"To put such a figure in perspective, the $75 billion in Pentagon contracts awarded to Lockheed Martin that year was significantly more than one and one-half times the entire 2020 budget for the State Department and the Agency for International Development, which together totaled $44 billion."
"A Post-Coronavirus Economy Can No Longer Afford to Put the Pentagon First."
The global arms trade is experiencing its greatest boom since the Cold War, fueled by horrific wars in the Middle East and revitalized power rivalries among China, Russia and the United States.
Now, the time of a new democratic rebellion is upon us again, for We the People are suddenly in the grip of a brutish level of monopolistic power.
Private companies building and selling guns is not the same thing as the government encouraging their use in other nations’ war zones, but President Eisenhower’s prescient warning is great food for thought.
Reuters reveals that the new initiative will provide guidelines that could allow more countries to be granted faster deal approvals, and will call on Cabinet officials to help close deals between foreign governments and U.S. defense contractors. https://youtu.be/1F_HG4jrWac Democracy Now! Published on Apr 18, 2018 https://democracynow.org - A new exposé by Reuters reveals how More
Reuters reveals that the new initiative will provide guidelines that could allow more countries to be granted faster deal approvals, and will call on Cabinet officials to help close deals between foreign governments and U.S. defense contractors. https://youtu.be/1F_HG4jrWac Democracy Now! Published on Apr 18, 2018 https://democracynow.org - A new exposé by Reuters reveals how More
How have the five largest U.S. defense firms fared over the past five years? Their stock is up an average of 220 percent.
As Lee Fang observed recently in The Intercept, “The escalating anti-Russian rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign comes in the midst of a major push by military contractors to position Moscow as a potent enemy that must be countered with a drastic increase in military spending by NATO countries.”
But the question of how to push back against the problem has seemed gargantuan. Four hundred and thirty-five Congressional districts: how to begin?
