Political Quotes

“national security is a powerful concept; and in the name of national security, we have done extraordinary things, perhaps none more momentous than the victory during World War II and the huge mobilization that it required. At times we use national security to cover up things perhaps we should not do, some tragic mistakes abroad, not being truthful with the American public. Here at home, we have occasionally used national security to rationalize good things we probably should have done anyway. Our interstate highway system was done in the name, in part, of national defense, or the student defense loans in the 1960s and 1970s, or research that led to the Internet. Today there is no greater threat to our national security worldwide than is posed by pollution, poverty, disease, and the unrest and misery that they produce. We have serious environmental problems here at home that are the terrible hidden legacy of 60 years of our defense activities, among them, in my own Pacific Northwest, the terrible pollution at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, or Rocky Flats in Colorado, chemical weapons, toxic waste.”