that come to people’s minds are huge military budget increases and substantial social program cuts. But what about the regulatory agencies and the enforcement agencies? Within the framework of the budget process, with no significant policy discussion at all in this country, this administration is rewriting policy without any debate. You don’t have to kill the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Just cut the staff. You don’t have to kill the Environmental Protection Agency. Just cut the staff. You don’t have to destroy the Consumer Protection Agency. Just cut the staff. You go to the supermarket and you pick up a piece of meat and it says, “FDA Inspected.” How do you really know? What I am suggesting to you is that right before your very eyes, in a very insidious way, the infrastructure of government is being reduced to a miniscule level. Services and programs that are invisible to you but that you have come to expect, are being dismantled. In a democratic society, if that is going to take place, I would suggest that it has to take place as a result of a significant discussion. I’m considered a left-wing, radical extremist because I believe that we ought to engage in the democratic process. Let’s back up. This administration suggested a rapid, substantial, and sustained growth in America’s military budget. I told you those figures. How do we finance it? I gave you the three ways. You can see how this administration has developed its approach to these ideas. The Russians Are Coming The next question is, “Why?” Why these incredible expenditures? Why three or four trillion dollars in ten years? Are the Soviets really going to attack us? Every year since 1971, just prior to the military budget coming to the floor, I always read in the newspapers that the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming. And in twelve years, the Russians have never come! Because the Russians know what I know and what you in this room know: We both have an incredible capacity to destroy all life on this planet. But this administration has a myopic view of the world. They only see two nations: the United States and the Soviet Union. Everything else is terI?he one thing that unifies us all is this planet earth, and this planet is in danger from the threat of nuclear war. To the black and third-world people in this country, I say this is not a white male issue. It has no respect for race, creed or color. rain on which you act out this elaborate super-power struggle. This is an administration that perceives the problems of the world as military problems; that if you have enough military capability you can solve the problems of the world. I reject that analysis. Increasingly, the problems of the world are not military. They are social and political and economic, and if we are going to address the human misery of the world, those problems will have to be solved in that context. There are millions of human beings who starve every year in the world, most of them children, most of them people of color. And if we cannot be disturbed by millions of human beings dying from the simple lack of food because we have made that such an incredibly complicated economic consideration, then we are a nation and a world destined to die. A world that cannot get angry about its own future dying, and that’s what our children are, is in a miserable situation. And so it seems to me that our responsibility is not to build greater bombs, but to build the capacity to address the human misery of the world. People in the Soviet Union lost 20 million citizens in the Second World War. A few years prior to that, during their civil war, they lost 10 million people. In a relatively short period of time, these people lost 30 million human beings. I repeat for the purpose of emphasis, 30 million human beings. For we must begin to perceive people in the world as human beings. We engage in so much propaganda that we dehumanize other people and we need to understand that they live and die and have fears just as we do. To build this notion that in some way war is inevitable means that we sign our own death warrant. I believe that rationality and sanity must prevail in international relations. I believe that people have to talk, that people have to sit down around the table and negotiate. In the 1980s, to continue to bomb and to kill and to maim human beings, anywhere in the world, as a way of attempting to bolster our posture, is a sad commentary on our times — a tragic commentary, whether it is in the Malvinas, or the Middle East, or anywhere in the world. To continue to maim and to kill human beings in the name of peace is insane. We as human beings have a responsibility to care enough about humanity to stand up and say, “Stop the killing. Stop the bombing. Stop the maiming. Stop the confrontation and let’s begin the process of negotiation.” But this administration believes that the problems of the world are military. What are the practical implications of that belief? I serve as a member of the Armed Services .Committee. I wrote a letter to the chair of the Armed Services Committee suggesting that we find ourselves at a terribly important moment in American history: Our military budget is expanding at a rapid rate; our arms race is virtually out of control; and that that Armed Services Committee had a responsibility to engage in a different format than usually used to address the military budget. I said, “Let’s expand the parameters of the debate. Let’s expand the witness list. Let’s go beyond Pentagon witnesses. Let’s reach out into the community and bring other people who have positive and constructive alternative views of America’s role in the world.” I got a polite letter back saying, “Well, Ron, we don’t always listen to Pentagon witnesses. But we have a responsibility to go forward and write the military budget.” So I sent a polite letter back saying, “I can appreciate that, but I believe that this moment is so significant that it is a moral imperative that we go out there and try to establish a platform to allow people 4 & how about elegant design, gorgeous colors, and a sense of humor? the art of American craft: prints, ceramics, jewelry, and . . . more! Come to Sunbow for SUNBOW GALLERY o 20 p 6 e n S W M o S n t d a a rk y thro P u o g r h t la S n a d tu rday 2 2 1 1 0 - - 0 5 2 : 5 5 8 0 Kafoury & Hagen Lawyers General Civil and Criminal Practice including: Personal Injury Workers’ Compensation Drug Cases Gregory Kafoury • Douglas Hagen • Cathryn Hagen 320 SW Stark 224-2647 16 Clinton St. Quarterly
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