Rev. Dr. M. Bruce McKay, long-time friend of the Western New York Peace Center, is now Senior Organizing Consultant for Faith in Action – Northeast Region. They are sponsoring the “Way Forward in Haiti” Meeting to ask Assistant Secretary Nichols to take specific steps to change U.S. policy toward Haiti: to support civil society plans for a legitimate transitional government, end immunity, channel development aid through Haitian organizations and priorities, and protect Haitian migrants. English-Creole translation will be available.
Register now!
Sanctions have been imposed on more than 40 countries by the United States in order to help create dissent and push for regime change. These sanctions primarily hurt the people of the sanctioned countries. This is especially true during the COVID pandemic as the US denies many of them vaccines and medical equipment.
But sanctioned countries are now working together and finding ways to fight back. Learn what is happening as the World Stands Up to Sanctions.
Speakers include:
- Francisco Campbell – Nicaraguan Ambassador to the US
- Carlos Ron – Venezuela’s vice minister for North America
- Deacon Yoseph Teferi – Chairman of Ethiopian American Civic Council
- Foad Izaadi – Assoc. Prof., University of Tehran
- Erica Jung – Nodutdol – Korean grassroots org.
- Elias Amare – Eritrean Am. Journalist
We talk a lot about the military-industrial complex, but what exactly is it, who makes it up, and why are they so important?
A new coalition groups opposing their local war companies has joined together to form the War Industry Resisters Network, focused on corporate control over US foreign policy.
The political influence of several weapons manufacturers has made these companies extravagantly wealthy, all while the United States has wasted trillions of dollars on military adventurism and destroyed large parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, killing at least hundreds of thousands and displacing tens of millions. The 5 major companies with the most influence and power are:
- Raytheon Technologies
- Lockheed Martin
- Boeing
- Northrop Grumman
- General Dynamics
We’ll take a look at these companies, their partnership with the US government, and their influence over the US Congress and the Executive Branch, under both Democratic and Republican presidents.
Why, despite public opposition, do military budgets continue to rise and arms sales to authoritarian governments continue?
To answer these questions we’ll be joined by experts including:
- William D. Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His work focuses on the arms industry and U.S. military budget. He was previously the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-director of the Center’s Sustainable Defense Task Force. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2011) and the co-editor, with Miriam Pemberton, of Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War.
- Christian Sorensen, an independent journalist mainly focused on the U.S. war industry. An Air Force veteran, he is the author of Understanding the War Industry, published by Clarity Press. He is also a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, an organization of independent veteran military and national security experts. His website is warindustrymuster.com, where one can view his monthly distillations of Pentagon contracts.
More Panelists TBA.
In his farewell speech President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man who had helped build up the military for World War II and commanded Allied Forces in Europe, famously warned:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”
This warning has become a reality. To take the country back from the malevolent military-industrial complex, the corporations that make it up must be countered locally.
Register to attend!
First of a series of webinars organized by the War Industry Resisters Network.
