Elephant in the Room Conference and the Presidential Election

Saturday, January 25
10:00 AM to 2:00 PM
Harvard- Epworth Methodist Church
1555 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge

The United States spends monstrous amounts of money on its military each year. The FY2019 National Defense Budget reached a staggering $716 billion and the FY2020 military budget is $738,000,000,000. No country in the world comes even close to dedicating its finite resources to the military. In fact, the U.S. spends more on defense than the combined spending of the next seven countries with the highest defense budgets. Yet, presidential candidates have given relatively little attention to this imbalance.

Join a mini-conference to explore the military budget, its impact on domestic priorities, and the silence of presidential candidates in the face of the “Elephant in the Room”. Sign up here to attend!

Presenters include (list in formation):

William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policies and author of: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2011).

James B. Eldridge, Massachusetts State Senator for the Middlesex and Worcester District and a champion of progressives in the Senate and supports bills on climate change, economic justice, and peace.

Neta Crawford, Professor and Chair of Boston University’s Department of Political Science and Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Cost of War Project at Brown University.

Workshops on:
Bird Dogging the Candidates
Getting Our Message in the Media
Massachusetts Budget and Military Spending
Military Budget and Domestic Programs

Sponsored by Survival Education Fund, Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment, Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund, Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security, and American Friends Service Committee.