Can Americans be happy with less?
Imagine if this were happening in your neighborhood:
And imagine a local farm, where:
And how about a scenario where:
Some societies have declined when they ate their seed corn. Some have declined when they no longer had a place to plant the seed corn. Some have declined because they went off to war and all the corn went off with them. And some have apparently forgotten health cannot exist by corn alone.
Can Americans be happy with less?
Can Americans learn to be happy with less military presence around the world? Can we not empty foreign bases, occupied since forever? What is the purpose of "defense" if the money needed to keep us healthy goes for chest-beating? What are we defending if we suffer at home to project "authority" abroad?
Who are we kidding here?
A family down the street is slowly starving - because the dad is spending nearly all the household money for a personal arsenal to protect the family. Defense is eating up the budget.
And imagine a local farm, where:
Instead of spending the money on seed corn and planting, the farmer is building a huge moat around his property, to protect himself and his family from people seeking food or a place to plant a garden. The farmer has lost sight of the purpose of the farm.
And how about a scenario where:
A neighbor has to decide whether to lose the house or watch a family member die of cancer. It should never happen in America!
Some societies have declined when they ate their seed corn. Some have declined when they no longer had a place to plant the seed corn. Some have declined because they went off to war and all the corn went off with them. And some have apparently forgotten health cannot exist by corn alone.
Can Americans be happy with less?
Can Americans learn to be happy with less military presence around the world? Can we not empty foreign bases, occupied since forever? What is the purpose of "defense" if the money needed to keep us healthy goes for chest-beating? What are we defending if we suffer at home to project "authority" abroad?
Who are we kidding here?
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I'm reminded of the saying from years ago:
"Wouldn't it be nice if school programs were funded and the military needed to hold bake sales?"
Our military expenditures (I refuse to call it defense spending!) are the one area I wish was highlighted on the form at tax time. "How much do you wish to contribute to your military budget?"
Craziness, I know. But I think people would be astounded to learn just how much is owed per household to keep the military industrial complex thriving, especially if we include all the "black budget" numbers for the CIA, etc.. I don't have the figures here before me. Perhaps someone else will help me out here.
Presented in the context of $/household, or even $/person,, I would have to believe people would begin to say "Hey, wait a minute!"
It is sinful.
January 30, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
SJ, that entire comment should be underscored, in bold, and required reading for every citizen!
January 30, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
San Fernando Kurt has just posted a blog, which is so similar to my own thinking, I cannot but plug his right here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/san_fernando_curt/2009/01/obama-reaches-the-guns-butter.php
January 30, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am atoning... It's San Fernando Curt.
January 30, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Crazyness you say, madness says I.
I find myself caught in time rereading Steinbeck when I should be making greater efforts on TPM. Anyway...
I have read that recruitment is up dramatically due to growing unemployment because job security is quickly being replaced with job scarcity. I agree we should draw against our world-wide presence to help accommodate making room for the enlisting masses that are finding no other option.
We should recreate the GI Bill to at least its post WWII stature and fund that effort with savings realized through a decrease in the effort to project our might overseas. Not only would we have a far more humble military but a much stronger one as well, along with jobs with future benefits for our young adults.
January 30, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope your Steinbeck reading can be put to good use here. Steinbeck is NEVER time wasted!
January 30, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Co-sign!
January 30, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah,, Military is the only constitutionally justifiable expense in the national budget. Almost all other spending is extra constitutional.
January 30, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Y'know, renaye? (Or is it spric? Which of your transgendered schizoid characters are you today?)
There isn't anything of any value that you have contributed to these discussions the couple weeks since you first appeared. I find you interesting only inasmuch as it's hard to imagine anyone spending time spouting hatred and drivel and nonsense. I suspect you find it entertaining, but I think the psychiatric profession has other terms for it.
You will notice that I have ignored you until today. I write now only to let you know that it is indeed intentional, and that I will continue to ignore you. I suggest everyone else on TPM do likewise.
Have a wonderful life, such as it is...
January 30, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes it's not necessary for the immune system to attack a cell. Sometimes just surrounding it with healthy cells will do the trick. I doubt you'll disagree, SJ.
January 30, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh....please??????......phagocytosis is really awesome. Please?????????
January 30, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Save it for "right" cells. :)
January 30, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
If we're going to get cells, I wants mine right next to TheraP's! ;O)
January 30, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, SJ! At the worst points during bushco, I used to think: If they ever arrest me, I'm going to politicize the prisoners!
Definitely, I'd want adjoining cells. We could do research for prison reform! And much good besides!
January 30, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now this reminds me of the time I was pulled over and essentially mugged by a cop in Georgia. He thought he'd have fun with this ol' yankee here and he took me downtown. It was like something out of a cheap movie, you know?
Anyway, I wasn't very forthcoming with any offers to pay my fine in cash, and so he just held me there in the office while talking 'bout me to his buddy there - real insulting like, you know?
Finally he says:
"You sure don't say much, do you boy?"
I turned and looked at him and then his buddy. "That's for pretty good reason, 'cuz I damn sure know you don't wanna' hear what I got on my mind."
His buddy laughed. He got kinda red in the face.
"Well, let's go then." He says. "We'll let you cool your heels in a jail cell while you wait for the judge to get back from lunch."
"Sounds like a plan to me!" I said. "I figure I'm apt to meet a better class of people there anyway."
Turns out the sumbitch had no sense of humor, but it pained him to not be able to do anything about while his buddy laughed about it.
January 30, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Humor: Powerful weapon that! :)
January 30, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Except that we can't afford the 700 or so military bases we have around world. Who is going to tell Americans we are running a fumes?
January 30, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your efforts are pleasing to me, my dear renaye.
January 30, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think you're nearly as intelligent as your avatar would us to believe.
January 30, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Clue: the far-right lunatic fringe America-hating anti-gum'mint loons from which you got that nonsense are also anti-Constitution.
Try this actual reality:
The Founders/Framers were for "ordered liberty". That means, freedom within the law -- or more conventionally, freedom WITH responsibility.
By contrast, your ilk endeavors to establish as social policy the impossible -- impossible, that is, except for criminals: freedom without rule of law. This is how the Founders/Framers -- "statists" all -- established our "system of laws, and not of men [taking the law into their own hands]." (John Adams.)
YOU have the RESPONSIBLITY to NOT infringe OTHERS' rights. And every one of those others has the RESPONSIBILITY to NOT infringe YOUR rights. It's a simple principle that even you should be able to "get":
Every freedom is inextricably intertwined with a responsibility.
Only CRIMINALS reject that fact.
Relatedly, and based thereon:
No sane society leaves dangerous substances (such as bomb-making materials) and objects (such as guns, armed gangs, or militaries) lying around unregulated.
Only CRIMINALS reject that fact.
The issue is public safety. Push come to shove, the society must and will survive; and that means the rights of the individual YIELD to public safety. Only CRIMINALS insist otherwise.
Bottom line: as concerns the Constitution, you are not only ignorant of it, your view is the enemy of it.
January 30, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
JNag, you have risen to the occasion!
January 30, 2009 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the level? :]
January 31, 2009 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the level, buddy! I know at times you like to provoke, but I've seen you can also be a force for good. :)
January 31, 2009 9:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm always a force for good. If I appear to some to be otherwise it's because I'm not a monotone.
February 1, 2009 1:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suggest Valium if you can get your hands on some. Try one blue or two reds and see if that does it. If not, just double the dosage.
January 30, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not surprised that your cure for reality and rule of law is drugs -- and depressants at that.
January 31, 2009 6:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the Constitution only authorizes state militias and the Navy, but specifically forbids standing armies at the federal level for periods longer than two years. Alexander Hamilton had to convince President John Adams to establish a standing national army, over the objections of many of the founders still in the legislature.
A decision roundly criticized by both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington as well as Ben Franklin and many of the era's most enlightened patriots.
You might want to check out a couple more books or at least read the Constitution's passages on the military, which gives Congress the right to manage all of our naval and militia forces and not the president, who is only the Commander in Chief when "called into service of the United States" at which time he takes charge of the state militias to defend the country.
The Constitution actually sought to prevent the Empire we have become.
January 31, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's an understatement.
January 30, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have not verified nor evaluated the veracity of these wiki numbers:
Military budget of the United States
"The United States military budget is that portion of the United States discretionary federal budget that is allocated to the Department of Defense. This military budget pays the salaries, training, and healthcare of uniformed and civilian personnel, maintains arms, equipment and facilities, funds operations, and develops and buys new equipment. The budget funds all branches of the U.S. military: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.
For 2009, the base budget rose to US$515.4 billion, with a total of US$651.2 billion when emergency discretionary spending and supplemental spending are included.[1] This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (~$9.3 billion, which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs (~$33.2 billion), interest on debt incurred in past wars, or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, ~$170 billion in 2007) - the United States government is currently spending at the rate of approximately $1 trillion per year for all defense-related purposes. [2]"
But they should give you a ballpark idea... Good enough for non-government work, at least.
January 30, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well Fathead Dobbs would like the moat idea in between two parallel fences spanning 3000 miles down south. I assume after that we can do something about Canadian Weed.
What truly can be a better metaphor for the possibility of almost total collapse of the American Dream:
Some societies have declined when they ate their seed corn
The bloggers at this site including you, on several occasions have stressed that health care has to be the number one issue in this country.
It is such an intricate part of this economy in terms of inflationary pressures, employment and the corporate downturn, that it cannot be ignored.
January 30, 2009 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
You got the subtlety here. I took a page from barefooted....
January 30, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Can Americans be happy with less?"
Are you asking if America can live with lower health care expectations, by overtly discussing military spending as a false flag?
January 30, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm asking many things, when I ask that question. (But not the interpretation you make.)
January 30, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I took the title to be a "live simpler" kind of post. And in a way, I guess that it is. Our economy has always been about one type of growth while ignoring the detractions that cannot be easily placed into a balance sheet. Military spending to me facilitates a system that ignores costs like lives (us and them), alternate pathways, environmental damage, and recently human dignity. I know that we are one of the largest weapons dealers in the world, but we do other things that actually help America?
An aside, does it only make sense to cut defense spending as our economy shrinks?
January 30, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure the money can be put to good use. Consider that if you close foreign bases and bring people home, money will be spent here. There are lots of ways to stimulate the economy without further aggravating the world and starving ourselves of needed services at home. We are a creative people. I have no doubt we can stimulate the economy without feeding the beast of the military-industrial-complex.
See Curt's blog for more on that.
January 30, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to see less military spending (provide for the common defense). But I also think that "promote the general welfare" does not mean "provide for the general welfare".
January 30, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Health care? Begin here:
It is a human right not to have one's health harmed.
January 30, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
That seems to be our ugly nature..The 'me first' attitude has been ingrained in to us over the last past fifty years, we may need to go through this recession, depression or whatever term du jure is being bandied about in order for our better nature to come out of hiding.
January 30, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with you, WP.
Better nature: Come out, come out, wherever you are!
January 30, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
TheraP, as always a great and provoking blog, my brain cell are positively aerobic. Thanks.
People are collapsing "better" with "bitter" I do think our collective "better natures" are finally showing up and our "bitter natures" are reduced to snarking around the margins. This may be their motto "I'm not getting older, I'm getting bitter"
As for me, the above is absolutely not true, even though I am getting older [see It Was a Very Good Year, preferably by Lou Rawls]
January 30, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like you spunk, balilama! A welcome addition here.
January 30, 2009 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not tall enouggh to be older than eighteen, the indelible lies written on my birth certificate notwithstanding.
And I'm getting younger. Can't wait until I'm 2 again. (See avatar of my very first haircut. I intend to have that very first haircut again.)
January 31, 2009 6:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, as we've seen from the news, at least one poor fellow killed his whole family - presumably rather than face bankruptcy and a reduced lifestyle. The skies seem littered with rich swindlers trying to remake the escapade of DB Cooper.
I think many people have seen this coming for a long time, and as long as none of the crazies kill us, we'll learn to make do.
January 30, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're doing your part, Donal... on the bike, carrying hay! :)
January 30, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong,
If you'd read the whole article on that murder suicide, you'd learn the guy did it out of fear of a Marxist takeover.
January 30, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Try peace.
January 30, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.buffalo.edu/news/9886
January 30, 2009 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kool-Aid overdose.
Let that be a warning to you, Renaye. You're pretty much all-in with that fantasy land idea the Left is pure Marxism. Nothing near what Marxism recommended, although there is a social consciousness about it.
January 30, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, from now on I'd assume it means Groucho. Groucho had many maxims, some of which might come in handy here.
January 30, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Say the secret word and win $100!"
January 30, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
So he too was a far-right lunatic fringer who also knew zilch about political science and economics?
And also hated the First Amendment because, being Liberal, it guarantees freedom of conscience and belief, and speech, the far-right lunatic fringe America-hating opposition to it notwithstanding?
January 31, 2009 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Golden parachutes are so easy to shoot at, don't ya think?
January 30, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thera: Love your posts. It is such a tragic time right now in our country. Personally, we have lost quite a bit of income. We still can eat and pay the bills, at least for now. Imagine all those people, some blogging here, who are suffering so much more. What a sad set of priorities this country has had.
I personally know two families who have lost their home due to medical bills to cancer fighting medications and treatment for a child of theirs. Breaks my heart.
January 30, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your kinds words. And good to see you here, Amalie. I hardly think any outside powers could have harmed us as inside powers have.
January 30, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not a question of happy. It is a question of whether they will feel safe.
The American people, as a whole, have abandoned any relationship with their government. The Republicans took advantage of this over the past 30 years and poured trillions of dollars into the MIC [Military Industrial Complex]. Now it is a self-sustaining organism that demands war in order to survive.
Our military is weakened by the need to rely on non-military vendors for their supplies. Better they built everything for themselves and then, when things were not needed, those factories could stand idly by, not having any tax burdens to risk losing those facilities. Instead, we privitized everything and these corporate organisms have payrolls, utilities and taxes required of them to endure.
If the people were attuned to what has been happening these past 8 years, they would demand the reserves be returned to their respective states. The military should support itself. If we assumed the war was unexpected, then we can agree that the Reserves were needed initially. Instead, they have been there perpetually. They need to be home. The Army now stations troops in country. WHY? Because there are insufficient reserves present to satisfy their perceived risks. I fear why these soldiers are here. Soldiers who will be stationed far from their homes rather then those neighbors we allowed to be taken off to Iraq.
The proposition that private is more efficient then public entities is simply unfounded. Private entities exist for profit, so moneys are designed to be removed form the entity for the owners to profit. A public entity has no such requirement. We should monitor their performance to ensure excellence. We have fallen asleep at teh switch, but there is no good reason private should be more efficient the public organizations. If we had more military owned operations, they would all be home by now.
So I guess that the questoin of whether less would be okay, in an odd way, I say more military and less private interests. Then MIC would not be growing at nearly the rate it is now.
January 30, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lots of meat to chew on here, Gregor.
The "happy" comes from "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." You correctly, and ironically, state the obvious: That misleaders have substituted, "life and safety" instead.
January 30, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's pretty clear they do not wish anyone to be pursuing happiness unless their pleasure was derived from war, torture and monocultural fantasies.
January 30, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bravo, Gregor!
It is scary to understand just how effectively we project our power in this world through the military department of "The United States of Halliburton."
And the abuse of our Reserves is absolutely outrageous! My heart aches when I think of the sacrifices and the pain and the suffering that is spread about so widely and without consideration at all, seemingly, as they send these family members abroad for their third, fourth, or fifth tour.
Of course, it's all made better if we can stick a magnetic ribbon on the ol' Oldsmobile that says "Support our Troops!"
Do the ones making the decisions about engaging war really consider the impact on REAL lives? If so, God help us all, because we've put in charge leaders with no heart; armchair warriors with no compassion; chickenhawks with no skin in the game.
Meanwhile, somewhere right now is a young wife and mother trying to scrape together enough money to feed the kids AND heat the house, all the while wondering and worrying if her husband will make it home and if he'll be he same guy she married when he does.
There are heroes involved in all this, to be sure, but they generally ain't found in suits, nor do they usually make it anywhere near Washington. We'd do well to ask THEM "Ok, just what would YOU do with our 'Defense' budget?"
January 30, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just guessing here, but I'll bet Halliburton, Blackwater, SDI, and the CIA would not be high on the list of priorities if we had the grunts and their families setting the budget items.
January 30, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely! I despise the way we have sold off our mlitary to corporate parasites. They bring nothing to the battle. They are merely vultures seeking to pick the bones of the brave.
January 30, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
It the resurrection of the time honored American practice once called "war profiteering".
You can see the results of such profiteering in today's news about the defective body armor and a myriad of past horror stories. Howard Zinn writes in some detail of the spoiled meat and other defective supplies the government "procured" for use in the Spanish American War in his book "A People's History of the United States." I recommend it to all.
Present day Americans thought this old scam had been minimized or abandoned and there was some truth to it but W and his gang of criminals brought it back full strength in recent years.
January 30, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Truman wanted a commission to investigate war profiteering, which he correctly called treason.
January 31, 2009 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
And it was Truman, as head of the Truman Committee, during the war that investigated waste, fraud, abuse and profiteering. It was what catapulted him into the national spotlight.
January 31, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although I cannot speak as an enlisted person, I can give you the opinion of my son, who is currently an Army Reservist. He has not been deployed. Yet.
If you ask him why he joined, he will tell you point blank it was for college money and the hefty sign up bonus. After he tells you that, he adds, "If I am called up, I will serve. I will obey orders and I'll do my damnedest to get myself and everyone that's with me home in one piece."
What would my kid do with our defense budget? I think it would be safe to say a good chunk of it would go towards education at ALL levels.
January 30, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point!
Of course, the Republicans would want to make tax cuts of most of it and not "waste" it on education.
January 30, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
That I can definitely get behind. Education spending may not actually make kids smarter (intelligence and success being basically determined by parental influence and genetics), but it will make us feel better about ourselves.
January 31, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
And there are men wondering if their wives will be the ones they married when those wives and mothers return from the war as well! just had to get that in there.
Thanks for the recognition, Sleepin'.
January 30, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, and thanks! Male chauvinism dies hard, and you just graciously caught me up short. They are all soldiers now, and they all deserve our respect.
January 30, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you of course, but the military industrial complex was a self-sustaining entity by the time Ike left office. That's where the phrase military industrial complex comes from remember.
Yes, it has gotten worse---much worse since 1980 but one has to understand that Democrats are at least as much to blame historically if not more than the evil Republicans. Either way they are all culpable. I offer as a bit of proof in terms of the timeline a book called "The Permanent War Economy" by Seymour Melman that was written in, I believe, the early 70's. He wrote in the book then that every man made object ever produced in the history of the country (buildings, structures, products of all kinds, you name it)could have been rebuilt with the amount of money spent after WWII up to that point in time, on defense. It was crippling us then. It cripples us even worse now.
Defense right now gobbles up more than it did at the height of WWII yet incredibly even our new President says we must throw more good money down that rat hole and never mentions dramatic cuts in defense which should be the order of the day. Our literally insane "defense" spending (a.k.a. war spending)is the greatest threat to America's long term prospects that exists other than climate change.
We are now spending approximately $615 Billion annually on defense not including the two current wars and nuclear missiles. That's more than all the other nations on earth combined! We could cut our spending in half tomorrow and still be far and away the biggest military spending nation on earth.
Will any of them in DC even have the guts to bring up the obscenity of this in light of the vast and long neglected human needs in our country and around the world let alone propose cutting it down to sane levels? Don't hold your breath. I don't think they have either the will or the courage to do so.
It's up to us.
January 30, 2009 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ike's military-industrial-complex speech warned America against what's come to pass. Take the time to read it here:
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
In part, he warned:
January 30, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Ike!!!!!!!!!
I can't resist repeating this one part:
"Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."
To think the man who was Supreme Allied Commander would have these words cross his lips is astounding! And because of his military experience we should pay all the more heed.
January 30, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amen!
January 30, 2009 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
When did you have your lobotomy?
January 30, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
You got nuthin' Renaye.
Crawl back into your pack rat hole and save up the crap they feed you. You're part of the 27% who still thinks it's nutritious.
You got nuthin'!
January 30, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its this damn outsourcing that pisses me off Gregor.Really pisses me off because the monies become unaccounted for under the cover of national security and the monies end up in the friends of the republicans so that they can tithe the Republican Party.
January 30, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, in the case of intelligence, spy on the populace!
January 30, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, the ROI is pretty decent for the GOP, ain't it?!?
February 1, 2009 1:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bit odd that we have troops stationed here while the reserves and Guard are stuck in the sand.
January 30, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. Came late to the party and my comment is completely divorced from its context. No worries. You all have better things to say anyway.
January 30, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fear not! It's your heart being in the right place that matters, bluemeanie!
January 30, 2009 8:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even better would be:
When they are not needed for real wars they could produce non-military items. That way those buildings would never sit there empty.
Just a thought...
January 30, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The proposition that private is more efficient then public entities is simply unfounded.
_____
And also refuted over and over again.
January 31, 2009 6:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely.
And this is a golden opportunity to improve upon our perspective of the value of things.
January 30, 2009 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
May it be so.
January 30, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Defense, outside of two particular wars since 2001 and which are probably each headed for a drawdown eventually (God willing), has been a declining proportion of government expenditure since the end of the cold war.
All the money's going to health care. Medicare and Medicaid are growing.
So while I agree we spend too much money on defense, I don't think spending more money on health care instead is a great solution. We already spend too much on health care, probably.
January 30, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Peace be with you.
January 30, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
See Thera...Steinbeck now...it was Bukowski before. My instincts are to flay this poster with one of my Bukowski like rants though you facilitate a kind of peaceful cascade too wash over my raging incredulity.
January 30, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
“Humanity, you never had it to begin with.” - Charles Bukowski ;)
January 30, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL
January 30, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hope you live your life without illness or the need for treatment. Go with your deity.
January 30, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
There. That's much better! :)
January 30, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Respectfully, this is incorrect information.
Government spending on defense has not declined in real terms at all. We are now spending more on defense than at any time since the height of World War II. Much of that massive total isn't on anytyhing in the field at all. We literally blow billions upon billions on far-fetched, unrealistic, and downright crazy R & D that will never produce anything as effective as a bow and arrow to defend the country not to mention the outrageous extravagances enganged in by contractors overall, the padding of contracts, the kickbacks, bribery, etc...
While health care is certainly a big ticket item, it cannot be truly said that "all the money's going to health care" because it just isn't. Health care is the biggest item after Defense and Social Security perhaps, and that's nothing to sneeze at but it most certainly is not the cause of our fiscal or economic woes particularly in comparison to the death blow war spending delivers to our economic productivity and our overal prosperity.
January 30, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well done, oleeb!
January 30, 2009 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Citation:
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/budget/tables.pdf
On Table S-8 at page 26 of 30 is a helpful guide showing that:
1. Medicare and Medicaid are $632 Billion in FY 2009.
2. Total "Security" spending is $730 Billion. This of course includes not only defense and military items but also VA, the FBI, the TSA, FAA, etc. So we need to also look at:
Table S-3 on page 5:
Showing Defense Department spending at $515 Billion in FY 2009, about 80% of what the Federal government spends on health care. Once states are thrown in, of course (states don't have significant military spending but buy lots of health care) this percentage will drop substantially.
I don't throw empirical statements out there that I can't support.
(Note: The above numbers don't include Iraq and Afghanistan spending; that would roughly equalize the numbers at the federal level. But since my original statement was ex-Iraq and Afghanistan, if you'll reread it briefly, I think that's a fair distinction.)
January 30, 2009 6:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Both Social Security and Medicare are programs that bring in revenue and have surpluses. Defense? It is a pure expenditure. Money down a rat hole with not one penny coming in from it. Whatever their faults, SS and Medicare are self supporting and paying for them doesn't take any money from anything else. Quite the contrary actually.
Furthermore, "defense' spending EXCLUDING the two wars and nuclear weapons is right at $615 Billion right now (before any supplemental approps that come along). That's a greater percentage of GNP than at any time during WWII. Furthermore, the amount we spend on war prep which is what "defense" spendig is exceeds the amount all the other nations on earth combined spend annually. ALL of them combined! Since the tyrant Bush declared himself King in 2000 the defense budget has doubled. If you add in the two wars and nuclear weapons the numbers would dwarf medicare. And none of the includes the secret budgets that nobody gets to know.
As I said before. Your information is incorrect.
January 30, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
First off, claiming surpluses and the like for Social Security is a controversial topic.
For one thing, it wouldn't even work if we had a static population. Secondly, the bump we are seeing is a result of the bubble of workers in the system. However, these coffers (if they even exist off to the side) will shrink in contents as Baby Boomers deplete them going forward.
Secondly, claiming the DoD is a sink hole pure and simple is disingenuous. You might want to argue about it, but the fact is that DoD type jobs employ engineers and scientists, typically aren't outsourced, and keep money flowing around the economy.
All modern societies have supported their technological growth via defense spending, starting with da Vinci, going onward to Laplace (and his cannons), and continuing to present day -- including the development of the Internet. You may want to argue the value of this, or why can't things change, or what have you, but to single out American society in this regard shows an utter lack of perspective of the way that humans organize themselves and what drives them.
That's why the puny arguments presented here have little value -- because they focus on Americans. There is something much deeper afoot and requires a complete restructuring of society and human drives. Whether our spending priorities is right or not is something we can debate -- but it is clearly an obvious, natural, and well-trod path. Any solution needs to acknowledge this fact and begin from that point -- and not to deny it.
January 30, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just because Social Security and Medicare are supported by a separate scheme of taxation doesn't change the fact that they're taxpayer funded. The payroll taxes for SS and MC are taken out of American pockets like all other taxes. To say anything else is to engage in the same type of accounting Citigroup performs when it creates an "off the books" entity to hold debt instruments.
That's not to say the government doesn't do that and hasn't done that for SS and MC. The government has done exactly the same thing. But it's still a shell game.
Also, American defense spending may have higher returns than you think: You ought to read "The Case for Goliath" by Michael Mandelbaum.
I don't happen to agree with his premise, at least not as he puts it, but he makes an interesting and important point.
Of course, I think much of our defense spending is wasteful and pointless myself (I said I didn't quite buy Mandelbaum!); I just happen to think the same about a lot of other types of spending.
January 31, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad you're putting food on your family.
January 30, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not on them, just in them. :)
January 31, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that you exclude Iraq and Afghanistan from military spending effectively disqualifies your argument. Where else would you put those expenditures?
January 30, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I exclude them because they aren't structural; once Obama gets us the heck out of Iraq a lot of that spending disappears. It doesn't represent our spending on military preparedness or indeed anything of military value. It's spending on nation building in the Middle East.
Oddly enough, if it hadn't been us who went in in the first place, all of the liberals would be demanding we intervene to "stop the genocide" or for "humanitarian purposes" and the conservatives would be complaining that it wasn't in our "national interest".
Also, I didn't include them because my original point was about our spending other than on those items. So that was what was being (incorrectly) disputed. See above.
January 31, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of the chest-beating we have done during the Reagan decline has always been nothing more than an expression of insecurity by those in charge who are themselves insecure people.
I can be happy with less and have recently removed most "luxuries" from my daily life and find it to be freeing rather than a sacrafice. I no longer watch TV, I eat less meat and more vegetables, I read and write more, and I walk more. I find I am happier and healthier than before, and certainly less stressed.
Rather than ask if we can be happy with less, wouldn't a better question be; why did we keep electing insecure leaders until now?
January 30, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've hit on the topic for your next post:
January 30, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that is a thesis far outside my realm. Do you think I can moonlight few paragraphs while I am researching how to get a MS in Biogeochemistry and how to pay for it?
January 30, 2009 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe if you just sketch out the question a bit. It's not necessary to provide the answer. Stimulate a discussion! :)
January 30, 2009 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I can't wait until our standard of living gets down there with that of the Ivory Coast!! Boy,, is that ever going to be great!! Really something to look forward to..
January 30, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
...that it would be an improvement in yours doesn't speak to those floating in our lifeboat.
January 30, 2009 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Can Americans be happy with less"?
Sure we can! Less Bush, less Dick, less Condi,...
January 30, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
A man walks up to the white house guard and asks if he can speak to President Bush.....
January 30, 2009 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
:-{)>
January 30, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It doesn't exactly match the point of the post, but one thing your title made me think was "less of what?".
To cite a trivial example, I recently changed out all the bulbs in my house to those twisty ones that take 14W instead of 60. The effect on my bill was significant(it really floored me. If you haven't done this yet ... do yourself a favor and buy the new kind next time!).
Everyone keeps saying that Americans can't survive unless they abandon their standard of living. But that equates standard of living with wasteful consumption habits that don't even contribute to our standard of living.
To go back to my example, I am consuming a fraction of the energy that I was previously but still enjoying just as much light. How many other things that we do every day are like that?
January 30, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
My title was deliberately ambiguous. And you have indeed ferreted out another of my points.
There are so many aspects to this. :)
January 30, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent post TheraP!
I liked the examples particularly. Puts it all in a very understandable, human context. The forces of evil always have an advantage when things are considered outside of the human context. They prefer it all be kept in terms of enemies and threats potential threats. That way nobody thinks about the trade offs because it goes without saying that "threats must be addressed." Your post illustrtes nicely how the real threat is the paranoid frenzy of trying to stave off any threats by growing one's ability to threaten everyone on earth. That's insane way to view the world and it's the worldview most Americans have had instilled in them.
Thank you!
January 30, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your kind words and your further extension of the post. Sometimes I think it's very helpful to put things in a smaller, more personal context, as you say. I honestly never thought it would catch fire as it has. But especially with SF Kurt's post up, maybe we at TPM can ignite a movement!
January 30, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post Thera. Check out SFCurt's compelling blog along similar lines.
January 30, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just posted a link to his way above in the comments here. And cross-posted a link in his as well.
His is a super blog! :)
January 30, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"And some have apparently forgotten health cannot exist by corn alone."
What the hell does that mean?
January 30, 2009 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting you should use the word hell. Here's your answer:
Go to your bible. Look up the temptations of Christ. Consider the answers Jesus gave to Satan. You'll find the answer to your question - right in your bible!
And may peace be with you.
January 30, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
heheheheeeeeee
January 30, 2009 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Corn is in the bible? Corn isn't indigenous to the mideast.
January 30, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might want to look up "stiff-necked" in the bible then. Yahweh railed against the "stiff-necked."
January 30, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that some Jew term for corn?
January 30, 2009 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Be at peace. I have nothing more to say.
January 30, 2009 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your efforts are pleasing to me, my dear renaye
January 30, 2009 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought I heard a renayedneck, corn and bread.
January 30, 2009 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody wrote a book on how empires end. It's almost always by financial collapse brought on by the powers that be decide that investing in making money on money instead of investing in making money on manufacturing.
That's a pretty poor way of putting it but that's the gist.
January 30, 2009 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Didn't Kevin Phillips write a book fairly recently on that very subject and make that point?
January 30, 2009 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe that may be the guy.
January 30, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kevin Phillips wrote (among other books I've recommended here) AMERICAN THEOCRACY which ties how energy control allowed great powerful nations to form... and when that energy was replaced with something new and better, the culture declined:
Spain (based on raiding the "energy" of the natural resources of the new world)
Netherlands (wind and water)
England (Coal)
United States (Oil)
The "good" news is that there is no real energy source that is quite as good as oil... and therefore there is likely no one to replace the United States as a global power on this cultural scale, (Though now that Russia controls most of the remaining oil reserves, we will see a resurgence there. And we did. Until the price of oil dropped -- which is exactly what scuttled Russia in the 1980s.)
January 30, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a joke Al Franken postulated we didn't invade Iraq for it's oil, we invaded for it's sunshine. It's one of the sunniest places on earth sitting on sand chock full of silicon, the raw material for making solar collectors.
I guess the Netherlands made good use of their wind and water but like the Brits they made their wealth on trade goods.
January 31, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
YIKES!
February 3, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
yes, ten things in particular, it has been said, lead to the downfall of an empire.
Overstretch, or overreach of military.
Rejection of science.
Wealth disparity.
Corruption.
widespread lack of morality in all facets of business.
Sorry, can't remember the others.
January 31, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
One is when you neglect the practices that made you wealthy in the first place and instead start trading on derivatives of the wealth itself to make money. That may just be a symptom of the disease though rather than a cause.
January 31, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
A problem with all the post-partisan, bipartisan hooha is that we're really at a moment that demands good old-fashioned outrage. You don't have to be a leftie to be outraged. We ought to be exposing the war profiteers and all the other coporate robber barons. The MSM won't do it. Now's the time for all good blogs to come to the aid of their country. Shame the lot of 'em. We need a Hall of Fame of Worst Plutocrats in the World.
January 30, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hear! Hear! Your comment should be shouted from the rooftops!
January 30, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Keep writing! The pen is mightier than the sword.
January 30, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Blogs heard round the world!
January 30, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bipartisan outrage at the evils of the past?
As an Independent, I'd join that choir for a bit if it would have me.
January 30, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
At the time that these commitments began, we had a strategic problem posed by an expansionist Soviet Union with large conventional and nuclear capability. The forces in Europe, Japan and Korea constituted firebreaks against likely avenues of expansion by the Soviet Union. Otherwise, we would have eventually faced either the same problem that brought us into the Second World War, i.e., the possibility of a combined Soviet-European force capable of isolating and invading the U.S., or a nuclear exchange started to prevent that problem. In short, it made some sense.
In the present, Asia would be worse off for the Japanese feeling required to build an independent nuclear deterrent if we left. In Europe's case, they have two independent nuclear capabilities, and the Germans as a hedge against the former Soviet Union. There's a lot of room to reduce, there.
I think that some military investment is a sensible, cost-preventing element of foreign policy, but I still think nation-building is bullshit, and I hope Obama won't feel compelled to indulge in it.
January 30, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nevetheless, maybe you missed the comment above, directing you to the words of a former Republican president, Army General, warning us about sacrificing our liberty to defense:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/therap/2009/01/can-americans-be-happy-with-le.php#comment-3358163
January 30, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"In short, it made some sense."
It made sense in 1945, in 1948, maybe in 1955 since the US emerged from WWII the only real winner with its economy in tact, and the US alone could play a much needed stabilizing role. But we have all too many people who see the world as if it is still 1945 even though most of them weren't even alive in 1945.
January 30, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
bluebell of the mighty pen!
January 30, 2009 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fortunately, I don't think the current administration suffers from any such preconception.
January 31, 2009 12:16 AM | Reply | Permalink