[pianotech] Medical costs (OT!)

[William Truitt]

Great comments by Ed and David:

 

I would add that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are the first wars that
were never funded by special budgets as all other previous wars have been.
During the Bush years we got two tax cuts and two unfunded wars, and a half
trillion dollar deficit.  And that was BEFORE the economy fell off the
cliff.  Afghanistan accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had
been on a permanent war budget since the end of WWII.

 

Remember the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?
It's alive and doing very, very well.  Can you say Dick Cheney and
Hoggy-burton?  War is very good for business.  And these war profiteers give
vast sums of money to our congressmen in both parties.

 

Will Truitt

 

From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of David Andersen
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 6:12 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Medical costs (OT!)

 

Agree 100%. Great piece. Simple, practical history lesson. Our hubris allows
us to think we're different---we'll somehow win in the end. I'll bet all
those other crumbled and lost empires all over the world felt unique too.
Scoreboard, ladies and gentlemen. Scoreboard. If you actually think
Republican and Democrat matters at this stage, you are living in a
dreamworld. I still choose to practice the Golden Rule in my life, as naive
as that is on the world stage. Real freedom is internal, friends.

DA

 

On Nov 2, 2010, at 12:38 PM, Ed Foote 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

  

 

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