Swords Into Plowshares

King’s spirit lives on, no matter how they try to bowdlerize his legacy and shut down anyone who follows in his footsteps. We can beat swords into plowshares--what's stopping us?

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Happy Black History Month, too.)

It does seem funny wishing a good day in honor of a late great American (assassinated by our own security state), but what else can I say?

I suppose I could say “Happy Inauguration Day!” but some folks would have a complete and utter meltdown if I dare mention Donald Trump being sworn in as president for a second time. So, I won’t say that, but what could I say instead? Maybe: “Trump is living in the White House again. Get use to it”?

I find it interesting how most of the individuals I know who have constantly worried and fretted over or made fun of the “Orange Man” won’t live any differently whether Trump is president or not. They still have their white privilege. They still live solidly middle- to upper-class lives. They will keep their jobs or be able to retire as planned. This is in complete contrast to the poor people that Dr. King spoke about frequently who struggled to pay their bills and never once considered retirement to be possible.

Dr. King spoke often in the last year of his life about the abomination of war, particularly the US military incursion into Vietnam and Southeast Asia. He made very pointed remarks about how it was always the poor boys—black, white, Native, Hispanic, etc.—who bore the brunt of violence both at home, living poor in the ghetto, and in Vietnam, drafted as soldiers.

War makes rich men even richer. War and poverty together destroy the lives of poor men and their families. Dr. King proclaimed this was evidence of how the corrupt system of capitalism is and why it needs to die. Capitalism is the driving force behind both war and poverty. In speaking out against capitalism, Dr. King paid for it with his life.

It’s almost sixty years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder and we’re still experiencing the same pattern. The rich grow richer through war and conquest. The poor are as desperate as ever—and turned into cannon fodder as necessary.

I’m sure Dr. King would be shocked to know just how many trillions of dollars (that’s “trillions” and not “billions”) the US government alone has spent on its military since his passing. And for what? There are “boneyards” filled with thousands of planes and their parts rusting in the desert outside of Tuscon, Arizona. (I know this for a fact because I’ve seen them there. Billions of US taxpayers’ dollars slowly turning into dust.) There are graveyards upon graveyards full of the bones of soldiers sent to fight in US wars for oil, scaring the lives of their loved ones who are forced to live without them.

The military-industrial complex takes and takes and takes, bleeding the US economy dry, leaving its evil detritus behind. It’s so dry now that when the folks of Maui asked Joe Biden for aid after a massive wildfire destroyed their homes and the folks of North Carolina after Hurricane Helene asked FEMA for some trailers to live in this winter instead of tents, they were told there was no money for those things. The US government had to provide military aid to both Ukraine and Israel they were informed. Funding a genocide and a proxy war come first before taking care of homeless and hurting Americans. Too bad, so sad.

Dr. King spoke out against racism and the need for equality among peoples, but he also spoke out a great deal against war and greed. I’m certain, if he were still alive today, Dr. King would be speaking out about the lack of compassion the US government has demonstrated toward its own people as well toward the Palestinians by funding and arming Israel to commit a genocide against them. Speaking out against injustices was why the Unspeakable had to shut him down, after all.

But King’s spirit lives on, no matter how the powers-that-be try to bowdlerize his legacy and shut down anyone who follows in his footsteps. The following piece written by British historian Coast Watcher shows that all is not lost, that the West can recoup some of those trillions spent on building aircraft carriers and transform these instruments of war into instruments of peace.

I believe Dr. King would have approved of this idea, a modern rendition of beating swords into plowshares. What do you think? —C.A. Matthews, editor

Swords Into Plowshares

By Coast Watcher

In World War II the aircraft carrier proved an indispensable weapon in the Allied fleets. Each carried up to ninety aircraft of various types and maintained the projection of force against the Axis. In the Pacific theaterthey carried Allied aircraft within reach of Japanese-held islands and eventually to the enemy homeland itself. In the North Atlantic aircraft carriers provided air cover to protect the vital merchant convoys to Britain and troopships carrying American forces to their landings on the European coast.

Following the war, any nation with even a pretense of influence in world affairs possessed aircraft carriers in its fleet. The vessels evolved from oil-fueled vessels that averaged eight hundred feet in length which required refueling every few weeks to nuclear-powered behemoths of over a thousand feet long that require refueling every few years.

First proposed by then Prime Minister Tony Blair in July 1998, Britain’s Royal Navy proudly acquired two massive super-carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth (2017) and HMS Prince of Wales (2019). A British Ministry of Defence press release boasted that the carriers would be deployed “in every ocean around the world over the next five decades.” The pair were and remain the biggest and most expensive ships built in British history, costing close to $8 billion combined. Ongoing operational costs are likewise monstrous.

Today the heads of the British military are under pressure to cut billions of pounds from their budget, which means cuts to land, air and sea forces. The new all-singing, all-dancing super-carriers face an uncertain future. There is a possibility that at least one of these carriers will be scrapped.

Why? Because military technology has moved on since the heady analogue days of World War II. The aircraft carrier is now nothing more than a huge and very expensive target to new generations of supersonic and hypersonic anti-shipping missiles and drones. Always vulnerable to submarine attack, the hard truth of this was clearly demonstrated a few years ago when, in spite of a surrounding screen of destroyers and cruisers, a Chinese diesel-powered submarine popped up in the middle of the US Pacific Fleet.

Just one of the British super-carriers requires support from a strike group consisting of two Type 45 destroyers for air defense, two Type 23 frigates for anti-submarine warfare, a submarine, a fleet tanker and a support ship. All very expensive stuff.

A Way Forward

Instead of scrapping one or both of the huge and expensive super-carriers Britain could instead donate them to the United Nations for use as disaster relief ships. Able to travel quickly to wherever they’re needed, each carrier could house dozens of search-and-rescue helicopters and other aircraft. Current hangar space below decks can be repurposed as hospitals equipped for emergency surgery, storage space for medical supplies, food, water, disaster relief equipment, tents and anything else required in a disaster relief operation. The ship’s nuclear power plant can be hooked up to shoreside facilities to provide electricity wherever local power generation has been damaged or destroyed.

Climate change is leading to major shifts in the Earth’s land and seascapes. Witness the effects of the California wildfires and the aftermath of the hurricanes that hit the American Southeast. A suitably equipped aircraft carrier could prove a vital asset in mitigating such disasters all over the world.

An aircraft carrier could easily rescue people from a South Pacific island going under due to rising ocean levels. It could house, feed and transport them to a safe haven with ease. The carrier’s power plant could provide electricity to utterly destroyed urban areas such as the Gaza strip, helping the Palestinians to rebuild their homes, schools, places of worship and hospitals during the ceasefire.

What else are we to do with all the “swords” in our overstock arsenals? Instead of being used as a projection of force, let the aircraft carrier become a projection of peace.

Related Articles: Collapsing Empire: RIP Royal Navy kitklarenberg.substack.com/p/collapsing-empire-rip-royal-navy

Future aircraft carriers will be named after Bush, Clinton https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/14/biden-aircraft-carriers-bush-clinton/77691178007/

"The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power."

- Martin Luther King Jr., "The Three Evils of Society"

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Fascinating Articles & Other Interesting Links

Martin Luther King DAY 2025 https://leagueofrevolutionaries.substack.com/p/martin-luther-king-day-2025

Martin Luther King, Jr., Vietnam, and Gaza https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/19/martin-luther-king-jr-vietnam-and-gaza/

It's Not That Trump Is Good, It's That Biden Was Just That Bad https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/its-not-that-trump-is-good-its-that

Trump II Day One Immigration Breakdown (Updated Hourly) https://austinkocher.substack.com/p/trump-ii-day-one-immigration-breakdown

Stealing Credit for the Gaza Ceasefire https://consortiumnews.com/2025/01/16/stealing-credit-for-the-gaza-ceasefire/

Chris Hedges: How Fascism Came https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/18/chris-hedges-how-fascism-came-2/

A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza https://www.propublica.org/article/biden-blinken-state-department-israel-gaza-human-rights-horrors

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Where do my tax dollars go? https://www.notmytaxdollars.org/

Israel is still bombing tents in Gaza as ceasefire looms https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/israel-is-still-bombing-tents-in

Gaza Needs More Than a Ceasefire. We Must Demand an End to the Blockade. https://truthout.org/articles/gaza-needs-more-than-a-ceasefire-we-must-demand-an-end-to-the-blockade/

When Israeli Warplanes Rain Death on Gaza, the Copilot Is Uncle Sam https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/14/when-israeli-warplanes-rain-death-on-gaza-the-copilot-is-uncle-sam/

Patrick Lawrence: The Nihilism of Antony Blinken https://scheerpost.com/2025/01/13/patrick-lawrence-the-nihilism-of-antony-blinken/

‘I felt like a Nazi’: Zionists admit genocide https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/-i-felt-like-a-nazi---zionists-admit-genocide

How To Be Happy In A Genocidal Dystopia On A Dying World https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/how-to-be-happy-in-a-genocidal-dystopia

False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon' https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-power-not-low-carbon

The Limits of Artificial Intelligence https://popularresistance.org/the-limits-of-artificial-intelligence/

WATCH THE OSCAR-SHORTLISTED FILM “FROM GROUND ZERO” — filmed in Gaza over the last year! IN THEATERS NOW! https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/watch-the-oscar-shortlisted-film

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Biden Administration Announces Commutations for Nearly 2,500 Non-Violent Drug Offenders https://norml.org/blog/2025/01/17/biden-administration-announces-commutations-for-nearly-2500-non-violent-drug-offenders/

UnitedHealth, employer of slain exec Brian Thompson, found to have overcharged some cancer patients for drugs by over 1,000% https://fortune.com/2025/01/15/ftc-pbms-unitedhealth-brian-thompson-cvs-caremark-cigna-pharmacy-benefit-managers/

Capturing the Counterculture https://brownstone.org/articles/part-two-capturing-the-counterculture/

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