[Buddha-l] Getting real about Buddhism and capitalism

[jkirk]

Lately some of us have been finding opportunities to critique current 
national affairs
via a Buddhist critique as well as a Marxist or some other critique. That 
being the case, it is time, IMHO, to get real about what it is that is 
corrupting and terrorizing the ordinary peoples of the entire world and 
ruining their habitats and means of survival:
the arms industry and trade. With that in mind, here are some pertinent 
data, and I do not want to hear back the NRA argument that weapons don't 
kill, people do.
 Joanna
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http://www.caat.org.uk/armsfairs/lifeblood.shtml
Arms Fairs. Dealing in Death.
DSEi: Lifeblood of the Arms Trade
>From CAATnews 191, August 2005. By Ian Prichard and James O'Nions

...The sellers
As of 17th June, there were 927 exhibitors confirmed for DSEi 2005. They 
include Lockheed Martin, the world's largest arms company and manufacturer 
of fighter aircraft, missiles, nuclear weapons, etc etc. Lockheed is joined 
by other massive US arms producers such as Raytheon (missiles), Northrop 
Grumman (radar and missile systems, warships, space systems) and General 
Dynamics (armoured vehicles, tanks, nuclear submarines). Then there are the 
major European arms companies: BAE Systems (fighter aircraft, warships, 
torpedoes, missiles, tanks), Thales (naval systems, avionics), EADS (fighter 
aircraft, missiles, helicopters) and Finmeccanica (helicopters, missiles).

                   [Note the domination of US and EU companies here.]

... In terms of small arms and its ammunition, BAE Systems and General 
Dynamics are joined by a plethora of companies including Arsenal Co of 
Bulgaria, Glock and Steyr Mannlicher of Austria, FN Herstall of Belgium, 
Heckler & Koch, Rheinmetall DeTec and J.P Sauer & Sohn of Germany, Alliant 
Techsystems of the US, Diemaco of Canada, Giat Industries of France, Nammo 
of Norway, Helston Gunsmiths of the UK and Pakistan Ordnance Factories.
                                                      [AND]

http://tcrnews2.com/armstrade.html
Weapons Trade - Ending the Arms Bazaar
[This text dates from 1995]

The world spends $780 billion every year on maintaining its military and 
buying new weapons -that's $2.1 billion every day. How big is a billion? If 
you were to count by one number every second, without stopping, it would 
take you 11-and-a-half days to reach one million, and 32 years to reach one 
billion.
Dr Oscar Arias estimates that if just 5% ($40 billion) of that annual $780 
billion were channeled into anti-poverty programmes over the next decade, 
the whole world could have basic social services. A further 5% over ten 
years could provide everybody on the planet with an income above the poverty 
line.  UNICEF estimates that spending just $7 billion a year for the next 
decade could educate every child on Earth.
Half the world's governments spend more on the military than on health care.
Industrialised countries account for 93% of all weapons exports. The USA 
alone accounts for over half of that.
72% of all US arms sales in 1993 went to developing countries. Of those 
weapons, almost half went to countries that were not democracies.
The $200 million that has been spent on weapons by the warring sides in 
Afghanistan over three years could have built 400 rural hospitals, or 
educated 200,000 children.

Sources: Arias Commission, UNICEF, US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 
World Military and Social Expenditures 1995, UNDP