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Bernie, Amendments, and Moving the Money, Senator Bernie Sanders has finally done something that some of us thought would give his presidential campaign a big boost four years ago, and again this past year. He’s proposed to introduce legislation to move a significant amount of money from militarism to human and environmental needs (or at least human needs; the details aren’t clear, but moving money out of militarism is an environmental need).Better late than never! Let’s make it happen with an overwhelming show of public support! And let’s make it a first step!

Technically, back in February, Bernie buried in a fact-sheet about how he would pay for everything he wanted to do, an $81 billion annual cut to military spending. While his current proposal is even smaller at $74 billion, it is a straightforward proposal to move the money; it’s not buried in a long document seeking to pay for transformative change almost entirely by taxing the wealthy; it’s already been covered at least by progressive media; it connects with a current burst of extraordinary activism, and Sanders has tweeted this:

“Instead of spending $740 billion on the Dept. of Defense, let’s rebuild communities at home devastated by poverty and incarceration. I’ll be filing an amendment to cut the DoD by 10% and reinvest that money in cities and towns that we’ve neglected and abandoned for far too long.”

And this:

“Instead of spending more money on weapons of mass destruction designed to kill as many people as possible, maybe—just maybe—we should invest in improving lives right here in the United States of America. That’s what my amendment is all about.”

One reason for this move by Sanders is almost certainly the current activism demanding that resources be moved from armed policing to useful expenses. The grotesque diversion of local budgets into militarized police and prisons is of course far outstripped in absolute numbers, in proportions, and in the suffering and death created, by Congress’s diversion of the federal discretionary budget into war and preparations for more war — which is of course where the weaponry and warrior training and a lot of the destructive attitudes and the troubled misguided veterans in local policing come from.

Trump’s 2021 budget request varies little from past years. It includes 55% of discretionary spending for militarism. That leaves 45% of the money Congress votes on for everything else: environmental protections, energy, education, transportation, diplomacy, housing, agriculture, science, disease pandemics, parks, foreign (non-weapons) aid, etc., etc.

The priorities of the U.S. government have been wildly out of touch with both morality and public opinion for decades, and have been moving in the wrong direction even as awareness of the crises facing us has inched upward. It would cost less than 3% of U.S. military spending, according to UN figures, to end starvation on earth, and about 1% to provide the world with clean drinking water. Less than 7% of military spending would wipe out poverty in the United States.

Another reason for Sanders making his proposal now could possibly be that Sanders is no longer running for president. I don’t know that to be the case, but it would fit the odd relationship that peace has long had with politicians and with the corporate media. ……

This moment of not running might be an ideal one for an outburst of honesty, and of the level of public support for it that politicians never seem to have been convinced of. If we want decent things instead of mass murder, we have to seize this opportunity to show that we really mean it, and that we don’t care who acts on it or what they are or are not running for. …..

We also want the money moved from militarism to decent things, no matter who is part of that process (and whether we love, admire, despise, or feel any way whatsoever about Bernie Sanders), because:

• War is immoral.
• War endangers us.
• War threatens our environment.
• War erodes our liberties.
• War impoverishes us.
• War promotes bigotry. And:
• We need $2 trillion/year for other things.

Last month, 29 Congress Members proposed moving money from militarism to human needs. We could add to that number if we all make our voices heard. And even that number could possibly be enough if they were to actually take a stand when it comes to voting on the next big military bill (the National Defense Authorization Act of 2021).

According to Common Dreams:

“The United States is projected to spend close to $660 billion on non-defense discretionary programs in fiscal year 2021—around $80 billion less than the defense budget proposed by the Senate NDAA. If Sanders’ amendment is added to the bill, the U.S. would instead spend more on non-defense discretionary programs—which encompass education, the environment, housing, healthcare, and other areas—than on defense.”

Of course militarism has nothing to do with “defense” outside of propaganda as absurd and damaging as the notion of putting police in children’s schools, and the discretionary-and-otherwise total U.S. military budget is over $1.25 trillion a year. And, of course, Sanders’ talk of “right here in the United States” (see his tweet above) still seems to echo the notion that war is a public service for its distant victims, and certainly misses the size of the military budget, which we would have a hard time spending on the entire globe if we took a large enough chunk away from it. We don’t need to play into the old standby pretense that the alternative to war is “isolationism.” Any major cut to military spending should allow significant benefits to people within the U.S. and without.

The U.S. currently arms and trains and funds brutal dictators around the globe. The U.S. currently maintains military bases all over the globe. The U.S. is building and stockpiling vast quantities of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. These and many similar policies are not in the same category as actual humanitarian aid, or diplomacy. And the latter wouldn’t cost much to significantly increase…….

For many years now, the Congressional Delegate from Colonized Washington D.C., Eleanor Holmes Norton, has introduced a resolution to move funding from nuclear weapons to useful projects. At some point, bills like that one need to rise to the top of our agenda. But Sanders’ amendment is a current priority, because it can be attached this month to a bill that the supposedly partisan and divided and gridlocked U.S. Congress has consistently and harmoniously passed with overwhelming majorities every year since time immemorial.

We need this step now and it is obtainable. Get out there and demand it! https://davidswanson.org/bernie-amendments-and-moving-the-money/?fbclid=IwAR31P2oLKk3edoCcecD-5Nf-PtpQpj2guabBjgaIfDuRK66QryvvYGQ2Nzo