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No More Hiroshimas (3 of 4)
In order to pay for it all, the Congress approved a military budget of over $200 billion for fiscal year1983. In the next five years, $1.6 trillion will be wasted on war preparations. The recent "budget cuts" are not cuts at all, but a mere reallocation of funds from human services to military spending. I n a time when Asian, other Third World and working people are struggling every day to survive with high unemployment, outrageous food prices, deteriorating housing and inferior education -the government is sacrificing the most basic human needs of the people. What's more, it would be just a drop in the bucket for Congress to appropriate medical assistance payments to the 500 to 700 American hibakusha who haven't received a penny from the government in 37 years. It would only mean 15 fewer B-1 bombers to meet the demands of the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations for compensation for the suffering of 120,000 Japanese Americans who were thrown into concentration camps during World War II. I get enraged just thinking about what $1.6 trillion can do to improve the overall quality of life for the people.
It's clear that something must be done to reorder the priorities of the government and to reduce the possibilities of a nuclear holocaust. I am happy to see that, day by day, thousands of people are becoming active in the disarmament movement, attracting people from all sectors of U.S. society: retired and unemployed workers, housewives, religious leaders, ecologists, physicians, public figures, students and minorities. Within the movement, most are solidly united in opposition to both the Soviet Union and the United States because they are the only two nuclear superpowers capable of starting a world war. But there is a range of political and philosophical viewpoints. A small segment of the movement is targeting only the U.S. government with the rationale that peoples of different countries should appeal to their "own" governments to end the nuclear arms race. Some even say that the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal doesn't present a danger to the world because theirs is "defensive" purposes. To say that the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal is for "defensive purposes" only actually glosses over the aggressive and expansionist course the Soviet Union has taken, e.g. its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and its threats against Poland. We as oppressed peoples in the U.S. know only too well what imperialism means. I don't want us to target only the U.S. and leave the door open for Soviet imperialism.
