Hey Guys, How Those Billions Add Up
an article by Tony Dominski

While rummaging among my daily spam, I encountered a friend's website referral to www.costofwar.com. Not having anything much better to do, I risked opening the website and was hit by alternating waves of pleasant shock with terror.

I discovered that the cost-of-war website was built around a central graphic. It made me dizzy. For a moment I thought I was gazing at the whirling gage of a gasoline pump. But it couldn't be. The gage running at an astounding rate of $2,000 per second!! This is how fast the United States is spending to wage the war in Iraq. As of July 15, 2003, the cumulative amount spent was $69 billion and change.

Another wonderful/horrifying feature of the website were a clickable sub-gages located below the cost of war counter. These allow the webpage visitor to determine how far the war expenses would go to fund peaceful uses. For example $69 billion could have built some 976,000 housing units in the United States. New Haven, Connecticut's share of this bounty could have been 358 units. Similarly, the same amount could have provided yearly health care of 29 million children in the country or 10,000 people in New Haven. Other sub-gages measure funding opportunites for energy independence and education. Would anybody like 1.3 million additional public school teachers?

The money gauges most graphically illustrate President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953 remark: "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." As they say: Pass this message on.

DISCUSSION

Question(s) related to this article:

The overwhelming fiscal advantages of peace
how can this be communicated by peace activists?

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MAKING AN EFFECTIVE PEACE MOVEMENT

Latest reader comment:

Well I thought I would list some ideas on the fiscal advantages of peace...


The first thing that comes to my mind is the question of how many people try to cheat the system?  How many resources are spent trying to keep peopl honest or "in line?  Once 'Honesty' is practiced, taught, and valued who would cheat the system?  No one would!  Spending on keeping people "in line" or safe from those who disrespect life would not be needed (as least not to the same degree).

Another is that theft would go down or stop, thus making what we own safer.

dave

This report was posted on July 25, 2003. The moderator is John.

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