This diary is dedicated to Rahm Emanuel; as nyceve said "we don't get mad, we don't bend over, we get even."
Today is V-day in Rhode Island. Of course, one cannot celebrate this without thinking of how we got to Victory in Japan, and then there is Robert Openheimer's famous quote from the Bhagavad-Gita "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" spoken after the fateful Trinity nuclear test explosion detonated early in the morning of July 16, 1945. On the following August 6, 140,000 people were killed in the bombing of Hiroshima.
Why do I mention this? Call it a physicist's professional deformation (not contagious, unfortunately!): our Original Sin and having been trained to think about problems in terms of the order of magnitude of the relevant quantities: 100,000 fatalities, to keep the numbers simple.
Now Blue Dogs and health care: Tommybones recently wrote a diary with some interesting statistical information buried inside. The full study from which this came can be found here. If from the table of this study with captionMortality Amenable to Health Care, 1997-98, you take the difference of the French --always those French!-- and the US mortalities, and work out what this means in absolute numbers for the US, you find that the US health care system costs the lives of 112,500 people every year. As far as I can tell, the only reason these kinds of facts get no coverage in the corporate media is that there may not be a single Trigg among those fatalities. However, that may be, there you have it: every year that the current US health care system is continued, should be regarded as an event comparable to the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Happy V-day!
Well, this may be an "outlandish" claim, but, as far as I can tell, it is supported by facts, a test that most-reported claims fail, as we all know. An "outlandish" claim? Maybe, but I see no way to avoid this conclusion; if you do please drop me a note.
Talking orders of magnitude, here is another one. Every year we spend a trillion on "defense" to keep the nation safe. For instance, in 2005, 4.1% of US GPD went to military expenditures, which is about twice the fraction spent by the more civilized world. The only safety I see here is the one enjoyed by merchants of death who own the US Congress. Those are harsh words, but, again, I see no way to avoid this conclusion; and again, if you do please drop me a note.
Here is an interesting quote:
The Current Fiscal Disaster (by Chalmers Johnson)
It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense's planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations' military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The United States has become the largest single salesman of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out of account President Bush's two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since World War II.
I know, that stuff goes back to the Bush Dark Ages, but that is where we are still are: Obama's first military budget continues the old Bush Dark Age tradition. In fact, with an Orwellian twist its spending cuts managed to accomplish a 4% increase of the budget.
Fiscal conservatives, Blue Dogs in particular, are honorable people and responsible representative of us, the People. They are concerned about spending one trillion dollars on health care over ten years, as indeed they should be. That is a staggering amount, but on a yearly basis it is no more than 10% of the "defense" trillion. But there is staggering and staggeringer, and what, if I may ask, is conservative about people whose priorities sacrifice 100,000 of us per year to perpetute Cold War madness?
Explain to me why those who promote a policy that causes 100,000 random deaths -- well random? they are not going to include member of Congress, we know that-- are less guilty than those who go out and target that number of specific individuals for elimination? Is not knowing the name of your victims a convincing excuse in the ethical system of anyone other than the Scalias c.s. of this world?
In closing, here is another toast to Rahm Emanuel: US Representative Jim Langevin, you who serve on House Armed Services Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and on the Committee on the Budget, how come you are so quiet about health care? How come you have not come out in support of a single-payer health care system or at least a strong public option? Do you not agree that you too, esteemed representative Langevin, bear responsibility for the wiping out of a city of 100,000 in the the USA year after year? Yes, you are an abortion foe and the unborn is safe in your hands, but thou too, Representative Langevin, art become death, the destroyer of worlds!