Above photo: Photos from the Resistance Center for Peace and Justice and Mass Peace Action.
Invest in Public Health Care for All and the Green New Deal Reduce and Eliminate Nuclear Weapon.
The unprecedented scale of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic gives rise to many questions about the ways our society is organized and how our future society should be rebuilt. One issue that has an enormous impact on how our future society will be is how much public money we will spend on wars and militarism and how much money we will spend on human needs and the protection of our plants. Currently, the US spends an insane amount of money on the military and wars each year. The FY2020 military budget will cost taxpayers $738 billion, a $120 billion increase in the last three years. No country in the world comes close to dedicating this many of its resources to the military. In fact, the U.S. spends more on defense than the next ten countries combined and it has 800 bases in more than 90 countries while all other countries in the world, 11 of them, have 70 bases in foreign countries altogether.
William Astore, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and history professor wrote: “If ever there was a time to reduce our massive and wasteful military spending, this is it. Investing up to $1.7 trillion over the next 30 years to “modernize” our nuclear arsenal will do nothing to secure us from pandemics, the devastating effects of climate change, or other all-too-pressing threats. Such weaponry only emboldens a militaristic and chauvinistic foreign policy that will facilitate yet more wars and blowback problems of every sort.”
To highlight the urgent need to reduce our spending on wars and militarism we held a small and safe demonstration next to the L3Harris facility in Northampton.
L3 Harris Technologies, Inc. is the 6th largest arms company in the U.S. and a top 10 arms company globally, with approximately 48,000 employees and customers in over 100 countries. L3Harris is involved in almost every aspect of building our war machine, from Nuclear Weapons to the weapon used by the individual soldier
We call for:
- A substantial reduction in US military spending and a corresponding increase in investment in public health care for all, the Green New Deal, free top-quality public higher education and canceling all student debts.
- Reducing and eliminating US Nuclear Weapon NOT modernizing it.
- We ask L3Harris to cancel all its contracts to modernize the US nuclear arsenal and respect the commitment of the city of Northampton to comply with the International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
This action was organized by the Resistance Center for Peace and Justice and Mass Peace Action.