Disconnect

Is when the leader of the Free World, and the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner is planning on sending another 30,000 innocent men and women to slaughter untold thousands of other innocent men and women in an unwinnable invasion of a sovereign country, Afghanistan.

Is when said Nobel Peace Prize winner refuses to ban land mines and thus becomes the only nation in the world in that exalted position (reminder – these mines killed and maimed over 5,000 innocent men, women and children last year).

Is when Goldman Sachs, with tax payer bailout money, has set aside 16.7 billion dollars for executive bonuses and only pays 1% in corporate taxes.

Is when nearly a million American homeowners have their homes foreclosed on in the the 3rd quarter of 2009.

Is when 10 US states are on the verge of bankruptcy: California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island.

Is when federal budget deficit is now over 12 trillion dollars.

Is when 47.4 million US citizens live in poverty and 3 million citizens, and climbing, are homeless.

Is when 50% of US children need food stamps to eat. To eat!

Is when, in 2008, 46.3 million US citizens were without health care. It is much worse today. There are 45,000 preventable deaths from lack of health care every year and of these 17,000 are children. Children. Not to mention uncountable health care bankruptcies. All meaningful amendments to Health Care Reform, of course, have been stripped by the lobby driven Senate, and this weak diluted bill will only come into effect in 2013 anyway, post-apocalypse.

Is when demand for guns and ammunition in the states has reached an all time high and the 200 companies in this business can’t keep up with the demand for bullets.

Charts & Graphs

I’m a great one for the charts and graphs. I find them easy to understand, and easier still to ascertain where funds, particularly government funds, are being thrown:

Take this one, a U.S. military spending vs other countries per capita chart:


Astounding, isn’t?

And then you get the health care industry bribery level (a.k.a. 'campaign contributions') in the U.S, which basically insures there will be no reform to universal health care:



Yeah, that's millions and millions.

And then you get the breakdown of cost in US dollars per person of health care in each country of the world and the most expensive is the U.S. – without universal health care! More than twice that of the superb universal health care systems in Canada, France and Sweden!

Rank Countries Amount

# 1 United States: 4,271
# 2 Switzerland: 3,857
# 3 Norway: 3,182
# 4 Denmark: 2,785
# 5 Luxembourg: 2,731
# 6 Iceland: 2,701
# 7 Germany: 2,697
# 8 France: 2,288
# 9 Japan: 2,243
# 10 Netherlands: 2,173
# 11 Sweden: 2,145
# 12 Belgium: 2,137
# 13 Austria: 2,121
# 14 Canada: 1,939
# 15 Australia: 1,714
# 16 Finland: 1,704
# 17 Italy: 1,676
# 18 United Kingdom: 1,675
# 19 Israel: 1,607
# 20 Ireland: 1,569
# 21 United Arab Emirates: 1,428
# 22 New Zealand: 1,163
# 23 Spain: 1,043
# 24 Greece: 965
# 25 Portugal: 859
# 26 Slovenia: 746
# 27 Singapore: 678
# 28 Argentina: 654
# 29 Uruguay: 621
# 30 Bahamas, The: 612
# 31 Barbados: 601
# 32 Korea, South: 470
# 33 Lebanon: 469
# 34 Saint Kitts and Nevis: 408
# 35 Czech Republic: 380
# 36 Bahrain: 358
# 37 Hungary: 318
# 38 Brazil: 308
# 39 Chile: 289
# 40 Slovakia: 285
# 41 Costa Rica: 257
# 42 Poland: 248
# 43 Panama: 246
# 44 Estonia: 243
# 45 Mexico: 236
# 46 South Africa: 230
# 47 Colombia: 227
# 48 Dominica: 208
# 49 Trinidad and Tobago: 204
# 50 Grenada: 193

{Source: World Bank}

Makes it all easier to understand, doesn't it?

Now, where's the outrage from the huddled, sick and bankrupt masses?

Blog Jam or Blathering in the Military Wind.

America spends 42 cents out of every tax dollar on its military.

So that they will be ‘safe’.

From the boogy man terrorist who will get them here if they don’t get him there.

One quarter of that 42 cents would give every US citizen the best of health care with money left over for dental.

There are 730 US military installations around the world. 730.

Barack Obama, the Anointed Man of Change, has promised to “build a 21st-century military . . . to stay on the offensive everywhere”. That should bring the spending to 50 cents or more out of every tax dollar. Change indeed.

A much suppressed cancer epidemic is now severely impacting the citizens of the Middle East region caused by the US and British WMDs releasing depleted uranium. That along with the five million orphaned children, the countless very dead collateral damaged bodies, untold injured, mindless destruction of an ancient civilization, et al, brings a sparkling new definition to the word “freedom”.

US soldiers previously based in Iraq are now being brought home, in battalions, to police and brutalize the real enemy, the disenfranchised, those outspoken protesters and the brand new homeless, its own citizens.

And to assist them, civilian labour camps will be under their jurisdiction. Keeping those same pesky, loud-mouthed citizens right where they belong. In the new gulags.

With the added bailouts of Wall Street by the unbounded charity of its citizens, the deficit of the US at the end of 2008 is forecasted at ONE TRILLION DOLLARS. Can anyone count that high? Is this officially bankruptcy?

I see more and more of those utterly godless American liberal bloggers (who me?) are making all sorts of noise about emigrating to Canada in November (they see that the writing’s clearly on that pinko wall). We would love to have them, but here we do have immigration laws too and the waiting list is extremely long and well, you should get on the list - like now.

And to bring you hopefuls up to date: here in the cold white north, we are facing our own mini-corpo-indu-militarist who yearns for a majority government in October. Which scares a lot of us. There’s something quite Rovian about our Prime Minister Harper who has made enormous cutbacks on culture and arts funding and has set his cold, beady eyes on our far too generous health care system amongst other socialist perks.

But then again, none of us has any way of knowing what the October Surprise, long predicted by me and others, will bring to us gentlefolk. Stay tuned.