How military spending bankrupts America

Mulcahey, nice find. Chalmers Johnson's message is so powerfully disturbing. It amazes me how many people just shrug off his dire warnings. Have you seen his interview from "Speaking Freely: Volume 4"? I've been showing it to some of my friends who aren't likely to tackle his 3 book "Blowback" series. I think he really gets the message across in the video. Anyway, here's a clip that I uploaded recently.

http://current.com/items/88918521_nemesis_the_last_days_of_the_american_republic

Is it still a mystery why our schools are failing. Public services are almost none existent. All that money, taxes. The people have no say in how that money gets spent. How is this happening.

WOW,
I mean I really doubt the accuracy of the chart, it would be awfully hard to determine exactly how much money countries like china are really putting into the military seeing as no country like that really wants to reveal information of that nature so easily...

I digress though, I wish we were spending more of that in education and enviroment, you would think a smart leader would determine putting more money in education would also help the military and make us a better prepared nation as a whole.

Alas we do not have a smart leader.

Yeah, RudyRudell, I'm with you on how forthright certain countries might be about such information. I found a nice website that goes in depth on our country's spending though. You can actually find your own personal contributions to the war, social programs, debt etc.

http://current.com/items/88921133_must_see_national_priorities_project_interactive_website_shows_you_how_your_taxes_are_spent

rudyrudell, this has been going on for 6 decades and has spanned more than just bush. its the way our country works. we were born of war and have kept ourselves as the top superpower by our military prowess.

we should be working on defense. it creates jobs. we should be working on reforming our judicial system. our education system. healthcare and numerous other things. yes, we should. but it doesn't mean we should cut out the one thing that has kept us as #1 since we took over this little piece of land

And don't look to the current candidates to decrease it. They talk about increasing it. Good find.

Education, universal health care, and building the rest of our "social infrastructure"--who needs that stuff when the terrorists are out there?

As a percentage of GDP, the US isn't as high.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html

Granted, its a little old. But you can look at any graph of our military spending as a percentage of our GDP, and its been pretty stable since the 1970s, where it dropped off tremendously.

And as much as I hate the war in Iraq, I wouldn't recommend lowering military spending while it is still going on.

You can't argue with the facts, and that is we spend WAY more than any other country on the planet on our military. But when taken into relative terms of how large our economy is, the spending becomes more normalized.

Hmmmm, looking closely I see the cure for cancer, the answer to global warming, universal health care, oh look over there! Higher education. I couldn't care what other countries are spending, everyone should just stop. We have better issues to resolve, not more deaths to initiate. I personally know nothing about this war, but I'm getting the idea its about oil. Something we shouldn't even be investing in anymore.

This should all go straight to feeding people, and revamping rundown schools not rich schools.

The cost in lives will haunt us for generations. American and Iraqi.

see nobel prize winning econimist's book The Three Trillion Dollar War.

http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/

with things like health care, education, and unemployment knocking at the door, how long do you think we can keep this sort of spending up?

A good educational system would just encourage differiantiated opinions and freedom, things America has always tried to impede via religion.

We should have listened to Ike.

1776, 232 years, of which I think America has had about ( haven't looked it up yet , just adding up in my head ) 40 years of actual peace, ( no military conflict at all ) we could reduce our military power like (bill clinton) we did in the 80's and then when all those wonderful America loving countries around the world see how nice we are about dismantling part of our military it'll make them feel all warm and cozy and we can all be friends. PEACE, LOVE, DOVE MAN. I would love to see my tax dollars og towards a better education for my kid's and better medical for my senior citizen mother. We have been painted into a corner by generations past and it's going to take a brighter bulb than mine to make the perfect moves on the board to make this a better world. Wait I just came up with an idea , we xcall Russia (since they have trobl;e holding onto the NUKES they have) and china(BOOO) than we put a Nuke in the hands of every country in the world and see what happens. Nah , never mind!

How military spending bankrupts America

We should make Canada and all of the other countries we protect start paying their fair share. THis is ridiculous. We the American people have to pay for the defense of so many other countries.

This is all part of the massive redistribution of worldwide wealth to the top 1 1/2 percent.

Who do you think profits in war and rebuilding after the destruction?

War and weapons manufacturing is big business with no morals.

The People worldwide want Peace Now.

The 'greatest country in the world' can't educate it's youth, can't provide healthcare for it's people, and yet we spend such an incredible amount of money on our military. Because making guns seems to be the only thing we're good at, maybe the leaders of our 'great nation' have little incentive to broker peace in this world.

U.S. falls in education rank compared to other countries
http://kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu/upload/fullnews.php?id=52

World Healthcare Rankings
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

WHY WE FIGHT Eugene Zarecki...link and wait to load. One introduction by President Dwight David Eisenhower tells it all.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

The rest is rehashing the basis for it all. There was a post here on Current 8 months ago with one small reference to this movie. It got three responses. Private Ibber

"How is this happening?"... Try, we're letting this happen!

And the only things we "protect" other countries from, is the shit we create and the situations we make happen with our failed, corrupt, and corporately structured policies.

I for one don't feel sorry for any of us. We let it happen, and we will continue to let it happen, because we like HDTV's, Ipods, McDonald's, prescription drugs, "patriotism", being complacent, and all the bullshit we get fed, from propaganda to fucking "Smutty Cyrus".

We're zombies, we don't need to look for the next epidemic, we're living it.

It takes big money to police the world.

Ah yes...we need to stop paying taxes and supporting this crap.

Time to throw the pigs on the street!

http://impeachment.kucinich.us/petition/