Reflections by Fidel:
The empire and the robots
A little while ago, I wrote about US plans to impose the absolute
superiority of its air force as an instrument of domination over the
rest of the world. I mentioned the project of that country possessing
more than 1,000 state-of-the-art F-22 and F-35 bombers and fighter
planes in its fleet of 2,500 military aircraft. By 20 years later, the
totality of its warplanes will be robot-operated.
The military budgets always have the majority support of US
legislators. There are very few states where employment is not at least
partially dependent on the defense industry. On a global level and
constant value, military costs have doubled in the last 10 years, as if
no danger of crisis existed at all. At this juncture it is
Che Guevara and Fidel in a file photo |
the most prosperous industry on the planet.
In 2008, approximately $1.5 trillion was invested in defense budgets.
Forty-two percent of world spending on defense, or $607 billion,
corresponded to the United States, not including war expenditures, while
the number of hungry in the world reached the figure of one billion
people.
A Western news agency reported two days ago that in mid-August the US
army exhibited a remote-controlled helicopter, as well as robots capable
of doing the work of sappers, 2,500 of which have been sent to combat
zones.
A robot marketing company maintained that new technologies are
revolutionizing the ways of commanding war.
It has been published that in 2003 the United States had next to no
robots in its arsenal but 'today it has, according to AFP, 10,000 ground
vehicles and 7,000 aircraft, from the little Raven, which can be
launched with one hand, to the giant Global Hawk, a spy plane of 13
meters in length and 35 in wingspan capable of flying at a great height
for 35 hours'.
Other weapons are listed in that dispatch. While that colossal
expenditure on technologies for killing is taking place in the United
States, the President of that country is sweating blood in order to
bring health services to 50 million US citizens who lack them. The
confusion is so great that the new president affirmed that reform of the
health system was closer than ever but 'the battle is turning ugly'.
"But now's the hard part," he added. "Because the history is clear,
every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special
interests with a stake in the status quo use their influence and
political allies to scare and mislead the American people".
It is a true fact that in Los Angeles, 8,000 people, the majority of
them unemployed, according to the press, gathered in a stadium to
receive medical attention from a free travelling clinic that provides
services in the Third World. Most of them had waited there overnight.
Some of them had travelled from hundreds of kilometers away. "What do I
care if it's socialist or not, we are the only country in the world
where the most vulnerable of us have nothing", said a woman from a black
neighbourhood and with higher education.
It was noted that a 'blood test could cost $500 and routine dental
treatment more than $1,000'.
What hope can that society offer the world?
Congressional lobbyists are spending their August working against a
simple bill that is an attempt to provide medical care to tens of
millions of poor people, the vast majority of them black or Latino, who
lack that service. Even a blockaded country like Cuba has been able to
do that and, moreover, cooperate with dozens of Third World countries.
If robots in the hands of the trans nationals can replace the
imperial soldiers in wars of conquest, who will detain the trans
nationals in the search for markets for their artifacts? Just as they
have inundated the world with automobiles that are now competing with
humans for the consumption of non-renewable energy and even for
foodstuffs converted into fuel, they can also inundate it with robots
that will displace millions of workers in their workplaces.
Better still, scientists can likewise design robots capable of
governing; thus sparing the government and Congress of the United States
that horrible, contradictory and confused labor. Taken from CubaDebate |