AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Anjali Kamat.

ANJALI KAMAT: As world leaders are gathering in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly, Senator Bernie Sanders gave a major address in New York on Monday. He spoke at the historic Riverside Church, where Martin Luther King gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech on April 4th, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated. In that speech, King spoke against racism, militarism and materialism.

AMY GOODMAN: These are some of the excerpts from Senator Bernie Sanders’ speech.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: What Dr. King said was true nearly 60 years ago, and it is even truer today, as our country, the United States of America, is now spending over a trillion dollars a year on the military, while some 800,000 Americans are homeless, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, and millions of people cannot afford the basic necessities of life. And this business of spending more and more on the military and turning backs on working families and the poor is not just happening tragically here in the United States. It’s happening all over the world, where we are seeing increased military budgets while the needs of people living in desperation are ignored. So, not just in the United States, but all over the world, we are moving in the wrong direction, and our job is to turn that around.

Instead of producing more bombs and weapons and seeing the military-industrial complex enjoy huge profits, governments throughout the world need to come together to feed the children, take care of the vulnerable and protect our planet from the ravages of climate change. And that is why we must continue and accelerate our efforts to end Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, which is now spreading throughout the region. That is why we must continue to speak out against the extremist government in Israel and the genocide they have committed in Gaza, and why we in the United States must end all military aid to the Netanyahu government. And that is — and that is why we must rally and work with grassroots activists in Russia to put an end to Putin’s disastrous war in Ukraine, which has led — not widely known, not widely reported, but has led to the deaths of some 500,000 Russian soldiers, as well as mass destruction and loss of life in Ukraine. And that is why we must denounce the United Arab Emirates’ continued financial and military support of the RSF as it wages a campaign of genocide and destruction in Sudan’s civil war. …

While the billionaire class and the 1% have never, ever had it so good, over 60% of Americans, in the richest country in the history of the world, are living paycheck to paycheck, nearly 800,000 are homeless, and tens of millions struggle to pay for rent or mortgage or keep a roof over their heads. And let us be very clear: The rapid movement to oligarchy and the exponential rise in income and wealth inequality is not just an American phenomenon. It is taking place all over the world and, in my view, is the most important economic reality of our times. In country after country, what we are seeing is working people sick and tired of seeing the very rich get richer while they struggle to put food on the table and pay for basic necessities. …

But it is not just income and wealth inequality and concentration of ownership that we are seeing today. Literally today, billionaires are determined to own our political system, as well. In the United States, as a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires and corporations are legally able to spend as much as they want on political campaigns through their super PACs. And that, my friends, is exactly what they are doing right at this moment. In the last election, presidential election, Mr. Musk spent at least $290 million to elect Trump as president, and now he is spending some $200 million more to help Republicans keep control over the Congress. And it’s not just Republican billionaires; there are Democratic billionaires who are also playing an important role. …

As the U.N. secretary-general reminded us, there’s another issue that we must confront. In my view, artificial intelligence, AI, and robotics are the most transformational technologies in the history of humanity. They have the potential to eliminate tens of millions of jobs. They threaten the privacy — AI threatens the privacy of virtually every person in this world through mass surveillance. Every phone call you make, every website you visit, every email that you send, somebody will know it. … It is advancing exponentially. In under four years, we have gone from an AI that could barely write a coherent tweet to AI systems that have already escaped the control of the companies that built them. Take a deep breath and ask yourself: Where will AI be in two years, in four years, in 10 years? Will human beings be able to control this exploding technology?

So, let me make a very radical suggestion. And that is, if the lives of every man, woman and child are going to be fundamentally changed by this technology, then the people of our country and the people of this world must make the decisions regarding AI, not just a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. And that is why I hope very much that when President Trump and President Xi meet on Thursday, I hope very much that they will sit down and begin the process of negotiating a comprehensive treaty to establish a pause on advanced AI and a ban on AI superintelligence.

AMY GOODMAN: Vermont’s democratic socialist Senator Bernie Sanders speaking at Riverside Church in New York on Monday.