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What would be the best use for the trillion dollars a year spent by the United States and other countries on their military budgets? by Howard Zinn |
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Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: The scientists, all people whose subject this is, about economic position in the whole world. It’s sure we can feed all people who need this and bring clean water in Africa or other places where the need it. For this money – it’s a budget – you can buy for this money in the year a lot of hospitals [were they treat diseases]. We can fight against AIDS. We can build a new city for 60 thousand dollar. We can do such very good things of this money. It’s incredible how they [wise use] every year more and more the people do not think about budget to give to people, to [fit], to make a very heavy situation for victims of nature catastrophe or something. The private organisations, the private people take it from their own pocket money to help catastrophe victims, you know. This is private initiative, and government state people give thousand billions for war. It’s not normal. This must be changed. It must be changed because it is so insane when we have money for a war and cannot feed the poor. It is some disbalance which brings our world into a catastrophe. We have this critical crucial point in our civilisation. We keep down and it all breaks only because people cannot think. People make the problem. People’s ego makes this. It’s a lack of wisdom of love. |
Abbas Beydoun: The United States spends trillion dollars on military to remain as the strongest country not only morally or geographically but also militarily. I think that it is a complex question whether the United States is necessary for the world and for keeping the international security. There are so many evidences that the United States care about the American people rather than caring about the international system. The United States committed so many mistakes during the international interventions. |
Alvaro Restrepo: If we visit the United Nations building in New York, we can see a graphic on a wall which answers this question. It is a very big pyramid which datails all the military expenses of the humanity. The world hunger could be solved only with a segment of this enormous military expense. The sanitary, education problems and people's basic needs would be solved with another segment of this enormous military expense. The great war business, the great death business is what does not make possible to find a solution to the most urgent needs of the humanity. Obviously, the best use to these budgets is to help developing countries. |
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by Ana Lucy Bengochea | 0 votes | 
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Andries Botha: Ah, first of all, anything that is not spent on defense would be better. Anything that is not spent on war would be better. So, how would, you know, I mean each country has its priorities, you know, we could say the obvious things, that we should spend it on human resources, we should spend it on developing people, we should spend it on creating human capacity, we should spend it on cleaning the environment up, you know. First thing we should do is stop spending it on war. It’s what we should do, you know. The best use in America for the trillion dollars is to spend it on anything but war. I think America should spend its money on itself. It should rectify itself. I think right now with the balance of power as it is the fact that the world is in such chaos is because America is so unhealthy. Because it is the most powerful in the world and it exercises its power without the consideration that it should. So spend the three trillion dollars on making America healthy, and then as a result of that the rest of the world would be allowed to establish its own balance. It’s exactly because America is so wealthy that it appears to be interfering in terms - under the aegis of its foreign policy - into the well being of so many other countries. It exports war. It exports conflict, because of how it uses its own judicial process to decide what is good for America. But certainly because America is so unhealthy at the moment the rest of the world is in such bad shape. |
Angaangaq Lyberth: Incredibly, the abject poverty will be eliminated. Imagine that we will no longer have abject poverty. You will be to distribute any food anyone wants to eat from anywhere on Earth. You will be able to build infrastructures for the entire citizens of the Earth. Infrastructures which, anything can be delivered. That’s what we would do. But lo and behold we’re not doing it. And here we are killing every second of the day and night, day and day out, in the name of a war? And we create budgets for these enormous sums? The axis of power, what can you do differently than what you have been doing up to now? So at trillion dollars will go to the hands of the very people who so much need peace on Earth. You, just like I am, are responsible for the abuse our governments do in the name of military and the war systems. What are you going to do about it? I look forward to hearing your answer. Thank you. |
Anthony Arnove: This is a great question, Howard, and I’m sure you’re listening right now to my answer live on the Internet. So, it’s a very important question because it makes the connection, a very real connection that we need to draw between the money that is being spent on war today and all of the social needs that are going unmet. In fact, this war in Iraq for example has already caused, according to a study by Joseph Stiglitz, $1.6 trillion, if you include the indirect economic cost. That is going hand in hand with the fact that, in city after city, state after state in the United States, people are going hungry. There are fiscal crisis, school budget programs are getting cut, education funding is being cut, health care funding is being cut, and basic human needs are going unmet. The reality is $1.6 trillion could do so much to eliminate poverty, to eliminate disease, to eliminate hunger, and how best that money can be spent, I’m really -– I as an individual can’t say, but I think it should be a question of democratic decisions, but we should put that money into communities, allow those communities to figure out what needs are greatest, which human needs are most pressing and the most urgent. And I think what you will find is that people will very quickly find the immense value of a diversion and ultimately conversion of our economy from a war economy to an economy based on other interests and needs. |
Anuradha Koirala: To prevent HIV/AIDS. I think they should their trillion million dollars to prevent the HIV/AIDS. Prevent the HIV/AIDS. And I think that they should help developing countries education and other social causes so as to develop the developing countries. |
Anuradha Mittal: Well, the best way I think these trillion dollars could be spent is to actually use to promote security in the world. And that can be done by fighting against AIDS, by fighting and struggling to end hunger, homelessness, by ensuring schools for our children, by ensuring that every child has a real childhood so they would not be members of gangs or join terrorist groups. So, those trillion dollars could actually be used instead on military budgets, it could be used to actually promote security in this world by fulfilling dreams and aspirations of people around the world. My country India is the third largest spender on defense in the world after U.S. and China. If we look at the world food programs country page on India, it reports that it is home to at least half of the world’s hungry population; over 380 million people go to bed hungry in India. This is a country where more than 150 million children have never seen the inside of a school. They are the ones who are working as domestic servants. They are the ones who are working in hazardous industries. They are the ones who are called child laborers. They do not know what childhood looks like. So, those military expenditures of India for example could be used to build a very different India. This is a country where more than hundred thousands farmers have taken their own lives between 1993 and 2003, and yet India thinks it can promote security by investing and buying weapons from countries such as the U.S., Sweden, France. We know very well how to promote security in a country like India by investing in India’s future, in its children by ending child labor, by ensuring the risk and exploitation, and that’s the only way to spend those trillions of dollars: promote security, end hunger, end poverty, end disease, make sure that nobody goes to bed hungry without a roof on their head. |
Ashok Gangadean: This is an excellent question. And it really brings out the absolute insanity of the gross misuse of valuable resources and the militarization and the culture of military thinking and military consciousness. And to think of what might be use -- done with these funds alternatively. What's interesting to me is not that to use -- redirect those funds -- within the old mindset of the militaristic culture, that already will be an improvement. But to realize that this gross misuse of vital funds for military budgets which dominate the budgets of the United States and other countries around the world, is absolutely insane. When we think of the alternative use that can be made of this to educate our youth. To take care of people in poverty, and questions of hunger and health and clean water and the many different basic human needs and human rights that are being violated through this kind of misappropriation, that to me is the question. So, what is important here is not simply to keep the old militaristic mindset on culture and simply shift the funds within that, but to create a shift in consciousness in culture itself, from a militaristic mindset to one of a humanitarian, global consciousness and spirituality that recognizes the sanctity of our life. Those funds being used to transform culture to that humanistic culture will get to the deep causes of the militaristic tragedy and gross insanity really to come to a sane, a humane cultural form of life. That’s what's important. So the funds could be then be used to educate our youth and to care for our people at all levels so that we can have the human dignity and human rights that we all deserve. |
Audrey Kitagawa: There's a lot of ways that we can positively spend this money. We have critical issues that need to be addressed, that are in great need of funding. For example, the environmental crisis that we are in. We need to commit dollars to see how we can preserve and protect our environment. To develop alternate ways of using fuel so that we don't degrade our environment, that we don't exacerbate global warming. There is a worldwide epidemic of AIDS and other diseases that require the commitment of our dollars to study ways in which we can prevent these diseases from spreading. To develop appropriate drugs to be able to help, and medicines, to be able to help people who have these diseases. To develop infrastructures to deal with the consequences of these diseases that would befall millions on a massive scale. We also need to see how we can improve the human development and the human condition to address issues of abject poverty, to help promote the rights and the development of women, to be able to see how we can feed hungry children all over the world who die unnecessarily from malnutrition, from lack of access to clean water, to medicines that could easily prevent deaths. We also need to commit our dollars to education. So there are a multitude of critical issues that are facing us right now that need to have our funds be channeled in addressing these issues rather than towards the mechanisms and machineries of war that seek the annihilation, the destruction, the injury and annihilation of our species and our environment. And this is use of our dollars in ignorant ways, which we should give up and use our dollars in enlightened ways. |
Avi Primor: I find this question quite unfair. Why these trillion dollars spent by the United the States and not the other states? All of them are spending money for military budgets. Where are the Russians, who are not a global power any more and don't have any ambition in the world any more. Why they still have so many military expenses? How do you explain the expenses of the Iran? Not only for army, but as well for nuclear arms? And so many, many others? It seems as the Nations and the Governments assume that, either they need the military expenses to defend themselves or because they have any other ambition. As the Iran for example, who wants to attack and controll its neighbours. As long as there are still Nations, who are not a democracy, who are thinking, that they can expand their terms, their power, their terms of life, their fame, on the basis of military adventures, the other Nations, the democratic Nations, won't have an alternative than building, equiping armed forces to defend themselves. Unfortunataly there is no alternative. Otherwise you could have used the money in a different way, so much better and so much cheaper. Unfortunataly it isn't still possible everywhere. That's a question of the schooling and the education of the people and of the development of the democracys. Unfortunataly we aren't that far yet. by Avi Primor |
Benjamin Fahrer: My gosh, a trillion dollars, do you even think about what a trillion dollars, how a trillion dollars could be put a better use? It is almost out of scale of those that would be using it. A million dollars, a billion dollars, a trillion dollars invested into local economies, to education, to health care. The basic dignities that every human should deserved to live a descent life. If we took a fraction of this money, this trillion dollars, we took such trillion dollars, a hundred, a thousand billion dollars -- a thousand. So, I think it will be hard to find a thousand sectors to even define. So, if we say take fifty, then we’re taking two billion dollars and investing that into an educational system. We take two billion dollars in invest it into world development localization. If we take this money and give back to other countries that we’re stealing from, that we’re stealing from their local resources, we’re mining the resources of other countries, an unprecedented event. We’re taking from the environment; we’re taking from the ecological environment. We gave back to this environment, how many have we took billions of dollars and put it back into alternative technology? So that we don’t have to cut down the last trees on the planet that are the lungs of our earth. That are the lungs that allow us to be who we are and just take fractions of this money invested into the things that support us and support the people, then, then it would be very different world we would be living in. A very beautiful world. And I know people would be happy with a thousand dollars invested in their local community from the government. And you’re talking trillions, so it’s like okay, hundred thousand, Wow! Stop spending on the military and reinvesting it into those whose money it is. A trillion dollars is the people’s money. So, stop allowing them, people have pay so much and work so much. That will give us our freedom. |
Benson Venegas: I came from a country, Costa Rica, where there's no military system. In 1948 we have the last revolution, and the person that win that revolution, Don José Pepe Figueres, he was a visionary leader, and at that time of history, he abolished the army. Can you think a moment, the winner of a revolution would ever go and run for election? Well this is what happen in Costa Rica. That the winner of that revolution abolished the army, and went and run for election. So that result, the result of that visionary decision of a great leader in Costa Rica history, provoke that most of our money goes to the investment, to social and environmental investment, and the level of education is higher in Costa Rica. And the respect and the values of environment and nature, is also something very powerful and important. And today, more than 30% of our country, our territory, is under protected area for conservation. So I think there are examples, as Costa Rica and other places in the world, where societies come and make these big and very important decisions, and I think we have to go that way. That all these money that is being spent in military budgets should be reduced, and this money should go to really dedicate, to solve some of our social and environmental problems in the world. Because those are the challenges we're gonna face in the future, regarding to environmental disasters, social vulnerability, regarding to environment, and political and social issues that we are affecting right now, our societies and our communities around the world. |
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Currently video only.
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by Bianca Jagger | 0 votes |
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Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon. |
Bill Joy: Rather than fighting wars and preparing to fight wars the best thing to do would be to invest in eliminating the underlying causes of conflict starting with raising up a lot of poverty, investing in economic development and in education. The difficulty in making such a change is not that the money wouldn’t thus be better spent but that the people who would profit from those kinds of changes are not the same people who profit from spending on the military. So for example in the middle east to really address that conflict which may take a generation we’d have to do something like substantial investments in economic development for the Palestinians and other displaced people and people who’s economies such as the people in Lebanon have been devastated by the recent conflict. Those who are in power, whether it’s economic in power in the west making weapons, or it’s dictators and politically maintaining their power in the middle east through focus on military activity and the nationalism it engenders, it’s only through taking a long term view that by investing in peace, by investing in education, by investing in progress that we can hope to draw down the incredible expenditure of military, on the military in this century. by Bill Joy |
Bora Cosic: Nowise! There in the current system there will be always an argument for savaging huge amounts of the money on weapons. If it were not so then off course this fortune could be spend on the science, on the healthcare, on saving of the environment or general development which is growing very slow for the aggressive militant politics of a lot of governments. by Bora Cosic |
Brian J. Weller: Yeah, okay. All right. Reverse global warming. Make a difference around climate change. The Plan B program. I think it’s estimated around $160-odd billion dollars would make a huge difference in terms of reversing some of the terrible trends in terms of climate change. So, what else? Stopping species’ extinction by massive investment in education sustainability. Some of the ways I’d invest that money. Re-empower the United Nations to end world poverty through economical localization strategies. That would be a great start. We could also use some of that money for a truly global peace campaign and really build a world around dialogue around the world that we truly want. That’s what this is about; Dropping Knowledge and this first event here in Berlin today on the 9th of September 2006. In my feeling, this needs to happen more and more and more. We need to have this kind of event happening everywhere around the world; the center of every town and city. We could put a fund together out of the trillion dollars to record the global dialogue. I think Dropping Knowledge is doing a great thing here. So yeah, a trillion dollars, my God! Reverse climate change, if we can; end world poverty and hunger; stop species’ extinction; end violence. What a great use of the money. To do that, we need a more enlightened leadership and we certainly do not have that. We need a change of leadership. We need a change of consciousness that’s for sure. |
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