Tag Archives: Military

What about NDAA? Questions for Austin Scott in Tift County

Somebody else asks elected representatives questions and posts videos. Here some Ron Paul supporters ask Austin Scott (R GA-08), our upcoming Congressional representative unless somebody defeats him, questions about NDAA ( H.R. 1540: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012) and drones at a Tift County meeting. Scott asked to see a copy of the passages they were asking about, but then the meeting conveniently ended before they could get it to him. In the video they include a quote of the relevant text, which doesn’t say what Scott said it says.

Here’s the video:

I especially like the guy afterwards complaining:

It’s the way you say things; you can’t do that!

They sounded pretty polite to me. I guess what they can’t do is ask questions about laws elected representatives voted on.

-jsq

Veterans for clean energy: Operation Free

Tired of expensive gas? Tired of expensive wars? Let’s get off of oil and onto clean renewable energy! That’s the message from Operation Free, a campaign of the Truman Project.

Mission: Secure America with Clean Energy.

Iraq War veteran Terron Sims said clean energy and veterans is a part of the “modern form of American exceptionalism.”

Here’s the video:

Pullquote:

“In Iraq… the lines would stretch up to ten miles long under the hot sun, under constant risk of attack by extremists. I realized then just how vulnerable it makes any country to be dependent on oil, especially the United States, which uses nearly a quarter of the world’s supply.”

The U.S. military is already leading us towards renewable energy. The Air Force, for example, has a goal of 25% of facility energy use from renewable energy by 2025, and Moody AFB is helping with that. Imagine if a substantial part of the military’s budget was repurposed to implementing renewable energy throughout the country to get us off of foreign oil. Now that would be national security!

And we don’t have to wait for Washington or Atlanta to get on with it right here in Lowndes County, for security, environmental preservation, jobs, and profit.

-jsq

Police Them and Us, made worse by War on Drugs

David Rittgers wrote for The Politico 8 June 2011, How Police Are Turning Military

The sheriff’s office in Pima County, Ariz., raided the home of former Marine and Iraq combat veteran Jose Guerena, shooting 71 rounds at Guerena and hitting him with 22. The department is now facing a serious controversy over Guerena’s death.

But the raid isn’t the real tragedy. It’s a symptom of the real tragedy: the militarization of U.S. law enforcement.

Pima County released a video of the raid and supporting documents. The video isn’t anything new — a squad of police officers dressed up for combat. But the statement of the SWAT supervisor is worth reading. After the SWAT team entered Guerena’s home, the supervisor left one or two “operators” with the body while the rest searched the house.

What did he mean by operator? Well, a police officer. But the term connotes something entirely different.

“Operator” is a term of art in the special operations community. Green Berets, SEALs and other special operations personnel often refer to themselves as operators. It’s a recognition of both the elite standards of their units and the hybrid nature of their duties — part soldier, part spy, part diplomat. But importing operator terminology into domestic law enforcement is not a benign turn of the phrase.

Perceiving yourself as an operator plasters over the difference between a law enforcement officer serving a warrant and a commando in a war zone. The former Mirandizes, the latter vaporizes, as the saying goes…. Targeted killing is legal in a war zone but not on the streets of Anytown, USA.

Why is this happening?

The war on drugs has done incalculable damage to the character of law enforcement by encouraging police officers to forget they are civilians.

The police should be us. The War on Drugs has turned them into them against us.

-jsq

Videos @ LCC 2012 03 27

Here are videos of the entire 27 March 2012 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission (LCC). The audio feed is coming directly from the Commission’s own audio system. We don’t know why County Manager Joe Pritchard is frequently barely audible, nor why the microphone at the audience podium sometimes seems hardly to be working, nor why Commissioners ask people in the audience to speak when there is no microphone pointing at the audience.

Some of these videos have already been blogged:

Here’s a playlist:


Videos
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 March 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

Col. Mark A. Ruse and Moody AFB ORI @ LCC 2012 03 27

Commissioner Richard Raines noticed Col. Mark A. Ruse of Moody Air Force Base in the audience and mentioned the operational readiness inspection (ORI) then in progress at Moody. In case anybody doesn’t know this, Moody AFB is by far the largest employer in Lowndes County.

The Col. said a few words, but it’s hard to tell what they were, since there’s no mic on the audience.

A student group also said a few words, but it’s hard to tell what they were, for the same reason.

Maybe Commissioners could ask people to come to the podium to speak, or deploy a mic that works for the audience.

According to his biography at Moody:

Col. Mark A. Ruse is commander of the 23rd Mission Support Group at Moody Air Force Base, Ga. He leads a group of more than 1,450 military and civilian members providing support and services to a population of 28,000 active duty, retired military and family members. His group maintains an installation with more than 830 buildings and more than 17,500 acres, including an adjacent bombing or strafing range. He is responsible for ensuring the readiness of support forces to mobilize and deploy to build, secure, and sustain air base operations at austere bare base locations anywhere in the world.

The 23rd Mission Support Group also retains responsibility for civil engineering, environmental compliance, disaster preparedness response, fire protection, security forces, airfield navigational systems, communications-computer systems, contracting, transportation, supply, food service, housing, recreation, family and community support programs, personnel, manpower, education and training.

He has a degree in civil engineering.

Also according to Moody (which apparently believes in transparency), 3 April 2012, Continue reading →

Lowndes County and Valdosta history: origins of the old boys

If we want good clean industry for jobs for local people, we need good clean local government, too. Why do our local government bodies hide when they discuss public goods like waste disposal, try to avoid stating public positions on issues, and fail to publish minutes of elected bodies?

A little reading in local histories of the area or talking to people who were involved even a generation or two back indicates that Lowndes County has always been a cliquish sort of place, mostly run by old boys, for reasons that made some sense in the early days (lack of resources, mainly), but doesn’t so much anymore in these days of I-75 and I-10, airport, railroads that still go everywhere, Moody AFB, VSU as a regional university, technical and community colleges, two hospitals and medical industry, TitleTown, Grand Bay WMA, Wild Adventures, and south Georgia sunshine we can export to Atlanta and points north.

Here are a few books about the old days, all available in local libraries and possibly in local bookstores: Continue reading →

Bring our troops home —Gretchen Quarterman

Gretchen Quarterman asked the first question at Saxby Chambliss' Farm Bill Forum in Tifton:

Bring our troops home.

That way we'd have more money for everything else.

Here's the video:


Bring our troops home —Gretchen Quarterman
Farm Bill Forum, Senator Saxby Chambliss,
Gary Black, Charles Hall, Robert Redding, John Maguire,
Tifton, Tift County, Georgia, 16 March 2012.
Video by Gretchen Quarterman for Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange (LAKE).

-jsq

 

 

Solar thermal for Moody AFB

Moody AFB helps USAF lead the military and the country in solar installations by adding solar thermal. Did you know?
Federal mandates require that 25% of Air Force facility energy use comes from renewable energy sources by 2025 and Moody will help….
It’s a shame we have to go to Binghamton and Ithaca, New York, to get the equipment. You’d think we could build solar thermal hot water heaters right here in sunny south Georgia, and install them, too. The architect, however, was local. Congratulations to Moody AFB and Slone Associates for installing solar hot water!

The installer, Intelligent Green Solutions (IGS) of Ithaca, New York, has the details:

The installation is a large solar thermal system that includes:
  • 20 TitanPowerPlus 2.0 Flat Plate Solar Collectors
  • 512 Gallon Solar Hot Water Storage Tanks
The completion target date was end of December.

SunMaxx Solar press release of 29 Jan 2012, SunMaxx Solar and Intelligent Green Solutions Install Solar Thermal System at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia, Continue reading →

Alcohol ordinance and license plus two road abandonments @ LCC 2012 02 13-14

What does a Community Corrections Director do? What is the proposed modification to the alcohol ordinance? We don’t know, because the county doesn’t post the details of agenda items, just cryptic shorthand that may mean something to Commissioners or staff, but that means nothing to the public.

At this morning’s work session and tomorrow evening’s regular session, the Lowndes County Commission has a brief but eventful agenda, including a modification to the alcohol ordinance, an alcohol license, a DHS grant a GDOT grant for a road project on Davidson Road (presumably related to the new Moody AFB gate), two road abandonments, and this interesting item:

6.h. Request from Superior Court to establish salary of the Community Corrections Director
Your guess is as good as mine.

Here’s the agenda.

-jsq

LOWNDES COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PROPOSED AGENDA
WORK SESSION, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012, 8:30 a.m.
REGULAR SESSION, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012, 5:30 p.m.
327 N. Ashley Street – 2nd Floor
Continue reading →

Commission had not seen Moody AFB gate contract with Scruggs before Work Session @ LCC 2012 01 23

We still don’t know what the county is going to do about that cost overrun for the Moody AFB gate. Nobody said at the work session yesterday morning; maybe they’ll say at the regular session tonight when they vote on a contract with some sort of revised dollar figures in it.

County Manager Mike Fletcher waved around a copy of the revised contract with Scruggs Company for the new Moody AFB gate, but said he had not provided it to the Commissioners. I wonder if they’ll see it before they vote tonight? He said it was 226 pages long, but most of that was DOT boilerplate, and only something like 20 pages was the actual county contract. Seems like they could read that much by tonight.

So could we, the public, if it was somewhere we could see it.

He also didn’t say what happened to the $128,497.05 cost overrun. The Commissioners asked no questions.

Here’s the video:


Commission had not seen Moody AFB gate contract with Scruggs before Work Session @ LCC 2012 01 23
Work Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 23 January 2012.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq