I'm still digesting the President's speech last night. Mostly, he did a good job being serious, focused and being honest about the problems we face.
I found one part of what he said particularly interesting... "We will never again hide the price tag of war."
It brought to mind the image of shopping for wars. Strolling down the aisles with your cart, looking at what you can afford. Taking over Canada would be a Bergdorfs item- way too expensive. And really, we'd have to allow all that marriage equality and import all those good social programs like universal health care.
Iran, not enough room on the credit card for that one.
Afghanistan seems to be attractively priced. Like shopping at Costco, we can get an enormous amount of grief and death at a low price.
Personally? I think we can't afford any of it. Not on any level.
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6 Comments
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I agree, and that's a great way of putting it.
Although discussing the price of war before going into it would be a marked improvement over the discussion we had before Iraq, which, if I remember correctly, went something like this:
Yeah, fuck Iraq! They did 9/11! Bin Laden lives there! Aw, Saddam sucks! If we don't kill them, they're going to kill us! Yeah. Yeah! YEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!!!! USA! USA! USA! USA!....
And then we had a collective, 300-million person chest thump and went off to the 2 week to 6 month precision strike/democracy creation that paid for itself with oil revenues after we were greeted as liberators.
I don't think I'm forgetting any details, no?
Alex Blaze | February 25, 2009 6:25 PM
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Forgetting? What do you know, you live in France. It's now every paatreeahtic Murican's duty to diss duh commie lubben French and to increase our cholesterol by chowing down on freedom fries! ;)
null | February 25, 2009 8:45 PM
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I'm afraid Obama has painted himself in a corner with all his tough talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan. This has potential to end very badly.
Vivian | February 26, 2009 12:09 AM
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Agreed. I worry about that too. Pakistan has the bomb and isn't exactly what I'd call a stable country to begin with. It's no Afghanistan where the #1 weapon is a rock.
Bil Browning | February 26, 2009 11:49 AM
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I agree, very well put.
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And it is awful. Obama is going to ramp up the murder of civilians in Afghanistan (the Afghan Surge with 17,000 new troops began last week and the military brass want 60,000 units of cannon fodder to finish the job). He risks war with Pakistan because of illegal air attacks that always leave behind heaps of dead civilians.
Pakistan air strikes - Obama Expands Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/washington/21policy.html?_r=2&th&emc=th
Bill Perdue | February 26, 2009 5:54 AM
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For those who don't like the idea of buying bullets to kill other people's children, consider David Gross's site "The Picket Line: How I live up to my values by resisting federal taxes". Legal and civil disobedience protests are discussed. If we were all truly mindful of every dollar we spend, including tax dollars, we'd seriously change our spending habits and tax compliance. Of course I don't think ANY Q should continue paying taxes to a government that shits on our family and children, regardless of a massive tax revolt of not. We deserve better.
http://sniggle.net/Experiment/
John Bisceglia | February 26, 2009 1:52 PM
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