on the cover / By Hank Sims

Humboldt At War

The extent of the military’s business relationships in Humboldt County isn’t widely known, but peace activists — at least the ones contacted for this story — weren’t very concerned about it.

Dave Meserve, a former member of the Arcata City Council known for the many symbolic resolutions he sponsored protesting the war and the Bush administration, is currently working to put two local initiatives on the ballot that would ban military recruiting efforts targeting minors in Eureka and Arcata. For years he has worked to promote the idea that local action can influence the course of national events. Still, he said, he drew a sharp distinction between local firms that provide support to military personnel and large firms that more actively engage in the production of materiel.

“It isn’t as if we’re anti-military,” Meserve said. “We’re against weapons production, and particularly nuclear weapons production, but I can’t say I’m against anything that would make GIs safer or warmer.”

Becky Leuning, a well-known Arcata activist, won’t be able to be at this weekend’s peace march; she’ll be in Vietnam, working with the Friendship Village Project, which seeks to heal the scars from that war by bringing together veterans from both sides to build housing and clinics for people in need. Leuning said that her father worked for a defense contractor all his life, and that she had no desire to pass judgment on people doing business with the military. The problem wasn’t with any individual or company, Leuning said; rather, it’s with our priorities as a society.

“I think it’s important that people look at the economics of militarism, and really push for some kind of transition to a peace-based economy,” Luening said. “As long as our economy is based on war, then we’ll have wars forever. So we have to look at the big picture and how to make that transition.”

In the meantime, people make a living. They milk cows, build things, conduct scientific research. The local economy may not be dependent on the Pentagon budget, or even close to it, but people in business are aware that there is money to be made with the federal government. Jacqueline Debets, the County of Humboldt’s economic development coordinator, said Monday that the local Small Business Development Center, with which she shares office space, has recently sponsored some workshops on applying and competing for federal contracts.

“There’s obviously more potential, so maybe we should keep running those kinds of seminars,” Debets said. “Maybe we’ll get back some of that $26,000 per family we spent on this war.”

1 2 3 4 5 SHARE