The increased sabre rattling between the West and North Korea, could almost be seen as a publicity stunt for the coming exhibition/fair/sales drive, of man's incredible means of self destruction. I refer of course to the arms industry's mega sales drive which takes place in London, Monday September 11th. to Friday September 15th. when DSEI is in town. All the latest instruments of repression and destruction will be on show. State representatives, security executives and despots, will all be there, saliva dripping from their mouths as the view the latest devices from the madhouse of the arms industry, instruments with which to consolidate, or increase their power. DSEI, Defence and Security Equipment International, should be renamed War and Repression Equipment International, WREI.
The arms industry is a massive slice of the profit making corporate juggernaut, it makes its money from death and destruction, and will almost certainly be rubbing their hands in delight at any escalation of a conflict into the insanity of war. After all, business is business, and they are in the business of selling military hardware, and without wars and conflicts their business might slow down.
The arms industry has nothing to do with defence nor safety, it is all about power and wealth and the securing these aspects for the powerful and the wealthy. It is an industry of obscenity, where countries spend billions of tax payers money under the misnomer of "defence". The UK's "defence budget" is approximately £45 billion annually, a large slice of this so called "defence budget" is spent in places like Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, countries that at no time threatened to attack our country. Each of these countries now lie in ruins, millions of ordinary people displaced, hundreds of thousands dead, and many more maimed and traumatised. All done with "defence budgets".
We the ordinary people, pay through our taxes, for the ability of the powerful and obscenely wealthy to hold onto that power and wealth. We also pay in blood, when these power mongers decide to expand their power, and the arms industry is always there handing them weapons of ever greater destructive power. It is a vicious circle based on greed, wars feed the arms industry, the arms industry feeds wars. Perhaps if things were properly named people would be more aware of their purposes. The "defence budgets" should be re-named the "war budgets", and the arms industry should be re-named, the "War Promotion Industry"
Of course this exhibition of money making, destructive war machinery will not go unhampered, as there are thousand of people who will be there to protest against this inhuman obscenity. However, let's not forget, the arms industry and capitalism are inseparable, and to get rid of one, we have to destroy both.
Anti-war activists have begun a week of protests in east London in an effort to stop weapons and military equipment arriving at Britain’s biggest arms fair.Read the full article HERE:
The biennial Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI), which bills itself as “the world leading event” for buyers and sellers of military equipment, begins next week at the ExCeL centre in Docklands.
More than 34,000 visitors are expected to attend the arms fair, including delegations from regimes accused of human rights abuses such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, as well as representatives of the world’s 10 biggest arms companies.
Keynote speakers include Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, as well as the chiefs of staff of the British armed forces.
Thousands of protesters are expected to take action outside the the ExCeL centre throughout the week, with blockades, actions and demonstrations outside all main entrances in an effort to hamper exhibitors from setting up their stands for the four-day event, which opens on 12 September.
Protests on each day will have a different focus, from nuclear weapons to arms to Israel to free movement for people rather than weapons. Opponents to the fair say that some of the world’s most oppressive regimes are represented among buyers.
On Monday, protesters were demonstrating against arms to Israel. By 3pm, police had already made six arrests, according to Kat Hobbs of Campaign Against the Arms Trade.
DSEI 2017 is at: ExCeL London, One Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock, London, E16 1XL
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