Rantle

By Eric Anschutz

Three separate studies have reached the same startling conclusion: the eventual cost of the Iraq War will total somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Was the money well spent? Or might we have done more for the security of our country by spending it in other ways?

Absent the war, how many world-class schools could we build and staff with well paid teachers? How much health care could we provide? How much progress could we make in developing and deploying alternative fuel technologies, or first rate mass transport that could move us toward energy independence? How much new infrastructure could we build to replace our sagging roads and rails, levees, electric grids, water supplies and sewers?

How many “hearts and minds” might we have won by directing just a small fraction of our Iraq War money to provision of massive aid to impoverished people around the world? And how much would that contribute to our security, compared to what we’re getting from comparable amounts spent on “shock and awe.”

This country abounds with energy and intelligence. Yet, we run irresponsibly massive annual deficits and incur embarrassingly large negative balances of trade. America could and should be awash in surplus rather than deficit, should have a positive balance of trade, should be “green,” should be energy independent, and should be a source to the world of the best products and the best ideas. We should be moral icons, intellectual leaders, nothing less than the envy of the world. We should be the healthiest, the best educated, the safest, the happiest, the most beautiful of all countries. But we are not – in large measure because of our 60-year binge of “defense” spending, and the cost of wasteful and counterproductive wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

When will we learn? We must bring about a tidal shift in the way Americans think about security. Real security is not achieved with more guns, it is not realized through policies of preemption, it is not brought about through disdain for the UN and traditional allies when they question our policies. Instead, true security comes from building an America that leads the world by the example of its moral stature and its domestic achievements, and by its decency in the use of great power.

by Eric Anschutz

NASA has announced plans for a permanent base on the Moon. Plans are being drawn for development of a new family of rockets and spacecraft, aimed at establishing a lunar base in the year 2020. The Moon, then, is expected to serve as a platform from which to launch a manned landing on Mars, leading, eventually, to a permanent base on Mars. We have seen evidence of water on Mars, so the (exceedingly remote) possibility of some kind of life there does exist. But the Martian climate and atmosphere differ so greatly from those on Earth that Martian life, if any, is certain to be very different from life we know.
As to our “colonizing” the Moon and Mars, why? Conditions are hostile in both places. No oxygen to breathe, no water source that we know of, extreme temperatures, and not much to look at. A trip to Mars would take months, astronauts would need to carry great amounts of machinery and raw materials and food and water and oxygen to sustain life and to protect themselves from temperature extremes. Unmanned exploration: yes! But colonization, no!

And here is another idiotic waste of tax dollars. NASA maintains massive antenna arrays designed to catch radioed messages that might arrive from deep space. From time to time, we send messages into the void, hoping that they might be heard and understood and then answered. Again, for what? The nearest solar systems within our galaxy are millions of light years away, and solar systems in other galaxies are billions of light years away. So any message we might hear would have been sent millions or billions of years ago. Our phantom correspondent would no longer exist, nor (it seems to me) is there one chance in trillions that we would understand any message from deep space. Communication, to have meaning, must be in the context of shared experience, and given the vast distances and times, and the equally vast differences in life forms, we share nothing with our extra-terrestrial neighbors that might serve as a basis for communication.

The orbiting Hubble telescope, a NASA project that I do completely endorse, tells us that there are 80 billion galaxies (roughly nine galaxies for every person alive). Each galaxy harbors some 100 billion suns. The sheer magnitude of these numbers suggests that the repeated cosmic roll of dice might well have produced some kind of life form, in addition to our own, someplace out there in the void of deep space. So, let’s keep sending unmanned probes. Let’s learn what we can. But, please, no more talk of colonization.

by Eric Anschutz, Walnut Creek, CA, November, 2006

While dealing with the Iraq quagmire is a first order of business for the new Congress, it is equally a matter of some urgency for the newly installed Democratic leadership to set forth a wider agenda, one designed to capture the public’s imagination, and to give new meaning to the term “superpower.” Democrats face a two-year test as we move toward the 2008 presidential election. Those two years must not be wasted in dealing only with relatively minor issues. Things like increased minimum wage and immigration reform, though important, are not issues that can bring about changes of fundamental import and reestablish America’s moral stature.

The Ten-Point Plan briefly described here is an interlocking set of initiatives that could in a decade or less restore America to economic and moral leadership. Our national goal in undertaking this agenda would be to redefine the term “superpower”, whereby our country would become in fact the “Shining City on the Hill,” the country others look to for industrial and scientific prowess, whose young people are among the world’s best educated, whose seniors are among the best cared for, whose cities are among the world’s most beautiful and safest, whose foreign policies are built around negotiation and global partnership, and whose moral standing is once again unequalled and unquestioned worldwide.

1. Education: We must drastically improve K-12 education, especially in the sciences, if we are to compete successfully in the world of tomorrow. To bring that about, I propose establishment of a federally funded Education Research Center, chartered to search world wide for best practices, and to make them available across the nation. In the spirit of “leaving no child behind,” we must make available (ala the GI Bill) first-rate education, from pre-school to post-doctorate, to all who are qualified. Teaching, at all levels, must be esteemed as one of our most honored professions, and remunerated accordingly.
2. Medical Care: America’s business community is burdened by the costs of providing health care for workers. To alleviate that burden, and to reduce overall the excessive cost of medical care in our country, we need to make available to all Americans a single-payer plan, based on that already provided successfully to all members of congress, the executive branch, and to the military. We owe it to our citizens to bring about federal funding and acceleration of stem cell research.
3. Infrastructure: To facilitate productivity, safety and mobility, and to make our cities more secure from violent acts of nature, America needs a world-class infrastructure, to include improved roads, rail and airline transport, bridges, flood control, water supplies, electrical grids, levees, sewers, waste disposal systems, and environmental controls
4. Energy independence: To deal with the dire threat of global warming, and to free us from dependency on Mid-East and Latin American oil sources, we need urgently to create and massively fund a Manhattan Project Energy Program, dedicated to research into and aggressive deployment of energy conservation and alternative energy technologies, to include solar, wind, hydrogen, nuclear, ethanol, clean coal and hydropower.
5. The Economy: America’s technological excellence can lead the way to renewed excellence in basic manufacturing. We can be first in the world in development and production (and export) of “green” technologies, such as alternative fuels, waste management, toxic emission controls, water purification, and desalinization. Restoration in America of world-class technology and manufacturing will reverse the downward trend in balance of trade that has burdened our economy for decades. Raising the minimum wage will provide needed economic stimulus.
6. National Debt: Our $9 trillion national debt (held mostly by China and Japan) is a sword of Damocles hanging over our economy. Federal spending must once again be brought into balance with tax income. We must return to sharply progressive taxation where the wealthiest among us would pay substantially higher tax rates than ordinary wage earners. We should restore the estate tax for all bequests greater than about $5 million, with higher rates applied to estates above, say, $10 million. Warren Buffet, the second-richest American, has noted that with his immense income from dividends and capital gains, he pays far less income tax, as a fraction of his income, than do the clerks and secretaries in his office. Buffet, who (rightly) sees this disparity as grossly unfair, added that he does no tax planning, and has no tax shelters. As Buffet put it, he just pays the rate required by the current Tax Code which favors the wealthiest among us.
7. Military Spending: Our mighty navy, with it armadas of battleships, aircraft carriers and submarines, bristling with nuclear tipped weapons, and our air force with its stealth bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and non-functional star-wars missile defense systems, comprise a mighty but idle force in search of something to do. The billions wasted on maintaining, operating and constantly improving these and like weapons at current high levels, designed for a no longer existing Soviet threat, are a foolish waste of resources. Our military budget (exclusive of the costs of the war in Iraq) exceeds the sum of military spending of all other nations combined; it should be greatly lessened. The paradox here is that, by reducing the cost burden of obsolete and irrelevant weaponry, we would actually increase our national security by strengthening our economy, and thereby enrich the lives of our citizens in ways that matter to them day by day.
8. War Powers: The war in Iraq must come to an early end. We can celebrate a new “Independence Day” following complete withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq by July 4, 2007. A “model” America would proudly enact legislation to the effect that war could be declared only by a super-majority of both houses of congress, and that American military power will never again be used without prior debate in Congress. Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution specifies that Congress shall have the power to declare war. Article II, Section 2, specifies that the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, but makes no mention of authority to declare war or otherwise commit our troops to battle. Our current practice, where a president, Republican or Democrat, can commit our military without full and extensive congressional consideration and action, places entirely too much power in the hands of one person, and makes it possible to enter into war without the full and sustained support of the people.
9. Peace Studies: The forming of a Department of Peace Studies is long overdue. For war to truly be a matter of last resort, we must become more proficient in ways of preserving peace and in non-violent resolution of conflict. Relevant disciplines include psychology, cultural anthropology, area studies, social science and history. Wars, we have learned, are often (even mostly) counterproductive. Our wars in Vietnam and Iraq, both now widely regretted, serve to illustrate that it is far easier to get into war than it is to end it on acceptable terms.
10. Bi-Partisanship: My last wish for America is for greater civility in our debate of issues. Conservatives have persuaded themselves that God and family values and patriotism are their territory alone. Liberals, in turn, are sure that only they understand and empathize with the needs and aspirations of minorities and the poor. Both sides need to search for common ground.