$700 Billion

Over the weekend we visited a piece of the Smithsonian Institutes where we saw an exhibit about counting large numbers. To count to one billion at the rate of one count per second according to the exhibit would take about 30 years. At that same rate counting to 700 billion takes about 21,000 years. That lends some perspective to large numbers beyond adequate human comprehension. And that is the amount just appropriated to the bailout of Wall Street.

As an interesting coincidence the Pentagon budget released the same week includes in round numbers a $700 billion total. This is without Homeland Security or intelligence expenses. We are now facing the spending of massive amounts for war and for Wall Street while our national infrastructure continues to crumble. What is wrong with this picture? Why cannot our nation get its priorities in order to work for the people, ALL the people, instead of enriching a small group.

James Carroll has a fine opinion piece in today's Boston Globe about this ongoing morass.

Because America has put military invention at the heart of its enterprise, the exporting of weapons to countries that do not need them and cannot afford them has become a main mode of this nation's being in the world. (The Arms Control Association reports that in 2007 the Pentagon sent $40 billion worth of arms to two dozen nations; that is double the 2007 appropriation for US foreign aid.) Unneeded weapons spark unnecessary wars.

Is war our priority as a nation? Or not?

I submit we are on the wrong track as a nation today. We must change course and aim for peaceful solutions around the globe or we endanger the future of all humankind.

Peace.