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Deborah
Mokma, Editor
The current administration’s
budget request of $2.1 trillion for year 2003 calls for nearly $400 billion
in military spending, an increase of more than 12% over the previous budget.
This proposed military expenditure accounts for more than half of all discretionary
spending at a time when spending on national and international programs which
address social and health needs, education and the environment is being drastically
reduced. The
Friends Committee on National Legislation (www.fcnl.org), in their April 2002
newsletter, explains:“The
federal budget is more than a blueprint for spending. Just as an individual’s
spending priorities reflect that person’s values, federal spending priorities
are a reflection of national values. The Administration, House, and Senate have
similar visions of national priorities … Spending to meet the needs of
poor and vulnerable populations has been effectively cut in favor of huge military
allocations while locking in last year’s tax cuts that benefit, overwhelmingly,
high-income persons. Even spending for some domestic programs (such as health
care) has been framed in ways that will result, primarily, in benefits for wealthier
persons. “Both
the Administration and a majority in Congress have opted to address threats
to national and international security by building a mightier military machine
rather than by removing the seeds of war and violence. Despite the rhetoric,
non-military aid to the poorest countries remains a miniscule portion of the
federal budget.“Military
strength, no matter how great, cannot assure national security. National and
global security are enhanced by measures that relieve the extreme economic inequities
around the world and enable peoples in all nations to be self-reliant in meeting
their human needs. It is towards these ends that the U.S. should budget its
resources.”Retired
Marine Corps General Smedley Butler described his career in the U.S. military
this way:“I
helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti
and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues
in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the
benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking
House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic
for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American
fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil
went its way unmolested.” Butler
also acknowledged that he’d spent most of those 33 years as “a high
class muscle man for Big Business, Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I
was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”The
countries where our military is providing protection for big (oil) business
today? Afghanistan, Columbia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait …
Polls are
not in and of themselves accurate readings of public opinion. The questions
asked, and the way in which questions are posed, can predetermine the outcome
of responses in so-called random samplings of the populace. With the mainstream
media (which are owned by six of the largest corporations in this country) behind
most of the polls currently being conducted and quoted, it’s no wonder
the Bush administration is given consistently high approval ratings. What if
the questions asked by pollsters included the above information? Would our fellow
Americans willingly throw away billions of dollars on a military, already the
largest in the world, which claims to be protecting our nation from a “terrorist
threat” but whose real purpose is in securing more profits for the petroleum
industry? A threat which could be more successfully removed by spend-ing that
same money on expanding democracy, social programs, education, improved economics
and sanitation—the real issues which affect real disenfranchised people.James
Carroll made the point well when he said in an article in the Boston Globe last
May: “The
only way to live humanly—still—is in resistance to war. The prevention
of war, in the nuclear age, must be a central purpose of every person’s
life. Scientists, physicians, lawyers, bishops, mothers, students, writers—where
are you? We must remember what we learned already, but forgot; what the leaders
of India and Pakistan are showing us again: If we human beings leave this problem
to governments, we are doomed.”Please
join the movement for peace and against war. Truly, this is a dream whose time
has come. |
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June/July
2002
Community
Consciousness
Eric Sirotkin
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: A Call to Action
Congressman Dennis Kucinich
We
Are Not An Isolated Fringe
Kayla M. Starr, MPH
Rejecting
Neo-Liberal Globalization Will Diminish Causes of War and Conflict
Gerald Cavanaugh
War,
Inc.
Mike Ferner
Hell
to Pay: The Proving Ground
William Rivers Pitt
Liberation
Psychology and The Power Elite
Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.
The
Age of Inequality
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Industrial
Agriculture Poisoning Our Water and our Home
PR
Firms Help Corporations "Infect the World"
George Monbiot
Book
Reviews:
The Democracy Owners Manual and The Global Activists Manual
Green
Beings: Plant Mind, Planetary Mind
Jesse Wolf Hardin
The
Yearly Round
Richard Moeschl
Keep
Your Tubes Outta Me … It's a Good Day to Die
John Darling
The
Movie Mystic: Waking Life
Stephen Simon
Soy
to Enjoy and Soy to Avoid
Rebecca Wood
Cosmic
Calendar
Salina Rain
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TO TOP
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