The Trump Train

    One has to wonder, after the recent election results are in, if the passengers on the Trump Train are growing weary of having their train follow a garbage truck.  It seems that lying is not winning elections any more … at least not obvious lying.  Are the train passengers getting off?  Yes but, I suppose some will always remain in waiting.  Hell, J. Edgar Hoover’s name still appears in large letters on our FBI national headquarters.  When our country remembers Donald Trump with the same lack of affection as it remembers Dick Nixon or J Edgar Hoover with, I suppose we will be cured.  Or perhaps the Republican Party would rally around Nixon today.  Hard to say.  However, it was nice to see that the election deniers of the 2020 election had so little traction.  The Democrats won the midterms by not losing.  Congratulations.

  Now let’s take a step back.  Your legislative representatives, in the House and the Senate, have come together in a bipartisan, large majority vote, 80 some percent, to usher in a proposed annual military budget, 30 to 40 billion dollars larger than the 2022 budget, which was already larger than the budgets of the next 10 nation’s budgets COMBINED (check this for yourself).  The most recent annual military budget figures, for the world, I was able to research were from 2019.  The US expenditure was $732 Billion.  The next 5 nations (China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia & France) totaled $574.3 Billion.  So if the US spent only what the next 5 nations combined spent, we would have saved $157.7 Billion in one year alone.  Add to this the 30-40 billion dollar annual increase that our legislators add on and you are looking at a savings of a couple of hundred billion dollars annually.  A billion is a thousand million and a million is a thousand thousands.  Two hundred billion dollars is a lot of money.  Could we defend America spending only what the next 5 nations of the world combined spend, rather than the next 10 nations?

    My suggestion for using the 200 billion each year would be to buy back the rain forest and turn it back into a forest & jungle.  This would be done by a world wide consortium or foundation.  The countries the forest is in would be responsible for its maintenance and would be paid for the oxygen produced by the consortium.  Maintenance should not be too difficult since that rain forest is the natural state of that section of the Earth.  We can cure climate change.  All it requires is considering ourselves Patriots of The Planet, not American Patriots.  If we put the planet first it will be the best action we can take, not just for ourselves, but for all living things.  Or, would you rather continue to put our military first and see where that leads?

  We are the most powerful thinking species on this planet.  Isn’t it about time our actions were a benefit to the planet rather than the planet’s destroyer?

Cheers, Old Buz     11/18/2022

 

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Patriotism: “Willful blindness, guided by the random location of one’s birth.” – Old Buz

P & G (Power & Greed)

 

   We are talking about the driving force of this nation, or any nation in the world.  Power and greed are born of a basic human instinct, the survival instinct, gone cancerous.  This cancer is attacking the third leg of our democracy of Of The People, By The People and For The People.  For The People is being replaced by  For The Party.  Of the people and by the people is easy to maintain in government, only people are involved, but when benefit for the party replaces benefit for the people, you no longer have a functioning democracy.  Party interests are large dollar interests.  This is evident in both political parties.  

  When a benefit to the people is asked for, partisan bickering stops it.  A clear example of this is the need for effective gun regulation.  In a nation leading in mass murder of school children, worshipers and shoppers, with over 70% of the population wanting more effective gun regulation, our legislature is blocked by large financial interests disguised as partisan bickering.  The same goes for better education, clean air, clean water, universal healthcare, regulating the pharmaceutical industry or infrastructure.  But, let there be legislation, like a 20 to 30 billion dollar annual military budget increase to a budget of ¾ of a Trillion dollars … an annual military budget already larger than the sum total of the next 10 largest military budgets in the world and it is come together time for our political parties.  No problem.  Bipartisan agreement.   Representatives voted by over 80% for the increase.  The vote was not by party lines.  Of the 14 senators who voted against the increase, 9 were Republicans and 5 were Democrats (one of which sometimes calls himself an independent).  The other 86 senators voted in a non-partisan manner for the outrageous increase.  This $30 billion increase alone would go a long way toward buying the rain forest back from private interests, saving the forest and giving the planet better quality air and slowing drastic climate change.  Today’s greed is a much more powerful driving force than the long term health of the planet.  When a government implements the pleasure of a few with the pain of many, we are no longer a functioning democracy.  Good governing is no longer an issue.

   A better educated voting population is part of the solution.  Ridding ourselves of massive special interest dollars of political parties and lobbyists is the other part.  Better education is easily attained.  The required steps are obvious.  It comes with better financial support and better systems of education.  Saving a democracy already awash in corporate dollars is another issue.  Beware of the P & G.

Cheers, Old Buz     11.1.2022

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Remember:

“One cannot fool all of the people all of the time and that is why we have two political parties.” - Anon