Though many of you subscribe to Portside, I thought I'd drive home the
point.
*Natalia*
Kick the Habit: Fund Our Communities, Not War
By Dr Joseph Gerson
Truthout | News Analysis
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10240-kick-the-habit-fund-our-communities-not-war
Monday, 16 July 2012
[photo Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), left, greets Col. Michael
Hudson, commander of the 169th Fighter Wing, South
Carolina Air National Guard, at McEntire Joint National
Guard Base in Eastover, South Carolina, May 30, 2012.]
Democrats and Republicans agreed last summer to
automatic cuts in military spending if they could not
reach a budget agreement, and so far they have not.
(Photo: John W. Adkisson / The New York Times)Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), left, greets Col.
Michael Hudson, commander of the 169th Fighter Wing,
South Carolina Air National Guard, at McEntire Joint
National Guard Base in Eastover, South Carolina, May
30, 2012. Democrats and Republicans agreed last summer
to automatic cuts in military spending if they could
not reach a budget agreement, and so far they have not.
(Photo: John W. Adkisson / The New York Times)Question
to Rev. Ulises Torres (former tortured Chilean
political prisoner): "When do you know if you have a
military government?"
Answer: "Look at your national budget."
Like a crack addict reaching for the next hit, unable
to envision or take steps toward a regimen of health,
too many of our political leaders are embracing their
roles as hostages of what President Eisenhower termed
the military-industrial complex. Nationally,
Lockheed-Martin and other weapons manufacturers have
threatened to put an election year political gun to
Congress' head. They've announced that they will have
to send layoff notices to all of their employees unless
Congress reneges on the Budget Control Act of 2011,
which would cut roughly 12 percent of the Pentagon's
gargantuan budget over the next decade. They haven't
expressed similar concern over the act's $600 billion
to be slashed from essential and already underfunded
social services.
As far as these arms dealers are concerned, House of
Representative Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's
vision for America, government spending essentially
limited to maintaining our foreign legions and gulags
that already hold two million prisoners, most people of
color, would be just fine. Meanwhile, here in my home
state of Massachusetts, like Chicken Little, our
lieutenant governor is warning that thousands of jobs
and billions of dollars would be lost to the state's
economy if military bases in the Commonwealth are
closed.
Would that they would take a few moments to read the
recent University of Massachusetts study, "Military
Spending and Jobs in Massachusetts." Similar to other
studies, it informs us that "job loss would be
approximately 15-20% greater if non-military programs
were cut instead" and that "if federal dollars coming
into the state were shifted from military to education,
construction, healthcare or clean energy some 27% to
134% more jobs would be created."
After more than a decade of nationally self-defeating
wars, the near doubling of the Pentagon's already
out-sized budget, our economic meltdown and the loss of
essential social services from fire fighters and police
to teachers and those who maintain our 20th century
infrastructure, you'd think that we'd be thinking more
critically. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know
that the national budget crisis is not an act of God.
It's a legacy of our self-identified "war president"
George Bush, who doubled military spending as he led
the nation into two disastrous wars and revised
national tax policies to take from teachers and cops so
that billionaires could double and triple their
fortunes.
While too much of the media uncritically echoes the
dire warnings from Lockheed and the right-wing think
tanks that any cuts in military spending will leave us
vulnerable to terrorists, China and perhaps even
Venezuela, the reality is that US military spending
equals that of the world's seventeen next biggest
military spenders - combined! The Pentagon's research
and development budget alone is roughly equal to
China's entire military budget! Despite his announced
commitment to creating a nuclear weapons-free world, in
order to win Senate ratification of the New START arms
control treaty with Russia, President Obama agreed to
increase spending for nuclear weapons and their
delivery systems by $185 billion in the coming decade.
And then, there's the trillion dollars the Pentagon
plans to spend to build and operate the new F-35 jet
fighter that is as outmoded as the cold war.
I was never a fan of Republican President Eisenhower.
After all, it was Ike who threatened to initiate
nuclear war against Korea, China and even Lebanon, and
who brought on the Vietnam War. But he was pretty much
on point when he began his presidency with post-WWII
economic revitalization as his priority. He taught the
American people that "Every gun that is made, every
warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the
final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and not clothed ... This is not
a way of life at all in any true sense." As he left
office, it was Ike who warned that "we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence ... by
the military industrial complex" whose "total influence
- economic, political and even spiritual - is felt in
every city, every State house, every office of the
Federal government."
Fifty years on, that complex has become a state within
a state, undermining our real security.
As we have been reminded by the Arab Spring, Burma's
turn toward democracy and the Occupy movement,
democratic change to address real human needs and
affirm our rights and dignity requires a bit of
chutzpah. Instead of kowtowing to the Daddy Warbucks of
our era, it's time to press our political leaders to
learn from the University of Massachusetts study and to
have the courage to speak truth to power, prophetically
showing us and the nation the way. We need real job
creation, not more nuclear weapons, missiles and
outdated fighter aircraft.
Today, Germany is regarded as having the healthiest, if
most obstinate, European economy, far healthier than
ours. One reason is that they spend only 1.5 percent of
their gross domestic product on their military, not our
4.06 percent, according to "The CIA World Factbook CIA
World Factbook." They recognize that a nation's future
lies in educating its youth and guaranteeing that every
qualified student gets a college education without
taking on crippling financial burdens. And like other
advancing nations, Germany is investing in the
infrastructures and technologies needed to compete in
the 21st century.
For real security, we need an end to foreclosures. We
need schools with enough books for all of our children.
We are entitled to the knowledge that we will not die
prematurely for want of medical care and access to the
Internet equal to that of ... South Korea!
Instead of pleading to waste still more tax dollars by
holding onto redundant military bases and deploying
Rumsfeld's Prompt Global Strike weapons systems, new
nukes and more missiles, it's past time to demand that
we fund our communities - including job training and
creation for displaced military-industrial complex
workers - not war. With campaigns like Massachusetts'
Budget for All referenda, it is time to resist, not
embrace, the military-industrial complex's extortion.
Just as Massachusetts' political leaders were sent to
Congress to oppose slavery a century and a half ago and
to lead the 1980s nuclear weapons freeze campaign, it's
time for them to say, "Enough!" We deserve real
security. Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted
without permission. Dr Joseph Gerson
Dr. Joseph Gerson is disarmament coordinator of the
American Friend Service Committee and director of its
Peace and Economic Security Program. His most recent
book is "Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear
Weapons to Dominate the World."
Reprinted with permission from Truthout.
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