Dear John,
Today is the International Day of Peace. All over the world, people are celebrating the possibility of a world without war. Earlier today, I was delighted to speak at an International Day of Peace celebration in Times Square in New York City.
President John F. Kennedy said that either we will get rid of war, or war will get rid of us. Yet with an $858 billion yearly defense budget, war is very big business in the United States — and the war machine shows no sign of slowing down.
We’re at a point where no matter who the President is, Republican or Democrat, obeisance to both Big Oil and the Military Industrial Complex seem baked into the cake. And that is the machinery that we must end before the machinery ends us.
I view the military like I view a surgeon. If the United States needs surgery, then you better believe we need the best one — and we need the best one on hand. But a reasonable person tries to avoid surgery if possible.
That is why a cornerstone of my platform is the call to wage peace. To establish a United States Department of Peace. To play peace, games, as well as war games. To claim the possibility of a world without war within the next 100 years, and reverse engineer from there.
We need to cut our military budget by 20%, and transition from a war economy to a peace economy.
