Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: It would do a lot of good. As we know, the environment in our world is getting worse. People are cutting down trees to cook food. This money could give electricity to African villages, to Asian villages, to poor countries which are developing now. And as you know many Africans, many Asians, many poor people from developing countries are running away from their countries and many are being sunk with the boats in the waters of Spain, the waters of Australia, trying to run away from their countries to immigrate to Europe, to immigrate to America. The question is why? I think because they think they will get a better life, they think they will get a better job. Yes, of course, because every human being wishes to have such a life. If that money could be used to build factories, to create jobs for these people, believe me, we will have less death in the waters of Spain. We will have less immigration coming to Europe. We'll have less Africans and less Asians trying to run away from their country to come and get a better life here. This money could do a lot of good. This money could buy medicine for malaria. This money could buy ambulances for poor people who can't even go to hospital; who can't afford medicine. This money could save so many babies, because as you know in many countries in Africa or in Asia, women give birth in the villages. Women give birth on the side of the road because there is no ambulance to take them to the hospital. I think this should be a shame for us to spend so much money on stupid military buildup. For what? When we human can discuss as we are sitting on this roundtable today, why do we spend so much money in weapon and let mothers die and children die when we can help?

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: This is the core question in the world. You know the statistics of the institute on peace researches in Stockholm which prove that after 1989 when it was a time to hope that in a world political context the expenses for military budgets would go down, in fact in the last years the military expenses worldwide have increased dramatically. The leading nation here is the United States, but as well Russia, France, Germany, and England are in leading positions. Regrettably nowadays the corrupt leaders in military and political leaders in the Third World countries do enrich themselves from the military conflicts, from ethnical wars, i.e. that in Chad a short while ago a world bank credit was stopped because the military leaders did not spend the money for social needs and education, but for buying military products. Just think about India nowadays being the biggest customer worldwide for military weapons among the Third World countries, on the one hand operating scientific space projects or using nuclear power, at the same time having 47 % of the population suffering from hunger, being undernourished, and one third is living under the minimum living wage in India, that is millions of people. It is absurd, the military budgets should be reduced and the money spent on social and humanitarian needs and on education. In fact the contrary proves to be true, especially in the last few years where Third World countries like Africa, corrupt regimes buy extensively military products from the West, and the Western states, Russia as well, are happy to secure selling markets in the Third World, wheter it is Africa, South America or Asia. This is regrettable, but an empiric fact.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Cornel West: Howard Zinn is my dear brother; he is one of the towering public intellectuals in America. It’s a delight and a joy for his voice to be present at this historic gathering. The best use for the trillions of dollars spent by the United States ought to be used for education, healthcare, job care, produce more jobs with a living wage, protect the environment. These are just not clichés and chivalrous, but these are policies that affect concrete human beings in their everyday lives and the kind of warped priorities now exercised by the U.S. government and other governments that tilt toward military expenditure rather than investing in infrastructure and education and the healthcare and employment. It is, in fact, a moral failure and political catastrophe that will haunt us for years and decades to come; and I think my dear brother Howard Zinn’s question has everything to do with why it is that democratic globalization from below as opposed to corporate globalization from above is crucial and necessary. My dear brother Michael Harrington in his last work called “Socialism Past and Future,” and by socialism he meant deep democratic empowerment of everyday people, that his book still remains relevant in response to brother Howard Zinn’s heartfelt, crucial and challenging question.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: I have a very short answer to this question. There is no other way but to use it to provide basic services for the people. That’s the only way you should use the money instead of using it for military exercises. I think it's nothing -- it's really worldwide where when we see the budget of these countries like especially the Third World countries, we see that at least more than 30 percent of the budget goes to the military and they result to nothing. And because of that, budget for basic social services are being sacrificed. And so, for me, I would say there is only one way we should put this billions and billions of money to the provision of basic social services needed by the people especially on the local and indigenous-based communities who are marginalized in terms of social services, and maybe this is because most of the budget goes to the military instead of allocating it to the basic social services which response to the basic needs of the people. The challenge is how many governments would dare to allocate their funds -- more funds to the basic social services?

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Wow, Mr. Zinn, I think there’s a lot of ways that money could be spent. But, if I have to prioritize, I’d say education, education, and education. I think education is the key for many things in life. It gives--it empowers people. It builds up skills, creates opportunities, self-confidence. Education also gives way for the individual to use its creativity in positive ways and I think that education is an important and maybe one of the key solutions to a lot of problems in the world today. So, that’s why I feel that investing in education is probably the best thing we can do, globally.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: All new forms of colonization I call neo-colonization, modern colonization which –in reality- has the same face as before. It's just this new form of domination, which has changed its colors, which comes along with food aid, with Internet...So for me the colonization has been the same all the time. This new form of colonization smiles and at the same time makes us bleed. It smiles but it sucks out the life of the people, it violates the human rights. This neo-colonization is really the worst. In times of the colonization, when the flags of the colonist entered our country, 1500 and onwards, those colonists used weapons against the indigenous people and against the Africans that had come from Africa to help and to settle the process of colonization and to form the administrative divisions and hereditary fiefs like for example of King John VI, Peter II, Peter I and so on... Today it's just the same thing that occurs. Colonization in a new garment, but all the same for me – dictatorship. It's dictatorship, globalization but only for the government, for those who have power, for the big capitalists, opportunity for the entrepreneurs. Oportunity of work, opportunity for growth, opportunity for housing, health of the land, oppotunity for surviving, of cultural preservation, of cosmovision. Dictatorship, colonization, neo-colonization – all the same stuff! It's just the name that changes and the attitudes how they patronize us. They give us small alms in order to silence us – but the people sees everything!

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Hello, Howard Zinn. Of course, you know the answer to that question. I am surprised you are asking. Obviously, housing, education, health, infrastructure, and mass transit, research into alternate energies. Basically, I think any way that one could spend that trillion dollars a year on something other than a military budget would be all to the good. I mean, the problem of course with military budgets is that military budgets do nothing for the infrastructure. Military budget, the money that’s spent on the military and on disposable weapons, doesn’t really help the economy at all because it adds nothing to the way we live. It creates a lot of disposable junk, which becomes obsolete very quickly. So, other than the small number of jobs that it creates in an armament industry, which could be much better served in a, say, a mass transit industry creating trains and so forth. It doesn’t help [rise the boats] of the economy in general. So, I think that almost -– it’s hard to think of any other use of that trillion dollars that would be worse than -- than would be worse than spending it on the military. In fact, if they burn those trillion dollars, it would probably be better, because at least they wouldn’t be creating anything that kills someone.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: Oh, what we could do with that big military budget around the world! I would of course spend that military budget around the world on helping people to develop their local economies. Many of the people of the world are landless because their lands were taken from them during the colonialist phase. And that phase really isn’t over for us yet. Many people continue to be disenfranchised from land as well as from political voice. And aid doesn’t work. In Africa for instance massive aid has, food aid, has been sent there and every time there’s a massive dose of food aid people grow less food at the same time. So it creates a dependency, it creates a kind of slavery where people are unable to take care of themselves. And that is what has to be changed. We might have to use some of that money to buy land back for people. We need to get rid of the foreign investment schemes that force people to grow meat or wheat or whatever for foreign export rather than for themselves. I consider agribusiness one of the great problems in the world because food production should be as much as possible local, for local consumption, the way it was a few centuries ago. And we can still trade our surpluses, there are some wonderful examples of how to do that. Bainbridge Island in Washington State in the United States for instance has a sister island in central America that grows its organic coffee. And the Bainbridge Island people in the north pay those coffee growers ten times what other growers are paid for the same product. And it’s a wonderful win-win situation for the people in both places. So we could be developing a lot of economic cooperation as well as local self-sufficiency in the world. And I think that’s the first order of business.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: This is the question of imposed as the use of the so-called peace dividends. There are many users. There have to be peaceful users, social and ecological users. And the main objective here is to create some level of social sustainability, social justice and ecological balance and therefore sustainability and the possibility of development for all people, no matter how they grade the live and what is their level of economic and social development.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: The trillion dollars a year spent by the United States and other countries, I suggest give it to grassroots women. If you gave it to grassroots women, the many self-help groups of poor women in rural communities of this world, in urban centers of this world, and you give them this money to scale up what they are doing, whether it’s actually creating a just world by recreating the social system, the values, in their own community, whether it is protecting their environment which they use to provide livelihoods for their people in the communities, their families, whether it’s actually taking care for the people who are dying in the HIV and AIDS for the sake of Africa, whether it’s providing education for their children, I can tell you, you can change the world. And if we scale up the activities of these poor women in their communities, it would tell us the direction unto which we must put viable policies, to have positive impact in development in the world. I insist, give it to grassroots communities, grassroots women in particular, who already are in groups of communities that are creatively and collectively interested to change the world. They can’t change it, because they are powerless. A large amount of what they would have used to develop, to change the world, has been extracted out of them. Bring it back to them, and they will change the world.

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: There is no doubt that the best use for the money which is actually being used for the military machinery of the United States would be for the satisfaction of the necessity of people who are suffering from hunger. About ten million people and children in the world are dying of hunger and curable diseases. The biggest crime against humanity is hunger. The biggest crime and attack and violence against people is taking them their food. Food and water. There are entire nations that are dying of thirst. There are entire nations that are dying of lack of medicaments that they could have, but there is a genocide in Africa because of AIDS. It is scandalous that medicaments and food are an instrument of profit and of individual appropriation of business. This is scandalous. The militar budget of the United States could end up with a genocide that produces hunger and curable diseases that humanity is already suffering from.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: The best use would be to spend money on the alleviation of poverty, on introducing primary healthcare system on fighting AIDS, providing people with clean water, helping people to become empowered, become inspired, help them to give them respect for themselves, give back the power to the people that would be my big statement to say. Do not believe in the delegated dysfunctional power, but help with the trillions of dollars to connect with the grassroots, allow people to live in coexistence with one another, to love them to help and open their hearts. Of course, we have to mentally help and educate them, but also to help and develop their heart qualities, their quality of feelings, allow ourself to be vulnerable, allow our leaders to be vulnerable, spend time on functional agriculture and helping children to play to develop them in their full existence, allow them and welcome them into the world, not governed by fear but by love, by unconditional love. If we would spend that money in that way, then we might see a real prosperous world where we all know that we coexist and where we can live in abundance. And of course, that is not something that can happen from day today, it needs time, it needs time to change our belief systems. We have to learn to trust oneself and the other, to have confidence in all our divine qualities to come through, and that takes time. It takes time to change our belief system, to change our mindset. We have to be in dialog and keep on dialoging about it.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Galsan Tschinag: The money that is wasted for murder and destruction would be enough to solve the totality of problems that mankind has to face. Amongst them is the elimination of hunger, the healing of human diseases, the creation of a better educational system, the reconstruction of the disfigured planet and the purification of water and air. The fact that we know all of this and still don't act, that we pointlessly and senselessly spend money for destruction and not for construction is the proof for the immaturity of the Homo sapiens. This is one reason more to grow up. To finally be a grown-up species.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Geert Lovink: Probably to educate the US American population and I think if -- I would say what's the best way to spend it is, in fact, educating the rich and famous. I would not be in favor of a redistribution to the West but -- from the West to so-called non-Western countries. Instead, I think it would be good to start a US national war on ignorance. That would certainly be a solution in my view because to open up the United States to reform its media system. But, mainly through education would be much, much better spent money over the decades to come instead of going for, let's say a martial plan for Africa, to educate the US population would have enormous effect on the world as a whole.

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Giora Feidman: Well, first, way to use this money, trillion dollars, and why to say that the government use the money. They use my money. I am also an American citizen in this case, and I also an Israeli citizen. Why they use my money for this? They obligate me to pay tax. If I don’t pay tax, there is a punishment. Well, I am ready to pay tax. We must pay tax. There are schools, there are ways that must be built, they must clean the street. It’s okay. But, I don’t -- and nobody told me when come the bill to pay tax, that the guy, the government will use to war. But, imagine your trillion dollars, trillion dollars, almost assures that no sickness to human being, no one person is hungry in this entire planet, very, very simple. Be aware who is that person that take care about your money, your tax money; or who will be in the future the person that will decide what to do with our money.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Well, the best use of that money is just to flow big that money to development, it should be invested in poverty reduction programs, in developing countries and non-developing countries under at least to develop the countries. So, in this case, instead of wasting money, engaging in unnecessary wars, why not invest that money into the education of the people in non-developed countries and at less developed countries? Why not invest that money in the development and upscaling of agriculture activities in those countries to reduce poverty in those countries? All the wars that are fought, they are fought because people are poor and they need a livelihood. And, if that money or if those trillion dollars are going to be devoted towards development of livelihood programs, livelihood projects for the communities and the people who are [in the ground, it means that ship], those resources would be put to good use. Why wasting resources into war, war that affect the civilians, the people on the ground who don’t even have anything to do with that war, they don’t benefit anything from it. So, I think personally that the money should be diverted towards the development less developed countries and developing countries in the sense of developing their educational system, developing their agricultural system, developing their skills to be able to sustain the community. It is very unfair to keep underdeveloped countries, the undeveloped for the sake of wanting to dominate them. I personally think that money could be put to use by investing it in real development -- sustainable development, war is not sustainable. War does not give any economic, social and ecological benefit to humanity. Human -- we have better things to do than war. We have better things than to kill each other. So, the money should not be invested towards killing civilians, because this war, we will find that most people who are affected by this war are those people who are civilians and sometimes less of soldiers. Soldiers have tactics to avoid the war, but we don’t have it as civilians.

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: Best use? I think you know it. The biggest problem is poverty, biggest problem is to help our communities to have access to food, access to shelter, have access to education, health and process of dignified way of living. But, this cannot happen unless we question in our own economies as to why in India we spend more on our armies when we are unable to provide three meals a day in a day. There are more than 27 percent in India who go without even two meals a day whereas we spend so much on our armies in the name of an illusionary threat. But, this cannot change only by wishing. We need to find a way to question this. So also the communities in these developed countries, I am very sure the poor in the United States need not be poor if the priorities of the state get focused on the real issues of poverty in their respective countries. How do they do it? How should they do it? I think the respective communities must think over this and question their governments.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 12:40:00 PM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: For me the most important thing seems to be to encourage the dialogue between people, not only inside one culture but also across cultures. Dialogue between people is extremely difficult because we speak different languages but a dialogue on a personal level will always show that apart from the different languages there is something we have in common. We have to realize that although our languages are different, our ways of expressing things are different and our direct aims are different, in the background there is something we have in common. Something that makes up our humanity. It is not only that humanity is closely connected to a feeling of belonging to the whole creation of which we are only a part and on which we depend. This means that the lifely dialogue has to be extended. With lifely dialogue I don't mean showing the partner where he/she is wrong but to discover things we have in common. Here you can also use the new communication media to reach a progress. If I get to know someone I can stay in contact via the new methods of communication. But this cannot replace the personal encounter. If I answer questions here I miss the eyes of a partner, to give attention to the other's opinions and reactions. This is an important element. But I can start to talk hoping someone can get in contact with me. This will not create high costs. Make classes in school smaller to strengthen the dialogue in the process of learning, not being taught something which we simply absorb. Give students the posibility to ask questions, to develop their own questions like we do it here right now. This is the real meaning of communication and this will creates the power to think about the answers for the posed questions and to interchange ideas. Today we have fantastic possibilities to reach a progress in communication on a high level. This requires taking the partner seriously, that I listen when the other wants to say something and that I take time to listen to the other.

by Hans-Peter Dürr