James Carroll’s Boston Globe column of October 6, 2008, “Making some sense of $700b,” goes to the very heart of part of America’s problem: an unacceptable lack of compassion for the average Joe and Jane -- of whom Sarah Palin is referring to when she uses the disparaging term “Joe Six-pack”; an unfettered new American militarism; lack of character of American leadership; and a lack of understanding that we do need change, not change in Washington, but systemic change by Americans creating change in America and demanding it from Washington..
Carroll writes, "By a nice coincidence, though, the financial rescue package of $700 billion duplicates a number that was also in the news last week - the Pentagon budget. In the fiscal year just beginning, the Defense Department will spend $607 billion on normal military costs, and an additional $100 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (As of June 30, 2008, Congress had appropriated $859 billion for the wars; Congressional Budget Office projections assume further costs of $400 billion to $500 billion as the wars wind down). But for the coming year, $700 billion is the Pentagon's nice round number (this includes neither Homeland Security nor intelligence costs)."
He concludes his column: “That the majority of humans are in dire straits and that the planet itself is groaning are issues treated like givens of nature, yet they are results of the ways creativity is channeled and resources are shared. $700 billion for rescue. $700 billion for war. Something is wrong with this picture, and last week that coincidence of numbers told us what.
So, why should we be concerned over a measly $700 billion, or should I say $1.4 trillion?
Because, in a sense, it is a metaphor for America’s leadership attitude toward its citizens; a metaphor for the corporate oligarchy that in essence controls Washington; a metaphor for our belligerent attitude in foreign policy; a metaphor that says that government by the people, for the people, and of the people, simply is not working.
