[Peace-discuss] Ignore the presidential campaign
Jenifer Cartwright
jencart13 at yahoo.com
Sat Dec 15 03:45:28 CST 2007
The difference between the Democrats and Republicans in their debates is like night and day -- the Democrats discuss real issues like intelligent human beings (and even make points I agree with some of the times), the Republicans talk like know-nothings about who's going to be tuffer on Iran and illegals, and who loves God most and best.
Why there's so little difference between them on so many key votes is maddening and depressing.
Jenifer
"C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
In contrast to countries with a real democracy (e.g., Venezuela, Brazil,
Haiti [until we destroyed it]), the US lacks a functioning democracy,
and so its empty forms can be thrust forward as a distraction when
there's any threat that a real political discussion might break out in
this depoliticized country.
That's the only reason for beginning the fake presidential campaign some
two years before the election.
The only reasonable response is to ignore it. The fix is in, and
regardless of who gets elected, US policies will continue on their
murderous way, unless an aroused US public puts an end to them, or
foreign forces (military or economic) do.
Here, as a sort of counter-factual thought-experiment, is an example of
what a reasonable presidential platform might look like. --CGE
PS -- The Democratic-led Congress today authorized more Iraq war
spending, sending Bush a defense bill requiring no change in strategy.
The measure already had passed the House and now goes to Bush, who is
expected to sign it. It authorizes Pentagon programs expected to cost
$506.9 billion during fiscal 2008, which began in October. The bill
authorizes another $189.4 billion for the Iraq and Afghan wars, for
which Congress has already approved some $600 billion. (Appropriations
legislation, still under consideration, is required to deliver the
money.) The vote in the Senate was 90-3, Durbin voting in favor and
Obama not voting...
=============================
Imagine a Campaign that Called for
Slashing Military Spending 75%
Dave Lindorff
Thursday 2007-12-13
While the Democratic and Republican candidates for president blather on
about non-issues like who will be meaner to immigrants, who will use the
most water on torture victims, who wanted to be president at the
youngest age, whos the best Christian and other such nonsense, and
while Congress and the president dance their meaningless dance of
pretend conflict, lets for a moment ponder something more momentous.
What if the US just packed up and left Iraq and Afghanistan, and brought
the troops all home, shut down the 750-odd overseas bases we operate
around the globe, and slashed our military budget by 75 percent?
That would be an instant savings of roughly $365 billion per year.
Now, the first thing we need to do is address the criticism that such an
action would be abandoning the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, whose
countries we have been systematically destroying for the last four to
six years.
Okay. I agree we have an obligation here. So lets allocate say $50
billion in annual aid to those two countries, to be funneled through
international aid organizations, from the U.N. to CARE and the Red
Cross/Red Crescent.
That still leaves $315 billion in funds to play with.
We also have to address those who will ask fearfully if we arent
opening ourselves to attack from our many enemies abroad.
But hold on a minute. If we cut the US military budget down to a paltry
$115 billion a year, that would still leave us with by far the largest
military budget in the entire world. The next biggest spender on its
military is China, at $62.5 billion, followed by Russia, at $62 billion.
That is to say, our military budget, if slashed by three quarters, would
still be about equal to Russias and Chinas military budgets combined.
And that only tells part of the story. Most of Chinas army is a
repressive police force, required to keep order in what is a widely
despised dictatorship, and would never be available for foreign
adventures. (Thats why China, with a million or more soldiers, hasnt
ever invaded Taiwan, with a population of just 23 million. The army
China could spare for an invasion would probably be no larger than the
one little Taiwan could field to defend itself.) The same can be said
for Russia, which is eternally in danger of splitting apart into myriad
smaller states, and has to be held together by threat of force. Figuring
that neither China nor Russia is likely to attack us anyway, given that
one needs us to buy all the junk they make, and the other needs us to
buy their oil, maybe we should look at those axis of evil states and
their ilk, that might think were easy pickins if we were to slash our
military spending.
Well, maybe not. It turns out if you add up all the military budgets of
Americas other major enemiesthose so-called rogue states like
Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syriaand throw in a few extra
possible hostiles for good measure like Myanmar, Somalia and, oh, what
the heck, Grenada (you never know when that troublesome little island
might have another revolution!), it comes to a grand total of $15
billion spent on military stuff. Thats less than one-seventh of what
wed still be spending.
And of course we wouldnt be alone. Our alliesBritain, Germany, France,
Japan, Israel, Holland, Canada, Italy, Australia, South Korea and Spain
for example, though there are surely more who would come to our aid in a
crisiscollectively spend another $258 billion on their militaries (and
yet even today we have our military based in many of those countries. Go
figure!). So we would hardly be at anybodys mercy.
We could even take a few billion of that $115 military budget and shift
it productively from our huge and useless strategic nuclear program (you
know, the one that just lost six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles for 36
hours, and flew them across the country, unprotected and unnoticed) over
to operations like border patrol, satellite monitoring, and the Coast
Guard, where it might actually help protect us, instead of just funding
futuristic weapons that will never be used for anything but helping
generals justify their stars by having units to command.
So here we would be with still, by a factor of two, the largest and most
advanced military in the world, but at peace and with $315 billion a
year suddenly freed up and at our disposal.
What might we do with all that money?
Well, for starters, if we accept for arguments sake that the Social
Security System is running at a deficit and will eventually be defunded
(which, by the way, I do not for a minute believe), actuaries say that
injecting about $130 billion a year into the fund (the equivalent of
increasing everyones SSI payroll tax by 2 percent) would solve the
alleged problem indefinitely, allowing all current and future Americans
to count on an inflation-adjusted secure retirement forever. So lets do
that. Then theres education. Currently, the federal government spends
about $58 billion a year on education. That gives us classroom sizes in
our cities of 30-35 kids (40 here in Philadelphia). Thats not
educationthats child abuse (and teacher abuse). So what say we boost
that amount by 50 percenta much better educational reform than a lot of
stupid No Child Left Behind testing regimens. Then theres healthcare,
on which the government spends a paltry $52 billion, leaving us with
declining life expectancies and infant mortality rates, particularly
among our poorest citizens, that are a scandal. Lets boost that
spending by 50 percent, too.
Geez! We still have another $130 billion left!
The federal government right now only spends some $40 billion a year on
science, energy and the environment. That includes nuclear power and
waste containment, and the entire NASA budget. Given the global climate
change disaster were facing, we should probably double that, with the
added $40 billion going all to environmental research, dont you think?
Now were left with $90 billion.
Well, it turns out thats about what the government spends on social
programs. You know, like welfarethe thing that we were supposedly
ending? Truth is, of course, that over the last decade, the number of
poor people and hungry people in the US has been rising, not falling, so
maybe we should rethink that ending welfare as we know it mantra, and
start thinking about improving the lives of those at the bottom of the
ladder. That extra $90 billion, by doubling social programsespecially
if it was spent on housing and job creationwould go a long way towards
making America a better place for all. It would also reduce crime
significantly, meaning wed have a whole lot of money freed up that
currently goes to police and prisons, so we could spent that money on
other good stuff too.
So whos going to make this eminently sensible proposal?
Im frankly sick to death of hearing about how tough our next
president is going to be.
Our current president has shown just what being tough is good for:
nothing. The country is less safe, weve got 80,000 returned soldiers
suffering from life-long injuries, weve made enemies out of friends all
over the world, and this countrys been going down the tube, with
joblessness rising, the economy teetering and the once mighty dollar
headed for Third World currency status.
Until I hear political candidates start talking about slashing military
spending -- and I mean on the order of 75 percent, none of this
nickel-and-dime stuff, and about funding the things that really need
funding -- Im not even listening to these moronic campaigns.
-----------------
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for
Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback).
His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
###
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