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Back In January, I posted this NYT graphic which demonstrates how George Bush has managed to squander away $1.2 TRILLION dollars with his unnecessary war.
Today at Dangerous Intersection, Erich Vieth posts about some of the other things that could have been done with all that money, such as giving every single man, woman and child in the United States $3,000.00 to reinvest in the economy, or, better still, giving EVERY HUMAN BEING ON THE PLANET $150.00. While $150 might be thought of as chump change in this country, the average Bangladeshi only earns $380 a year, and the average annual income in Ethiopia is only $141.00.
In the comments of that post, "grumpypilgrim" (one of the other regular authors of that site) has a collection of factoids about trying to imagine the sheer amount of one trillion dollars. A one-trillion stack of dollars, he tell us, would weigh more than BOTH of the World Trade Center towers and would be 55,000 miles tall (about 20% of the distance from the Earth to the Moon). One trillion dollars would build more than 200 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers (the U.S. Navy has 10).
Meanwhile, over at the Boston Globe, there's this photo essay that considers what you could do with $456 billion, which is what this group says the war has cost so far. Considering that it's only about a third of the amount John Allen Poulos is citing, the possibilities are still staggering: nearly 3000 first-class high schools, free gasoline for every car in the United States for fourteen months, 30 civil engineering projects of the scale of the Big Dig, feeding and educating the world's poor for FIVE years.
The mind boggles.
Dr. Ron Paul, a congressman from Texas and a candidate for president has consistently voted against the invasion of Iraq since 1998, when the possibility was first presented to the US congress.
Unlike most of the Democratic front runners and all of the Republicans, Ron Paul has never allowed himself to be fooled by the nefarious neocon fear tactics.
I'm not suggesting that any loyal Democrat vote for Ron Paul in the general election. However, there is a real opportunity to slap some sense into the Republican base on the horizon, and us Libertarians could use a hand.
Following the Republican "debates" ABC News posted an online poll invitation that omitted Ron Paul while including Fred Thompson (who wasn't even there and hasn't announced!)
After a few hours and a few thousand emails, ABC News corrected their blunder and Ron Paul won their informal poll, as he did similar polls from other major media. Despite that, the popular media refuses to recognize his message, potential, and the number of supporters he already has.
When you look at online venues that are more in touch with the minds of the people, you'll find all the makings of a grass roots campaign that's being ignored by the establishment.
Again, I'm not asking any loyal Democrat to vote for Ron Paul, but if you'd like to make a little noise and perhaps piss of the the neocons...
Please feel free to Join Us in the Republican primary!
Posted by bob [URL] at 05/ 7/07
Good luck with that, Bob.
Personally, I think Ron Paul is a looney.
Posted by Brian [URL] at 05/ 7/07
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