My son, Phil, sent me this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon the other day.
The kid has a point; especially when - against the backdrop of the nation-wide budget and deficit haggling - you read Chris Hellman's TomDispatch.com article ( http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175361/ ) projecting U.S. national security spending for this coming year. Hellman has been tracking military allocations for decades, as a Congressional aide and as a military analyst. (He is currently Communications Liaison for the National Priorities Project.) When he systematically lays out the real defense amount for 2011, revealing that it is in the 1.2 trillion dollar range, you can trust his figures.
1.2 trillion dollars is over one third of the total federal budget, and breaks down to roughly $3,800 for every man, woman and child in the United States. For my family of five, that means $19,000 in tax dollars.
Marshall McLuhan said something to the effect that we go hurtling into the future, while looking through a rearview mirror. I would add that while doing so, we in the U.S. keep spending like addicts on military budgets no longer (and perhaps never) rational.
We have to back away from this, my friends. We all have to begin insisting that our $3,800 be invested more wisely.
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