When important, serious, respectable people wouldn’t even mention that AIDS was killing on a major scale, their silence meant that not enough would be done to stop it.

I bring this up because Trump wants Congress to put 77.66% of federal discretionary spending into wars, and the vast majority, if not every single member, of Congress has not even once said so. Likewise virtually every media outlet. The same goes for each politcal party, the governors, the state legislators, the talk show hosts, and most if not all celebrity users of social media.

Say it with me: Move the money out of the war machine and into where it can do some good.

Was that so hard to say?

This massive redistribution of spending, as proposed by Trump, radically defunds everything good and decent, things like education, the environment, energy, transportation, housing, healthcare, etc., etc., and the vast majority of organizations and individuals who would like those other things funded have not even once said so.

War strips away our civil liberties, militarizes police, creates a surveillance state, and turns borders into death zones, but the vast majority of organizations and individuals who oppose those things have not even once said so.

It’s not hard to say: De-fund mass killing — fund mass living.

Is it too complicated? Just pretend that houses and trains are data centers and weapons factories, and build them.

War fuels bigotry, immigrant-bashing, willful ignorance, sadism, and that last acceptable prejudice: xenophobia. There are moments when you can get virtually everyone to say they care about ending racism. But those who care enough to notice the military budget that is blitzkrieging its way through Congress are too few to be heard over the wall of silence.

Wars openly fought over fossil fuels, all pretense otherwise having been abandoned, are generating climate change, poisoning air, water, and soil, and creating huge numbers of deaths and refugees. Most environmental groups and even organizations that assist refugees are — you guessed it — as silent as a mass grave.

Breaking the silence is as easy as this (read it outloud): Stop The Insane Military Spending Bill.

Without war you could have no risk of nuclear apocalypse. Without war you could have no justification for government secrecy. Without war, all and not just some of the murders Trump orders would be universally labeled “murders.” But where are those who value life or open government or the rule of law? It’s hard to say exactly where they are, because they are almost all SILENT.

Speaking Up = A Chance of Life

Here are a dozen ways to speak up.

Think up some of your own.

Failing to speak up is not neutral. You don’t get to choose to not be one of those people who cares about our wealth being dumped into a five-sided septic tank on the banks of the Potomac. You may not care about military spending, but military spending cares about you.

In fact, those behind the Insane Military Spending Bill are worried about you and what you might do. If they were not, there might be quiet but there would not be this near-absolute silence. This takes effort.

Want to help shatter it?

David Swanson

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk World Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.