No more weapons!

That’s what citizens are demanding: while experiencing this extremely serious economic crisis in Spain and in Europe with ever-growing concern, we are astounded to see that the European Union is incapable of assuming autonomy in the area of security. We continue to depend on NATO and to pay its immense bills. Currently, when there’s no money for healthcare, education or science, we are paying almost 2 billion euros for “arms debts” of military material acquired years ago. Former Defense Minister Carme Chacón was courageous enough to admit that “We bought material that we didn’t need with money we didn’t have”. Why aren’t citizens informed about when, for how much and who ordered these massive purchases? Why the continuous lack of transparency with respect to matters so essential for the radical changes that this present systemic crisis requires?

And as if that weren’t enough, it now appears that the European manufacturers of bombers, rockets, etc. want to unite to compete with the United States. “European investors and governments are wary of a giant aerospace merger”, according to a New York Times article published on September 14, while the previous day “El País” had announced that EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) and BAE Systems (UK) are negotiating to create that colossal entity. Since Lockheed Martin and Boeing decided to join forces in the US, now Europe wants to do the same with an initial capital outlay of 49,000 million dollars.

I never tire of repeating that the time has come to radically oppose investing 4 billion dollars daily in weapons and military spending while over 60,000 people die of hunger and millions live in extreme poverty.

The time has come to invest in other things and to once and for all cease this grim preparation for war (“If you want peace, prepare for war”), which results in the majority of people having to survive amid severe hardships, while at the same time affecting the earth’s habitability.

It’s right to worry about the safety of civil aviation… but warplanes (thank goodness President Obama has suspended the production of F-35s that costs over 300,000 million dollars) and especially drones, should be strictly regulated.

I would likewise seriously recommend not being so concerned about traveling to Mars or to the moon. Let’s worry about our planet, let’s travel the earth so that we may finally realize that the only thing that’s important is each human life, that mystery and perhaps miracle, capable of creating, capable of inventing a different future, a new dawn.