During this holiday gift-giving season, Congress has given King Donald his Space Force. This inspired the following response from the Peace and Freedom Party chair John Reiger.

It’s up, up and away with a new branch of the American military. For now, the Space Force is a branch of the Air Force, but I don’t think it will be long before they try to strike out on their own. The sky is no longer the limit to American militarism, and now space will be militarized. Of course, we’ve been doing this for years: Many “civilian” space missions have had secret military components, some even not-so-secret. But now we won’t even try to pretend that our space exploration efforts are peaceful.

It’s up, up and away with military spending as well. Like all the other branches, this new Space Force will be suctioning money out of the federal budget, leaving nickels and dimes for civilian programs. The military already takes half of the national budget’s discretionary spending, which is the money left over after required spending like Social Security and national debt payments. This new Space Force will be just one more bloated military boondoggle.

Up, up and away with the national debt, too. Almost no one in Washington says no to military spending, no matter how wasteful and counterproductive. The new Space Force can be counted on to follow the usual Pentagon procedure of spreading its spending around to as many Congressional districts as possible, thereby buying yes votes from as many Congress members as possible for Space Force projects.

Up, up and away with military thinking. No longer will we be thinking of exploring space and other worlds for peaceful and scientific purposes, in spite of the fact that we signed the UN Outer Space Treaty that reserves space for peaceful and scientific research. No, we will be looking for military bases and military uses for what we find up there. Instead of thinking about gentle ETs who just want to go home we will look upward in dread., fearful of the imagined monsters lurking out there just waiting invade.

And it’s up, up and away with more generals and admirals – what will these new gold-plated space cadets call themselves? Another useless layer of beribboned military brass waiting to rotate through the military-industrial complex when their “public” service ends.

We – America and the world – do not need a Space Force, do not need more military spending, or federal debt, or militaristic thinking, or more generals. Nor do we need more fearmongering. What we must have are well-paying jobs, decent housing, a clean environment, free health care, and a good life for everyone free from fear and prejudice. Register and vote Peace and Freedom Party.

–John C. Reiger
State Chair, Peace and Freedom Party