Either Instead of or Along With Defunding Police, Let's Do These

Either instead of or along with defunding police, for a much better, stronger society, let's do the following, instead. I've been saying this for years.

Time to 'Reinvest in People' and 'Cut Weapons of War': Barbara Lee Unveils Plan to Cut Up to $350 Billion From Pentagon

We pay more out, year after year, than any other country, far and away, for what we call "defense." We buy bombs and weapons and have bases all over the world.

You'd think we were still fighting World War II.

And we just keep increasing how much we shell out for this "defense."

It's insane. It's not rational. It's certainly not moral nor necessary. It's not making us stronger, either, as a nation. This businessman said this correctly and it was 3 years ago.

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma says the US wasted trillions on warfare instead of investing in infrastructure

And keep this in perspective, too, before anyone says it would weaken us as a nation.

If we cut our defense budget in half---cut it IN HALF---we'd still, still outspend and overspend EVERY OTHER NATION IN THE WORLD.  Still.

Then, after that, how about we STOP INCARCERATING SO MANY AMERICANS.

Check this out.

United States Still Has Highest Incarceration Rate 

in the World

We incarcerate more people THAN ANY OTHER NATION.

Put that into perspective.

China has approximately 1.43 billion citizens.
India, 1.353 billion people.

We, the US?

We have a paltry 329 million people.

But we jail more fellow Americans than ANY OTHER NATION, to repeat.

How is this not insane?  It's completely, totally unnecessary. Again, obscene and immoral.

Here's a thought.

Instead of jailing so many people, how about we take that money and, oh, I don't know. INVEST IN THEIR SCHOOLS, instead?? Invest in health care? Invest in social programs?  Take care of our people instead of throwing them away?

Check out this one statistic:

America Spends Much More on Prisoners 

Than Students

The U.S. spends more on prisons and jails than it does on educating children – and 15 states spend at least $27,000 more per prisoner than they do per student, according to a new report. (link below)
And along with this incarceration is the fact that, since the end of the Civil War, we, the United States, have also disproportionately incarcerated FAR more African-Americans as a percentage of our population.

Black Americans incarcerated five times more 

than white

Let's stop this insanity. Let's stop this ugliness. Let's stop this waste and stupidity.

Let's do this, America. 

Let's invest in our people.

We'll be far stronger, all of us, because of it.

A Solution to a Great Deal of America's Problems

Professor Robert Reich said it well and truly the other day when he asked if maybe we didn't incarcerate so many people, so many black Americans especially, in particular and instead, put that money into their schools and neighborhoods and lives. What a concept.

1--We imprison more of our citizens than any other nation, including China which dwarfs us

U.S. incarcerates more than any other nation

2--We incarcerate more black Americans, as a total percentage of our people, far more than white Americans and for the same offenses as whites.

Black Americans incarcerated 

five times more than white

We're "exceptional" all right.

Imagine putting all that money into these people's lives, their homes, their neighborhoods, their schools, even into their health care instead of putting them into prisons and incarceration.

Again, what a concept.

And the heck of it?

It would, first, strengthen the nation and second, improve our economy. But then same thing with cutting the obscene defense budget and plowing that money into our infrastructure.

Tell me all about that "American Exceptionalism."

All the Ways America Is "Exceptional"

That last "American Exceptionalism" post here yesterday got me thinking. In fact, I've been thinking about it for some time. So on that thought, let's have a list of some of the biggest things we're "number one" at, America.

• We pay more for health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation
• Only nation wherein people go bankrupt for healthcare costs
• Only nation with the highest amount of bankruptcies due to healthcare costs
• More guns than any other nations, per capita
• More shootings than any other nation
• More killings, homicides than any other nation
• Spend more--far, far more--than any other nation on guns and bombs and weapons, calling it "defense." We spend 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet. Worse,  U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined
• We have more foreign military bases than any other nation; Empire much?
• We have more citizens incarcerated, in prisons, than any other nation
• We have the highest percentage of the population that is obese
• We have the highest divorce rate
• Highest rate of illegal drug use in the world
• More reported murders than any other nation
• More total crimes committed in the US than anywhere else in the world
• We have more student loan debt than any other country and finally, at least here and now, 
• We have the most complicated tax system in the world
• Biggest Weapons exporter in the world
• We kill more people with drones, presently, than any other nation; Some of what our big "defense" budget gets us, I'm sure

But wait. There's more. There's more of our positions in the world and these are things we're not number one at:

• The U.S. ranks 23rd in gender equality
• The U.S. ranks 33rd in internet download speeds
• The U.S. ranks 46th in freedom of the press
• The U.S. ranks 26th in child well-being
• The U.S. ranks 24th in literacy
• The U.S. ranks 19th in perceived honesty
• The U.S. ranks 27th in leisure and personal care
• The U.S. ranks 17th in happiness
• The U.S. ranks 9th in retirement security
• The U.S. ranks 99th in peacefulness
• The U.S. ranks 24th in freedom from corruption
• The U.S. ranks 16th in manufacturing compensation costs
• The U.S. ranks 29th in intellectual property protection
• The U.S. ranks 23rd in wage distribution
• The U.S. ranks 10th in purchasing power of minimum wage
• The U.S. ranks 11th in minimum wage

Don't get me wrong.  I like this place America. There are some things, plenty, I guess, we're doing well or right at. But the fact is, we need to take a good, hard, long look at ourselves and maybe, hopefully, work on changing and improving.

Let's do this.

Links:

The Myth of American Exceptionalism

The myth of American exceptionalism 

Myth of American Exceptionalism 

American Exceptionalism Is a Dangerous Myth

NUMBER ONE? 20 Shameful Categories In Which America Leads

One Is The Loneliest Number - America Is Number One At Things We Shouldn't Brag About

Robert Reich: Is America Becoming a Third World Country?

America: Do You Even Know Yourself?

So we just finished celebrating Memorial Day and being patriotic, all that, sure. But America, Americans, do you even really know your own nation? Check out these facts, these statistics:

In December 2017, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty issued a report on the United States that included these lines:[xix]

• US infant mortality rates in 2013 were the highest in the developed world.
• Americans can expect to live shorter and sicker lives, compared to people living in any other rich democracy, and the “health gap” between the US and its peer countries continues to grow.
• US inequality levels are far higher than those in most European countries.
• Neglected tropical diseases, including Zika, are increasingly common in the USA. It has been estimated that 12 million Americans live with a neglected parasitic infection. A 2017 report documents the prevalence of hookworm in Lowndes County, Alabama.
• The US has the highest prevalence of obesity in the developed world.
• In terms of access to water and sanitation the US ranks 36th in the world.
• America has the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Turkmenistan, El Salvador, Cuba, Thailand and the Russian Federation. Its rate is nearly five times the OECD average. [OECD means the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an organization that has 35 member countries.]
• The youth poverty rate in the United States is the highest across the OECD with one quarter of youth living in poverty compared to less than 14 percent across the OECD.
• The Stanford Center on Inequality and Poverty ranks the most well-off countries in terms of labor markets, poverty, safety net, wealth inequality, and economic mobility. The US comes in last of the top 10 most well-off countries, and 18th amongst the top 21.
• In the OECD the US ranks 35th out of 37 in terms of poverty and inequality.
• According to the World Income Inequality Database, the US has the highest Gini rate (measuring inequality) of all Western Countries.
• The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality characterizes the US as “a clear and constant outlier in the child poverty league.” US child poverty rates are the highest amongst the six richest countries – Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Norway.

Doesn't it seem as though we should all come together and work on our issues, our problems?