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The Plutocrat - Kahlil Gibran

In my wanderings I once saw upon an island a man-headed, iron-hoofed monster who ate of the earth and drank of the sea incessantly. And for a long while I watched him.

Then I approached him and said, “Have you never enough; is your hunger never satisfied and your thirst never quenched?”

And he answered saying, “Yes, I am satisfied, nay, I am weary of eating and drinking; but I am afraid that tomorrow there will be no more earth to eat and no more sea to drink.”

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August 22, 2011
in War Economy
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"

In 2010, Rethink Afghanistan created a tool on [Facebook] that allowed you to re-spend, as you saw fit, the trillion dollars in tax money that had, by that point, been spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I clicked to add various items to my “shopping cart” and then checked to see what I’d acquired. I was able to hire every worker in Afghanistan for a year at $12 billion, build 3 million affordable housing units in the United States for $387 billion, provide healthcare for a million average Americans for $3.4 billion and for a million children at $2.3 billion.

Still within the $1 trillion limit, I managed to also hire a million music/arts teachers for a year for $58.5 billion, and a million elemtary school teachers for a year for $61.1 billion. I also placed a million kids in Head Start for a year for $7.3 billion. Then I gave 10 million students a one-year university scholarship for $79 billion. Finally, I decided to provide 5 million residences with renewable energy for $4.8 billion. Convinced I’d exceeded my spending limits, I proceeded to the shopping cart, only to be advised:

‘You still have $384.5 billion to spare.’

[…]

A trillion dollars sure does go a long way when you don’t have to kill anybody.

"

~ David Swanson, War Is A Lie (via dceiver)

(via drinkthe-koolaid)

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  9. paperblogprincess reblogged this from howtohowtohowtohowtolivealife and added:
    This is mind-boggling and sad. Mind-bogglingly sad?
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  23. safelovedandgood reblogged this from dreamiermaalik and added:
    So, I did it for shits and giggles. I wanted to see how much of the trillion I could spend. I managed to: Hire every...
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