Friend

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 are not clothed This world In arms is not spending money alone, It is spending the sweat of Its laborers, the genius of Its scientists, the hopes of its children.
(President Eisenhower's address to the North American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953)

At the end of the Cold War, the US briefly considered what was called the "peace dividend" - the ability to shift defense spending into domestic investment for advanced infrastructure. At that time, for example,? the Grumman Corporation was contracted to build? a magnetic-levitated transportation system for the entire state of New York.? Other defense manufacturers showed how the materials they used in building fighter planes could be used to make bridges indestructible nationwide.

But now, infrastructure in the US is failing, and wars are obliterating infrastructure -- including the "shock and awe" bombing of Iraqi infrastructure in 2003, and the Nord Stream Pipeline in 2022.?

I'll be joined this evening by former Texas LaRouche Congressional candidate Joel Dejean, as well as Jack Gilroy, of Veterans for Peace and Pax Christi, and Brad Wolf of Peace Action Network of Lancaster, PA,?to address the question of the out of control budget and culture of war.? The US "defense" budget is larger than the defense budgets of the next nine countries combined. It is more than one half of discretionary spending in the U.S.? ?

We? will discuss the initiatives for a negotiated settlement to end the Ukraine proxy war, and the threat of nuclear war.? ?(As always, participation in the NY Symposium does not constitute endorsement of any political campaign)

NY Symposium, Friday, February 10, 8:00 pm: They Shall Beat Their Swords into Plowshares

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--Diane

www.sareforsenate.com

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