America, Who You Are, In Three Statistics

America, I don't think you know who you are.

Oh, sure, you kind of know but I don't think you're really looking at yourself and seeing who and what you are.

So with that in mind, America, Americans, I give you three--just three--statistics, just three facts that really show who you are, what you support and what you're about. Forsooth:

Number one.  Health care.

Once again, U.S. has most expensive, least effective health care

US Spends More on Health Care Than Other High-Income Nations But  Has Lower Life Expectancy, Worse Health

U.S. Healthcare: Most Expensive and Worst Performing

Our health care and health care system is, far and away, the most expensive health care system in the world, bar none.

For all we pay, we have lousy health and even extremely poor health outcomes.

Of the top 17 industrialized nations, we have the worst mortality rates. Translation: We die sooner than the 16 nations before us on that list.

Second, number two of our statistics, on top of all that spending and costs, we are ranked number 31, in 31st place in life expectancy, internationally. Check it out.

List of countries by life expectancy

Of the 30 nations ahead of us on this list of life expectancy, all have universal health care. Imagine that. Oh, yeah, and most are---GASP--SOCIALIST nations. Heaven forbid, right?

Third and finally, there is this statistic and fact, America. Again, this is who you are.

U.S. Military Spending Dwarfs Rest of World

US Spends More on Military Than Next Seven Countries Combined

How Military and Education Spending Compare in America

US spends more on military than next 8 nations combined

These, my fellow Americans, are your--our--priorities.

Sure, we bemoan our students and schools failing and sure, we lament our health care is outrageously high--so high we can't afford it and that it's also the number one cause of bankruptcy in the nation. And yes, we don't have enough money, we think and say, for our roads and bridges and highways and sewers and airports and infrastructure or anything else, really, but BY GOD, WE HAVE BILLIONS AND TRILLIONS FOR "DEFENSE"! Nobody has more money for bombs and jets and warships or blows things up better than us.

So there you go, America. In three quick little "nutshells", so to speak, this is who and what you are.

Apparently, you think this is all not just a good idea but that it's also somehow sustainable.

Links:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

Gross, wasteful defense spending

The 10 Most Blatantly Wasteful Defense Items

Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending

Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion 

in bureaucratic waste

The Pentagon Could Reach a Historic Level 

of Wasteful Spending

5 Insanely Wasteful Projects the Pentagon 

is Spending Your Money

Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending

Nearly half of states are facing budget shortfalls. 

Here’s why that matters.

Don't Wanna' Study War No More

This is so true and America, the world's biggest arms seller, is the biggest, worst culprit.

Peace loving people, my ass.

Quote of the Day -- From Martin Luther King, Jr.

And we still do.

World Hunger Quotes

Quot

The United States---the Actual Big Problem in the World?

I've said it here before. I'll say it again.

The United States is the world's warmonger.

We spend more on war and what we call "defense" than any other nation in the world, far and away. Here's 2009 alone.

We're in more nations, with more bases and more weapons and more bombs and tanks and planes and ships and more of everything else's than any other nation, bar none.



Look at the last big wars of the past 5 decades. What were they and who was in them? Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan is where they were and we started them. We keep saying we're saving someone from something so we go over and blow 'em up real good.

Then there's weapons manufacturers as a nation. Guess who's making more weapons, by country, than any other nation and putting those out in the world. I think you see where this is going.

(H)ere is the list of the world’s top 10 arms exporters, along with their respective shares of global exports between 2010 and 2014, from SIPRI:

1. United States: 31%
2. Russia: 27%
3. China: 5%
4. Germany: 5%
5. France: 5%
6. U.K.: 4%
7. Spain: 3%
8. Italy: 3%
9. Ukraine: 3%
10. Israel: 2%

See the entire study from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

And those two are external. Now let's consider ourselves internally.

I think we know which nation on the planet has more weapons, for civilians, than any other, don't we? Sure we do. It's the good old, USA, once again, bar none.

We, as a nation, as a people, need to both stop thinking of ourselves as a "peace-loving people" and nation, we need to stop kidding ourselves and we need, badly, to do something about it. More people are being killed on this planet, both inside and outside the US.

We need to cut down on the weapons. There are a lot better ways to "do business" on this planet than by creating and selling and profiting from weapons.

We need to get started.

We need to give peace a chance.

The world--our own and the rest of it--will be a lot better place for our having done it.

Link: Ceasefire in Yemen Faces Collapse as U.S. Continues Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia, Fueling Civil War

Local Story for National POW/MIA Recognition Day

From the New York Times today:

Today, a personal reflection from Victoria, one of your Morning Briefers:

For many years, “Eugene M. Jewell” was just a name inscribed on a metal bracelet that I, like so many others, wore in the 1970s.

Nearly five million similar bracelets were sold by a student group, starting in 1970, to raise awareness about those missing in action or held prisoner in the Vietnam War. Each had a name, a rank and the date of disappearance.

In 1971, I paid $2.50 and agreed not to remove the band until my bracelet’s “name” came home. But the metal dug into my wrist, the war ended, and the bracelet went into a box.

Today, on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, thanks to an Internet that makes us all a little less anonymous, I know that Eugene Jewell was more than an engraving.

He was 24 and a first lieutenant in the Air Force when he took off in an F-4 Phantom fighter jet for a mission over North Vietnam. His aircraft was shot down and lost on Sept. 4, 1965.

The Defense Department says 1,627 Americans who fought in the Vietnam War remain unaccounted for, including Captain Jewell (he was promoted in absentia).

When Captain Jewell was declared missing, his wife was back home in Topeka, Kan., with their 1-year-old daughter, Deborah, and pregnant with their second child.

Last year, Deborah Jewell wrote on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial website:

“It always is a surprise when I read about folks who have/are wearing a bracelet with my Dad’s name on it, and to hear about how their hearts ache for the loss and hurt our family feels.”

Victoria Shannon contributed reporting.

Links:  National POW/MIA Recognition Day in United States

Presidential Proclamation -- National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 2015 | whitehouse.gov

National POW/MIA Recognition Day - Wikipedia

NATIONAL POW/MIA RECOGNITION DAY – Third Friday

Pow Mia Day History

Further Proof and Reason Why the US Needs to Cut Its Defense Budget

Our biggest military threat?

China?

This, from the New York Times, late last evening:

China Pledges to Cut 300000 Troops From Its 

Massive Army

BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping has pledged a reduction of 300,000 troops from China's 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, amid rising personnel costs and growing technological capabilities that reduce the need for large numbers of troops.

The announcement Thursday at the start of a massive parade commemorating Japan's World War II defeat 70 years ago brings the military's headcount down to about 2 million.

Once known for its human wave tactics in conflicts such as the Korean War, the PLA is increasingly focused on high-tech weaponry and more focused missions.

This, following the now-famous blast a few weeks ago:

Death toll from Tianjin, China, 

explosions over 100

Not to be done there, followed by this, 3 days ago:

Another Chemical Plant Explosion in China

And then there's all their other environmental problems, effecting their economy, their collective health and so many other issues:

China's Environmental Crisis

So tell me again why the US spends so grossly, wildly, even obscenely and certainly immorally on our defense budget and military?

Links:  Chinas Top 6 Environmental Concerns

WWF - Environmental problems in China

China's Environmental Awakening

China Wakes Up to Its Environmental Catastrophe

Why China Can't Fix Its Environment

China's environmental problems are grim, admits ministry

China turns to drastic measures to avoid water crisis

China's Looming Water Shortage

China's Water Problems Are Even Worse Than You Think

Why We Need To Cut the Defense Budget

The fact is, our Defense Department budget is not just large but huge. It's bloated, truth be told. It's famously beyond what any other one nation spends, many times over, it's wasteful, it's actually unaccounted for and downright immoral. It ends up actually weakening us. Professor Reich, once again, educates us Americans.

America's Priorities

I saw this on Facebook yesterday and had to post.

You wouldn't think this is an actual, accurate description of the state of our spending and our priorities in America today but it is.

This is what spending more--far more--on "defense" in this nation gets you.

Forget that we Americans paid into Social Security with our own money, from our paychecks. All that was spent and is still being spent on other things, instead of back to us on Social Security, for which it was created.

Instead, we keep making and buying bombs and guns and bullets and tanks and weapons of war.

Our priorities, America's priorities, are seriously screwed up, without question.

So what are we going to do about it?

Further Proof--Long Past Time to Cut the Defense Department Budget

I have read enough to not just have the opinion but to know, it is long, long past time to cut the Defense Department's budget.

It is huge, it is wasteful, it is unaccounted for, it is actually immoral and even makes the nation weaker, not stronger and finally, it is unsustainable.

Sixty-nine percent of every tax dollar in spending goes to defense spending. Beyond that, check this out from Sunday's New York Times:

The Pentagon's Excess Space

"For the past three years, officials at the Pentagon have asked Congress for permission to take stock of how many of the military’s vast network of installations across the country have become obsolete and ought to be shrunk or shuttered. The Defense Department, by far the nation’s largest and costliest bureaucracy, estimates that it could operate far more efficiently and save billions of dollars each year by shedding at least 20 percent of its real estate.

Yet, year after year, the nearly unanimous response from lawmakers has been: Don’t even think about it. They have barred the Pentagon from carrying out a detailed assessment of its properties, because closing useless bases would mean lost jobs and revenue in home districts."

Under pressure from lawmakers, the Air Force has spread its fleet of aircraft across the country to justify keeping the lights on at bases that outlived their use years ago. A stark example is the Air Force base in Grand Forks, N.D., a once strategically important hub for bombers during the Cold War. Currently, it’s home to 11 drones.

The Army has hundreds of buildings across the country that are only nominally open for business. In 2013, a senior Army official, testifying before Congress, said she had recently been on a base with 800 buildings, where only 300 were occupied. Last summer, when thousands of unaccompanied Central American migrant children were detained entering the country, many were temporarily housed at military bases, an odd arrangement that drew attention to how much space the Pentagon had to spare.

And when it comes to cutting the spending of the Defense Department budget, there will be those who say it will weaken the nation that, somehow, we will be "soft on defense." And of course it's nonsense. Quite the opposite is true.

Ironically, even hypocritically, there will be plenty of Republicans in Congress, in both the House and Senate, who will want to maintain this spending because, of course, they want to keep the money coming back to their districts. Forget that they are supposedly the political party of slashing budgets and screaming for "small government." "Damn the torpedoes!" they seem to say. "Full spending speed ahead!" 

Well, it's ridiculous. It's absurd. It should stop. It needs to stop. We need to cut the Defense budget, the Pentagon's budget and this is an excellent place to begin.

Now if we can just get them to listen.

And act.

Our Obscene Defense Spending, America

Famous and very talented, accomplished author James Fallows writes, this week, in The Atlantic Monthly on the obscene, wasteful Defense budget and our military and it's anything but flattering:

The Tragedy of the American Military

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.

Fortunately for us, he didn't stop with just the one article, either:

The Chickenhawk Chronicles, No. 11: A Failure of Grand Strategy

What Alfred Lord Tennyson could teach us about civil-military relations. Plus, the simple lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, from a naval veteran's point of view.

It's fantastic reading and research, as ever, from Mr. Fallows and it's downright important material many more Americans need to read, be aware of and hopefully, hopefully act on----maybe by contacting our governmental representatives and telling them it must stop.

Here's hoping.

Who and What's Bankrupting America?

The corporations and wealthy are bankrupting America, for one, what with all the tax deductions they buy themselves from their---our----legislators, with campaign contributions. They get to write off untold "expenses." Even "Big Oil", one of the most profitable industries in the nation and world, and then they offshore profits, on top of it.

The other culprit bankrupting America?

Look no further than the obscene, bloated, wasteful, nearly completely unaccounted for, utterly immoral defense budget:

How we spend too much on "Defense" and what we should do about it

From Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's ice cream:



Our defense budget is huge, bloated, grossly over-funded, wasteful, unaccounted for, wildly immoral, unsustatinable and ends up weakening the nation, ultimately, in very real terms.

Let's get started.

Our Obscene, Huge, Immoral Defense Spending

Think our government spends too much? 

Sure you do.

So let's cut the spending that is the biggest, most wasteful, most irresponsible segment of all that spending. 

Fight to cut funding for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). It's absurdly bloated, it's immoral, it's obscene, it isn't even accounted for, they get so much money. They cannot and do not even account for all they get and spend.

Like

America and Americans: The World's Warmonger(s)

Facts (from the Business Insider):

15 Facts About Military Spending That Will Blow Your Mind

America spends more on its military than THE NEXT 15 COUNTRIES COMBINED

The total known land area occupied by U.S. bases and facilities is 15,654 square miles -- bigger than D.C., Massachusetts, and New Jersey combined.

By 2033 the U.S. will be paying $59 billion a year to its veterans injured in the wars

In 2007, the amount of money labeled 'wasted' or 'lost' in Iraq -- $11 billion -- could pay 220,000 teachers salaries

Defense spending is higher today than at any time since the height of World War II

America's defense spending doubled in the same period that its economy shrunk from 32 to 23 percent of global output*

The yearly cost of stationing one soldier in Iraq could feed 60 American families.

Each day in Afghanistan costs the government more than it did to build the entire Pentagon

In 2008, the Pentagon spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned in a year

The pentagon budget consumes 80% of individual income tax revenue

Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Defense Department still has more than 40 generals, admirals or civilian equivalents based in Europe

The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety

The amount the government has spent compensating radiation victims of nuclear testing ($1.5 billion) could fully educate 13,000 American kids

The U.S. has 5% of the world's population -- but almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure
__________________________________________________

The point? 

It needs changing.  We need to cut defense spending, at least by half. We'd still outspend the rest of the world--and heavily, even wildly.  Contact your member of Congress, both the House and your 2 members in the Senate and tell them we need to cut defense spending.  And as soon as possible.

"The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded"

To prove UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's statement, check out the world's spending.
(click on picture for easier viewing)

Over-armed and underfunded

As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon so rightly and simply said:

The World is Over-Armed and Peace is Underfunded

And the US, sadly, far and away, leads the world in this.

America. The beautiful.

War and Peace

If true, and I suspect it is, it's quite an indictment of humanity.

From the Washington Post: The US Defense budget, in charts

The Washington Post does their readers--and the nation, I'd propose--a terrific service in January by having an article on:

America's staggering defense budget, in charts

I'll only post a few here, the most glaring and important, to me:

The United States spent 20 percent of the federal budget on defense in 2011.

All told, the U.S. government spent about $718 billion on defense and international security assistance in 2011 — more than it spent on Medicare. That includes all of the Pentagon's underlying costs as well as the price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which came to $159 billion in 2011. It also includes arms transfers to foreign governments.

Defense spending has risen dramatically since 9/11. (no surprise)

The United States spent more on its military than the next 13 nations combined in 2011.

Ordinary Americans want to cut defense spending far more than is already on the table

What we spend on defense is obscene--morally, sure, but even regarding logic and fiscal and economic sustainability. What we spend on "defense", I contend, only weakens the nation, taking away from both what we spend on infrastructure and the people but also taking away from our own nation's coffers and economic stability.

I think it important to keep in mind what took the now-former Soviet Union down.

It was spending on defense.

On our obscene Defense Spending: Stephen Colbert

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

And a graphic on it: