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Stop Wasting on the Military
The global arms madness continues.
A new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (one of my favorite think tanks) confirms that worldwide military expenditure is again on the up and up, with spending having increased by 4 percent in 2008.
“All regions and subregions have seen significant increases since 1999, except for Western and Central Europe,” says the report (available at www.sipri.org).
The United States loomed large over all other countries, with a whopping $607 billion swallowed up by the military in 2008, nearly 10 percent more than the previous year. And SIPRI is being very conservative here, because the total U.S. expenditure was roughly $1 trillion when you add military-related costs that are not in the Pentagon budget. (See my column)
Sadly, the change of Administration has not reversed the trend. The Obama Administration has asked for $663 billion for the military for fiscal year 2010, including supplemental funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Although some wasteful big-ticket boondoggles have been cut and the budget is more transparently honest, the Pentagon is still being showered with money, even in our current parlous economic condition. Plus, President Obama has appealed for an additional $83.4 billion for fiscal year 2009 for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bizarrely enough, some of the U.S. media coverage of the SIPRI report has been focused on the faster increase in Chinese military spending. Duh: It’s called playing catch up. The United States accounts for nearly half of global military spending, and China’s double-digit increase was only slightly more than that of the United States. The U.S.-China rivalry is a strategic game about who can project power most forcefully. And, here, the United States has, by far, the upper hand.
The section of the SIPRI report that gave me the biggest heartburn was the one on international arms transfers. The United States, Russia, Germany, France and United Kingdom continued their gleeful dominance of the arms racket, while China and India, oblivious to the needs of their people, were the biggest importers of weapons.
“Together [the top five arms exporters] accounted for 79 per cent of the volume of exports for 2004–2008,” SIPRI states. “They have been the top five suppliers since the end of the cold war and have accounted for at least three-quarters of all exports annually.”
Boeing, BAE Systems (British), Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon were the largest producers of death, with arms profits for Boeing itself topping $4 billion. U.S. companies have almost a monopoly on the production of weapons in the big leagues, with almost two-thirds of the total arms manufactures of the top 100 companies being U.S. based.
Perhaps my all-time favorite quotation is by General Dwight David Eisenhower. (I even have a T-shirt with the first sentence printed on it.):
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
This is such a simple, graspable truth that it penetrated the consciousness of even a career military man like Ike. What will it take for the current crop of leaders around the world to comprehend it?
- Posted in
50 Comments so far
Show AllAfter reading that Obama is requesting the incredible sum of $663 billion to be spent on the military in 2010, one has to wonder how Obama and his acolytes can claim that Obama is supposed to be a legitimate agent of change. But then one also has to wonder who is more culpable, Obama for asking for more billions to be spent on attacking and wiping out more innocent third world children and grandmothers or Congress for succumbing to Obama's continued need for more war and more unnecessary bloodshed, all in the name of the bogus war on terror. If there were one sane and moral politician in Congress, he or she would begin impeachment proceedings against Obama as soon as possible in order to stop more lives from being killed at the hands of the American war machine.
And you know what's funny? Conservatives portray that as a defense spending cut..it's actually a 3% increase, but short of the increase requested by the Pentagon, so they call it a cut. Ugh, it's almost impossible to get real information from the MSM.
Sioux Rose
ERROLL: It's closer to 1 trillion... and this sum doesn't include the costs to treat Vets many of whom are returning with SEVERE injuries that will need treatment for life! As has been related in other articles on C.D., modern medical incentives keep soldiers alive with injuries that would have meant their death in prior wars.
thanks so much for that eisenhower quote:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
i can't stop thinking of years ago when i taught kindergarten.... THEY got it when i read them the dr.seuss classic, 'the butter battle book' .
i wonder if any of those kids know that in 2008 military spending (in BILLIONS) was:
US---607
China-84.9
France-65.7
UK---65.3
Russia-58.6
Germany-46.8
Japan---46.3
Italy---40.6
Saudi Arabia-38.2
India-30
i wonder if any of them are paying attention and becoming greenhorn farmers?
that's just the top ten spenders on warmaking. imagine if we spent it on education, healthcare, ecologically sensitive agriculture?... imagine if money itself became anachronistic and we just learned how to share and get along and take care of things.
just imagine.
Post WWII planners found that militarism was good for business and decided (read NSC 68 for details) that a permanent state of war would be profitable. To fund this permanent state of war, the American people had to be scared into giving up their tax dollars for something so unproductive. So Truman, that incompetent little bastard/political hack from Missouri, started the Cold War and business had a free pass and huge profits for forty years. And in 1989 when the USSR went belly up trying to match our military buildup, these planners (and their heirs) invented new 'enemies' to justify all that military spending.
We gloat that the US won the Cold War, but the truth is both sides lost. It's just taking us longer to fall down because we had a bigger economy and further to fall.
When the Warsaw Pact, ostensibly the justification for NATO's existence, went away did NATO go away? No. It expanded. And being bigger (and taking in some of the old Warsaw Pact countries) they needed to buy more US weapons (for standardization). Then having all those weapons and nothing to do, they looked around for another existential justification and (at US behest - since NATO is effectively another arm of the US military) stuck their nose into the Balkans, and now Afghanistan, and soon - who knows.
To the fearful and paranoid, there will always be enemies. And no amount of walls and weapons will protect them from their own internal fears.
Sioux Rose
All good posts. Once again, in this article I see evidence of the mantra, "Mars rules." These sums aren't even questioned anymore, war/military spending has become a part of the fabric of American life, a focal point of its economy with tendrills reaching into every state. Most are removed from the actuality of what this "investment" costs in terms of the broken and butchered lives that span the globe.
Since the U.S. is "arms merchant" to the world, the proliferation of dangerous arms only ensures more conflicts; and so long as war is represented as good business, a sound disaster-capitalism model bar none, this "enterprise" will continue.
As the Eisenhower quote poignantly relates, all the money going to (the god of) destruction is money never spent on what counts. The net effect of this diminishment is something only the lords of karma can fully understand, aided and abeted by the mournful cries of every grieving widow, every child made fatherless.
Because the U.S. continues in a callous disregard for LIFE and others' right to live, the karmic boomerang will be severe. There have been ample opportunities to learn that militarism does not work. Vietnam notably comes to mind. There are many ways that U.S. citizens are conditioned to accept war and the programming begins early with the National anthem and sports. Even religious institutions have gotten into the habit of defining war as holy, and some take on the dark hubris of intoning that it represents "God's will." Note, too, that from the "new technology" of unmanned drones to the lack of photos of what's really been done in Iraq (in the way of death and decimation of infrastructure), American citizens are incredibly removed from the fruit of "their tax dollars" at work. INSANE, corrupt, amoral, depraved, sickening are just some adjectives that come to mind. Yet Obama puts on his fancy suit to lecture the Arab world about terrorism?
After I read the article and I came across your "Mars rules" quote, I felt reminded of the sad truth "love is money". Some even say that "god is money" which I don't want to believe. I finally got a hold of the book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" which I had ordered a few days before I got sick last month but was sitting in the mail stacks. I look forward to reading Klein's thorough explanations of how money has been systematically used as the perfect weapon to stifle competition.
P.S.: I would love to see Obama and Congress be made to listen to "What the World Needs Now Is Love" loud and clear every morning they wake up.
Hello Jennifer, good to see you back and well I hope. peace
Thanks Johnny. It's been a hell raiser even after getting better last week. I nearly lost my life a few days ago when my car broke down for the first time in 3 years and the engine nearly exploded. Lucky for the firefighters were able to put out the blaze and that I had gotten out before the flames had me trapped. Unfortunately, my car dealer service consultant and my insurance company are raising hell for my honesty. Thank God I never threw away my car maintenance receipts in 3 years.
Welcome back, and glad you're better :-)
And let me guess, a Chrysler or GM?
Hi zmann. Thank you and no, it was a foreign one. Sorry if I sound unAmerican but Chrysler, GM, and most American brands would have been worse.
No, I know they're worse. My family once took a Chrysler Sebring convertible up to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. The brakes almost melted on the way down because my dad skipped a rest stop. They're POS's. I'm just glad I live in a city where there's absolutely no need to drive.
"I'm just glad I live in a city where there's absolutely no need to drive."
You remind me of my days I used to live right near a metro station before I moved out to the suburbs just because it happened to be cheaper there. I'm just so scared to drive anymore I would even settle for the metro rail even if it isn't all that great.
P.S.: The brakes almost melting is a scary one. When I look at all the failures our own country's manufacturers have been developing in the years, I often blame this on lack of decentralization and lack of localization. Big Auto has done nothing but have the upper hand. Imagine having small business local auto dealers with all sorts of different transportation technologies across the country to provide for sharing and friendly competition. All those dreams were shattered by Big Auto and now I hope they pay a severe price for it assuming Obama stays out of it and doesn't bail them out again like he did the big banks.
Localization is very important, politically/economically, for the people. The consolidation that occurred in the early 20th century in the various industries in the USA were unnecessary. Localization is rather easy because that's what we had before the consolidation. Reverting back should be a piece of cake. Just as easy as voting third party progressives in the elections. Efficiencies of scale are a grand illusion. The social/economic liabilities are tremendous as the people are installed as cogs in the machine. You can see this in the difference between rural and urban culture. Urban culture is dismal, while rural culture is lively. Nobody wants to visit the urban working class neighborhoods. Where do people go to get away? Why to the rural communities of course where the people are productive and thriving. Uninstall the cogs, and give them autonomy, and efficiencies go up. Demand local production. Such demand provides the locals a living. Kick the elites out of the loop. All of this was understood all along but suppressed.
Sioux Rose
Glad you rebound from your medical emergency. You seem to have returned to the forum with a renewed sense of political vigor.
Hi Sioux Rose. I'm glad to see you again and I look forward to reading more insights here. I won't let even last month's trip to the hospital or my car breaking down and its nearly exploding engine stop me from being honest and courageous in life. :)
Sioux Rose
JENNIFER: Years ago (many moons ago) I was a student teacher in Troy, New York. The teacher I was assigned to soon after went through the agony of having her youngest daughter raped and murdered. She is part of an organization called "Parents of Murdered Children." I have always believed that things don't JUST happen, that we are given warning signs prior. This naturally was a delicate area for me to tread, so it took some years (she and I were friends for a while after I graduated) for me to broach the subject. One of the murdered girl's sisters was pregnant at the time of this tragic event and gave birth to a child almost entirely deaf. I asked this sister if there had been any other events around the life of the young woman murdered that preceded the deadly ordeal. She said she had been in a car accident. That was # 1. The night of the tragedy the young woman had a fight with her boyfriend and was walking home on the side of the road rather late. That was # 2. I always believe it takes at least 3 items to coalesce to produce an event, so I was waiting for that 3rd event. Something that happened in the life of my friend around the conception/pregnancy of this ill-fated daughter provided the link.
I met a young man who was a parapalegic in St. Petersburg, Florida. He used to come to the coffee shop I frequented in a very high tech wheel chair relying on the kindness of strangers to open his pouch so that his large cup of ice tea could be paid for. One day I asked him about his life, if he had any event precede the one that led to his traumatic accident. He had been on a Navy submarine that caught fire. That was event # 1. When he returned home he found his wife with another man. That was event # 2. Then in a rage of anger he was headed down a mountainside in North Carolina and didn't have enough time to stop when a logging truck blocked his path. The result was his present condition.
It is not my intent to scare you, but I have found that if something really scary happens, it's important to stop, look, and analyze what message it is revealing. If you don't GET the message (or fail to introspect in order to discover it), then events will continue in that direction. Hospitalization followed by a dangerous car problem are signs. What is it you are not seeing? And I offer this as a friend. We all get wake-up calls and we all have accident-prone phases in our lives. I saw one coming up in my own chart and even dreamt it; but then about 6 months went by and I forgot the dream and sure enough had a VERY bad accident that would have taken my life had I hit the road divide about 3 inches to the right. I believe the dream protected me in that I had a warning that prepared me on internal levels; but if I had been able to have mastered my impatience I could have avoided the event.
I had a lady friend in Puerto Rico who had bad dreams about her daughter who resided in Jamaica. At one point she decided to fly to that island and as a blond blue eyed Caucasian it had its risks as that was not a good phase for race relations there. She dreamt that her daughter came down the mountain and her hair was matted and her teeth black. When this woman arrived on the island and made her way to the interior she went to a police station to get the word out that she was there. Straight out of the dream her daughter, emaciated and ill came down the mountain, her teeth messed up from eating bananas and too much ganga. The dream I believe provided a sort of psychic padding that my friend not collapse or have a heart attack when confronted with the reality. Our universe is a didactive feedback loop and there is MUCH sign language along the way if we take the time to notice it.
Well well well ! If it isn't the two biggest Obama bashers here. You and Jenny need to shut up and learn the art of compromising and negotiating just like Obama's doing. I'm surprised that Jenny still hasn't learned her lessons but WOMEN !
If you even cared to follow your own advice of "compromising and negotiating", you'd at least butt out and get lost. It's losers like you who are dragging the rest of us into your living hell and it's not funny !!
Nebraska Nate. Well, Well, Well!? What, What What? That was a f.g amazing post. Why do you come on here acting like such a pissy geek? Maybe Obama is showing the world his smile, and the demon in his backside is making negotiations for all of our souls with Satan. Yes, that's right, I said it. Barack Obama might just have a demon living in his arse. You don't know. He might. Why do you always tell people to shut up? Oh, I remember, Nebraskans might be a little off on account of all of the GMO crop pollen.
"Hospitalization followed by a dangerous car problem are signs. What is it you are not seeing?"
I don't know but I try not to let anything scare me in life. Maybe I'm seeing too much too soon these past 4 years after having moved from my sheltered life in the rurals to living the life of a city girl and learning more that I'm not seeing what I'm supposed to. I don't know how well dreaming of something bad would help me out of it because I'm afraid it will affect my sleep, not that I have been getting much anyway. I would usually sleep 4-5 hours on weekdays and 6-7 on weekends. Maybe it was my growing anxiety and jealousy that caused me to lose my mind and lift more weights than I could handle. Another might have been my upset feeling after one of my best friends had to leave her home to escape her abusive husband who later went to jail and was divorced. I guess despite my exercising and eating well, my lack of enough sleep and getting so upset and angry with everything has probably put me where I am. And I'm still getting upset that my blood pressure just won't return to normal. Maybe I should accept my company's offer to work from home for 2 months instead of 1. Plus, I look forward to getting more training in overcoming depression and anxiety. You're right. I really need to stop and see any warning signs ahead of me that I'm overlooking before I suffer another one yet again.
P.S.: I can't afford to get too emotional of distressed since my heart is still in a delicate balance. Maybe my coworker who claimed that he got into positive thinking before dieting was right all along.
Take a vacation :-)
And if you stop by DC, you can chill at my place.
And to lower blood pressure, drink more water and use less salt/eat less salty foods. I have high blood pressure too, and when I'm on my meds and not eating pizza (tons of sodium), my blood pressure is nearly in the normal range for a normal-sized person.
Awwww, poor Jenny ! Did you blow up your daddy's car again ? LOL ! You probably never maintained it like you were supposed to. No wonder your dealer and auto insurance company are kicking your ass ! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !! LOL !! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !! LOL !!
I would normally refrain from responding to trolls such as you but for this post, here's a rebuttal. Yes, my parents bought me a car as a going away gift when I moved to St Louis but halfway through payments, I took over and paid from there since they were cash strapped and I felt that it was time I took over and not only learned but experienced auto ownership inside and out. I had gotten a better job and better pay by then anyway and saved plenty enough of my earnings to take it from there. As for maintenance, I take great care of my car far better than you'd take care of your baby brain of yours and I have what it takes to fight the mean auto dealers and insurance companies so back off !
Lemon Catnip is great for cats but guess what? It lowers blood pressure naturally and safely. Get a plant (I got one at Home Depot gardening department) and eat one or two leaves a day. It worked so well for me I had to reduce it to a leaf a week after I went from 145/95 to 119/70. Check with a doctor if you want but I did and the doctor looked at me like I was talking Chinese. Maybe Soux Rose can help in this area.
God Bless you, Jennifer.
Catnip for humans? And I was wondering if just maybe I was nothing but a lost and stray cat in my previous life. Still, I'm a little scared to try something that's a pet's food. I haven't eaten terribly most of the time but I think it's my getting anxious and upset with so much surrounding me that is responsible for my blood pressure. Sometimes when my blood boils at the political dysfunctionality, perhaps that's when my blood pressure keeps rising. I already messed up when I lifted a little too many weights beyond my carrying capacity and skipped breakfast and/or lunch out of anger and/or emotions before I fell apart. As for checking with a doctor, I've rarely come across one in my 4 years and sometimes my parents worry. I guess even a simple checkup can't hurt.
P.S.: I got a topsy turvey for growing small plants on my deck.
It's lemon catnip. Yes, the fresh leaves are "human" food. As a matter of fact, that's what was used for centuries here in the new england area as a condiment flavoring before lemons could be imported cheaply. The fact that cats love it is incidental. Again, i'm talking about the fresh leaves. You could keep the plant in a flower pot inside the sliding door if they won't let you keep it on the deck.
And by the way, Catnip extract is sold in herbal and health food stores for people. Dosage was often used for fever here in new england. It's an old remedy. Just Google it and you can read the background. The blood pressure thing is my own experience and was totally unplanned. I was eating the leaves because of the taste. I do admit my cat loves them too! :)
Hmmm, that sounds promising. I did see this on google after you let me know. I can imagine growing this on my topsy turvey on my deck and later my neighbor's cat jumping for a leaf to try out. :)
Thanks for that, I know someone that will be really grateful for that info.! Peace!
Love is not money, as Jennifer has heard, you guys. Actually, Love is Love. Money is Money. Love leads to Prosperity, which is also not money.
The (Corporate) United States has overtaken our America, and we have to stop thinking that their system of money is real, that it is all there is to use to trade for goods and services.
Remember trading OTHER goods and services for goods and services? Money as it is now worldwide is what is keeping everyone poor and unable to provide for themselves. If the rich and the evil people hiding behind corporations want to use the fruits of our backbreaking work to kill others, maybe we don't need to produce money for their debt/credit based system of hogwash. Their money is worth something to us only if we have it. It is real only if you happen to be the people controlling its value. It is made real by us thinking we need it.
We need a unified system of local currencies, and fast. We (America) could lead the world into the future with the blueprint for a dignified, unified, functional system of local currencies and trade networks, which would be based on people doing work for each other in order to get what we need. We need to shed off the mistaken belief that money is the way to get the things that we need. Maybe it has to start with the poorest of poor and work it's way up, but compassion and working together are addictive.
People need to feel like their work is a fundamental part of the functioning of society, not to be demeaned by weak wages and high inflation. Business owners need to know that they can count on society to support them so that they succeed. Local currency could support people's work and get everyone the things that they need and there would be far less people out of work. Everyone could have a job, because all real work is fundamentally equally important to building a society that is able to take responsible for itself, rather than relying totally on a network that takes our lives away from us and makes us work for 2 loaves of bread an hour, and then takes 1 loaf back as a tax, to feed the rich with. I say we have to stop giving them our bread. It is ours. We are human beings, and we deserve to be able to live in a shelter and wear clothes, and eat not only bread, but cheese and veggies and fruit and beans and grains and seeds and teas. There is enough land on this planet to grow enough food for everyone. There may be enough growing right now, but people just can't afford to buy it, so millions and millions of pounds of food are going to waste every day in our country, while people everywhere are starving. Why? Why can't trade networks exist like they once did? If a ruler was cruel, and his money was imposed and then withheld, people just as a matter of course started trading for things, started working together. We could really improve each others' lives this way.
rev.charity,
thank you for sharing those inspiring thoughts. your post improved my overall disposition and generated a smile. ahhh, reasonable alternatives are w/ in our grasp.
it's an intriguing idea w/ merit (local currencies). our current government and it's bankster currency certainly isn't doing the american public any favors.
an oil shock, caused by any number of contentious unresolved international issues, could destroy any semblance of the US dollar remaining the dominant global reserve currency. the transformation could occur quickly in the not so distant future.
revolutionary consciousness seems distant. however, it's a great moment to redevelop and encourage local trade/commerce - as reliance and interdependence in community will be critical in the uncertain future, as our economy continues melting (maybe the global economy will completely dissolve and all humans will start trading globos).
...peace...
I didn't say I agreed with the phrase "love is money" but unfortunately just about everything has been privatized to make it look that way. Society is still controlling love with money for the most part and that must stop.
"Mars rules."
Surely the planet Venus (or Roman god) will save us!
Thanks Amitabh ,The war on "terror"is literally a war on Terra firma or Mother nature. The carbon footprint of the U.S. millitary dwarfs all other sources and is practically impossible to total.Jet fuel use alone every month probably totals the yearly petrolium use of a country like Sweden.The massive environmental costs ,human toll ,rebuilding costs, costs of weaponry all obscenities!In a world where billions are hungry and lack basic needs the Eisenhower quote is more prescient than ever.Matangicitas' millitary spending numbers are driven up by U.S. global hegemony ,and I share her imaginings and hopes.This article highlights the biggest issue in the world and the reason for most of our problems.We are all serfs to the greedy elite who promote this millitary madness until we stop funding this war machine! peace
The neoliberals' "free" trade and the neoconservatives' reckless wars sure know how to make the world's strangest bedfellows. I don't even want to know what the hell Obama and Congress have next in mind. They're nothing but weasels and traitors. I already feared that they'd give wimpy improvements at best but as of mid May, they've done no better and I wouldn't be surprised to see them go worse after that. 2006 and 2008 were the wrong years to give the Democrats back their power. The voters should have held off until at least 2010 when the Democrats would have more likely been pro-populist progressive or would have been irrelevant to the point that the Green Party would have taken over and confronted the Republican Party.
Damn fuck ! It's you again ! You're a stupid spoiled little girl who's the biggest bedwetting Naderite on this forum along with that astro-zombie Sioux Rose ! Nice to see you back in your same old dirty attitude no matter how "loving" you try to make of yourself. You should have perished in the hospital or from the car accident you mentioned. I'll bet your mommy and daddy bought you that car you wrecked up. One of these days, you're going to learn to sit down, shut up, and compromise little girl ! Now shut your mouth and give Obama and Congress a chance already you dumb loser !
And what's your point anyway? You may be a die-hard Obama supporter but that doesn't give you the right to bash others who think differently. Your personal hate rambling is uncalled for on this forum. You may not agree with some people's views but try being civil about it. FYI, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, etc ... are working hard as hell to fail and they are improving their chances of getting that wish granted by 2010 and 2012. Go talk to Obama, Pelosi, Reid, etc ... and tell them to wake up or get ready for a major defeat.
Ignore him dude, he never offers anything to a discussion.
yes, thats a good point. by the way, dont listen to a word wrote by that douche NebraskaNathan. he is the loser...
Hi homeward-angel. Thank you. I think Nebraska Nathan will hear from Red Rick soon. Nathan was always annoying but I've never seen him go this far in being obnoxious. God knows what's eating him.
Your posts give his life meaning Jennifer. He was not this bad when you were absent. He really must have missed you.
For the most part, I'll choose to ignore Nathan until he reforms himself or he gets too personal. He could take his own advice on "compromise and negotiating" and butt out.
Lets focus on something that can be done in a positive fashion.
Opium is a drug that mellows people. So if there was an opium aresol bomb this could be released over the pentagon and all or our bellicose military would chill out.
"What will it take for the current crop of leaders around the world to comprehend it?"
Just like single payer health insurance, it will take massive & aggressive demonstrations in Washington to get their attention. Only that will stop the madness.
On the other hand, these people are mad with power & determined to continue their sick quest for empire, they probably won't go quietly.
Short, but good article and statement; and I apprecate the fairness towards China's double-digit rate of increase in arms production. China, due to extreme and rogue U.S. and NATO encroachment, while the USA is the military superpower and obviously aiming for "global dominance", well, we certainly cannot blame China or Russia for increases in arms production.
China isn't quite an innocent nation by any means. China has invaded Korea to attack us, bombarded Taiwan's territory, invaded India, invaded and occupied Tibet, and invaded Vietnam. They also had a nice little border fight with the USSR.
Healthcare NOT warfare! We can't afford to keep weapons CEOs and shareholders in the money any more. You CEOs and weapons makers need to get a real job and stop being government welfare cheats like Nebraska Nathan :) LOL
The less money that's wasted on the military, the more non-military related jobs society will push forth. Excellent article.
amitabh, perhaps your next article could be titled a day in the life of common dreamers.
Their is always enough money to spend if you want to kill people in a high tech efficient manor, but a single payer health care system in America that covers all Americans is far to expensive.
ITS CHEAPER TO KILL PEOPLE AND HAVE THEM DIE FROM LACK OF HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.
We are a thrifty bunch of humanitarians and A CHRISTIAN NATION.
Wave your flag, put the bumper stickers on your car, and by those tea bags.
Whoa!!