Monday, April 11, 2011

guns and cannons


Worldwide military spending in 2010 was a record $1.6 trillion. The Unites States increased spending to $698 billion -- about six times as much as China ($119 billion) , the second-biggest spender ahead of Britain ($59.6 billion) , France ($59 billion) and Russia."The United States has increased its military spending by 81 percent since 2001," Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said. The share of U.S. gross domestic product spent on arms increased to 4.8 percent in 2010, from 4.6 percent in 2009. The US had a 43-per-cent share of world military spending, nearly $2 million every minute on military expenses. 700 bases in 130 different countries.

Eisenhower once said: "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 .... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense."

Let's come to our senses, and create a society that truly reflects a sensible way of life.

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