While I don't disagree that the heft of our national defense budget seems... well... hefty when compared to other budget categories and it really makes one consider our national priorities (granted it is important to be able to defend our ideals and other priorities against those who would attack them, as well as strive to achieve them in harmony with those who wouldn't - ideally getting to the point where the former become the latter), I have to wonder how much military spending ends up providing "benefits" and "advances" in non-homicidal ways... global positioning systems, radio detection and ranging for two examples? I'm not saying that such technologies wouldn't have developed without world wars or military backing, nor that military spending is the only way to support scientists conducting not-so-deathy research, but I don't think it's really fair to lump all military spending in as directed towards "killing people," even though some of it (the $1,000,000,000 annually in bullets, if true, for example) undoubtedly is (unless some of those are top-secret, highly-classified bullets of love).
As to governmental ethics (my apologies that these topics aren't explicitly ecological, but the Thread - gilded or not - weaves through all things, hey?), I am not convinced shoveling more money into a bureaucracy will help install "more ethical" folks - or instill "more ethical" behavior in said peoples - in our government (I'll leave the interpretation of comparative ethics up to individual moral-meters)... I am skeptical of any attempts to legislate ethics in general (my curse towards the darkness - although I do find night agreeable in many ways)... I think our resources and efforts would be more efficiently directed (not to say institutionalized torture isn't worth defining and discussing) toward election reform to alter another big skew in our political system: the way campaign finance and our two-party, bi-opolistic system creates an atmosphere (or soil structure) in which the folks in positions of power are more beholden to private financiers than public ideals... perhaps testing publicly-funded elections in more venues (a tiny flame)? -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wendee Holtcamp Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 11:49 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] govt spending vs results This is a really interesting issue and one that Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's has been actively involved in. I saw him as keynote at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in VT a couple years back. He stacked up big plastic Oreos to show the amount we spent on military versus healthcare, education etc and military was many many oreos higher (each Oreo representing $1 or 10bil - can't remember). He basically showed how we could eliminate global poverty if we just took the amount being spent on caching certain weapons that we will never use because they're old and outdated. As I recall, he apparently met with several actual military advisors to come up with a real plan. I think applying some of this $ to education is so extremely essential right now!! I just testified at the TX State Board of Edu hearings - where they're definitely trying to dumb down our kids! (7 creationists on a 15-member board of a huge state - very scary). Here's a page Ben Cohen has: American Priority Pie: http://www.benjerry.com/americanpie/ He's involved in the National Priorities project called http://nationalpriorities.org/ I blogged a little about Cohen's work and the concept of spending http://bohemianadventures.blogspot.com/2008/10/poverty-blog-action-day.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wendee Holtcamp, M.S. Wildlife Ecology Freelance Writer * Photographer * Bohemian http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com http://bohemianadventures.blogspot.com ~~6-wk Online Writing Courses Starts Jan 3 & Feb 21, 2009~~ Makes a great HOLIDAY GIFT!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 'Better to light a candle than curse the darkness' -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of malcolm McCallum Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 11:57 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ECOLOG-L] govt spending vs results I often hear that you can't solve government problems by throwing money at them, but consider this. US military is ranked if the best, one of the top two defense agencies in the world. We spend $439 b per year on the military, almost 1 b just on bullets alone. This doesn't even count the portions of military activities conveniently placed in other agencies such as Dept of Homeland security (30.9 b) for example. Meanwhile, we spend $54 b of the federal budget on education, 7.3 b on the EPA, 10.1 b on the entire Dept of Interior, 6 b on NSF, and the list goes on. Our education system is decaying and frankly this is probably indirectly or directly affecting many government decisions. Our environmental protection is rapidly falling. We don't even spend as much on global climate change as we do on bullets! In fact, publicly provide more in foreign military financing (4.6 b) than we do to child survival and health (1.4 b), the post office (3.8 b), forest service, NOAA, unemployment insurance (2.7 b), NPS, BLM, FWS, immigration and customs (4.4b), FEMA (3.1 b). We all know how well FEMA has operated in the past decade. IS IT ANY SURPRISE THAT THE OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS COSTS ONLY 11 M dollars? (see torture) So, it is clear that if we want to be the best at something, it costs money. They only thing we are currently THE BEST at is the military, and half or more of government spending goes that way. I have no problem with us spending to have the best military, but certainly it would be nice if we were competitive in some of the other areas? Maybe ethics????? Maybe spending 1 B on bullets is five times more important than the federal trade commission, white house, or as important as the Smithsonian Institute. Maybe bullets are only half as important as unemployment insurance, NPS, BLM, FWS. IS it better to be the greatest at one thing, or great at a lot of things. Imagine if we doubled NSF's budget to 12 b what would that do? Now, what if we gave our US scientists $439 b to solve the nations problems.....where would be? Would we need our military anymore? What if we gave 439 b to the Dept of Energy for developing technologies that are cleaner? Where would be? What if we put $439 b into children's health? Ethics is an important part of running a government. Is it more ethical to invest in killing the oposition than to discover ways to make them your friend? -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Texas A&M University-Texarkana Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology http://www.herpconbio.org Summer Teaching Schedule & Office Hours: Ecology: M,W 1-2:40 pm Cell Biology: M 6-9:40 pm (don't ask!) Forensic Science: T,R 10-11:40am Office Hours: MW 12-1, 5-6, TR 11:40-12:30, 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People!
