Here's a couple things to look at: http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php#outlays-graph http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/2008_defense.htm Military spending has for 50 years been between 50% and 80% of our country's total yearly discretionary spending. And that doesn't include the classified or "black" part of the defense budget, which most experts believe is at least half again the size of the published total. We're a war empire. That's the truth. The vast majority of that cash goes into weapons systems and support. It's by far our country's largest manufacturing sector. Do some research, kids. The internet is amazing. DA On Nov 2, 2010, at 3:16 PM, John Formsma wrote: > Ed, > > I agree that our military spending is way out of control. And that it is out of control because of our war-mongering. (I even think we should be bringing all our troops home, and closing our foreign military bases.) > > However, I'm not sure that military spending is larger than social services. Any data you can cite? > > -- > JF > > On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Ed Foote <a440a at aol.com> wrote: > Greetings, > > In this whole discussion, I find it interesting that there is virtually no mention of the big leak, the hole where the promise of tomorrow is being poured. It is not Social Security, it is not medical expense. It is not the housing crisis. It is the military budget. We have a military budget that is larger than the rest of the world combined, and the Pentagon is screaming for more. We have dumped a trillion dollars into the idiotic "wars" ,(which we, as a nation, endorsed), and there are at least another trillion in expenses that will come due in the next generation taking care of the damage. That is where the vitality of this country has gone. > With the money we have spent, we could easily have bought the intelligence we needed to hunt down every Al-Quida member on the planet and kill them, quietly. That, however, would not have been dramatic enough to assuage the gods of war we have in Washington, nor the public's demand for blood revenge. So we pay, and our children will pay, and theirs afterward. Our fear of appearing weak has led us directly into the trap that a micro-minority of radical zealots laid for us, and like fighting a hydra, every time we kill one, two more appear. > Take a look at the history of the last 500 years and you will see one nation after another collapse under the weight of military spending, not entitlements. We are repeating this, and we finally have created an enemy with no homeland, no definition, and no way to combat. We learned nothing from 'Nam, and we learned nothing from Russia's attempt in Afghanistan. So we pay. This is going to be a hard lesson for our progeny, and I don't see those that caused it even considering apologizing for it. > There are only two motivating factors that humans obey: love and fear. We have made the huge mistake of the latter, and will have to back up before we can move forward. > Regards, > > Ed Foote RPT > http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101102/58f4e2d6/attachment.htm>
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