June 28, 2008

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

MISSING CARLIN

In the past few years I've seen several people I grew up with pass away. I think of people like Johnny Carson, Buck Owens, Don Knotts, Harvey Korman, Norman Mailer, and now George Carlin. I didn't know the full extent of Carlin's ideas until now, unfortunately, but it makes me admire him even more. This article by Joyce Marcel is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Carlin, bless him, was dangerous. Yes, it was Lenny Bruce who set him free, and yes, at the same time Richard Pryor was doing the same thing in a different area. But these three giants told giant truths to an America that didn't really want to hear them.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it," he said.

Carlin was fearless about religion.

On God: "Something is wrong. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty. crime, torture, corruption and the ice capades. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. This is not what you expect to find on the resume of a Supreme Being. It's what you expect from an office temp with a bad attitude."

BETTER USES FOR MILITARY EXPENDITURES

The fall of the Soviet Union should have ushered in a new era. We went from decades of the Cold War to suddenly being the only super power left on the planet. We heard talk then of a "peace dividend." Instead, military spending has only continued to increase. The terrorist attacks on 9/11gave the military-industrial complex another excuse to ramp up military expenditures, even though the terrorists used the most low tech weapons imaginable. The end of the petroleum age gives us another opportunity to reevaluate defense spending. True defense spending takes into account the health and wellbeing of our citizens. It takes into account the life of our planet. What we wastefully spend on weapons, military bases, and war could be redirected to developing new energy technologies, to education, to housing, and to health care. This article by David Korten is at www.alternet.org:

The United States is well positioned to take the lead among nations in renouncing war as an instrument of national policy and dismantling the means of conducting war. We account for roughly half of world military expenditures and our military expenditures account for more than half of the U.S. federal discretionary budget to the neglect of major education, health, infrastructure, and environmental needs.

Yet the only military threat to our domestic security is from a handful of terrorists armed with box cutters and a willingness to die for their cause. We face a greater danger from our own children brandishing guns in our schools than from any opposing army. If a band of terrorists were to attack us with an atomic weapon, it would likely be delivered in a suitcase or packing crate. Such threats share in common the simple fact that even the mightiest military force in the world offers no protection. The solutions depend more on strengthening our families and communities, than on increasing military budgets.