WHAT WE ARE WILLING TO FUND

The past couple of days have brought plenty of stories about the final budget proposal of the Bush administration. As I predicted the day he first gained the office (I almost said the day he was elected!!), the BushCo plan has always been and continues to be to cut domestic programs and spend the of money on “defense”.

Of the money the average tax payer sends to the IRS this year, $8,000 will be spent on defense. Don’t get me wrong, here. I don’t begrudge pay for our soldiers. I don’t begrudge expenditures in the VA, either – it’s not only our best health care system overall, but it is providing care to those who have been willing to put their lives on the line for us.

I do believe, however, that the bulk of our military budget is a waste. That’s right. Not just overdone, not just too high, but just flat thrown good after bad. If it was thrown to the wind I wouldn’t feel as angry about it as I do watching it being thrown into the coffers of the likes of Halliburton. Fact is we’d undoubtedly save a lot of money if we just gave it straight to them instead of using the Pentagon as a middle man. I also begrudge every penny that is being spent on the ever popular and ever impossible Star Wars program, and I just flat hate every penny that we put into nuclear weapons development and just about any other technological “advance” we keep spending on.

The idea of robotic weaponry is reprehensible to me, too. On the surface it sounds great to send machines into war instead of people, but you don’t have to think very deeply to recognize that such a capability would make it much easier for people like W to wage war. As I have said before, the lack of body bags, pictures of casualties and names of the dead returning from Iraq has been part of the reason the American people aren’t as upset about this war as they should be. The other side of the coin, too, is those folks who might one day look up to see a horde of American drones bearing down on them with guns blazing. How would you, as a farmer in Iran, cope with that?

Beyond the horror of being a nation of people who unquestioningly allow their tax dollars to fund the unhindered stockpiles of WMDs and radioactive ammunition, there is the disgrace of concurrently refusing to care for those among us who are unable to care for themselves.

Just yesterday the Republicans in the Senate defeated a budget bill designed to counter the Bush destruction of domestic programs by funding subsidies for poor people unable to heat their homes, disabled veterans, the unemployed and small businesses. They did this in support of the most dismally failed presidency in the history of the United States and in support of the increased military expenditures proposed by that presidency and in the face of rapidly growing deficits.

Then, just to top things off, that president endorsed the practice of waterboarding yesterday, saying that it was legal, wasn’t torture and had saved American lives. It may actually have saved a few American lives, but if so it was at the cost of the American soul. W himself often points out the savagery of Al Qaida’s behavior, but fails to recognize that sinking to the level of savagery ourselves automatically drives us off the high moral ground. Not to mention that his reckless endangerment of our military personnel in a politically motivated war has cost us more American lives than Al Qaida has taken in its entire history. And certainly we would never mention that estimates now put the Iraqi civilian death toll since 1990 as high as a million.

What grieves me most is that my country is so borderline paranoid that we cannot even consider taking any action other than the continued funding of an overly powerful military as a means of dealing with the hostility that exists in the world.

Violence begets violence and can never lead to peace. Why is that so hard to understand and act upon? Why is it so ingrained in our culture that I know without doubt that I can stir nearly anyone I encounter to great anger just by saying that we should pursue peace? What is so frightening about the concept of peace that people must ridicule those who put the idea forward even while they loudly proclaim to be followers of the Prince of Peace?

Jimi Hendrix said it best: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

Until that time, the unquestioning man on the street will always be easily led to fight in support of those whose love of power drives them to high public office. I understand that, but it doesn’t ease my anger at being forced by our tax system to pay more for the pursuit of war than for the benefit of my fellow citizens.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle