Defund The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the world's largest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gasses.[2][3] Its annual budget makes up more than half of the united states federal government's total budget and is greater than the next ten nation-states' budgets combined. [4]
You know -- it's funny -- when it rains it pours
They got money for wars but can't feed the poor
~ 2Pac, Keep Ya Head Up[1]
During the 2020 US congressional elections, Representative Cori Bush (MO-1) made a statement:
"If you're having a bad day, just think of all the social services we're going to fund after we defund the Pentagon."
In response to criticism, she tweeted a longer thread:
"Let’s talk about ignorance. Let’s talk about what actually keeps our communities safe... Militarization makes up 64% of our federal budget. Medicare & Health are 6%. Education is 5%. Social Security, Unemployment, and Labor together are 3%. Ignorance is thinking those priorities keep our families safe... The Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit, yet we continue to give them money unchecked... Ignorance is giving weapons of war to local police departments with no accountability or oversight... Yes I want to change our priorities. We can fund Medicare for All, guarantee housing, and enact a Green New Deal. We can make sure no veteran goes unhoused or without care. We can have a government that actually works for us."[5]
Dr. Cornel West
See this video of Dr. Cornel West discussing defunding the American empire as part of his presidential platform: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-bottom-line/2023/6/22/cornel-west-is-running-for-president-to-dismantle-the-us-empire
Green New Deal
As published in The Nation, in 2019:
"Consider the reaction to... (the) Green New Deal. Despite attacks from... both parties, over 80 percent of voters support the litany of proposals advocated by the House resolution: job and income guarantees, universal health care, a cleaner environment, and lower socioeconomic inequality. Americans turn out, yet again, to be far less conservative than elites have maintained over the last half-century. Nowhere has the gap between majority will and elite consensus been more conspicuous or longstanding than on US foreign policy... in polls Americans have consistently preferred diplomacy to military “solutions”... Nonetheless, US soldiers and mercenaries are now prosecuting the latter in 80 countries, nearly half the planet... The defense industry has gone unchecked, even as the evidence is clear that it has corrupted the democratic process. Just as the popularity of the Green New Deal—and its focus on the job guarantee—can help us fight global warming, so too might it go a long way toward humanizing our foreign policy and creating a better economy... Considering the overwhelming support for the Green New Deal ... herein lies an opportunity for proponents... to regulate military contractors and finance job growth by converting the military-industrial complex to peaceful ends."[6]
As published in Jacobin Magazine, in 2019:
Scientists try hard to create autonomous spaces for their work, but their ability to do so is severely curtailed by the immense power wielded by the military-industrial-academic complex. Yet new movements are emerging, and tackling pressing problems such as climate change will require a radical reenvisioning of our economy. For policies such as the Green New Deal to be truly successful at reaching zero emissions while simultaneously improving the lives of ordinary people, we will need massive investments in new scientific research. This is a daunting prospect. But if we have learned anything from the last century, it is that scientists with ample resources and clearly defined goals can achieve the seemingly impossible. If scientists can make missiles that fly thousands of miles carrying nuclear bombs, and drones that can be controlled from halfway across the world, they can certainly develop technology to actually benefit humanity.[7]
Sources
- ↑ https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
- ↑ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/pentagon-climate-change-neta-crawford-book/#:~:text=The%20US%20military%20is%20the,the%20emissions%20of%20most%20countries.
- ↑ https://earth.org/us-military-pollution/
- ↑ https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/04/the-united-states-spends-more-on-defense-than-the-next-10-countries-combined
- ↑ https://www.audacy.com/kmox/news/politics/cori-bush-explains-why-she-wants-to-defund-the-pentagon
- ↑ The Nation, 2019. Peter-Christian Aigner & Michael Brenes. FEBRUARY 26, 2019 “Shrinking the Military Industrial Complex by Putting It to Work at Home: It’s not a pipe dream.” Aigner is the deputy director of the Gotham Center @ CUNY; Brenes is a historian and senior archivist at Yale University; https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/military-industrial-complex-green-new-deal/
- ↑ Jacobin Magazine, 2019; Pankaj Mehta, associate professor of physics at Boston University and a member of the Boston chapter of Science for the People, Aug 27, “Defense Spending: the Endless Frontier”; https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/defense-spending-the-endless-frontier