Wednesday, January 02, 2013

One more quick thought about the "fiscal cliff" deal ...

When all this stuff comes back to the top in a month or so, let's remember there's another source of ready cash that doesn't involve hurting anyone except a few military profiteers:
US military budget.jpg
Those wasted billions of dollars could be turned to useful work if we'd make the decision to go there. The (numerically small) work forces involved in military contracting could do something useful such as engineering for climate change mitigation, medical technology, and alternative energy.

The sense that there are no more socially useful possibilities than cutting the safety net for young and old and giving more money to Wall Street to gamble with is entirely false. We believe lies when we allow ourselves to feel trapped in these choices. This is a rich country with a weak democracy and stupid imperial pretensions; it can be made better if we chose to struggle to make it better.

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