We MUST Cut US Military Defense Spending

Seriously, America, Americans, we must, must cut defense spending. It is huge, it is bloated, it is wasteful and it actually ends up weakening the nation.

Contact your members of Congress. Tell them.

Money Is Crushing Our Nation

I think we Americans love the fact that we are supposed to be the wealthiest nation on the planet, in the world. A "nation among nations" I think we believe ourselves. Partly in what is--or was supposed to be--our "democracy" or "Democracy" and then, too, in our success, our money, our wealth. I think it's a pretty widespread and common thought and assumption.

Ironically, though, we've come to a time where, in at least several ways, our money is crushing us. It's crushing the people and so, the nation. I'll give examples.

First, there is our healthcare. The evidence:

• We are the only nation that ties health and healthcare to profit and profits
• Ours is the most expensive in the world
• Our citizens, lots of them, go bankrupt, due to healthcare costs and expenses
• We are the only Western, industrialized nation whose citizens do go bankrupt due to healthcare costs and expenses
• More of our citizens go bankrupt due to these healthcare costs than any other reason or source of expense
• Some, far too many, of our citizens die, actually die because they can't afford healthcare

Second, next, is higher education--colleges and university study. We did and do the same with it we did with healthcare. That is, we've made it outrageously expensive, just because we don't limit corporations over-arching need and goal to make money above all costs, students and citizens be damned.

The U.S. Leads The World In Tuition Fees

Then there's what we call defense, military defense of the nation. No one even remotely comes close to what we spend on bombs and tanks and bases around the world. It's crushing us.

The Military Imbalance: How The U.S. Outspends The World

Meanwhile, our schools and roads and highways and sewage treatment and all we need the nation over, goes wanting so we, the people go wanting. And let's all keep in mind, it was military spending the world over that bankrupted the now-former USSR. We learn nothing. (And under the "We Learn Nothing" file, look at Vietnam and Afghanistan as just two perfect example).

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we let business ruin us, ruin the nation--we legalized bribery of our government representatives, most specifically in Congress, in the nation's Capitol.

Jimmy Carter Calls US Campaign Finance Ruling "Legalized Bribery"

And this is the result.

Major Study Finds The US Is An Oligarchy

We have to take our nation back. We have to take it back from the money, back from the big money, back from the corporations and already-wealthy. We have to take it back, honestly, from the Republicans and their political party.

And it's got to come from us, people.

Congress, of All Groups, in the Way of Shrinking Government Spending

This news just hit today:

The Pentagon is once again asking Congress to let it close military bases, and Congress is once again expected to say no

A Washington ritual: Pentagon, Congress at odds over bases

Some things about our government are so difficult to imagine, let alone accept. This is certainly one of those.

All Republicans in public, government office sing out that we must cut spending. They all say we're spending our way to insolvency and bankruptcy. It's common and repetitive as can be. You can nearly not go a day without hearing one of these people decrying our spending and the huge size of our government.

And of course, the biggest source of spending in our national budget is none other than the Defense Department. We spend most of our entire budget on Defense/defense and we also, far and away, spend many times over what all other nations combined on that very same thing, defense. 

It's a huge waste.

It's gargantuan spending, it's wasteful, as I said, it's obscene, it's unaccounted for since the Pentagon isn't held accountable for this money. It is, in the end, immoral and makes no sense, fiscal or otherwise.

So, then, we come here, today, and the military themselves realize we should and even must close some unnecessary, wasteful bases.

But Congressional representatives, plenty of them Republican, say no.

How does this make any sense? Again, how does this make any logical sense, fiscal or otherwise?

And the truth is, of course, it doesn't.

We have to end this. We have to put a stop to this. And cutting this spending, this wasteful military spending, will make the nation stronger.

Please go to this link and write your Congressional representatives. Tell them we must do the right and smart and responsible thing and close these unnecessary bases and cut this wasteful military spending.

Contacting the Congress: 

A Citizen's Congressional Directory

Thank you, in advance. Let's do this. It's an election year. They're much more likely to be responsive to us this year than any other.

Let's cut government spending.

Quote of the Day -- From Martin Luther King, Jr.

And we still do.

World Hunger Quotes

Quot

America: We're Number One!

The Truth About America's Spending, Debt and Deficits

Important National Anniversary

I learned today, out here on the interwebs, that today is the nation's 13th anniversary of going into Afghanistan. I was reminded by some military veterans and their call:

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Today marks the 13th year since our country began the occupation of Afghanistan. It's long time for it to end yet we just signed a Bi-Lateral Security agreement that places us there for at least another decade. What do you think should be done?

To this I have three responses.

First, we absolutely should, at long last, get the hell out of Afghanistan.

Second, we need to end "perpetual war" in this country.

Finally, we have to recognize that we are, America is the world's warmonger, we have to stop it and we need to cut our absurd, huge, hugely wasteful, fiscally irresponsible, totally unsustainable, actually unaccounted for, nation-weakening defense budget.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

― Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Want to cut govenrment spending?

Want to shrink government?

Cut the biggest spender of money in the nation.

Cut the defense budget.

Folks, the military gets so much money in and from this nation, they can't even keep track of it all, literally.

To follow all this, you maybe need to go to this new article, out this week, over at Salon:

7 absurd ways the military wastes taxpayer dollars (link at bottom).

And then there's this from none other than The Wall Street Journal:

Wasteful Defense Spending Is a Clear and Present Danger
We could afford a stronger military if we implemented some contracting reforms

"When John McCain was shot down over Hanoi in 1967, he was flying an A4 Skyhawk. That jet cost $860,000.

Inflation has risen by 700% since then. So Mr. McCain's A4 cost $6.1 million in 2008 dollars. Applying a generous factor of three for technological improvements, the price for a 2008 Navy F18 fighter should be about $18 million. Instead, we are paying about $90 million for each new fighter. As a result, the Navy cannot buy sufficient numbers. This is disarmament without a treaty."

We see and hear and read of the obscene defense spending by us, by our country and it makes you want to ask, why do we still have American soldiers in Germany? Italy? It seems we are still, clearly fighting World War II. The US spends far, far more than any other nation on defense, inexplicably:

And then there's this:

The 'Red Dawn' Case for Cutting U.S. Defense Spending

The unsung remake of the Patrick Swayze movie, "Red Dawn," makes a case for cutting the defense budget

A Hollywood action movie, of all things, makes a case for cutting our defense budget. The article makes good points.

Links: http://www.salon.com/2012/12/12/7_absurd_ways_the_military_wastes_taxpayer_dollars/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124787043032160493.html

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-02/red-dawn-proves-the-u-dot-s-dot-should-cut-defense-spending

Senator Bernie Sanders, telling it like it is

Yet again: Here's hoping.

The insanity of running a nation's economy on war

Put another way, why we shouldn't let the "military-industrial complex"--as President Eisenhower rightly and wisely warned us--run our government and country. "Military spending generates an industrial brain drain that consumes engineers and scientists into a black hole of manufactured explosions and destruction. Manufacturing jobs, so sorely needed for economic prosperity, are withering on the vine as war contractors throw money down failed projects, or in Pentagon-speak, research and development initiatives. In the meantime, entire constructive industries are left stagnant or unimagined." Link: http://www.bravenewfoundation.org/2011/10/blog/the-myth-of-military-contracting/

China: This is why we spend so much on defense?

China is famous--notorious, infamous, really--for polluting their air, water and soil across most of the entire country. Then, they suppress their people's speech and movements and who knows what all. Poverty is still rampant across the huge nation, etc. Now? What's in the news? There's this article: Top of Chinese wealthy's wish list? To leave China BEIJING (AP) — Chinese millionaire Su builds skyscrapers in Beijing and is one of the people powering China's economy on its path to becoming the world's biggest. He sits at the top of a country — economy booming, influence spreading, military swelling — widely expected to dominate the 21st century. Yet the property developer shares something surprising with many newly rich in China: he's looking forward to the day he can leave. Su's reasons: He wants to protect his assets, he has to watch what he says in China and wants a second child, something against the law for many Chinese. Despite more economic freedom, the communist government has kept its tight grip on many other aspects of daily life. China's leaders punish, sometimes harshly, public dissent and any perceived challenges to their power, and censor what can be read online and in print. Authoritarian rule, meanwhile, has proved ineffective in addressing long standing problems of pollution, contaminated food and a creaking health care system. "In China, nothing belongs to you. Like buying a house. You buy it but it will belong to the country 70 years later," said Su, lamenting the government's land leasing system. "But abroad, if you buy a house, it belongs to you forever," he said. "Both businessmen and government officials are like this. They worry about the security of their assets." So why do I bring this up? This is the country we're supposed to be afraid of so we keep spending 700 billion dollars per year on "defense"--read: the "military-industrial complex"--but we don't otherwise have enough to pay our bills, educate our citizens and give them good health care and roads and sewer systems and other important infrastructure. It's insane. We have to stop spending so much on defense. It's unnecessary and it's ignorant. There's a lot more in the article, too, you may want to see, spelling out their many problems. Find it here: http://news.yahoo.com/top-chinese-wealthys-wish-list-leave-china-065826880.html

America: 2 thoughts on our current (financial) state

It seems there are, in fact, two thoughts on the current financial state of America, I believe. The first is our own, American reference and that is that we thought we were rich or wealthy or fortunate or whatever we shall call it and that we would always remain so, if not, in fact, get even wealthier. The second thought, I think, that of, likely, both history in the overall sense--the bigger picture, if you will--and the rest of the world in a much shorter term, is that we were, yes, wealthy but that we always spent, spent, spent like a rather drunken sailor--especially since 2000--and that we were rather like the foolish cousin who would eventually get his/her comeuppance. I think there are, at last, a fair amount of people who, even now, here in this country, finally see that 2nd one coming about. I could be wrong but I don't think so. We shall certainly see, won't we?

Quote of the day

"War is a failure of human intelligence." --Patricia Sun




Enjoy your beautiful, sunny Sunday, y'all.

Quote of the day--on Labor Day, 2010

"I look forward to a Labor Day where every worker has a job, every worker has a pension, every worker has paid vacations, and every worker has the health care to enjoy life. Our Republican opponents call that France. I call it America, an America that is Number One. Not #1 in wasted military expenditures. Not #1 in number of foreign countries occupied. Number One in jobs. Number One in health. Number One in education. Number One in happiness. As Robert Kennedy famously said, "I dream of things that never were, and ask 'why not?'" Why not? Let's make it happen. And then all of us who are Americans, including the ones today who are jobless, homeless, sick and suffering, we all can then say, 'I am proud to be an American.'" --Michael Moore Link to original post: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/happy-fuckin-labor-day

Finally, Washington is catching up with us

From The Huffington Post, Rep. Barney Frank and Rep. Ron Paul, just now: Why We Must Reduce Military Spending As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree. By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion -- more than all other discretionary spending programs combined. Even subtracting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending still amounts to over 42% of total spending. It is irrefutably clear to us that if we do not make substantial cuts in the projected levels of Pentagon spending, we will do substantial damage to our economy and dramatically reduce our quality of life. Welcome to the party, boys. Now, make it happen.