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?