Rich Moloch, Poor Moloch

Let's play a game. I'll post some numbers, and you try to guess what they mean. Forgive my sloppy tables, I'm pretty weak with things that are straight (haha). Take a look at this set of figures:

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

303 328 362 376 400 419

10 13 24 28 31 32

331 351 370 386 391 389

Stumped? Well, they're from this informative little page.

Have you been by there lately? No? That's a shame. I suppose it's more fun to read about burning human flesh or Bill O'Rielly calling for terrorists to bomb San Francisco, or perhaps you just like to follow sports. I know I'd rather be reading some Yarbro or MacLeod myself. It's hard, hard work keeping track of all the fascist idiocy in our world today.

But I think it's pretty important to remember that Horror Costs Money. Where does all that money come from? Why, you, dear reader, you! And your grandmother, your lover, hell- your dog probably chips in some subjective way.

I'm not going to tell you it's all your fault that Amurka is the way it is today. But I am going to point out what really struck me hard reading my first link above this morning:

Our government spends more on "defense" than it does all other discretionary programs combined.

I'm no economist, and numbers give me a headache. I am probably missing a lot when I read this report. But the above chart seems pretty simple to me. Military spending has officially become the #1 budget priority in America.

Isn't that a milestone worth talking about? And given our rather obvious lack of "success" in Iraq, shouldn't more people be asking questions like, "Are we sure throwing more money at the 'problem' is going to solve anything?" I distinctly remember someone saying that in a conversation I once had about urban schools.

There's a lot going on in the world. It's hard to keep up. But I sincerely hope that we all don't succumb to our conditioned impulses to focus upon "political horror porn" at the expense of what really matters. Without our money, Bush could not do the damage he's doing today. Everyone in America, right and left, old and young, can be made to care about money when it's pointed out that it's theirs. And I think it's pretty clear, given all the stories about all the financial scandals in Iraq and lost DoD trillions, that Bush can't be trusted to handle all this cash.

Shouldn't that be a rallying cry? For Bloggers, Dems, and anyone who wants regime change at home? Or are we just too busy playing 'gotcha' with each other over the latest non sequitur to care about another half-trillion thrown down the maw of Moloch?