The Pentagon is currently charging US taxpayers approximately $1.9 million per minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year (366 in 2012). The American people are beginning to understand that this is a lot of money and that some of it might be better spent on other things. Y'think?
A glance at the graph showing the escalating per capita levels of US citizens' (not taxpayers' – we mean your two-month-old daughter and your 83-year-old grandmother) mandatory commitment to paying for nuclear weapons which are pointed at …. at … at the viability of the environment of planet Earth, is fairly overwhelming. We each, on average, pony up more than $4,000 each year to buy a range of services, largely devoted to forcing others to do what we want. How it breaks down:
Budget Breakdown for 2012
Since the average US citizen pays approximately $8,500 in federal income taxes each year (again, this is deceptively low, since there are far fewer actual income-tax-payers than there are citizens), this means that half your income taxes, roughly, go to some aspect of the military. We can't put everyone to work, but we can pay for US bases in most of the nations on Earth. We can't have Medicare for all, but we can clutter space with military satellites. We are cutting public education and leaving our children in the lurch while we deploy thousands of troops to … Australia?
There is no greater single problem source than our military spending. The Occupy movement could direct more focus to it.
- The more you spend on the military, the more you pollute.
- The more you spend on the military, the fewer jobs you create or maintain.
- The more you spend on the military, the less you can spend on the goods and services of life.
It is time. 2012 should be the year we get a grip on this. Resolved.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
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We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
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With love, rage, and solidarity,
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