Put Out the Fires and House the Homeless

The theory is that the high winds caused the power lines to collapse, allowing sparks to hit the dry grass. Why are power lines above ground? In most cities, power lines are underground to prevent precisely this problem.

We need US Navy ships sitting off the Sonoma County coast, pumping water into trucks and planes to spray onto the fire. If the water must be desalinated, the Navy ships can do that too. We need US military tents that can withstand the heavy rain alternating with frost that the entire Northern California coast will experience in a month, to house the homeless until housing is built with our tax dollars affordable to all. With the tents, we need cots, blankets, portable toilets, showers, laundry facilities and all other amenities for decent, sanitary housing. We need the US military to build the housing and pay for it from their budget, a trillion dollars a year, instead of making war on the people of the world to maximize the profits of the oil companies and munitions companies, the only reason the military exists. We need the US military to provide free, hot, nutritious food to all of the homeless every single day, 3 times a day, until they have a home and can work at a job that provides enough pay for them to buy food and all other necessities. We need the US military to rebuild devastated Sonoma County and all other areas of Northern California. We need the US military to plant trees IMMEDIATELY to stop the inevitable mud slides that come with winter rains when there are no trees. We need the US military to provide medical care both on land and on hospital ships anchored off the Sonoma coast, free of charge upon demand, and that must include free birth control and abortion services. Kaiser Hospital and one Sutter hospital in Santa Rosa had to close because of the fire danger.

These fires are not only choking millions of people in Northern California with their smoke; they are destroying the economy of an entire region. Northern California had a multi-billion dollar wine industry that employed thousands of people and a growing marijuana industry which at the moment has suffered tremendous losses and marijuana farms cannot obtain crop insurance or FEMA relief funds.

It is long overdue that this country turn swords into plowshares. We face an economic catastrophe in Northern California that can only be averted with massive federal funding now, starting with massive water applied to all fire areas so that they are fully contained this week. It must be continued with immediate federal funding, grants not loans, for housing and rebuilding of the wineries and marijuana farms.