Monday 18 October 2010

Military spending from our pockets


Hardly a day passes withot demonstrations by students and staff from every type of school, protesing against indiscriminate cuts in educational resources and staff (the biggest ever mass redundancies in Italy: 140,000 jobs and 7.5 billion euro in three years.

Students, teachers, and other staff are fighting the dismantling of the state school system that plays a fundamental role in the development not only of individuals but of the society as a whole.

Unfortunately, serious as they are, these are not the only cuts that are crippling the welfare state this year. In addition there are: 271 million euro less for social policies,127 million less for the civil service, 90 million less for families, 14 million less for equal opportunities, 58 million less for youth. Funds for immigration support have been wiped out.


Within three years, there will be more than 5 billion less for health and 9.2 billion less for local authorities, which will therefore be forced to reduce services to citizens.

The Italian government, however, chooses to continue its immense investment in military resources. We thing that instead we could:

  • withdraw troops from Afghanistan with an annual saving of 500 million euro.

  • Not sign the contract for the production and purchase of the F35 bombers with a saving of 15 billion over 16 years. ( 207. 6 million in 2010)

  • Save an annual three billion euro reducing the armed forces to 120 thousand.

  • End the military presence in our cities, with asaving of 31.2 million euro. ,

These are economies that could be used to avoid a significant part of the cuts in social spending.

As feminists and pacifists we have always opposed military spending on ethical grounds, but it's obvious that in this phase of crisis, this spending has a heavy impact on all or lives.





Resources must be used to improve the standards and quality of life of people not to build and buy weapons whose only use is to kill.