Survival, Inc.

Integrity is not a conditional word.
It doesn't blow in the wind
or change with the weather.
It is your inner image of yourself,
and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat,
then you know he never will
--John D. MacDonald

[upon seeing Apollo Creed]:
He looks like a big flag
--Rocky (1976)

The most revolutionary act
is a clear view of the world as it really is
--Rosa Luxemburg

A dysfunctional political system is one that knows
the right answers but can’t even discuss them rationally,
let alone act on them,
and one that devotes vastly more attention
to cable TV preachers than to recommendations
by its best scientists and engineers.
--Can't Keep a Bad Idea Down, Thomas Friedman
__________________

War, counterinsurgency, Homeland Security -- the entire Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) behemoth which has issued forth from the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 -- has no bearing upon the survival of the U.S.

However, those secondary phenomena which are being packaged under the rubric "Survival, Inc." will impact our survival, and not in a good way. Whether they threaten our moral or economic existence -- or, both -- the concept of U.S. democracy will have been forever altered.

Our survival depends on the ability of our government to govern, and our local and state governments have lost the ability to finance these quotidian services. It is this loss which threatens the well-being of the American people.

Computer modeling for the spread of infection throughout a population is instructive. Any population has a certain toxic load it may bear. Once that critical level is surpassed, the population crashes. The U.S. citizens have been dealt a number of recent blows; while we are not down for the count, who knows how many rounds we may yet sustain before we and our government morph into something other than what we have been?

The blows have come from many sides: A profligate and criminal fiduciary class has gutted the life savings of many. Two wars and all the attendant expenses provide a cruel and steady drain on our coffers, both now and projected well into the future. One this is for certain: Terrorism, counterinsurgency, and Homeland Security has no meaning if our financial future is not secure.

The United States will not be kept sound through combat patrols and actions in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iraq. The future of the U.S. is dependent upon the security of your home, your neighborhood and your assets. Whether the Bros. Karzai deal dope, steal elections or peddle influence has no relevance to our survival.

Many feel the wars and the Department of Defense constitute but a small percentage of the Gross National Product, and are therefore not complicit in the economic woes of the U.S. But the Department of Defense does not operate in a vacuum. Adding in all concomitant costs -- Homeland security, Department of Veterans Affairs, civilian intelligence agencies, NASA military oriented spending, State security-related costs and servicing the debt of aforementioned items -- runs into a tidy sum, contributing to the largest deficit in the recorded history of the world.

The Long Wars and associated costs are the straws that are breaking the humped camel's back.

--Lisa and Jim