*Add a public option to the health care reform legislation that could have been legislated through the reconciliation process, but wasn't.
Of course, many of the usual naysayers, to whom change is anathema, will say that the changes I have outlined are unrealistic, impossible to achieve, and far too ambitious. To them I say this: that is the attitude that has, over past decades, brought on the problems and the crises that America faces today; shallow, obsolete thinking has no place in solving our critical problems.
Just imagine what America would be like if we had not spent the past nine years fighting senseless wars that have cost our nation over $1 trillion. We would not be experiencing the monumental problems that currently plague us and we would be headed in a completely different direction. Even at this dire point in time, there is nothing better than we can possibly due for our future generations than de-emphasizing war and using creativity and innovation to rebuild the foundations of America.
Yes we can - bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. All we need do is abandon the faulted, misguided policy and strategy that says that we need to use military force to maintain our expanding empire. We can make a clean and orderly withdrawal from those nations; it's time that we returned Iraq and Afghanistan to their people; and yes, I believe that we need to give them economic aid to repair the damage that we have inflicted. Better to use some of those billions for reconstruction as we did in Europe after World War II than continuing to use them for bullets and bombs.
Yes we can - cut the Pentagon budget in half and also reduce the number of America's worldwide military installations by 50% and we will not adversely affect the safety of the American people. The $1 trillion that the U.S. appropriates annually for the Pentagon is so large that it completely dwarfs the total military expenditures of all the combined industrialized nations of the world. We could cut it in half and America would be safe. That is, if we can find competent leaders who could properly restructure our military.
If we take these constructive actions, the Military-Industrial Complex and its many Pentagon-embedded defense contractors would lose many of their lucrative multi-billion dollar contracts and would have to convert many of their production facilities back to peaceful endeavors; that would fit perfectly with new government programs designed to develop new forms of energy, restore our manufacturing base, repair our crumbling infrastructure, overhaul our transportation system, substantially improve our education system and help our states to avoid bankruptcy.
If we withdraw our troops from foreign occupations and reduce our military empire across the globe, we could return to a time when diplomacy and negotiations were routinely used to settle differences with other nations. While that seems to be a lost art in the America of today, using mutual dialogue and cooperation rather than military confrontations and pre-emptive strikes, it could save a great deal of bloodshed and a lot of money. Of course we can - return to a more civilized approach to resolving problem situations with other nations.
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