Too often, Americans are left out of the policies that make us a fair country that provides opportunity to all. Imagine! My KPFT morning rant is one we need to hear.
Egberto, you mention "investment". Well and good. Perhaps the term needs a formal definition, such as "the action or process of investing money for profit or material result" (Oxford).
From a progressive standpoint, this could mean results for the common good and not military domination / empire-building. Eisenhower framed the guns-vs-butter debate this way.
In the broadest sense, bombs are already falling here. 9/11 happened ONLY because the US maintained (and still maintains) military bases in Saudi Arabia — anathema to a guy named Obama bin Laden. It radicalized him. Being an enterprising sort from a rich family, he decided to do something about it. The rest, as they say, is history.
A different type of disastrous cost: AIPAC massively corrupts US politics mainly to feed Israel military resources to crush Palestinians resisting occupation and dispossession. Palestinian families pay with their lives. We pay with the corruption of American democracy, such as it is.
As you note, we have a fiat currency. It gives us unparalleled freedom to invest and spend as we please. We’re squandering this flexibility on things that don’t benefit the public good, especially the military. Our economy suffers.
Historically when America emerged from a war, we experienced a “peace dividend”. Military spending slid while public works investment soared. Have you noticed, no one (read: corporate media) talks about a “peace dividend” anymore? And hasn’t for decades? That’s because we now spend more on military after a war than during it.
From this perspective we’re in an endless state of war, much as Orwell predicted in his “1984” dystopia. We’re living it, and don’t even notice. This boil-the-frog normalization reflects a whole other level of corruption and decline. IMHO, we need a widely publicized index (updated, say, weekly or monthly) that exposes this contrast — a ratio of military spending to public investment. Something like that.
Egberto, because you have a public platform, maybe you could team up with folks from Rice, or Brown University’s Cost of War project, plus Win Without War, the Quakers and other peace orgs, to make this happen? The objective: to shift public perception (or, if you will, shift the Overton window). You're a super busy guy, so if you’re interested I’d be glad to help frame this up as a formal proposal, and help shop it around.
I would like to begin with a quote from a speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, known as "The Chance for Peace":
"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 are 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."
About a decade after this speech was given, R. Buckminster Fuller did the math and found that all resources needed for every human to live and thrive, everywhere in the world, could be provided if every nation on Earth repurposed just 25% of its military/war spending. That was in the 1970s. Peace and plenty, worldwide, for 25% of the price the world was already willing to pay for war. [Buckyworks, p. 201, J. Baldwin, 1996]
Over half a century later, we are still not ready to make this relatively small commitment, this investment in the well being of every member of our species. Why? Mostly greed, pride and a love of power. For all of recorded history, resources were a zero-sum game; one man's gain was always another man's loss. Now that this no longer has to be the case, those who hold power continue to cling to it, creating artificial shortages to hide the fact that the zero-sum game is already over. In a just world, the outcome of the game is simple: We all win. I would love to live in a just world.
Egberto, you mention "investment". Well and good. Perhaps the term needs a formal definition, such as "the action or process of investing money for profit or material result" (Oxford).
From a progressive standpoint, this could mean results for the common good and not military domination / empire-building. Eisenhower framed the guns-vs-butter debate this way.
In the broadest sense, bombs are already falling here. 9/11 happened ONLY because the US maintained (and still maintains) military bases in Saudi Arabia — anathema to a guy named Obama bin Laden. It radicalized him. Being an enterprising sort from a rich family, he decided to do something about it. The rest, as they say, is history.
A different type of disastrous cost: AIPAC massively corrupts US politics mainly to feed Israel military resources to crush Palestinians resisting occupation and dispossession. Palestinian families pay with their lives. We pay with the corruption of American democracy, such as it is.
As you note, we have a fiat currency. It gives us unparalleled freedom to invest and spend as we please. We’re squandering this flexibility on things that don’t benefit the public good, especially the military. Our economy suffers.
Historically when America emerged from a war, we experienced a “peace dividend”. Military spending slid while public works investment soared. Have you noticed, no one (read: corporate media) talks about a “peace dividend” anymore? And hasn’t for decades? That’s because we now spend more on military after a war than during it.
From this perspective we’re in an endless state of war, much as Orwell predicted in his “1984” dystopia. We’re living it, and don’t even notice. This boil-the-frog normalization reflects a whole other level of corruption and decline. IMHO, we need a widely publicized index (updated, say, weekly or monthly) that exposes this contrast — a ratio of military spending to public investment. Something like that.
Egberto, because you have a public platform, maybe you could team up with folks from Rice, or Brown University’s Cost of War project, plus Win Without War, the Quakers and other peace orgs, to make this happen? The objective: to shift public perception (or, if you will, shift the Overton window). You're a super busy guy, so if you’re interested I’d be glad to help frame this up as a formal proposal, and help shop it around.
I would like to begin with a quote from a speech by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, known as "The Chance for Peace":
"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 are 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."
About a decade after this speech was given, R. Buckminster Fuller did the math and found that all resources needed for every human to live and thrive, everywhere in the world, could be provided if every nation on Earth repurposed just 25% of its military/war spending. That was in the 1970s. Peace and plenty, worldwide, for 25% of the price the world was already willing to pay for war. [Buckyworks, p. 201, J. Baldwin, 1996]
Over half a century later, we are still not ready to make this relatively small commitment, this investment in the well being of every member of our species. Why? Mostly greed, pride and a love of power. For all of recorded history, resources were a zero-sum game; one man's gain was always another man's loss. Now that this no longer has to be the case, those who hold power continue to cling to it, creating artificial shortages to hide the fact that the zero-sum game is already over. In a just world, the outcome of the game is simple: We all win. I would love to live in a just world.