The war is making us poor Act

I'm delighted to share the letter that Representative Alan Grayson just sent to me. The basic idea is that the obsession of U.S. politicians to fight needless wars is making us poor as a nation (in addition to the immorality of what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan). After reviewing the letter, I went to Grayson's website dedicated to cutting the military budget, I became about the 11,000th person to sign his petition, and I'm reprinting Grayson's letter (below). Finally, we see someone who can speak about the military budget with some sanity. I agree with Alan Grayson that we need to stop our absolutely senseless "wars" and, instead, use our money here at home to stabilize our country's noticeable downward economic and social slide. Before you read Grayson's letter, please review (and choke on) two posts about the U.S. military budget numbers here and here.

Dear Erich,

Next week, there is going to be a "debate" in Congress on yet another war funding bill. The bill is supposed to pass without debate, so no one will notice.

What George Orwell wrote about in "1984" has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the "military-industrial complex" has come true. War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.

But we're going to change this. Today, we're introducing a bill called 'The War Is Making You Poor Act'. The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars. We're working to get co-sponsors in Congress, but, we need citizen co-sponsors as well. Become a citizen cosponsor today at TheWarIsMakingYouPoor.com. Act Now.

Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income. Beyond that, leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.

And that's what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt. Does that sound good to you? Then please sign our petition in support of this bill, and help us build a movement to end our permanent state of war.

The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war.

We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don't even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using 'emergency supplemental'. A nine-year 'emergency'.

Let's show Congress the cost of these wars is too much for us. Tell Congress that you like 'The War Is Making You Poor Act'. No, tell Congress you love it. All we are saying is "give peace a chance." We will end these wars.

Together.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

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The vast power of political money

If large concentrated chunks private money were not controlling our Congress, we'd have meaningful financial reform, but the critical issues are not even getting a vote. And I'm officially out of patience with President Obama. When is he going to step up and take ownership of the the problem with Wall Street's reckless and corrupt ways? His repeated silence at critical moments of this debate speaks loudly that Obama represents Wall Street, not Main Street and not most of the people who got so excited about electing him. He knows where the bully pulpit is, and he has chosen to now use it. You can easily see why so many citizens have given up on being politically active and given the foxes free access to the hen house.

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What’s In A Label?

Conservative. Liberal. We act as if we know what these labels mean. Conservatives are traditionalists, fiscally opposed to anything that smacks of gambling, private, often religious, and pedantic on what they consider “appropriate” in either government or personal conduct. Liberals, on the other hand, are often taken for progressive, willing to spend social capital to repair perceived problems, tolerant, agnostic if not atheist, and overly-concerned with a definition of justice that ought to be all-encompassing rather than what they perceive as sinecure for the privileged. Well. Over on Facebook I posted a brief quote (my own) to boil down the actual underlying distinctions. Conservatives are those who don’t like what other people are doing, Liberals are those who don’t like what other people are doing to other people. It was meant to be taken as humorous. But I’m not being entirely flip here. When you look at it, and try to define the common factor in much that passes for conservative posteuring—of any country, any background, anywhere—it always comes down to one group trying to stop another group from Doing Things We Don’t Approve. I heard a news report this morning (on NPR—I unabashedly don’t pay attention to any other news source, I find them all utterly biased) from Pakistan about the university scene there, and one bit caught my attention—at a campus in Punjabi, conservative students who find men and women sitting too close together interfere and move them apart. At a game of Truth or Dare, conservative students pulled participants out and beat them. How does this apply here? Well, here’s a clip from P.Z. Meyers’ Pharyngula to illustrate: Rising Sun School in Maryland has the standard default take-it-for-granted attitude that Christianity is just fine — there’s the usual well-funded and usually teacher-promoted evangelical groups, like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — and when one student tried to form a club for non-religious students…well, you can guess what happened.

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Is the “liberal media” anti-religious?

Is the "liberal media" anti-religious? Bill Maher, who answers the question in the negative, engages in a spirited discussion with newly re-elected Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Daily Beast columnist John Avlon, and author S.E. Cupp. Topics include attempts to discern whether Barack Obama is religious (starting at about 16:00).

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