Cost of War - Eisenhower

‎"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is... spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ... Is there no other way the world may live?"

--- Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953.

Cigarette Anyone?

Smoking cigarettes, it seems is even worse than any of us thought it possibly could be.  

I recall, many years ago reading in an American Cancer Society article about the “safe amount of smoking”  Turns out that - according to them - ONE puff on a cigarette would paralyze for up to twelve hours the tiny hairs (cilia) in our lungs that constantly sweep out debris, smoke, dust, grit, mucus and so on up and out.  Obviously, even if there were no noxious ingredient in cigarette smoke, that would still be enough to eventually do us in.  Our lungs would slowly fill up with debris from the bottom up.  Turns out that back then that was where most lung cancers started - deep in the bottom of the lungs.  

Ammonia has been added now, the government says.  Why ammonia?  Apparently that helps the nicotine - and the carcinogenous ingredients added to the cigarettes - to pass more easily through the blood-brain barrier.  Ammonia added to commercially made cigarettes can boost the availability of nicotine up to 100 times, says a new study by the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology in Portland.  The process of increasing the impact of nicotine by adding ammonia is called "free-basing," which is similar to the chemical process used to heighten the effects of cocaine. Like cocaine, nicotine exists in two forms -- acid and base. When ammonia is added, the nicotine converts from acid to base form. The base form can vaporize more easily from the smoke particles into the gas phase, enabling it to deposit directly on the lung tissue and immediately diffuse throughout the body.

Why are these additives placed in the cigarette to pass so quickly into the body/mind?  Ask any writer about "the hook", which is a phrase used to begin a story to catch the mind of anyone who might be glancing through a magazine or book.
Fewer drags now than previously required will get a smoker hooked.

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins. These include nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, as well as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and DDT.  

Something new has been added recently - in addition to ammonia -  flavoring.   Flavors that make the cigarettes more attractive to children and people who are  “thinking” about taking up smoking. 

Advertisements for cigarettes have changed too.  Notice the movies.  How many have you seen lately featuring stories from days when smoking was in vogue.  Particularly movies about World War II.  In fact, how many movies have you seen lately that had NO smoking scenes in it at all?

The real warning to me about the new report concerns what we call “Second Hand Smoke”.  Smoke you breath in from smokers.  We call it “smoke” , it really is a gas.  And it is a poisonous gas.  And according to these newly published findings, it will kill you and permanently cripple your children.

Sick Call for Senator Burr

I called Senator Burr’s office, (202) 224-3154, about ten minutes ago and asked how he voted on the bill today (already approved by the House) which would provide health care for 9-11 responders who suffered permanent damage providing rescue services in New  York City during and immediately after the fires and collapse of the buildings.  

The word from the senator’s office was that the bill had just arrived from the House and would require “reading, discussion, debate and modification before voting”  so he simply voted to defer it to a later time.  When I asked why they can’t do it today,  I was told that  you “can’t be rushed into these things”.    Then I pointed out that when the buildings were burning and collapsing, these people didn’t hesitate to respond - they “rushed in” - and provided the help they could.  Now when those same people are “burning and collapsing themselves” and asking for help, my senator tells me we “can’t rush in to these things”.  

Then I told the lady that I though it would be a remarkable gesture if the senate convened into overnight session and worked right straight through until these important issues were resolved.  AND that if any of the senators got sick from this dramatically difficult work, THEY would have the best health care in the world, whereas some of the 9-11 responders have been denied or eliminated from their own health care.  She said she would relay the message to the senator.  

The Real Problem

The problem we are all pretending really doesn’t exist is the question of whether or not capitalism can be permitted to continue the way it is now operating.  Perhaps even more to the point the real question may be, can it now be changed, or is it already too late for that?  

Capitalism is not free enterprise, even though it often claims to be.   It is a consumer of free enterprises.  It’s  purpose is to consolidate more and more capital into fewer and fewer hands, and it is very good at that.  With proper governmental regulation and control, capitalism can accomplish wonderful things for a nation - but if left to “regulate itself” it can challenge and even control the governments of the nations in which it operates.

Since deregulation of American markets began during the Reagan administration, real wages of working class Americans have remained level or slightly decreased.  The national wealth of our country has continued to increase but is consolidated in the possession of fewer and fewer people.  The gap between “rich” and “poor” is greater now in America than in any developed country in the world.  The Great American Middle Class is disappearing,  a  great extinction of small businesses has swept across our land, and our manufacturing investments have been farmed out to other countries where costs of production are cheaper thus increasing profit for large corporations - who pay little or no American taxes.  

Now we have engaged in a tiny scratch of spit between the American president and the leaders of the Republican Party who, negotiating from a posture of electoral rejection in 2008, have engineered a fascist type of action simply by uniting and refusing to work with the new president in any area.  President Obama may think he is negotiating with the leaders of the Republican Party in a democratic engagement, but in reality he is meeting the new face of a new form of government which is ready to replace constitutional governments in the way they replaced that of the old City States.  

Obama seems to think he is fighting a beautiful fight - and he may well be - but he is really meeting  a new revolution of which he is not even aware.