From: bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman)
Subject: Tear Down the Wall
Summary: Spend "peace dividend" here in the U.S.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 14:02:46 GMT
Keywords: money expense defense


The following ad appears in the Jan/Feb 1993 "Utne Reader."
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* * * * ** * * * * Tear Down the Wall * * * * * * * * * *

Built to last forever, the Berlin Wall is gone. Vanished with it 
is the Soviet Union, the military monster of our long cold war 
nightmare. But another wall remains. Until it is breached, the 
dream of a peaceful, productive life for all Americans may lie 
forever beyond our reach.

It is a wall of disinformation and deception erected around 
military spending to protect it from urgent domestic needs. So 
while workers go without health care and homeless flood our 
cities, we spend more than $100 billion to defend Germany against 
an enemy that no longer exists -- three times as much as the 
Germans spend on their own defense.

Militarists insist the wall against military cuts is essential 
because the world remains a dangerous place. That may be true. 
But it is also true we spend ten times as much on our military as 
all the potential adversaries the Pentagon can identify. We 
defeated Iraq, the fourth largest army in the world, in 43 days, 
using 15% of our force structure.

President-elect Clinton knows what the wall really is: a 
political hurdle created by opponents of change who would rather 
pursue the demons of yesteryear than address the needs of today. 
Defense contractors, lobbyists, and PACs are already mobilizing 
to defend the spending wall. They claim the economy is too weak 
to bear cuts in military spending, that domestic employment will 
rise and local economies will suffer.

But bringing our troops and our dollars home will benefit the 
domestic economy. Instead of spending billions to conduct war 
games against imaginary enemies, we should invest our hard-earned 
dollars in sensible solutions to real problems here at home. 
Recycled to America's domestic needs, the $122 billion we now 
spend defending Europe would allow us to double our efforts to 
educate and care for our children, rebuild our nation's 
infrastructure, protect our environment, and conduct civilian 
research and development.

To get the economy moving, President-elect Clinton will have to 
act quickly. He can count on a ready-made consensus for military 
conversion. Polls show nearly three quarters of all Americans -- 
including 64% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats -- want to see 
military savings reinvested in domestic needs.

Our economy doesn't care whether dollars are spent for guns or 
butter. But our people do. It's time to tear down the wall that 
forces us to ignore crack babies while we build cruise missiles. 
A new generation of problems await solution. If we insist on 
standing guard against the threat of yesterday, we will never 
realize the hope of tomorrow.

================================================================
It just takes a call. Dial 1-800-93-ACTION to send your 
Congressional Representatives an urgent message to cut military 
spending now.
================================================================

The Campaign for New Priorities
1601 Connecticut Ave., NW
4th Floor
Washington, D.C.  20009

(Distribute this freely if you wish)



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