INSANITY – Part Two: A New Day a New Dawn?
Of all the people you know or meet how rare, if at all, is it, to encounter anyone who really wants empire and war and with all the insane amounts of money spent as such?
The question is who amongst us that we personally know if asked would say, yes, without any qualification, I want to have wars?
For now, then, and just for discussion, forgetting all else (including the “other” side) and starting therefore from square one and with the assumption (or fact) that we create our world, this question is asked – So why is it a country (Us) that is only about 4% of the world’s population has dropped more bombs than the 96% rest of the world combined?
If we really would prefer to not have wars and to use that nearly unfathomable amount of money so directed to be redirected to our having an even better quality of living and with all its added enjoyment, please know there is a way.
First a good question might be how did we get to this point where more than half of all the money we spend is spent on this now modern-day completely unnecessary and historically unfounded philosophy of perpetual war for so-called perpetual peace?
How is this philosophy allowed to be perpetuated and is there something that can be done, what about “there is a way, really” and is there hope presently either in fact or at least on the horizon?
Reflections on the GOP (Grand Old Party – the Republicans) presidential primaries indicates that there is hope, that we may be getting close to the end of this stated and described insanity.
One nominee, who is the first place winner so far, wants America’s military to be so powerful that no one will ever challenge us. Now as scary as that is and in particular as reminiscent of others in history, it is unambiguously insane as there is no such reality in that, as there is simply no such thing.
Any entity, for example a country, that wants, (as previously blogged) “to be the bully on the block,” would then by that very nature (and by human nature) always be under attack.
Meanwhile the thought here is that this man is absolutely and absolutely only, a very lost very rich man whose personal wealth ranks in only the .0012% of our population and is truly ignorant of a more true life. (Please let’s discuss).
Now, and back to the primaries, the second place winner so far,
supports what is largely exactly the opposite. He wants to draw down
America’s military from its currently having somewhere between five
hundred and eleven hundred bases in over one hundred and fifty
countries.
(Earlier blog stated the US has over 300 bases however more recent research shows the much larger numbers):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5564
http://www.occasionalplanet.org/2011/01/24/military-mystery-how-many-bases-does-the-us-have-anyway/
The point here is not to suggest or say definitively that one man or one man’s views are necessarily worth your vote as being better than the other’s. We can each decide on our own and certainly there are other candidates.
But the point is that now with such diverse views in the political discussion and therefore the elephant in the room is being noticed and other even better founded views can now more readily enter the discussion, we are then it seems here anyhow, perhaps getting closer to that better quality of life (worldwide) and its enjoyment..?
What do you think?
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TERM LIMITS.!?
Earlier this month, a Roll Call study of congressional financial disclosures revealed that the net worth of members of Congress had grown by 25 percent since 2008, during a period in which the average American household has lost as much as 20 percent of its net worth.
Okay simple mathematics here – over the approximately last three years the net worth of our (so-called?) representatives GREW and by twenty-five percent while the net worth average of the people they “represent” LOST as much as twenty percent!?!!
Consider this please from Lawrence Lessig, I believe, “I was troubled,” he says, “by the fact that the political elite gets to play by a different set of rules than the rest of us. In the process of researching this (his) book, I came to the conclusion that political party and political philosophy matter a lot less than we think. Washington is a company town, and politics is a business. People wonder why we don’t get more change in Washington, and the reason is that the permanent political class is very comfortable. Business is good.”
The thought here, and after much consideration is this – As many have stated, should Congress be term limited? Interesting how Congress after the four terms of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, term limited the president, so now what about themselves..?
What do you think?
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Let’s Finally Support Israel For Real
The United States is certainly considered as an ally of Israel. However a most profound question is, are we really?
After more than a half century of financial aid to Israel, year after year after year and to what present day is an all things considered estimate of well over eight million dollars a day (day after day after day and without end) from the US to Israel, Israel still remains as a military state and is still unsecured.
The United States, in its support of Israel, has stood out in the United Nations from nearly always supporting Israel even when many others haven’t, all the way to not voting yes on the recent UN vote granting Palestine its recognition as a country (state) and nearly everything in between.
Yet Israel still remains an unsecured military state.
We even work with Israel on not only promoting “Democracy” at Israel’s location in the Middle East but also work with Israel on a Joint Defense Program.
This joint defense program also comes with the US support at over a billion dollars (well over another more than a half million dollars a day, day after day) over the last four years.
Yet Israel is still a military state and still unsecured.
So again, with insanity being defined as doing the same thing over and over (yes and over and over and over again) and expecting a different result, is it then more accurate to say that we are in reality not so much an ally to Israel but a co-dependent participant in insanity?
Not only does Israel not, or no longer, need such (significant amounts of) money from the US and not only does what appears to be no less than a growing plurality of Israelis no longer want such financial support from the US, but the US, we ourselves, can no longer afford to give it.
With what amounts to, based on an equivalency of a dollar every second being over 475,000 years in debt regarding the United States and with well-formed arguments that the US and Israel would both be better off without the continued failed policy presently of such financial giving and lending, why does it then continue?
Is it the minority of citizens here that are Congressman and Senators, who instead of leading (and on Israel’s side as well) in what is best for Israel and the United States, they behold themselves to the counter-productive two hundred and thirty political action committees lobbying for this money (to Israel) in seeking only what they believe is the path of least resistance to being reelected?
Is there something/anything we, individually or perhaps collectively, can do perhaps like petitioning our Congressmen, or do we really in the end, simply just ourselves take a path of least resistance and simply not care?
What do you think?
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We Are Insane.
Everyone has heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Therefore the simple deduction is that the US government is insane! Any credible discussion should begin with the facts. So assuming that our government really is of the people, by the people and for the people, then we are insane. You are insane and I am insane.
Ah but who are “the people?” This appears to be the big deal topic of protest by the “occupy” movement. Is “the people” the 1%ers or is it the 99%ers? Well of course “the people” is the one hundred percent of us, you know, all the people. However maybe the one-percenters are perhaps simply a group that has over time cared more..?
As difficult as it may be to navigate the course of “representation,” the pathway(s) does exist. Even with the easy access of a web site, when was the last time one of us wrote our congressman or voted in a local election?
Back to insanity
Continuing to employ the single-fauceted approach of “defense,” we spend over $500,000,000,000 each year to “fund” the Department of Defense. The approach is to have armed forces that are bigger, better (trained, equipped and supplied) than any other in the whole world on our shared planet. And with over 300 military bases in over 150 of the world’s countries, we continue to fall in line with a joint chief-of-staffs, as recent as the turn of this century remark, that he (he!) wants America to be “the bully on the block.”
Even without arguing the sanity of this approach and assuming the DOD
(previously called the Department of War) has a real and rational goal
of wanting to provide “defense,” wouldn’t then a more complete and
comprehensive approach make sense?
Certainly the “war to end all wars” didn’t, neither did the ‘great war”
and neither will the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the war on
terror, the war on drugs or the war on fill-in-the-blank; war, war, war
and at nearly a billion and a half dollars…a day, every single day.
Shouldn’t a “comprehensive defense” sanely, rationally and ah duh intellectually, include (at least include) also serious and well-focused, well directed and well-funded peace initiatives?
Don’t sports teams employ offense and defense (you know reactionary and pro-active)? Isn’t it better to teach a hungry person “how to fish” other than simply giving them fish? (you know sustainability) So why is it then that our insanity continues? Why isn’t there a US Department of Peace – even with the long history of a desire for it from the original creation of our country to the present day where there are resolutions in Congress for a Department of Peace?
Do you, do we, really want to spend money more wisely (and with 21st century scientific proof presenting pathways to world peace now proving the heretofore unthought-of possibility) or not? Couldn’t we take as little as $499 from the approximate $3,333 each working adult pays for the present approach to defense and support a Department of Peace?
So $2,834 for war defense and $499 for peace defense..? Probably “we” do.
So why is it “we” don’t? Is it simply that the 1%ers care more about their agenda whereas we, the 99%ers, at the end of the day, really don’t care about ours?
Ah but I think we do…so what do we do?
What do you think?
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Who Wants Peace More, Democrats or Republicans?
Arguing politically as to which “side” (Democrat, Republican or Non-Political) is better or worse has never been a purpose or goal of “The Congressman’s Dinner.” The preference is to consider a positioning that is more akin to these quotes, “anger is the enemy of instruction,” or “arguing is the enemy of construction.”
Our movie, web site and peace initiative is purposefully non-political party supporting or disparaging but more patriotically and universally founded for open discussion.
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Official Selection of the Global Wake-Up Film Festival in Chicago
The Congressman’s Dinner was recently selected as on official selection for the Global Wake-Up Film Festival in Chicago (A Program of the UN Foundation).
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The Role of the Federal Government
More Fear vs. Love
Fear – The federal government classifies (and bans) all species of cannabis sativa as being the same. Huh?
With only briefly getting into the free will, free choice, land of the free argument of whether a federal government should authoritatively ban possession of the marijuana variety of hemp (accounting for – and get this – over 700,000 arrests annually, resulting in thousands of citizens being jailed in federal, state and county prisons and at a taxpayers cost of $1B annually) let’s consider the extremes that “fear” presents.
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