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Military spending is still a colossal priority despite Cohen's perspective--and not even Republicans can contradict the calculations of such an expert colleague.
And now the most recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate is engaged in talks with advisors on how many more troops to send to Afghanistan. The United Kingdom has pledged five thousand more, based on certain contingencies.
And so we sacrifice our own not only at home but to various war gods overseas.
I admit that diplomacy is just not possible, ultimately. As hard as we work on it, though not half as hard as on war, and as much as we insist on maintaining a Department of State and all of our lavish embassies, the Iraq structure in the Green Zone in Baghdad the ultimate ostentation, as safe as any above-ground building ever has been, war is still the answer.
What is the question? The survival of the human race. As I wrote above, the Arctic Circle is going to turn into water next summer while the Nobel laureate and his colleagues plan new strategies that will no doubt sacrifice countless more innocent civilians.
Remember the movie The Perfect Storm, where some stout-hearted fishermen go out into the middle of the Atlantic to pull in the largest stash of swordfish ever, only to be killed on the way back by a torrential storm, the convergence of three different catastrophic weather systems into one monster?
I considered that the perfect retribution by nature for this chronic plundering. The subtitle might have been Revenge of the Swordfish. And yet fishing for food, the gourmet delight of tony restaurants, continues, though certain of the most delicious specimens are now endangered species.
So are we. Add the human race to that list--nature's retribution for the countless ways we have plundered her bounty since the days the ancient Greeks chopped down forests to make room for agriculture. The ozone layer is disappearing--the basis of our entire ecosystem.
Even if we were to divert every red cent spent on the military to rescuing our environment, I think it would be too late.
In this context, the issue of healthcare seems to be dwarfed, but one expression of humanity's diseased priorities. If we do not value the life of humanity en masse, who cares about one American dying every fifteen minutes for lack of health insurance?
I do. So do lots of others. And some form of healthcare legislation may be passed before December. Millions of people will still be excluded from government-sponsored healthcare in most versions of the legislation to be debated.
And in one presentation on C-Span last night, state and local officials were lamenting that they could not afford their end of the expenses that will be required by the prospective legislation. It's a good thing California already has a system in place, though I'm sure it's lost funding by now. Government-sponsored coverage in Massachusetts has also been reduced.
What if U.S. expenditures on war and peace were reversed? For six months at least, we'd be the most pampered citizenry in the world. I don't dare speculate on how this would affect the silk ties, but they don't care about us either.
Come what may, according to Al Gore's timetable delivered in a memorable speech last year, we have nine years left to save the world. I don't know whether he realized that the Arctic Circle was going to melt next summer.
And life goes on, as if this impending doom had not been announced in the media. I read about it in the Express, a cheap spin-off of the Washington Post distributed free of charge to Metro riders and the general public in DC.
People assimilate what they want to. I suggest that a task force be formed, if it hasn't been already, to teach the public how to survive in a more aquatic environment. Lots of planning is necessary.
