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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@hotmail.com href="mailto:tanstl@hotmail.com">David Sladky</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, January 08, 2013 7:16 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> The Sacred Cow of American Defense Spending</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr><FONT size=2><A
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/07/the-sacred-cow-of-american-defense-spending/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/07/the-sacred-cow-of-american-defense-spending/</A><BR><FONT
size=4>Would You Feel Safer With a Nuclear Missile Silo in Your Neighborhood?
</FONT><BR></FONT>
<H1>The Sacred Cow of American Defense Spending</H1><FONT size=2>by LYNN
FITZ-HUGH <BR>2012 headlines were full of horrible depressing news: cuts on the
federal, state, county and the city level. The nation was subjected to a full
time diet of descriptions of cities agonizing over whether to cut libraries or
sewage treatment, or of the city that, in one fell swoop, cut all its
employees—from firefighters to garbage collectors— to minimum wage. Or the story
of the governor who left the budget discussion to hide her tears over the
cutting of hospice while one of her family members was in hospice dying. We have
argued as a nation over whether teachers and firefighters are "greedy" because
they want a cost of living raise as compared to other private employees who also
don’t have dignity in their pay.<BR>But in all these discussions the sacred cow
in the middle of the room remains invisible and unmentioned: the Pentagon. Never
in the same article that talks about the painful cuts being made to public
services do we discuss that the Pentagon (and the debt from our wars) got about
half of the discretionary US federal budget in </FONT><U><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2><FONT color=#0000ff size=2>2012</U></FONT></FONT><FONT size=2>. In all
the articles about the fiscal cliff and the prospect of the 10 percent
across-the-board cut applying to the Pentagon, it is also never mentioned that
our military budget </FONT><U><FONT color=#0000ff size=2><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2>dwarfs</U></FONT></FONT><FONT size=2> all others and is as large as the
next 14 largest countries combined. Nor do we mention that it is five times that
of China, the next largest military budget. So if we cut our military budget by
50 percent, we would still far outstrip all the other countries of the world.
How much bigger do you personally feel it needs to be?<BR>When our huge debt is
endlessly decried, it is sometimes argued whether it is the Democrats’ or the
Republicans’ fault. It is never mentioned that we have not returned to a peace
time budget since before the Vietnam War, nor are we informed that waging two
wars simultaneously has created a huge debt.<BR>However, when we utter the
phrase "cutting our defense," suddenly this specter of insecurity is raised. But
I must ask you as a parent are you personally more secure when a drone hits a
village killing one "militant" plus a dozen civilians including children, or are
you more secure when your children can get a good education, or when money is
available for them to go to college? Are you more secure when a nuclear missile
sits in a silo unused or are you more secure when there are fireman and police
in your community? Do we really believe that there is enough money in the world
to make us completely invulnerable to any attack? Are we as safe as the citizens
in neutral countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Costa Rica or Japan?<BR>Many
years ago some friends had a booth at a county fair and with a big jar for each
US dept: defense, education, health, agriculture, energy, etc. When people
approached the booth they were given a roll of 100 pennies and told to allot in
accord with their budget priorities. I don’t recall which dept usually won, but
I do know it was not the Pentagon. Day after day when they started new it came
out very much the same. Human needs were funded by average fair goers much more
generously than by Congress. What we are doing right now is not what we really
need or want. Rather than believing that we are broke perhaps we could begin to
notice that we are not getting our money’s worth when we fund the Pentagon. When
they start discussing eliminating Social Security COLA’s, or cutting Medicaid,
or other human services, we need to remember where 60 percent of our money is
sitting. Can we afford this sacred cow?<BR><B><I>Lynn Fitz-Hugh</B>, Seattle, is
a therapist, a lifelong peace proponent, an organizer with Just Sustainable
Economy, and a mother.<BR></I></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>