Defense Budget vs Energy Budget

Excellent question, but it is very much a political issue so probably belongs in Fred's Boxing Ring - er - House of Politics.

But wherever this thread winds up the issue is a vital one and worthy of discussion. The Pentagon portion of US GDP is a rank obscenity by any measure and comparing it to ANY and ALL other expenditures of national resources is something desperately needed in all forms of media - but with mainstream media now so tightly locked up by a handful of corporations I think the public will remain blissfully uninformed until some sort of media paradigm shift occurs.

Then again, this very inquiry in an Internet thread might be the edge of that paradigm wedge, so to speak - let's see where it goes.

 

When are we going to hear from Obama or McSame that an Energy Policy (based on today’s reality) is our #1 National Security & Economic Security Issue?

We can not stake our nation’s future on the consumption of fossil fuels that we buy from countries that finance terrorism. We have 5% of the world population but use 30% of the world’s fossil fuels. Our over consumption of fossil fuel (and cheap plastic shit from China/Walmart) is a National Security issue. Rather than 2 trillion dollars for a war in Iraq, we should invest in a “new energy infrastructure†and a “new American auto industry†based on high FE Hybrids, PHEV and EV.

The USA should be an innovator and exporter of green technology, not a importer of fossil fuel from the Middle East. We should be creating green jobs that can not be outsourced to India. The current political leadership (or lack of) wants to drill our way out of this crisis rather than invest in new thinking. Our Arctic and Coastal Petroleum Reserves are money in the bank for future generations, not something to use up so we can drive our SUV’s to the grocery.

We need political leadership to solve a problem that is the result of 30+ years of no political leadership.

 

The climate of fear that attempts to justify the military spending, aside from being very profitable, short-circuits our long-term thinking. Politicians in general have enough trouble already seeing beyond the next election.

 

It will take public pressure and a reality check by both parties. Right now you have the Republican party seeing defense spending as priority number one, when in reality, that spending is way out of line. We are spending money on equipment and planning, that has no basis of reality as to what kind of war or battle the next one will be. Its like spending on anything gone wild.

Reality requires a look at what we are spending money on, and what are the priorities of the country, a real, hard, and practical look. The current situation is spending trillions, to make sure we pay the highest price for oil, a commodity that should be stable for our economy, and the worlds economy to work, so it contrary to logic.

 

We are at a good tipping point now, $4/gallon, 4,000+ dead in Iraq, the economy in freefall and a good part of the rest of the world hates us.

A few people care about "global warming" and "saving the planet", but a lot of people care when it costs $100 for a tank of gas and their job just
got outsourced to India. Now is the time to make the connection between Energy Policy and National Security/Economic Security.

We will only be secure when we are not importing jobs & cash and importing obsolete fossil fuels from the Middle East and cheap plastic sh*t from China.

 

Sorry, hit send before proof reading. Should have been:

We will only be secure when we are not exporting jobs & cash and importing obsolete fossil fuels from the Middle East and cheap plastic sh*t from China.

 

It might be, considering the recent Republican block of the environmental bill and Bush's consistent veto of more green and less khaki.

 

I know that the Dept. of Defense and the Dept. of Homeland Security are
separate entities. But in outlook at least, they don't seem to be much different.

"Homeland Security," what is that? It's double-talk, plain and simple, for
anti-terrorism. Why not call it that out front; The Dept of Anti-Terrorism.
We're talking about looking outward for enemies, regrettably, ones that
we may have created.

But what about looking inward at our Homeland's fundamental security?
It is damn-near non-existant. And once again, and with even deeper regret,
it seems to me that the problems are self inflicted.

How can our Homeland's present and future be secure when, amongst the
list of national outrages:
* we've paid Into Social Security for 50 years, and there Is no guarantee
that we'll get your promised payout, even if we work past 65?
* a debacle like the recent mortgage lending bubble bursts and its
repercussions reach virtually every person in the country?
* speculation is allowed to push gas prices to where they hazard the
economic health of the country?
* we have virtually no national public transportation system or policy?
* the average "graduate" of most any metropolitan public high school is
functionally illiterate and ill-equipped to compete in the "global" job market?
* when our health care system is judged not by health, but by profits generated?
* the land, and the water, and even the air is being poisoned?
* gross unconscionable profiteering under its many pseudonyms is the
measure of success, as opposed to immorality and disgrace?

Who is to blame? Not the Dept. of Homeland Security. They just happen to
have a meaningless name intended to divert our attention from our real
problems. (Am I alone in hearing echos of the twisted, new-speak logic
of the Nazi propaganda machine in the phrase "Homeland Security" as it is
now used by our government?")

Look in a mirror; all of us, each of us, in some way great or small, are to
blame.

I am by nature an optimist -- granted, with undertones of cynicism and
suspicion. Yet I don't understand how we will find our way out of the
strangling, interlocking, ever tightening multiple downward spirals that now
coil around us and will be our children's legacy and our grandchildren's burden.

If fixes are achievable, all of us, and each one of us, must do the right things,
great and small, to make our homeland truly secure.

I sometimes wonder, when our great-grandchildren curse these times and us that
lived in them, will it be in pidgin-English, or Brazilian, or Chinese?