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Maybe We Need A Little Gun Control
by James Glaser June 9, 2009 I'm not talking about your guns or mine, heck our founding fathers told us we needed them to protect ourselves from our government. What I am talking about is having a little gun control on our government. Remember every weapon Washington buys, is bought with tax dollars. It seems a bit strange to me that the only way we find out what Washington is doing is by reading the foreign press. Do you think our press is censored? Does Washington tell them what they can and cannot print? Or, is our domestic media just out and out owned by the corporations who call the shots in America today? A lot of questions, but not many answers. If Washington goes ahead and tries to squash the internet, those questions will have been answered. However, we still can find out some things with our access to the foreign press now. The Guardian/UK reports that the United States out spends every other country in military spending by at least a seven to one margin. Last year the world spent over one trillion dollars on weapons, with Washington spending over $600 billion of that. The next closest country to us was China, with $84.9 billion. Washington is talking about how hard it will be to get every American, health care. Why do you think that is? We have the money to kill, we just don't have the money to heal. In the Guardian article they quote figures from the Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security, published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). That Institute "estimates that there are about 8,400 operational nuclear warheads in the world." They claim that about 2,000 of them could be launched in a few minutes. They also say that the total number of nuclear weapons world wide numbers 23,300. It is interesting that they include Israel in the eight states with the most nuclear weapons. Another interesting number in the report. "Internationally displaced persons (IDPs) reaching 26 million." They go on to say, "Mass population displacement is often the result—and even the goal—of violence against civilians." This is just one story in one foreign paper, but it is a story that really isn't being told to the American people. You might think that Public Radio gives you all the news you need, but Public Radio seems to be more into selling books for the publishers who underwrite their programming, than telling us what our government is doing. How many times have you heard an "expert" on NPR, who wasn't selling their new book? American newspapers don't even cover the number of Americans wounded in combat, and the only way they will report on our troops is if something sensational comes up like the treatment or lack of treatment our troops are getting at VA hospitals. Our American media might give a few minutes or a few column inches to the 18 vets committing suicide a day, but they only do that for a day or two and then move on to important things, like how the Republican Party is in free-fall, or how drugs hurt America's professional sports. If we want to cut our deficit or get every American citizen health care, or improve our schools, the elephant in the room stopping that is our military spending. We, the United States of America spends the most money on killing, of all the countries in the world. We also are the only industrialized nation without universal health care. Is there something we should see here? We need gun control. We need to control Washington, and have at least a couple of years of peace just to see what it feels like. It must be pretty nice, as most of the world likes it. Post Script: I missed yesterdays column as I was under the weather with allergies. Florida is nice, but it seems like every time something new comes into bloom, I get a head cold. It lasts about 24 hours and them I am fine again. People tell me to eat local honey, take vitamin B and C, and that seems to work. |
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