulation of licensing laws and moving certain financial operations out of state specifically to avoid their tax responsibility.

2. The public boycott Microsoft products including: Microsoft Office, Minecraft, Surface Tablets, Windows, Xbox, Skype, & Nokia phones until Microsoft pays their fair share for Washington State services.

3. Legislators reform tax laws! Each and every legislator swore to uphold their paramount duty when they were sworn into office. Demand legislators change revenue policies to eliminate tax loopholes for corporations. Fully fund basic education. Support students, teachers, small class sizes, and all workers in Washington with a fair budget and sustainable revenue. Support our most vulnerable citizens across the state.

Other social justice groups will be joining the Badass Teachers. Because the event will be in the dark on a non workday for Microsoft employees guest speakers will be using bullhorns and videotaped so messages will be disseminated on various media. Activist leaders will be made available for interview.

For more information about WA-BATS, visit us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1378337475716232/
Event Invite (public): https://www.facebook.com/events/708053752620832
Contact: Julianna Dauble, (206) 856-1357
Email: BATSrally@gmail.com

Part 1 The Navy Plan to Turn the Olympic Peninsula into a War Zone

David Spring M. Ed. Director, Washington Environmental Protection Coalition

November 18 2014

 

Everything is connected to everything else…. The health of our State’s economy cannot be separated from the health of our States environment. And the health of our environment cannot be separated from the health of our State’s rivers and streams. And the health of our rivers and streams cannot be separated from the health of our State’s forests.

 

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to summarize the Navy’s trillion dollar plan to turn the Olympic Peninsula into an Electronic Warfare Zone and to provide scientific evidence that two endangered species, Spotted Owls and Marbled Murrelets, would be driven to extinction as a result of this plan. This study is divided into five parts. First, we will review the Navy’s plan to turn the Olympic Mountains into an Electronic Warfare Zone. Second, we will summarize unanswered questions about how this plan might harm humans and wildlife. Third, we will provide a historical summary of past attempts to save the spotted owls. Fourth, we will provide an analysis of current spotted owl population in the Olympic Mountains and evidence of how the war zone plan will destroy this population – which is already on the edge of extinction. If the Navy is allowed to turn the most important remaining habitat of spotted owls into an Electronic Warfare Zone, this will be the final nail in the coffin for one of nature’s most important indicator species. Fifth, we will review what you can do to stop the Navy from destroying the Olympic Peninsula and one of our nation’s last remaining populations of Spotted Owls.

 

 

Part 1 The Navy Plan to Turn the Olympic Mountains into a War Zone

The Olympic Peninsula, on the Northwest Corner of Washington State, is critical habitat for two endangered species, spotted owls and marbled murrelets, both of whom rely on rare Old Growth forests for their nests. Numerous environmental organizations have rated the Olympic rain forest as being one of the most important environmental ecosystems in the entire world. More than three million people visit the Olympic Peninsula every year providing more than $300 million in economic activity and tourism related jobs to the local community.

 

Recently, the US Navy submitted an application to the US Forest Service for a Special Use Permit to allow 3 large trucks – fitted with special electromagnetic wave transmitters – to be driven on Forest Service roads in the Olympic National Forest. The public has been given until November 28 2014 to submit written public comments on this project.

 

On August 28, 2014, the Navy issued a 7 page Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) claimed that allowing these three trucks to use Forest Service roads will have “no significant impact” and therefore this project does not require the Navy to submit a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

http://www.navfac.navy.mil/content/dam/navfac/NAVFAC%20Atlantic/NAVFAC%20Northwest/PDFs/About%20Us/Environmental%20Public%20Releases/nw_FONSI_PN_EW_RANGE_1.pdf

 

In September 2014, the Navy issued their final 228 page Environmental Assessment (EA) on this project. Their assessment is available at the following link.

http://www.navfac.navy.mil/content/dam/navfac/NAVFAC%20Atlantic/NAVFAC%20Northwest/PDFs/About%20Us/Environmental%20Public%20Releases/nw_EW_EA_Final_September_2014.pdf

 

However, as the Navy explains in their Environmental Assessment, this project is not merely about having three trucks on Forest Service roads. Instead, the three trucks are an essential component in turning the Olympic Peninsula into an Electronic Warfare Range. In fact, the name of the project on the Forest Service application is Pacific Northwest Electronic Warfare Range Environmental Assessment #42759. The purpose of the project is to build two stationary electronic warfare transmitters and three mobile electronic warfare transmitters to be used in war games simulations by 135 “Growler” jet aircraft scheduled to be stationed at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island in Washington State. If the Special Use Permit is granted by the Forest Service, the three mobile transmitters would be driven to 12 locations on logging roads in the Olympic National Forest and 3 additional locations on forests controlled by the Washington State Department of National Resources (DNR).

 

These mobile transmitters would then be located by and interact with new electronic warfare equipment on the new “Growler” aircraft during more than 3,000 training missions each year – about 11 missions per day 6 days a week or one mission every hour throughout the entire year with each of the 3,000 missions involving an unknown number of Growler jets. The Navy has claimed that the new electronic aircraft would fly at an elevation of more than 6,000 feet above Sea Level and that the new planes and trucks present no danger to humans or wildlife. However, alternate sources indicate that the planes would actually fly as low as 1,200 feet above the surface in the Olympic Mountains and that the new planes are among the loudest planes ever build – measured at up to 150 decibels – enough to cause permanent damage to the human ear and severe stress in humans and wildlife.

 

 

The intense sound produced by these new electronic warfare jets is why the airplanes are called “Growler” airplanes. In addition, questions have been raised about the long term health effects of the electromagnetic pulse radiation produced by the Growler aircraft and the Mobile Transmitters. It is believed that this radiation can lead to cancer in humans and wildlife. Here are the locations of the proposed Electronic Warfare sites. Note that all of them are very close to critical habitat for spotted owls and marbled murrelets.

 

Compare the Map for the Proposed Electronic Warfare Range to the Map of Critical Habitat for Spotted Owls and Marbled Murrelets

 

 

 

Note that mobile transmission site 12 is next to the Hoh Rain Forest – home of the largest concentration of spotted owls left in Washington State. Below is a map of critical habitat for the Marbled Murrelet (shown in black). This too is next to several mobile transmission sites. http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/lm_hcp_murrelet_ltcs_map.pdf

 

 

$300 million in Tourism Losses to Save $5 million in Fuel?

The Navy already conducts electronic warfare games at an electronic warfare range at the Mount Home Air Force base in Idaho. However, the Navy wants to add an electronic warfare range on the western slopes of the Olympic Peninsula in order to save about $5 million in fuel costs. The Navy apparently has failed to consider the fact that turning the Olympic Peninsula into a war zone would cost local residents $300 million in lost economic activity and jobs due to the loss of tourism. The Olympic Peninsula already has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. If it is turned into a war zone, it would likely destroy their community. As a consequence, the Forest Service has already received more than 2,500 public comments on the proposal. Over 90% of these comments have opposed the project. However, at a recent informational meeting in Port Angeles Washington, attended by more than 250 angry citizens, the Forest Service improperly stated that “only substantial comments that point out specific errors in the Navy’s Environmental Assessment (EA) will be considered… this is not a popularity contest.” Although required by law to hold an official public hearing on the project, and to manage the forest for the benefit of the public instead of the benefit of special groups like the Navy, Forest Service officials claimed that they do not need to consider the opinion of the public and that they do not have the time or money to hold a public hearing. The 2,500 public comments already submitted can be read at this link.

https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public/ReadingRoom?Project=42759

 

 

Killing the Canary in the Coal Mine

A primary concern about the Navy Electronic Warfare plan is the potential to destroy endangered species such as spotted owls and marbled murrelets. These birds are “indicator species” of the health of our entire environment. They are the “canaries in the coal mine.” According to E.O. Wilson, Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator in Entomology, Harvard University: “The fundamental truth is that biodiversity matters profoundly to human health in almost every conceivable way. The roles that individual species, and the ecosystems they make up, play in providing food, fuel and unique medicinal compounds; air, water and soil purification services; and natural regulation of infectious disease, to name a few, are critical to our health and survival. The loss of species as a result of human activity and the degradation of ecosystems ongoing around the world lowers the quality of the planet’s natural resources and destabilizes the physical environment… Changes to the environment—be they from pollution, deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, or other causes—ultimately affect the living world. Once we lose a gene, species, or an ecosystem, it is gone forever.”

 

Below is a link to a ten minute YouTube video with a child explaining the importance of saving our spotted owls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7CevktQyjc#t=89

 

 

 

As a sharp contrast to the peace and quiet of an Old Growth forest, we will next look at the monstrous noise levels of the Growler Jets – among the loudest planes ever made!

 

Hear for yourself how much noise these Growler Jets make!

Watch and listen to this video of Growler Jets repeatedly flying over a Little League Baseball Game with the hand held meter registering 112 decibels. This is a five minute YouTube video of the several Growler Jets flying over a Little League baseball game. The decibel rating on the hand held meter reached 112 decibels. “it is not good for the kids… It is not good to anybody.” Note that noise of 85 decibels is enough to cause permanent hearing damage.

 

Navy EA18G Growlers over ballpark, Coupeville WA, harming children’s hearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwxYpCa09-E

 

 

A Navy Auditor found that the noise level of the Growler jets could exceed 150 decibels.

 

 

We will next attempt to estimate the total cost of the Navy’s electronic warfare plan. This does not include the cost of the loss of tourism to the Olympic Peninsula. It is merely the hard cost of the planes themselves.

 

What does the Navy Electronic Warfare Program Really Cost?

The Navy recently asked Congress for $2.1 billion to buy an additional 22 Growler jets. From this one might assume that the Growlers cost $100 million each. Every 10 jets cost one billion. So the current inventory of about 100 Growler jets costs $10 billion. But the complete plan is to have 200 Growler jets for a cost of $20 billion. The Growlers would eventually be supplemented by a new electronic warfare jet called the F 35 Lightning. These new jets, the most expensive in history, are initially expected to cost about $400 billion with total eventual cost over one trillion dollars. The Navy plans to purchase 230 F 35 C jets which added to the potential 200 Growlers would make the entire attack force at Whidbey Island more than 400 planes – four times the current number.

http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Defense/F-35-Lightning-II-JSF.html

 

 

“The F-18G, known as the Growler, emits a broader set of electronic warfare frequencies than does the F-35, Rear Adm. Michael Manazir,  told reporters after today’s House Armed Services air and land force subcommittee hearing. The two planes flying together are a much more effective strike package, according to Navy analysis, than either one flying on its own… the Growler generates enough power to blanket the area ahead of the F-35s so they can act in a complementary fashion.”

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/03/why-the-navy-really-wants-22-more-fa-18gs/

 

Both of these planes would be stationed at the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station and operate in tandem from the Navy’s fleet of Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The F 18G has two powerful continuous wave transmitters that emit electromagnetic beams towards a potential threat. In 2020, an even more powerful electromagnetic warfare system will be added to the jets. In May 2014, Boeing delivered the 100^th Growler to the Navy with a committed for 35 more (4 per year) over the next 10 years. But the eventual plan is for 200 Growlers and 230 F 35 C stealth electromagnetic warfare jets.

 

These electronic warfare jets also require a Nimitz class aircraft carrier – which are the largest warships ever built – each with a crew of 6,000. Each ship is longer than three football fields. Each of these aircraft carriers can accommodate up to 100 jets. Each of these ships cost about $8.5 billion. The Navy has 10 of these nuclear powered aircraft carriers so the total cost is about $85 billion. This does not include the cost of the 6,000 person crew. Nor does it include the cost of anything else needed to run the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

 

 

One can only imagine the few remaining spotted owls on the western slope of the Olympic Mountains – owls that evolved to live in one of the quietest environments on earth – being suddenly attacked by 200 to 400 electronic warfare jets up to 11 times a day or more than 1000 times a year. The shear volume of noise is certain to be deafening. Should the owls and residents of the Olympic Peninsula somehow survive these hourly attacks, they would still have to suffer the long term and possibly deadly harm inflicted by tens of thousands of electromagnetic pulse beams raining down on them like a toxic invisible hailstorm from the sky.

 

 

The Stationary Electronic Warfare Transmitter… Also known as the Death Star

 

 

So much for hiking along Pacific Beach. The tower would be about 66 feet high and 40 feet wide. The tower would be capable of generating an electromagnetic wave at frequencies ranging from 2 to 18 gigahertz (GHz) and it would be able to emit up to 64 simultaneous signals while transmitting in pulses or a continuous wave. The Navy plans to have the Electronic Warfare project running by September 2015. The Navy still needs permission from the U.S. Forest Service and the state Department of Natural Resources for use of roads in remote areas where the mobile units would travel and set up.

 

The Mobile Electronic Warfare Transmitters… Bringing death to 15 sites in the Olympic Mountains

 

 

 

Imagine running into one of these war machines during your next family camping trip! The Navy says that you will be okay as long as you are not near one of these war machines for more than 15 minutes. No worries there. The moment I see one of these things, I am heading the other direction as fast as I can!

 

This is only a small part of the Navy’s New War Plan Against the People and Wildlife of the United States

As of December 2014, the Navy will also be expanding its sonar and explosive activity into waters off Indian Island near Port Townsend, in the Strait of Juan De Fuca, and in the 2,408 square mile Olympic Coast Marine Sanctuary, where the Navy says it is exempt from prohibitions. It has, however, said that bombing exercises will take place outside the Sanctuary. At the same time, the Navy is developing plans for two Carrier Strike Groups to train in the Gulf of Alaska just south of Prince William Sound and east of Kodiak Island, using new extremely loud weapons systems and sinking two ships per year, in exercises that the Navy admits will kill or injure 182,000 whales, dolphins, porpoises, sea lions, seals, sea otters and other marine mammals in one five- year period. This is less than the original prediction of 425,000 marine mammals, but still so astonishing it makes one wonder what parts of our biologically rich coasts will not become war zones with high casualty counts, if the Navy gets its way.

 

This concludes our summary of the Navy plan to turn the Olympic Mountains into a war zone. In the next section, we will describe a series of unanswered questions about how this war plan might harm humans and wildlife. We will then review the history of attempts to save our spotted owls. We will then assess the current spotted owl population in the Olympic Mountains – showing that is on the brink of extinction even before this new plan by the Navy to destroy them completely. We will then conclude with a series of ideas on what each of us can do individually and jointly to stop this monstrous assault on the Olympic Peninsula.

 

 

For links to all of these studies, visit the Home page of our website:

http://washingtonenvironmentalprotectioncoalition.org/