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Human beings will be happier - not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That's my utopia.
~Kurt Vonnegut
Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Misplaced Priorities

Through dazereader I learn that things aren't always as they seem. Warren Buffet who clearly enjoys amassing wealth, could teach the Bush Administration a few lessons in using the wealth wisely, for the betterment of the people, instead of for the purpose of gaining more power. Two clear examples of Buffet's actions are his position on the tax cuts, and his promotion toward reproductive rights.

"Putting $1,000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets," Buffett added.

"The world would be better off, Buffett told the crowd, "if you could make every child born in this country and this world a wanted child."

"Until women have that right to determine their reproductive destiny," he said, "we're in an unequal society."

Meanwhile..

We see more of the same, the vivid squandering of tax money in one of America's favorite passtimes, WAR, this time, the WAR on DRUGS, the current national debt, and the cost of lives incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes. Tony, at abuddhas memes has provided some hard numbers, in the form of clear charts, for us to swallow. Add these incarcerated to the national unemployment rate and we have some ugly realities.

"In 2000, 46.5 percent of the 1,579,566 total arrests for drug law violations were for cannabis -- a total of 734,497. Of those, 646,042 people were arrested for possession alone."

For some more perspective see Some Advice for Democrats
At a press conference to announce the arrests, Ashcroft declared, "The illegal drug paraphernalia industry has invaded the homes of families across the country without their knowledge."

That's an odd use of the verb "invade." Apparently the Attorney General believes that sending federal troops into California homes to handcuff residents who are growing plants to alleviate their pain is not an invasion, but when a resident returns from the store with a bong in a shopping bag, that is.


I'd say we have some serious thinking to do.
posted by Cyndy | link | | |
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