Just a quick example: The total money spent on this latest war will easily be 3 trillion dollars according to Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz (https://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion-Dollar-War-Conflict/dp/0393334171/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219650985&sr=1-3). Yes, one must consider the long term health care costs over the lifetime of injured veterans, unless, of course we believe that these vets were simply naive dupes and should get what they have coming to them for not being as sharp has warhawk Dick Cheney who had the brains to get 5 different deferments because he had "other priorities".

So exactly what are we accomplishing in Iraq? What did we accomplish in Viet Nam? Let's see, $3 trillion would have put:

1. Fiber optic connections throughout the US,

2. given us high speed trains as France, Japan, China and others have,

3. The beginnings of a sound infrastructure of alternative energy.

These enterprises would have actually created jobs in this country that has undergone massive de-industrialization. Of course, we haven't even begun accounting for all the wasted capital dumped into this insane housing bubble, and since I am unaware that there was some sort of housing crisis before 2000, all of the trillions lost there is also just a huge waste. How could that money have been spent more wisely? How about all the money wasted in an irrational health care system. Ours is the most expensive in the world and yet is able to provide the least in actual health care among OECD countries. Yes, we can go on for quite a while here with respect to mismanagement on a grand scale (how many CEOs get hundreds of millions a year for losing money - but have the political connections to get their bailout money?)

The US military budget (that is revealed) is $623 Billion.....the rest of the world combined is ~$500 billion. (https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm)

Do I need to be real specific here or does the problem pop out at you. (Yes, our numbers differ a bit.....silly me, I forgot the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom, WOT, War on those Agin Us/ Bad Guys isn't included in the official budget - they're, why yes, Off-budget expenditures. And of course the bill for caring all the wounded veterans would be accounted for in......social services, weapons development in DARPA would be....R&D, etc. etc When exactly did this Mad Hatters party begin?)

We have troops stationed in over 100 countries. Why? I understand that in these Patriot Act days, sans habeus corpus, it is probably wise to praise the Dear Leader (Decider, Fuerher....whatever the proper terms is these days), but in the samzidat tradition, allow me the privilege of opining that our Decider may be only correct 97% of the time. I understand that there is a serious problem with unfunded entitlements ( as in Social Security, etc), but is the problem the level of entitlements or the fact that they are unfunded? For the last 7 decades the government has simply raided the Trust Fund and spent the money as fast (actually faster) than it came in, replacing the money with notes (IOUs). How smart was that? Mismanagement anyone? I am not posing this as an answer, rather I am just raising the question as a point of discussion.

Norway, Britain, and other countries fund there entitlement programs with natural resource money (North Sea oil, etc) not with debt. Part of the problem is that the US has the "extraordinary priviledge" of having the world's reserve currency. We can just create nominal dollars at will and shovel them down the International financial pipeline - a classic something for nothing scheme. Yes, there are real benefits in that, but in the yin-yang harmony of things, it has made us soft and careless. Easy come, easy go. As I said, I believe that you were really more on the money in "Empire of Lies, Empire of Debt" as well as other essays that delved into the corruption and mismanagement of the economy. I'm afraid, this ain't our fathers' 1950's America no more!

Moreover, I believe that you miss the mark regarding the Revolutionary and "Civil War". The both had economic causes. The North's rallying cry was "Save the Union" not "Free the Slaves". Abolitionists were regarded as extremistist (that word would be found in the New Dictionary of the American Language, like "recruiterments"and "misunderestimated"). Lincoln himself was an out and out "Back to Africa" racist. On several occasions he promised the South a permanent regime of slavery if only they would submit to his "American Plan" (Crony capitalism). Lincoln was general counsel for the Illinois Central Railroad and a very rich individual (gee, that's not what they taught me in school).

Even his Emancipation Procalmation freed no slaves. It applied only to states that were not under Union control (Sort of like proclaiming slaves free in Saudi Arabia) and even then it gave the states in rebellion 100 days to re-join the Union, whereby their institution of slavery would be guaranteed. Moreover, the Proclamation did not apply to the Border States of Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri which remained in Union control but were slave holding states. So what was its purpose? It was to scare the southern soldiers into deserting in order to protect their womenfolk. It was simply a cynical psy ops war measure.

I am NOT defending the South here or slavery, rather I am merely pointing out the true roots of the war was economic in nature and not driven by any human abstractions of peace, justice, and the American Way, or other Polyannish drivel shovelled out in our schools. John C. Calhoun put it this way:

"The North had adopted a system of revenue and disbursements in which an undue proportion of the burden of taxation has been imposed upon the South, and an undue proportion of its proceeds appropriated to the North… the South, as the great exporting portion of the Union, has in reality paid vastly more than her due proportion of the revenue."

The NY Post had this to say:

That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop.

Charles Dickens said:

Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.

And for the sake of diversity of opinion, Karl Marx said of the War:

The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.

In short, Lincoln needed the South to remain in the Union, so he could tax it and fund his program of "Internal Improvements" - one that would shovel out money to connected cronies (railroad buddies).

I am not defending anyone here. I just happen to believe that one needs to have a true understanding of history in order to understand the dynamics that will shape tomorrow's events. Racism persisted long after the Civil War, because the reasons for the War are not those you cite. With roots in Hawaii, you might be interested in how extensively the white power structure extended itself. I would urge you to familairize yourself with a historic trial that took place in the territory of Hawaii in 1931 - yes, after slavery and racism were evidently extinquished in the "Truth is Marching On" war. (See: https://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/massie/massie.html). Wish the world was as simple as you depict it, but I'm afraid the famous historian Charles Beard was correct in emphasizing the economic roots of revolutions.

In short, this is a rich country whose people work harder than most, but has simply been mismanaged by a corrupt political establishment. Allow me to praise you, however, for raising issues that do in fact need addressing and are very definitely forward looking. I truly believe that OTM is a wonderful online Salon for the thoughtful exchange of ideas!


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