 So we're gonna move into our screening of the film. So unfortunately the filmmakers, Patrick McCormick and Dwayne Peterson couldn't join us tonight but they're really excited for us to screen their film. Jetline voicemails from the Flight Path which is a 12 minute film described as a poetic portrait of a community plagued by the war machines documenting untenable conditions in a small city once voted one of the best places to live in America. So I'm gonna go ahead and pass it to Carly who's gonna share her screen so we can all view the film. Once it's over, we'll move into our presentations from our speakers and thank you all so much for coming out tonight. Awesome, thank you so much, Moses. Appreciate that. I'm gonna go ahead and start sharing our screen and for people who just joined us, Moses just did a great overview of the events we're now going to be screening the film Jetline and that's about a 12 minute film. So I'm gonna go ahead and get that started now. One second. Can people hear what's playing in the background? Was it some rock music? It was. Yeah. All right, let's see if this works. Sorry about that, everyone. Now can you hear it? Yes, you're all good. Great. Spectives about the F-35 jets and we appreciate yours. Please note that these recordings may be used in a film by leaving a message you consent to the use of your voicemail in a public archive anonymously. At the tone, leave a message and please take your time. Thank you so much. It is ridiculous that the people involved in the running of Vermont and specifically the area of Burlington, Vermont will allow 20 F-35 supersonic jets to be used landing and taking off in the center of the city. It is unconscionable that this would be allowed. Hello. One of the F-35s just went by and it's horrifying. I don't feel safe with the F-35. I feel that something could go wrong and we would all be in danger. Please stop the F-35. It does not belong here. Jets are great and I wish they would fly more often. And I really wish they would fly very, very low over Burlington four or five times a day. Mike. I was outside walking on the streets of Winooski yesterday when three F-35s flew over. It was deafening. The impact of this noise, it affects not just your hearing, but your whole body, the vibrations. I covered my ears, it did almost no good. To describe this, to say that this is disturbing is a complete understatement. It's a violent sensory assault. So these lying scumbags who brought this plane here like Leahy, first of all, but all of the opportunist parasites, bootlickers who supported this thing, may they all rot in hell for what they're doing to this community. On the days when I know that the F-35s won't be flying, so that's some of the weekends and Mondays. There's a deep quiet that settles in me. It's very much at a visceral level. It's a kind of peace. It's very scattering to have the sound of them so close. It affects us deep in our hearts, in our viscera. It affects us in a way that's hard to say. Is this the wrong place to base the F-35s? It's not working. We were lied to repeatedly, lied to about how loud those jets are. And every time when people ask them about that, they say, oh, well, we can't give you a number about how the decibels bullshit. That is, we were lied to. When the jets fly over, my blood pressure has risen up as far as 190 over 100, which is not safe for me. I have been recording, getting recordings as high as 125 decibels, one, two, three, four, five jets, one after another, severely shaking my house and rattling the windows, very seriously disturbing to my health and to my well-being. Please take note of my complaint. I call all the time. My complaints are not registered. I've written, B-Tang does not respond to my complaints. The whole experience has been very debilitating. Thank you for listening. On the border, credible, technological, or a national guard, fucking good luck. As much as I love them in a sense, it gave me such awe and so incredible. At the same time, having them here and during COVID and overhead and during the day, and then some during the night, and it's mind-blowing what it does to your body. Like the entire inside of your body is shaking. The boom is such that you can't, I mean, it's like an internal combustion of your body. And your head. And it's painful. And then my children, obviously, I can't even imagine. But I know that they have to talk time during their remote learning, that's for sure. I mean, with windows closed and everything, you know, it doesn't quite matter. Because as you lift their inside your body when they're going over. Every time I hear the F-35 flying overhead, I'm forced to stop any conversation I may be having. And remember that we are complicit in increasing the likelihood of war at the same time that the people of this country are going hungry. This makes me very sad. Certain about the F-35 goes beyond just the noise. Every time I hear them, I'm reminded of how we have perverted our view of what is patriotism. It appears from the discussions that have happened in the past over the F-35 that supporting military equipment has now been equated with being patriotic. It is not. And people who stand up against these are considered unpatriotic. To me, the F-35 is the poster child of everything that is wrong with the military industrial political complex. So the F-35 being here in Vermont is a symbol of how far astray we've gone in this country from peace and security for all to unquestioned support for military weapon systems in a false belief that this somehow is needed to keep our country safe and secure. In one week, my wife and I are going to be leaving Vermont. The daily assault of the F-35s over our home is just more than we wanna live with. Shame on the National Guard. They're supposed to be protecting us, but they actually assault us every day. And shame on the National Guard, also for their thousand gallon of flight contribute to the climate crisis. It's just absolutely important what's going on here. Thank you. Thank you so much, Carly, and what a powerful film. And as I just wanted to say, as we know, the filmmakers could not be here tonight, but they did say over email that they do welcome any questions over email. And if you go to jetlinefilm.com, you'll be able to find the contact information. So now we're gonna move to our speaker section and you're gonna hear from four different speakers. And we'd love to remind you all that you can continue to put your questions in the chat and we'll be getting to them at the end in our audience Q&A section. And I'm really excited to welcome our first speaker, Colonel Roseanne Greco. Colonel Roseanne Greco is a retired Air Force Colonel who spent 30 years in active service, specializing in strategic intelligence, nuclear weapons and arms control. She is a leader of the Save Our Skies Vermont Coalition and former chair of the South Burlington City Council. Greco spent over seven years fighting to prevent the basing of F-35s at the South Burlington Airport. So please take it away, Colonel Roseanne Greco. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me in this forum. There's so many things about the F-35 that I could talk about, but one of the contacts I have in Madison suggested I talk about the safety aspect of it, which is one aspect that's not really spoken about too much. So I'm gonna try to make this as succinct as possible. There are many concerns about the F-35 regarding safety. One of the key ones is that it's a brand new fifth generation fighter bomber in and of itself having a new generation weapon is dangerous, especially a military fighter bomber. The Air Force in its environmental impact statement for Burlington gave us charts and information about the crash. Well, one of the issues obviously with new military aircraft is they crash more frequently. And this was outlined in detail in our environmental impact statement. And so they crash more frequently and although they can crash, they can fall out of the sky, usually the crashes occur during takeoff and landing. And in our location here, the airport, the runway, we have one runway, it's at our commercial airport, which is shared by the Vermont Air National Guard. But that runway is very short, it barely meets the standards of a little over 8,000 feet. And on either side of the runway and there are towns. And so having a crash here would be disastrous. But there's another thing that the Air Force mentioned when they wrote our environmental impact statement. And they said that the aircraft was so new, they couldn't predict its safety record because it had not flown enough. And I won't go into the details of how many flight hours you need to come up with some sort of credible estimate of how frequently it would crash. But they compared it to another aircraft that has been flying for a while. Unfortunately for us, the aircraft they compared it to was an aircraft called the F-22. And that is a fighter bomber in the Air Force inventory that has the worst safety record of any other aircraft. So that is very concerning for us and it should be for you. The impact of a crash of an F-35 is not just what it would do if it crashes like any aircraft crashes but the F-35 is a very unique aircraft. So it's unique in its composition. It is built with something called military grade composite materials. And I won't go into the details, I don't have enough time to do that but suffice it to say that there is enough evidence out there that when aircraft like that crash they are far more dangerous because they release toxic fumes from the burning material moreover the composites themselves are a source of fuel. The Air Force actually put out and if I were with you in person I would show you these, I'll just hold it up here. But the Air Force has produced documents about the safety of aircraft that have these kinds of composite materials. And they have listed the F-35 in the most dangerous category. So a crash of an F-35 is far more dangerous than a crash of say an F-16 which has 2% composite materials. The F-35 is something like 43% made up of composite materials but wait, there's more. So the F-35 has stealth technology and that means it has a chemical coating on top of its fuselage and wings and other surface areas. And that's supposedly to make it not reflect on radar to make it invisible. You can see the plane, but radar can't see it. The issue though with those that composite those chemicals to make it stealth are they are lethal. And quite a few years ago when they were testing these chemicals to make it stealth, they burned them and they had people watching them burn for observation and make sure everything was destroyed because it was classified material. And it killed, there were two men that were killed just from breathing in the smoke of that. They didn't die instantly, unfortunately. And there were three or five others who were disabled. They brought a lawsuit against the Air Force, the widows of the two men who died and the other men who were disabled permanently. But unfortunately President Clinton at the time invoked the Secrets Act and so the lawsuit went no, didn't go any place unfortunately. But that is to give you an idea of the lethality of what would happen if an F-35 crashes. There's one other component, there are many components. Well, first of all, the F-35 has crashed a number of times. It's technologically a disaster but there's another component of the F-35 that makes it dangerous and that is it has been designated by the Department of Defense as a nuclear weapons delivery vehicle. And so they announced in their nuclear posture review this is under the previous administration but it's carried on through this administration and it didn't start in the last one that the F-35 is going to carry the newest nuclear bomb the B61-12 and it will carry two bombs and they will be controlled. Well, if you don't know this, the F-35 is a single-seater and means there's only one pilot and one human being on board that aircraft. I used to deal in nuclear weapons in my military career and this is the only weapons system where there's one human being that launches in all of our nuclear weapons systems, the ICBMs, continental ballistic missiles, SLBM submarine launch ballistic missiles and other heavy bombers like the B-52 and the B-1. There are always at least two people that have to actually launch the nuclear weapon. That's for safety so nobody has a bad day. But when you're talking with the F-35, there's only one guy on board that. So from the standpoint of what could go wrong when you're carrying a nuclear weapon, you could obviously consider the dangers there. So there's two aspects to the F-35 carrying a nuclear weapon that impacts our safety. One of them obviously is starting in nuclear war, which will probably eventually, I mean, if that should happen, the planet will not be like it is now. The other aspect is having a fighter bomber that carries, that has been designated as a nuclear weapons delivery vehicle, makes the base where that weapon system is housed, a lucrative nuclear target for our enemies. Our enemies target all of our nuclear sites. Bomber bases, nuclear aircraft bases are the easiest target, we call them soft targets. And so instantly that will make, it has made us, I know, a target on our enemies list. So I don't know where I am with time. I was just gonna give you a two minute warning. A two minute warning, okay, all right. So there's a lot to be concerned about from a safety perspective of the F-35 in addition to noise. Noise is, you heard the jetline film, but the environmental impact statement referenced studies that were done by multiple renowned scientific organizations including the World Health Organization that talks about the impacts of noise on human health, which obviously is a safety issue. And noise is perceived by individuals subjectively. Some people it doesn't bother them. Some people it is horrendous. Some people like it, but noise has effect on your human skeletal system and your internal organs, regardless of how emotionally you may feel about it. I always reference this, it's like tobacco and smoking. Some people it didn't bother them, they could breathe it in, they felt it wasn't harmful. Obviously we know it didn't matter how you felt, it was actually harming your internal organs. And that is what noise does. And it's much more disastrous for children and horrendously disastrous for infants because their internal organs are smaller and they can't withstand that noise. So that's another personal safety from the impact of the F-35. That should probably, my time has probably run out, right? You're right on time actually. Yeah. All right, thank you. Yeah, well, thank you so much Colonel Greco for coming out here tonight. And just to remind folks, if you have any questions for Colonel Greco, please feel free to put them in the chat and we will get to them at the end in our audience Q&A. And we're gonna move on to our next speaker who is Carly Town. Carly is the co-director of Code Pink, a woman led grassroots anti-war organization. She leads the Diabes from the War Machine campaign which includes work to reduce the Pentagon budget. And I'll go ahead and I'll pass it to Carly. Yeah, thank you so much Moses. And also thank you so much Colonel Greco. That was really illuminating. And I'm sure many people here learned quite a bit. I know I did. So much appreciation for that. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. I'm actually going to share my screen. I have a short presentation to share with everyone here. Like Moses said, I actually wanted to touch on something that was discussed a little bit in the film. Actually one person said that the F-35s were the poster child for the military industrial complex which I think is a perfect way to describe exactly what's happening when we look at the F-35 program. And I think we'd be remiss if we didn't include a broader discussion of how the F-35s are funded and what the United States spends on the Pentagon budget every year and how spending so much money on weapons like F-35s in many cases preclude spending on socially necessary programs. So sorry, one second. There's something happening here. Can people see the pop-up that just popped up on my screen? Yeah. Oh, it's gone. Oh yeah, you're good. Awesome, sorry about that everyone. All right. So first to review just quickly, right? So everyone is on the same page about, I'm not sure why this is happening. Sorry, give me one second here. I'm not sure why that's popping up. Sorry everyone, it doesn't usually happen. It's not blocking too much though. So just to review quickly, President Biden recently released his proposal for the 2022 Pentagon budget and he is asking for a $753 billion military budget. This includes Pentagon spending and spending on nuclear weapons. That number is $13 billion more than the Trump administration's last enacted Pentagon budget. And spending about three quarters of a trillion dollars on the Pentagon budget every year is a lot of money, right? But it's hard to understand without some broader context. So people got a preview of a little bit of the broader context that I was going to share. One of that is that if you break down that number and the amount of money that we're spending on the Pentagon budget this year, that means that we'll spend over a million dollars a minute on the Pentagon, which is a shocking number. But to put it into even more perspective, if you compare the United States military spending to the rest of the world, you'll see that we spend more on our military than at least the next 10 countries combined, right? Combined, you see there. And then of course, more than the rest of the world, which is 139 more countries. So even if we caught our Pentagon budget in half, despite what you hear in the media, despite all of the fear-mongering, we would still be spending more on our military than China does if we cut it in half, right? So speaking of cutting the Pentagon budget, right? Which is something that we focus on quite a bit at Code Pink. If we put these numbers into that context, it's really important to note that 10% of the 2021 Pentagon budget could end homelessness in the United States. So when we say that that's a policy choice, that's what we mean, right? 20% of the 2021 Pentagon budget could make public college tuition free for two years. 50% of the Pentagon budget, which I just mentioned, could end world hunger by 2030, right? So you see again, all of these policy choices that we're making every year when we decide to spend over half of all discretionary spending on our military budget, which was also mentioned in Jetline. But another important question that we're obviously here to talk about and we have to answer is, where does all of that money that the Pentagon has given every year? Where does it go? And it turns out that that is a really great question. One that not even the Department of Defense can really confidently answer. The Department of Defense remains the only federal agency in the United States that has been unable to pass a congressionally mandated independent audit. They spent millions of dollars trying to, but they couldn't do it because they have so much money and their finances are so complicated. They control quite a bit of money, assets in excess of $3 trillion. So the fact that they can't pass a budget, I mean, pass an audit is quite alarming. But what we do know about how the military and the Pentagon spends their money is that the Pentagon allocates over half of all of their funding every year to private, quote unquote, defense contractors, which includes weapons companies, right? Like Raytheon, like Boeing, like Northup Grumman. And of course the company we're gonna talk about today, Lockheed Martin. So, you know, who is Lockheed Martin? What are they up to? Lockheed Martin is one of the top, quote unquote, defense contractors in the United States. You can see there on the screen how much money they make every year from their arms sales, both foreign and domestic. It's billions of dollars. And Lockheed Martin is the company responsible for the F-35 program. They make a large percentage of their profit directly from contracts with the federal government. And this was pulled from a report by Open Secrets titled Spending Millions to Make Billions. And you can see, right, they spent, you know, millions on lobbying, both our politicians and other aspects of the federal government and look at the return that they get, right? Billions of dollars every year in arms sales. So, you know, Lockheed Martin just takes just a small portion of the profit they make every year, like I said, from contracts with the federal government to ensure a huge windfall the next year and continuing this vicious cycle, this military industrial complex. Of course, this is just a portion of it, right? But this is exactly what we mean at Code Peep when we say companies like Lockheed Martin make a killing on killing. And, you know, what we're here to talk about today is taking a closer look at the F-35 program. Despite the overwhelming community resistance, right? We have people from Wisconsin. We have people from Vermont here. Year after year, Congress approves the program. For some of the reasons I just mentioned, right? Lockheed Martin's extraordinary lobbying efforts. The estimated cost for maintaining and sustaining the F-35 program over a 66 year cycle is $1.27 trillion, which if you broke that down will cost us $25 billion a year over the next 66 years. This is the most expensive program in the Pentagon's history, a weapons program. And to break it down like that is pretty shocking. And, you know, I wanted to also mention something that we're talking about today, right? It's really no accident as Dan Grazier who's with the project on government oversight put it. It's no accident that there are more than 1500 suppliers for the F-35 program and they're spread out to almost every state, right? This is actually a map showing the concentration of the economic impact of the F-35 program across the country, the darker the color the more concentrated. And Dan Grazier also said, you know, that means that there are basically the veto proof constituency block on Capitol Hill for the F-35 program, right? Because members of Congress really, you know see this as a program that they should fight for within their own districts, right? And that's something that we have to be able to address when we're speaking back to this program. One thing I wanted to mention is one of the reasons but that's the case, right? Is because there's a myth we hear about whenever we talk to our representatives about cutting the Pentagon budget or cutting funding for this massively expensive massively wasteful and massively dangerous program, right? The F-35 program is that, you know spending high levels of spending on the Pentagon is justified because doing so creates jobs, right? But that statement is basically meaningless unless we place it into a larger context, right? But the idea that spending on the Pentagon creates jobs because what we really have to show, right? And the question we really have to ask is how many jobs could we create if we spent that money elsewhere, right? Spending on almost any government agency creates jobs. And if we compare it to spending on socially necessary programs like education, healthcare, clean energy, you know you see there on the chart the effects, right? We'd see that spending on the military actually means a net loss of potential jobs, right? And this is from a paper and a study from the Cost of War project and it's titled The Job Opportunity Cost of War because of exactly what we just discussed. So really, you know, at the end of the day what our work to reduce the Pentagon budget is about and our work also to support groups that are speaking back to the F-35 program is about is that we need to be absolutely clear that handing Lockheed Martin billions of dollars every year to build fighter jets that have been documented to be extremely dangerous. And in many cases not even fulfill their stated promise is not how Congress should be spending tax-care dollars, right? Of course we don't want the F-35s themselves to be a weapon used against people around the world either. So it's our responsibility to really clearly communicate that enormous spending on the Pentagon budget is a trade-off, a policy choice where socially necessary programs lose out, right? And that's how we're going to sort of grow this movement to reduce Pentagon spending. And I'll just end really quickly and we'll say this later, but we're working all the time at CouldPink to reach out to our Congress people and talk to them about these very issues. And we're hosting a congressional advocacy training next Wednesday, June 23rd and I'll post a link in the chat to that. But I will stop there and hand it back over to Moses. Awesome, great. Well, thank you so much, Carly. And like I said before, if you have any questions for Carly and anything that she just presented, please feel free to put them in the chat and we'll be collecting them for the end. And so now we are gonna move on to our next speaker. Our next speaker is Tamina Islam. Tamina Islam is a leader of the Eakin Park Resistance and Safe Skies Clean Water in Madison. She is a licensed midwife who has provided maternity care for the past 10 years to over 330 families. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. Thanks for having me, Moses. And thank you for everybody for joining in for the movie screening. I'll keep my comments brief. I mostly volunteer and work with Eakin Park Resistance, which is a neighborhood group that's trying to stop the F-35 jets from landing in our community. And I'm a member of the Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin Coalition and have really taken my lead from that organization and that leadership. So I'm thankful for their presence on today's call too. As Moses said, my name is Tamina and I live in one of the neighborhoods in Ding County, Wisconsin, that would be most impacted if the F-35 jets were to land here. My home serves as a midwifery office and practice for hundreds of families who I've had the privilege of caring for. Hundreds of those pregnant people have come into my home office and received prenatal care. My home is in the 65 decibel zone, which renders a home incompatible with residential use. That's the language that the Air Force uses incompatible with residential use because of the potential sound damage of the F-35 jets. As a healthcare provider, I'm most passionate about shedding light on the health effects of the F-35 jets as Colonel Greco mentioned. For our community, that means sound and noise damage as well as water poisoning. So the Wisconsin chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility has been very vocal in pointing out that you cannot mitigate or lessen the effects of the F-35 jets in the whole outdoors. These jets can cause hearing loss or problems with memory retention for young children and no soundproofing or air conditioning units or number of paints of glass will stop these negative consequences from occurring. The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Environmental Health has also been vocal and has published studies that indicate that exposure to excessive noise during pregnancy may result in hearing loss and newborns. It can also be associated with preterm labor and intrauterine growth restriction. Additionally, premature babies may experience cochlear damage, inner ear cochlear damage from excessive noise levels in the 65 decibel zone. So there's already been health data that's been published that shows that the sound damage from 65 decibel zone levels of the military jets can be damaging to young children and pregnant people. In addition to noise pollution and harmful effects of the F-35 sound on our most vulnerable residents, we also face the potential of our water being poisoned in Madison. Currently, the groundwater samples taken out at Bing County where the constructions to occur already exceed the EPA's limit of 70 parts per trillion of PFOS chemicals. For those of you who don't know already, PFOS chemicals are a list of 9,000 compounds of toxic chemicals that stay in the body, accumulate over time and have disaster suspects on our health. They are often found in grease repellent and water repellent food containers, cookware, water resistant clothing, and in our communities they've mostly arisen from the use of firefighting foam. The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit non-partisan organization that provides unbiased public health information, has shown that even low levels of exposure to these chemicals have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease, and weakened childhood immunity. PFOS have been found in breast milk samples across the nation and we don't know how this could affect newborn development. The construction that would take place with the F-35s could cause more PFOS to be distributed in our groundwater. One of Dane County's wells, well number 15, has already been shut down due to levels of PFOS in the well water, measured at 56 parts per trillion. The Environmental Working Group suggests no more than one part per trillion as a safe level. I also want to highlight tonight, as many of you know this already, but the decision to potentially base the F-35 planes here would disproportionately impact people of color and low income people in our community. The city of Madison has already stated that nearly every block impacted by this decision has a higher poverty concentration and person of color population than the city or county average. For example, the closest apartment complex south of the runways includes 70% people of color, 100% low income people, 45% differently abled people, and 14% elderly people. This has also become an environmental justice issue that we're willing to poison and damage the homes, the lives and the bodies of people of color disproportionately. Our POC and low income communities face an unjust burden of the environmental hazards of the F-35s and we must rally together to stop this. Please use this panel and movie screening as a launching point for your own activism and involvement. See the Safe Skies Creamwater Wisconsin website to find out how to amplify your voice. We will be hosting a rally on Saturday, June 26th at 2 p.m. at the Truex Field in Dane County and Carly has a sign or a poster for that that we'll come to later on. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jamina, and I'll say it again if you have any questions for it, please feel free to put it in the chat and thank you so much for coming out tonight. And we are going to move on to our last speaker. Our last speaker is John Peck. John Peck is the executive director of Family Farm Defenders, a farmer near Edgerton, Wisconsin and an economics instructor at Madison College. Thank you so much for being here tonight, John. Yeah, thanks for inviting me and it's nice to know so many people have already spoken. This is a really important issue and part of the reason I was happy to be on this panel tonight is that this doesn't just affect people in Madison or Burlington, Vermont affects people statewide, for instance, in Wisconsin. So that's part of the reason why I wanted to share some thoughts tonight. So when I was thinking about what to talk about tonight I was thinking about George Orwell's book, wrote to Wigan Peer where he talks about, we have statues for bishops and generals, but we don't have statues for cooks or gardeners. And I think part of the problem with this is that we have this military industrial complex that's really taken over our whole society. And our organization, Family Farm Defenders is one of the founders of Farms Not Arms. And we really need to be working for a peaceful transition, a just transition to a peace economy. And that's what our organization is really interested in. The F-35 is probably one of the biggest boondoggles. I mean, my own brother was a lieutenant in the Air Force. So I totally, hearing Roseanne speak about how this is such a stupid weapons project. Yeah, he totally agrees with that, being a veteran of the Air Force as well. I mean, there's no reason to be building this $1.5 trillion weapon system that is obsolete. I mean, it's just offensive, destructive. We saw them being used in Gaza by the Israeli military. They're carpet bombing with F-35s. I mean, this is not, if you're talking about national security, this is an offensive, destructive weapon. It's not, it doesn't improve national security at all, I would argue, especially with the nuclear capability. So I just wanted to share a little bit about, the military abuse of rural communities in Wisconsin is nothing new. I mean, I remember coming to UW-Mass in 1990s as a grad student at the College of Agriculture studying agricultural economics and the Amish submitted an unprecedented 14-page petition to the state, the Amish who are pacifist people objecting to the low level of flights by the US military out of True Acts. So they were already flying F-16, C-130s, all these planes 100 to 300 feet over the Kikapu, the driftless region of Wisconsin, causing buggy accidents, livestock were miscarrying, horses were miscarrying their babies, livestock stampeds. I mean, that was unprecedented to have the Amish send a petition to the state saying, please stop harassing us with your military. And now we're going to do F-35s. And we had an F-16 crash in the UP in December. Do people remember that? Pilot was killed, crashed in the woods, thankfully in the woods, not in someone's house, but we have farmers up on Lake Superior, they're being buzzed by F-16s flying now out of Duluth all the time. I mean, this is the nuisance and noise factor and danger if these crashes is, I mean, I live in Madison myself. So I'm very aware of the danger here in Madison, but it's not limited to Madison. This is a national problem. All sorts of communities are affected by this. So I'm in the F-16 flight path right now where I live. It's so annoying, it's shocking. I can't imagine having these planes buzzing you if you're trying to be a farmer in Verroqua. So, I mean, that's one thing to be aware of. Four times as loud as F-16s. I mean, F-16s are bad, yeah, I just can't, I can't imagine that being a child. I remember as a, actually I do remember as a child. I'll admit, I grew up during the Vietnam War. I was swimming down at the river at my folks farm in central Minnesota when the military did decide to do maneuvers down our river with helicopters, flying at about 100 feet off the ground. I was a child. I was crying. I was left crying with my siblings by the side of the river thinking we were gonna be bombed by these helicopters. We never experienced that. I mean, we saw it on TV but we never personally experienced that. And I, as a child, I can't imagine. I mean, well, I can, I guess, I've been to other countries. I've seen the impacts of the US military industrial complex elsewhere. But this harm should not be inflicted on anyone. When Rome defeated Carthage, they literally sowed salt into the fields of North Africa as punishment. I mean, we are now sowing PFAS into our fields from Truax, from the mass of metropolitan sewage district. A lot of people don't know that 5,000 acres of farmland every year is spread with, I think it's 37 million gallons of biosolids from the sewage district in Massen that are laced with PFAS. So we were literally growing food with PFAS. And this is going back into our food supply. So when Tamina talked about, this is an environmental justice issue. Yes, it totally is. It's in our water supply. We can't eat fish from Lake Mendota because they're contaminated with PFAS. Stark Weather Creek, which I bike by every day is totally contaminated. We're spreading it in our farm fields. And this is a legacy chemical. This is gonna be around forever. So we're basically creating sacrifice zones, a toxic ticking time bomb. Why would we wanna do that? And this is not just mass. I mean, PFAS contamination is that vogue field. Is that Fort McCoy? Is that every military base in the state? We have this PFAS contamination now. Spread all across the state. Farmers in other states are having to dump their milk because it's contaminated with PFAS from military installations. People know that? Arizona, I mean, I'm getting calls from farmers in other parts of the state. My milk's been contaminated. It's so full of PFAS from the water I'm feeding by cows from the military base nearby. I mean, it's affecting our food supply. And the F-35 is gonna make that so, so much worse. So, I mean, and I've often heard, I teach economics at Mass in college. My students actually did this as economics problems, do a cost-benefit analysis of the F-35. So for my class, this fails. I would argue this totally fails on any basic cost-benefit analysis. I mean, what are the benefits of this program? What are the benefits? People, I mean, according to our former governor, it's the sound of freedom. That's what Scott Walker said. Oh, it's the sound of freedom. Well, I think the cost of that sound of freedom is pretty high. I mean, I can think of better sounds of freedom. They're not gonna have such a cost on their community. So if we need to find a different mission, I mean, I've often been told, oh, John, but the Truex Air Base needs to have a mission. All these people will lose their jobs. I can think of lots of great missions for the Truex Air Base besides the F-35. And we have a climate change crisis happening. Why don't they respond to firefighting needs out West organized to airlift people out there to fight fires? Why don't they deal with climate change and do flooding incidents across the Midwest? I mean, if they want the National Guard who wants to really protect people, there's a lot better missions for them than flying nuclear-capable fighter jets that could crash and be so toxic. Lots of other jobs it could be doing. And as Carly mentioned, I mean, in terms of multiplier effects, the military is the worst way to create jobs. And if you really want to stimulate the economy, don't grow the military. That's a horrible way to stimulate the economy. There's a lot better ways to do that. A lot more jobs, a lot more productive outcomes could be done in other ways. So, and yeah, I mean, I guess just to wrap up and leave time for questions. This is a horrible boondoggle, it should not be done. In my opinion, our nation should not be, we can't afford to be spending more money on these types of obsolete, dangerous, toxic military programs. I mean, the Cold War is over. We're in the 21st century, it's time to move on. Do better things with our time and effort and our money. Things that are more eco-friendly, less destructive for the environment. So yeah, we really need to promote a just transition to a peaceful economy and the F-35 is not part of that. So I would really encourage people to send these postcards in. I mean, I know a lot of our elected officials seem to have hitched their wagging to the sacred cow of the military industrial complex, but we really need to heed the warnings of President Dwight Eisenhower long ago, that this is not the way, this is not the future. The military industrial complex needs to go in the dustbin of history. So I'll end there and look forward to questions. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you so much, John. And thank you so much to the rest of the speakers with a powerful group of speakers to really talk about the true cost of this program. And thank you so much for all the questions that you all have put in the chat so far. We are gonna move on to our question and answer part of the night. And you guys can continue to put in questions. I'm not sure if we'll get to all of them, but we'll try to get to as many as we possibly can. But yeah, if you guys would just wanna keep putting those in the chat and just a reminder again, we won't be coming off mute to ask questions. So the first question is from Barb. And Barb wants to know exactly how do the F-35s further contaminate Madison's watershed with PFAS? Thanks so much for that question, Barb. So my understanding is that because of the firefighting foam and others please speak up if you know as well, but my understanding is that the firefighting foam that's leaked into the ground and into the water and Stark Weather Creek specifically has then spread. And these PFAS chemicals have spread in the ground and in the water, in our groundwater. And there was a County Board meeting a week ago, maybe two weeks ago now, where the Air National Guard and the DNR both confirmed as speakers and guests to that County Board that they don't know where the PFAS plume is. So the plume is this heightened concentration of PFAS chemicals. So if they don't know where the PFAS plume is, if there's construction that takes place in that area, they won't know where it spreads, how it spreads, how much it will spread. And Madison College has even been restricted from doing any construction in that area. And so we're allowing the military to do that. So it's complicated because we don't know where the PFAS plume is. Currently no one in Wisconsin will take that soil. So they're even considering shipping it to Ashland, Oregon. So that's how it would spread. It will spread in the groundwater. It will spread in the soil. And especially because they don't know where the plume is and what will happen to the plume and the concentration of chemicals should the construction take place. Colonel Greco. Yeah, there's more than PFAS to worry about with the F-35. After it flies, it needs to be washed down. And when you wash that down without a doubt, some of those toxic chemicals from the stealth coating will be washed away because they have to, and they have to be reapplied. Now the Air Force is saying they'll contain it all. Yeah, just like they contain PFAS. So there's more dangers that are associated, more chemical dangers associated with the F-35 because of its stealth coating, than are with the F-16 or any other military aircraft. Thank you. So from Janice, why did Senator Baldwin support bringing F-35s to Madison? Did she say jobs? What companies in the military industrial complex does she accept contributions from? Well, I can't speak to specifically some of Senator Baldwin's reasoning because I know other people here have actually had conversations with her staff. But I did just quickly, I think this is a really good opportunity actually to talk a little bit about how you can actually go and look into your representatives' campaign contributions, who they receive money from, both the industries that they've received money from and also the actual companies. So I'm gonna post, I'll just post it in the chat box, a link to Senator Baldwin's open secret profile. And everyone here can go look at it. Take a look at some of the contributions that she's getting. I think that there's a lot you can dig into with a lot of these, right? I mean, something like, looks like she gets quite a bit from an organization called the Martin Defense Group. We'd have to look more into that, obviously. But something that's interesting, right? The University of Wisconsin, I'm sure there's quite a connection there between the University of Wisconsin and research and development, even with the Pentagon, right? So I just wanted to put that in the chat. And maybe someone else, maybe even Jane, if you're up to speaking to some of your interactions you've had with Senator Baldwin. Oh, you're muted, Jane. I haven't personally been involved within those conversations, but I have a close friend who's been a part of a Quaker advocacy team that met with her staff about two weeks ago. And their conclusion was that she said she's adamantly in favor of the F-35 being based in Wisconsin. It seems, at this point, she's sending a message is non-negotiable, but we're not ready to let that go. So we're gonna continue the struggle. I'll tell you more how we can all be a part of that later. Perfect. Thank you. And Tamina, I see you just unmuted. Oh, no, I just was saying thank you to Jane. Oh, perfect, awesome, awesome, perfect. So this question was answered in the chat, but just for folks that didn't get to see it, I'm just gonna ask it again. This is for Colonel Greco. This is from Jean. How often do F-35s fly in Burlington, Vermont? Have people moved from Burlington area because of the F-35s? Have property values decreased in Burlington since F-35s arrived? Well, I answered in the chat the frequency. So they fly Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday every week. And then the first weekend of the month on Saturdays, they used to fly on Sunday. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. They take off at least once in the morning. They do maneuvers over our head and in other parts of Vermont, then they land and they take off again. There are 20 of them here, sometimes as many as five or six take off at the same time. I mean, one right after the other. And then they have special training where they sometimes announce it, where they say they'll be flying more frequently during the day. Then they sometimes fly at night. And we go through periods where they'll fly three or four times during the night, three or four times in a week at nighttime. So have people moved? Yes, we've heard that people have moved. I mean, you heard on the jetline that somebody was moving. I've also heard other people moving. It's hard though now because of the price of houses. And also in Burlington as in Madison, people of color and people of low incomes are disproportionately affected. And so they have the least amount of resources to move. So some people may be able to move, but other people, most of us, most people, not myself, I'm not in the noise zone, are tracked. And what was the other question? It was about the frequency of flights, the property values. Talk to us. Well, we have just gone through a reassessment of properties in the Burlington area and the South Burlington area. They haven't announced it at large, but it does not appear that property values have dropped. People in the noise zone, but people are appealing that. And it's just because of the scarcity of houses, everything is going up. But right now it doesn't appear that property values have diminished by wearing unusual times, but studies in the environmental impact statement reported that houses that are in a noise zone generally are lower value and property values sometimes drop. Thank you so much. Perfect. And this next one looks like maybe for John. This is from Hannah. How does the safety record of the F-35 compare to that of the F-16, which is already in Madison? I mean, we don't have the F-35 spaced here yet. So I can't really respond to that. I mean, I know the F-35s have crashed other places around the US. So, you know, the fact that we just had F-16 crash here a few months ago really made me think, you know, and it didn't crash in Madison. I mean, a lot of people think, oh, they're going to just be crashing when they're taking off or landing. But obviously this one that crashed in the UP of Michigan, it wasn't landing, it was just on a routine flight profile. So, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm just like, as we already heard from Roseanne Greco about, I mean, these things are just more toxic and more, I mean, the F-16s are bad enough when they crash, but this thing is going to be like a fireball of toxic toxicity. And I wouldn't want that falling on anyone's home or farm or wherever. So the F-35s have not flown enough to establish a good safety record. So you can't say they're safer or they're not as... The F-16 is incredibly safe. I mean, the safety record of the F-16 is one of the best. The F-35, as of a few years ago, did not have enough flight hours on it to establish a safety record. So the Air Force, as I said earlier, was guessing that the safety record of the F-35 would be equivalent not to the F-16, but to the F-22, which has the poorest safety record. That is the one where pilots went on 60 minutes to complain about the aircraft because they were dying. They were losing oxygen. So, yeah, I mean, it's apples and oranges because it's a new generation aircraft as far as safety. Thank you. So this is from Vicky. Has anyone begun a longitudinal health study of the people living near the base? The F-16s are also problematic, but it would be interesting to have some before and after data, especially in Madison where we have a few years before they arrive. Any answers, any thoughts? That's all right. One of the next one, this one is from Lance. How strong is political opposition in Washington to the immensely expensive F-35 program? Does the president support it fully? Yeah, I think I can answer this question and maybe if other people want to join in. So a couple of things I wanted to touch on about how popular or how strong political opposition is to the F-35 program. So something I think I highlighted pretty clearly is that Lockheed Martin and the suppliers for the F-35 program very deliberately put these manufacturing jobs across, they spoke with them across the country in order to shore up political support for that, right? For the program, despite how expensive it is, but that doesn't mean that there's not actually opposition that's been growing in DC from politicians. So two things I wanted to touch on. First is the chair of the House Armed Services Committee. His name is Adam Smith. He's a representative from Washington State. He's currently the chair of the House Armed Services Committee and that committee is one of the most powerful committees in Congress in terms of determining the Pentagon budget every year. So he's actually been extremely vocal, extremely outspoken about his opposition to the F-35 program, mostly because he talks about how it's basically a microcosm for understanding how wasteful many of the programs that the Pentagon spends his money on, just year after year, they have cost overages. We're paying more and more money than we initially agreed to Lockheed Martin, right? So he's criticizing it from that point of view. But given his status and that he chairs the House Armed Services Committee, it's actually very important. Another thing I just wanted to bring people's attention to if you're not aware is that representatives Barbara Lee and Mark Pokan, both progressives in the House, last year led an effort to reduce the Pentagon budget by 10%. So cut the Pentagon budget by 10%. It was a historic vote. It lost, but over a hundred representatives signed on. And from that, they created a new caucus, the defense spending reduction caucus in Congress. And that's a new lock of congressional representatives who are coming out in support of cutting the Pentagon budget. And if you, of course, have been part of this movement as many of you have for a long time, you'll know how historic that is. Even to have congressional representatives start talking about and organizing around cutting the Pentagon budget. So, you know, it's definitely something that's sort of breaking in the House and in Congress. And I'll leave it there. I don't know if any other people wanted to... All right, awesome. Thank you, Carly. So from Judith, can someone summarize where the decision-making is at this point about F-35s in medicine? I could do that, Vicky. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, okay. So last March, the Air Force chose Madison as a place to base the F-35s after they were considering four different locations and they chose Madison as one of two. So that was their, supposedly, final decision. States, Guys, Clean Water, Wisconsin has filed a lawsuit against their environmental impact statement saying it's as complete and erroneous. We are working to file an environmental justice complaint. We're gathering sponsors, co-sponsors for that and probably do that soon. You know, stating that they did not. And the environmental justice complaint, I believe, is not about the environmental impact statement for the F-35s, but there was an environmental assessment done that did not involve any public commentary. And it was about expanding the Truex base, much of which was in preparation for the F-35s. So we're doing that and we're also, we've also just filed, and now I can't even remember what it is, some kind of a lawsuit legal complaint about the expense, the construction at the base that's happening, that's starting very shortly, that's starting, started. And that is for building a F-35 simulator for training. So, but that, we're not expecting a ruling on that until next year. So there's a lot of construction that can happen before that. And that is based on potential for reducing RPFAS soil when they dug up. So basically it's been decided that Madison is going to get the F-35s. However, they're not scheduled to be here for another four years or so. So there's a lot of room here for saying, sorry, I can't, if we could convince the right people to advocate for us. Awesome, thank you so much. Perfect, so for our next question, so this is from Anita, are any groups in Burlington or here in Madison organizing on the basis of F-35s contribution to the climate crisis? And someone asked a little bit about the Vermont Divest Campaign. So maybe open that up to Carly a little bit to talk about the Divest from the War Machine Campaign in general and in Vermont. Yeah, sure. So that's a really good question. I just wanted to quickly say I did post a really important primer from our friends at the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Priorities Project in the chat. It's called No Warming, No War, How Militarism Fuels the Climate Crisis and Vice versa. It's exactly the kind of information I think that you're asking about, Anita. So I would recommend reading that, but also I just wanted to touch on the facts that of course speakers today have made the connection between the climate crisis and the F-35 programs, but we also in our campaign, our national campaign, it could be to divest from the war machine. We make this connection all of the time because I think it's incredibly important for many reasons. One is municipalities have in many cases around the country, many municipalities or other institutions such as universities have begun actually divesting from fossil fuels, right? So divesting their endowments, divesting their city's operating budget or even in some cases like in Vermont, divesting their city pension fund from fossil fuels. So in that case, I think it's extremely important for us to also discuss the fact that the Pentagon, the DOD itself contributes so much to climate change, the climate crisis and make that connection really clear in all of our campaigns because if you're going to divest from fossil fuels because of their contributions to the climate crisis, I think it's equally important to divest from these weapons manufacturers and other companies, including programs like the F-35, right? Like Lockheed Martin is one of the top weapons manufacturers that are contributing day in and day out to the climate crisis in very, very rare ways. So Anita, I have your email address and I will make sure also to email you and follow up with just more information about our campaign in Vermont. And if anyone else is interested, we're actually poised to pass the city council resolution there in Burlington, so. Awesome, thank you so much, Carly. Any other thoughts? Otherwise, I think our last question from the Q&A might go pretty good into our action steps, but I will open it up to the speakers if there's anything left that you'd just like to say and like they're... Five minutes. Our last question is for Melanie and I think this will actually go to Jane, which is where are the postcards going? Yes, the postcards will be going to Senator Baldwin and that decision was made because Senator Baldwin has been the chief proponent bringing the F-35s to Wisconsin. Certainly anyone could write to anyone that they would like to, but we really wanted to focus on Tammy Baldwin because she has been such a key player in this whole process. Actually what I'm involved in a project that we're really calling the postcard campaign of resistance against the F-35s. And what it involves is a postcard, in fact, John Peck has three of them on his wall. The F-35s won't let us thrive and they're also addressed to all six of Tammy Baldwin's offices. So when you request a postcards, you will get a packet with the postcards nearest, the go to the office nearest where you live. These postcards will be sent to all over the state and we feel it's very important that she hear from all of us in Wisconsin, every nook and cranny, that it's not just a Madison, Dane County concern. It really, as John talked about and as others talked about, the ramifications are huge and it affects the whole state of Wisconsin. There's a link on your screen then if you photo that or whatever. I haven't used GR codes very often, but they work. I just learned this week. But anyway, we'll get that request of your postcards and then we'll actually we're meeting tomorrow. A group of us are gonna start sending out postcards that request that we received tonight. So when you think about ordering postcards, so my challenge to you is to think larger than just your small circle of friends and family and colleagues, but think big groups. Think in terms of the networks that you may be a part of whether they'd be social action groups, environmental groups, faith communities, a neighborhood groups, book clubs. Think as thoroughly as you can because this is such a critical issue. And also now that things are kind of opening up a bit, postcards could be taken to farmers markets and county fairs and neighborhood picnics. I think it's very important that we realize that we have a power with, you know, if we work together and send postcards to Tammy's offices, it's gonna be very hard for her to keep ignoring this. We already have sent almost 4,000 postcards to her offices throughout the state. And we want this momentum to just keep building. So you've heard a lot of important information tonight. You know the seriousness of these fighter jets and the impact they could have on our state. And I encourage you to think about what moved you the most and write a sentence or two on these postcards. It's a very easy thing to do. Just write a couple of sentences and send them to her. I mean, the postcard already sends a very strong message that we don't want them in Wisconsin. So add that. And when you order a postcard, you will get a packet of postcards, whatever number you require. And then a letter will come with them providing even more information about the F-35s. And there'll also be another sheet that talks about alternative ways that those tax dollars could be used. So I invite you all to be a part of this campaign. I think of it as a nonviolent campaign of resistance. So join it and be a part of it. And I don't want this momentum to stop. So let's keep sending thousands of postcards to Tammy. And I think it'll make a difference. Thanks. Colonel. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. I just wanted to say quickly because you created this great QR code. I just wanted to let people know how you actually use it. All you have to do is open the camera on your phone and hold your camera up to the QR code and it'll automatically scan it and open a new webpage for you on your phone. Or you can also just click the link in the chat box. Excuse me, Colonel. My name is Tom Bull. I grew up in South Burlington, Vermont. You may know my mother, Barbara Bull. Yes, I do. I just responded back to you. Oh my God, what a wonderful woman. Yes, I did know your mom. But my question is, has any thought been given at the national level of building bases away from urban centers? Well, that's the way they used to be. Yeah, this is a new, well, it's not relative. I mean, it's not super new, but yes. I mean, in years past, that's where these type of aircraft were flown from. But if you were, you know, you don't know what's happening, but across the United States, the military is encroaching upon the civilian population and putting a fighter bomber like the F-35 at a commercial airport in Burlington and, you know, in Madison, and they're also proposing in other places is just another indication of the military takeover of our society. But it's happening, you know, in Alaska, in Hawaii, in the state of Washington, in New Mexico, in Arizona. I've been in touch with people all across those states, and that's happening there. I mean, the Army is doing maneuvers closer to civilian homes. And the Air Force obviously is putting military aircraft in bases that are close to civilian homes. Our society is changing. So, yes, no, they're not going back. They're coming to us. So, I mean, the military base, you know, they're not going back to the Air Force bases they once had. They are rather using commercial airports for military aircraft more and more. Perfect. Thank you, Colonel Greco, and also thank you to Jane right before that for your powerful call to action. Now, I'll pass it to Tamina. I still see her on the line, are you? Okay, perfect. So I'll pass it to Tamina, perfect. Yes, so the folks from Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin asked me to just put in a plug for our rally coming up on Saturday, June 26th. We'll be meeting at the Truex field. It'll be a marginal rally. There will be speakers at the, once we've reached our destination and also music. Tom and Vicky, if you have anything else to share, please feel free to, but we would love to see as many people as possible present to show our lack of support for the F-35s in our community. Sure, I can add that we actually will be meeting, there's a parking in the Madison College parking lot. There's a huge parking lot pretty empty on Saturdays. So we want to park there. So yeah, they're very good Facebook. And you don't have to RSVP, you can just come. And we'll have a lot going on. We'll have some music, speakers. We will have yard signs, which is what you see on the screen right now, the two-sided yard signs. And I just received a shipment of bumper stickers and buttons. And all of that, it sounds like it's just swag, but it's also a way to show the rest of the world and however you come in contact, I feel and get the, so we'll have all that. And we'll be marching to, to act. Thanks Vicki. Awesome, thank you Vicki and Tamina. Perfect. So then our third call to action will actually be to support the Third Reconstruction Act and also the Moral March on Washington that's coming up, sorry, in North Carolina, that's coming up this June 21st. So we know that the war economy and US militarism also affects us domestically every day. In the United States, more than 140 million people live in poverty, struggle with low wages and are or one emergency away from economic ruin. It's estimated that about 250,000 people die from poverty in the wealthiest nation on the planet every single year. And so this is why we're inviting you to join to support the Third Reconstruction Act in which the Poor People's Campaign urges lawmakers to redirect military spending to eradicate poverty. And we'll go ahead and put the link for you to send your support in the chat and also to RSVP for the upcoming mass Moral Monday on June 21st, which is the National Poor People's Assembly for the launch of the, for the Moral March on Washington which will happen next year in 2022 in person. And then I think I'll pass it to Carly for our last call to action for the night. Awesome, thank you so much, Moses. And also thank you, Jane, Tamina and everyone who are working in your actual, your local communities against the F-35 program. I think that marching rally sounds incredible where it touched to be in community with each other, get off Zoom, I wish we could all be in the same room together right now as well. And so part of what I discussed today and I think we were talking a little bit about your Senator, Senator Baldwin is how do you actually approach your Senator or your congressional representative to discuss these important issues with them? And so we're actually going to be holding a congressional advocacy training to teach people the ins and outs of how you can set up those meetings. And also I think importantly, what did you win those meetings? Maybe don't go as planned or in your case, right? Your Senator is ignoring your calls for a meeting, right? Talking about next steps and increasing the pressure. So everyone's invited to join us next Wednesday, June 23rd, at 7 p.m. central time. And we'll put a link to that in the chat box. Awesome, well, thank you. Well, I'll just end the night by saying thank you so much to all of our speakers and thank you so much to everyone who came out tonight. We'll follow up of course with a lot of information and recording of tonight's webinar. And I hope you guys all have a great night and I hope to meet some of you as well in person since I'm out in Wisconsin as well. Perfect, we'll have a good night everyone and thanks so much for coming.