[Peace-discuss] July 4th America Salutes free Enterprise

[Jan & Durl Kruse]

July 4th Freedom Celebration............AWARE
After reading a recent posting from Lisa Chason I thought maybe the 
AWARE July 4th entry could go with what free enterprise has brought our 
country.  The summary from the post is the following list.  Based on 
what the United States is #1 in (brought to the world by the US Free 
Enterprise System) we have lots to work with for our entry.

I thought that perhaps we might not pull the wagon this year using our 
gas guzzler truck to do it.  Maybe use a hybrid to contribute to 
reversing #1 & #2 on the list below.
What really caught my eye was numbers #4, #5, #8, #9, #10, and #11.
Picture a banner with : U.S. Free Enterprise: Addicted to WAR!

We're  # 1!
A Nation of Firsts Arms the World
  By Frida Berrigan
This  post can be found at 
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=196017

Face  it, the United States is a proud nation of firsts. Among them:

1) First in Oil Consumption:

2) First in Carbon Dioxide Emissions:
.
3) First in External Debt:
     The United States owes $10.040  trillion, nearly  a quarter of the 
global debt total of $44 trillion.

4) First in Military Expenditures:

5) First in Weapons Sales:

6) Not First in Automobiles:

7) Not Even First in Bulk Goods:

Arms  are our real gold-medal event.

8) First in Sales of Surface-to-Air Missiles:

9) First in Sales of Military Ships:

10) First in Military Training:

11) First in Private Military Personnel:
According to bestselling author Jeremy Scahill,  there are at least 
126,000 private military personnel deployed alongside  uniformed 
military personnel in Iraq alone. Of the more than  sixty major 
companies that supply such personnel worldwide, more than 40 are U.S.  
based.


We  don't need stronger arms control laws, we need a global sobriety 
coach -- and  some kind of 12-step program for the dealer-nation as 
well.

Frida Berrigan is a Senior Research Associate at the World  Policy 
Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center.

Copyright  2007 Frida Berrigan
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