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Dylan Ratigan

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Sustainability = Security: The Next Mission for America's Vets

Posted: 05/26/2012 4:54 pm

As our nation starts to draw down the wars overseas, over a million vets will be re-entering civilian life over the next five years -- one of the largest in our country's recent history.

This Memorial Day weekend, we are focusing on the next mission facing our war heroes. We all know our service members and returning vets are committed to our national security -- but as they return home, that mission extends beyond the battlefield, as vets work to ensure that future generations never go to war over resources. The need for sustainable energy and sustainable food are what many of the wars around the world are fought over now -- our returning marines know it, and they're doing something about it.

Watch as Dylan Ratigan talks about the connection between vets, jobs, sustainability and security with Liz Perez of GC Green, and John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil and founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, as well as some amazing veterans he met on the road on the West Coast who are working for change.

 

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As our nation starts to draw down the wars overseas, over a million vets will be re-entering civilian life over the next five years -- one of the largest in our country's recent history. This Memoria...
As our nation starts to draw down the wars overseas, over a million vets will be re-entering civilian life over the next five years -- one of the largest in our country's recent history. This Memoria...
 
 
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Genders
Love, Tolerance, Enlightenment
10:40 PM on 05/30/2012
YES~! rooftop solar is cheaper than nukes. Wind and waste are half that, and lots of jobs.
12:00 AM on 05/29/2012
A growing 7 billion human population on little planet Earth and no war over natural resources ?!
05:41 PM on 05/28/2012
YES!!
12:38 PM on 05/28/2012
My dad, a WWII vet of both the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force, who flew medi-vac and supplies, would have loved Pave Gen, an idea to generate energy when people walk on pavers. Portland would be an ideal place to try this out, especially along our waterfront, which will be flooded with walkers if we ever get summer.
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tagbs
don't poke the aliens!
07:26 AM on 05/28/2012
I'm appalled this morning reading some of these post. One wrote " First, military service is not honorable." and another wrote "War heros really? " and I'm feeling too ill to continue reading more. It's Memorial Day people! Sure hope you are not attending any cookouts. This reminds me of back in the 60's and 70's when returning vets were egged and called baby killers and generally abused. I also am against war and the big war machine, even protested during VN but I never disrespected the men there or returning. Now I have 2 sons who have made me see it through their eyes, one is currently serving at sea and the other recently left the Marine Corps and is among our growing unemployed. I do worry about all our troops coming home with the unemployment rate so high already. But the bottom line, I am proud of my sons. Brave they are and heroes they are no matter what the the puppeteers reasons are for the jobs they did. to the people bashing them then and now. So to you posters who are bashing them, shame on you!
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tagbs
don't poke the aliens!
07:57 AM on 05/28/2012
LOL! I was so angry when posting that I left out a few words in my 2nd to last sentence. that should read "A pox to you, the people bashing them then and now"
03:31 PM on 05/28/2012
Amen. I oppose the current wars as well, but I am infuriated by anyone who belittles the brave kids who stood up to duty after we were attacked on 9/11. They answered the call to arms to defend their homes and their loved ones, and should be honored for it. If the national leadership did not use their service wisely, that is the sin of the fathers, not the young souls defending us all.
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OCCUPYHERALD
Live, Love, Laugh,share, grow.
11:17 PM on 06/10/2012
Nothing compaired to reading that friends of mine think we veterans are

:"murders and dogs" and "Veterans are nothing special!"

Spittin Bullets is nothing compaired to how i feel!
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tagbs
don't poke the aliens!
05:43 AM on 06/11/2012
I'd hug you if I could
lastpost
see biography
05:20 AM on 05/28/2012
"The Next Mission:"
Declare War on Wastefulness.
In the real world that runs on reality, no force known to humankind can confiscate a finite resource that has been exhausted. Its a lost cause.
The Strategy: Out evolve the enemy. Turn technological invention into tactical innovation. Turn destruction into development. Turn weapons into wind turbines. Outmaneuver the overlords. Turn obedience into observations. Turn medals into mindfulness. In the service of the species, world leaders worthy of their office would be at number one on the wish list.
03:23 AM on 05/28/2012
I'm not going to another war I can't walk to. But, I was helping to fight for our oil supply in the Persian Gulf 24 years ago today Few can get to my left on advocating for peace and I concur that Eisenhower was right sixty years ago about the military-industrial complex. But even today it is the elders of our country that get to decide what our military does. Blaming people at ripe-old-age of 18 for having the notion that they want to serve their country, is very simply elitist not to mention disrespectful. Thinking that four blog posts will alter the trajectory of the planet is kind of back lines isn't it? Granted that most peace corps volunteers deserve more gratitude for their contribution than do I or my compatriots. But, the Peace Corps only accepts people with degrees, which I never had the family funding or the job skills to work myself through college before the Navy helped me find it. So, thanks to all of the DoD employees that don't torture (all three of you that read HuffPost), To Dylan's point, you really shouldn't have to fight for our oil supply, it's not in the Constitution. Imagine if thousands of Americans had worked their selves to death, at home, on alternative energy supplies rather than on the opposite side of the planet trying to extract oil and vengeance midst 1000 year old hatreds.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
TruelyFedUp
Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.
10:00 AM on 05/28/2012
Yes, there has to be responsibility at home for the fact that we use our military as insurance to "protect our global supply chain" so we can continue to Dream while using 25% of the world's resources (yet we are 5% of the population). If those "evil" folks in the middle east don't want to give up their own resources ,well, we just turn on our mighty war machine and get what we want. Ask a politician if his constituents voted him in so they could have less - less wars, less oil, less pollution, less designer everything, smaller cars... We are not pi__ed at the 1% because they have more, we're mad because we don't have what they have...
03:20 AM on 05/28/2012
We are all but a product of our upbringing, Sadly, TurdlyFedUp and some of you others must have been feral children. While peace is great, except the few small islands in the Pacific that we have not atomized, over all of recorded history it has never existed for long in the general vacuum of world disorder. Some peaceful islands areas still have their pirate problems now that greed and globalization has brought it to their doorstep. Our country would look more like Haiti or Somalia than the current day US if the we had not asserted some unified military independence movement. I don't eat meat because I don't believe in the market, not because I think it is wrong to kill something and eat it. I don't believe in our present day wars because I think the missions are fools errands, not because I think America doesn't deserve defending.
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TruelyFedUp
Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.
10:06 AM on 05/28/2012
Well, you had me at Turdly. Now I am thoroughly convinced that we should go on investing in and using a military that is bigger than all the rest of the world's military combined to extract other people's resources with weapons of mass destruction. So what if they get mad at us for droning their kids and wives, we don't have to cut back on the American Dream, and THAT after all is what we are all here for. To prove to the world that Americans are a superior race worth defending against the rabble and "useless eaters" that populates the rest of the world.

Ecoengineer from Hell!
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10:56 PM on 05/27/2012
Dylan you the Man. If the Egyptians could get rid of Mubarak in 6 weeks why cant we get rid of all these bums
before election day .Call me a dreamer, The choice between Obama and Romney is no choice at all. I just finished Ex Sen Bill Bradleys new book, brilliant just like him. We need a Third Party now my opinion, not Bradleys . I think the time has never been riper for a Third Party I believe the majority of Americans are as fed up with the current political system as I am. Hey Dylan lets not just get the money out of politics lets get the crooks out of Washington. And the Crooks on Wall St into jail...
10:19 PM on 05/27/2012
This Memorial Day many people across this nation are having fun barbecuing and playing games like horseshoes and badminton ( real nome for the game ), but do they really know what the day is really about and do they even care. Well, let me tell you now so that you will be informed. Number one, this country would not exist if it were not for the brave souls that fought for our country so that it would exist and be free. These brave people have, through the many years gone off to war to protect your freedoms and many have lost limbs and many have died. Over 50,000 died in the Vietnam Conflict. Conflict my butt, I was there and believe me it was closer to a war than a conflict. All you need to do on Memorial day is search out a veteran and simply say thank you for protecting my freedom and for hunting down mass murderer Osama Bin Laden and removing him from this planet so that he cannot hurt any more innocent civilians.
As a former U. S. Marine, and combat wounded in Vietnam, thanks for reading this and doing the right thing by thanking a veteran, male, female or canine. The canines (dogs) saved many by alerting them of danger ahead, like an early warning sentenal or sensor. You just cant beat those olfactory sensors (their noses and the enemy's stink.). :-)
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tagbs
don't poke the aliens!
07:04 AM on 05/28/2012
thank you for your service!
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tagbs
don't poke the aliens!
07:52 AM on 05/28/2012
love your comment about the canines too :) everyone should be aware, especially today, that having their dogs return with them has greatly helped our troops returning home. "Soldiers Saving Puppies~Puppies Saving Soldiers" but it's expensive. I'm not sure if the military has anything for funding dogs who were in the service, I should hope so. But many of our people have adopted pets and the cost exceeds $5G to bring them back. A few organizations have sprung up to help cover the cost. One, which brought home the pup my cousins son adopted in Afghanistan is The Puppy Rescue Mission, Inc
http://www.thepuppyrescuemission.org/
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Roosevelt Democrat
10:16 PM on 05/27/2012
Two things we can do and ironically they both help the returning veterans and our national security.

First in the name of National Security we need to pass a law that 10% of a product sold in the U.S. has to be made in the U.S. Understand to make the simplest product takes a certain amount of infrastructure going from 10% to 100% in times of crisis is 100 times easier than starting at 0%. But what most forget is making the simplest thing requires making machines that make that simple product. That's where the innovation comes! But without a home market it dies! A whole segment of the economy dies! The Wall Street Economist don't understand!

This is a traitorous act and Wall Street is collecting it's 30 pieces of silver before it's end!

The second thing we can do for National Security and the Planet is apply Environmental Tariffs to imports & Environmental taxes based on manufacturing, transportation, and sustainability.

I'll explain more later got to go to dinner per the wife!
Wib
Liberal former Marine who loves fly fishing and is
09:35 PM on 05/27/2012
We must also work to have a sustainable political system by getting money out of politics and rebooting our industrial base and infrastructure, a sustainable economy by breaking up the super large banks and putting some strict controls on their actions and a sustainable safety net by taxing the ultra-wealthy and the giant corporations to pay their part for it. The rapidly dwindling middle class can no longer afford to carry the rich on their backs. The actions of the giant banks, giant corporations and ultra-wealthy are all aimed at one goal -- to make this a third world nation where banks, corporations and wealthy rule with impunity and make obscene profits on the backs of working people. We veterans must remember that we fought for the whole nation and not just the corporations, banks and the wealthy that have in reality contributed so very little to this nation, compared to what they have stolen from the nation and its middle class.
07:31 PM on 05/27/2012
Sorry folks, green energy is a total con. Wind power costs 32 times as much as petroleum, and even more if you compare it against oil. Take your electricity bill and multiply it times 32.

Every man and woman of good will supports not putting poison in our air and water, but the sustainability agenda is so much more than that. It is a means of stripping America of it's power and wealth, and handing Mankind over to an unelected, transnational, technocratic elite. It will be the death of America, and the death of democracy. It is the return of a two tier civilization of overlords and serfs.

It is an ongoing amazement to me how many idiots think they will be in the overlord class.
Wib
Liberal former Marine who loves fly fishing and is
09:36 PM on 05/27/2012
You conveniently forget all the subsidies and tax breaks the carbon based fuels have to keep their apparently prices so low.
10:31 PM on 05/27/2012
And you conveniently leave out the subsidies paid to green energy companies that are paid directly from carbon based companies. If we take those away the cost of wind power will jump to almost 100 times the cost of coal.

Reality isn't relative. Take your heating bill and multiply it times 100. Take your electric and water bills and multiply by 100. That will be the true cost of alternate energy.

Not to mention the fact of the total loss of personal liberty when only the rich will be able to drive. Have you seen the price of electric cars?

Of course, the new green overlords will love having the serfs reduced to walking for everything. That will make them much more subservient, right?
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oho
10:29 PM on 05/27/2012
Did you know that petroleum is crude oil? So what exactly are you comparing here? Since I know I will never be an overlord and am good at accounting plus looking up definitions before for I start crunching the numbers, seems unlikely that you have done a thorough analysis of the subject.

Please check what you are comparing, factor in the costs of pollution that we are not now paying and then get back to us.
03:35 AM on 05/28/2012
I was comparing wind power specified with coal and oil respectively. I was taking my numbers from studies done in the EU where it is not theoretical. Spain has shifted over to wind power, and England has made major investments along these lines. The cost of wind power is 32 times coal based electricity EXCLUDING the massive EU subsidies. When you factor in the subsidies, it is much much worse.

President Obama has openly stated that he is modeling his green wind power policies on Spain. In the EU going to wind power is acknowledged as the major factor in the destruction of Spain's industrial economy. The reports in the EU were from groups and bureaucracy that are completely committed to the sustainable agenda. So I don't think they are the spin of those who oppose green energy. Cost studies tend to track with those that have been done in America.

If none of the above sounds convincing, just spend an hour or two looking up wind energy for your home. Pay particular attention to the constant warnings of how expensive the maintenance would be. Crunch the numbers, and compare them to your current electric bill. You will see what I mean. It all tracks from industrial down to micro.

If you don't see the costs, you haven't looked.
03:42 AM on 05/28/2012
And opps, yes I do know that oil and petroleum are the same thing.  I should proof read before I click reply.  I meant to say that wind is 32 times more expensive than coal, and even more expensive than that compared to oil.
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Overtone
See bio on the Aesop Institute website
04:41 PM on 05/27/2012
A couple of Ticking Time Bombs.now threaten our nation and our very lives.

Decentralized energy will help insure survival.

A massive program is needed without delay and can employ many of our veterans.

See www.aesopinstitute.org to understand the threats and what might be done to prevent the worst from happening.
researcher
researcher
04:23 PM on 05/27/2012
War heros really? they are being used as pawns to provide profits for our industrial military complex even to the point of invading nations with lies and fear.

"Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie; and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it." -- Henry David Thoreau

How few americans understand thoreau.
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maveet
AussieByChoice
06:13 PM on 05/27/2012
Thank you. already a fan.