[Vision2020] (Fwd) [Fwd: why do we let this greed continue?]

[Melynda Huskey]

I'm definitely in the "loathe" category when it comes to Mr. Limbaugh--but 
the point he makes is an important one--at least till he gets to the tired 
old rhetoric about "entitlement politics."  Leaving that inflammatory and 
unnecessary remark aside, the question of how we compensate the men and 
women in the armed forces is particularly important.

When we consider that soldiers are overwhelmingly recruited from the lowest 
income brackets in our nation, and that they are disproportionately people 
of color (among enlisted ranks), our treatment of military personnel becomes 
even more disgraceful.   These are vulnerable people whose lack of other 
opportunities for education and employment funnel them into the military, 
where we exploit them without shame.

We sent these young people to fight and die in Iraq (and, it appears, will 
soon send them to Iran) on fabricated evidence, with inadequate equipment, 
and with a delusional plan for victory.  When they die there, we turn our 
backs on their families.

As a Quaker, of course I oppose all military action; as a citizen of the 
United States I oppose the exploitation of soldiers to further a cynical and 
elitist political agenda.  Is this what we have come to as a 
nation--torturers, liars, exploiters of our own population to enrich and 
secure the positions of a few powerful men?

Some analysts recently have drawn parallels between the U.S. and Nazi 
Gernamy in 1935 or '36.  As a student of the classics, I see a closer 
parallel in Imperial Rome--we have become a bloated imperial power, sending 
occupying forces wherever we deem the financial interests of the small group 
of men who own our nation require them.  Like Rome, we are overextended, 
overconfident, and hugely vulnerable to the guerilla forces which resist us. 
  Our flight-suit clad Nero, drunk on power and privilege, imagines himself 
invulnerable.  Unlike Caesar, who retained a slave at his side to whisper to 
him, "You too are mortal," Bush has driven from him every dissenting voice:  
as Colin Powell fades away, he is replaced with Condoleeza Rice, who 
testified this morning that it is her duty as Secretary of State to maintain 
complete solidarity with the President in all things, so that no hint of 
differing opinions will ever emerge.

We are running headlong toward an age much darker than that which followed 
the collapse of Rome.  As we turn our backs on our own nation--leaving basic 
human needs such as food, education, health care unmet in the midst of 
outrageous plenty--we generate the armies of revolution, who have nothing to 
lose, indeed, but their chains.  We can't build the prisons fast enough to 
contain the disenfranchised, bitter, and reckless multitudes we're creating. 
  The gap between the richest and the poorest is growing by leaps and 
bounds.

We are the richest nation in the world, and the most powerful.  We could 
lead the world in literacy, in care for infants and children, in providing 
health care, in justice and economic opportunity, in education for all.  Why 
don't we?

Melynda Huskey