[MLUG - DISCUSSION] cost of maintaining unneeded weapons

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Here's a little movie:

http://www.truemajority.org/postcard/

I would like to think that we can ignore the fact that this guy might be 
considered "a liberal" (horrors!) and all agree that he is right about 
this cost (assuming his numbers are right) being unnecessary and wasteful. 
I see no benefit in maintaining a vast arsenal of nukes.  There never was 
a benefit to having that many of them, but people thought, quite wrongly, 
that we should have many more than our enemies had.  It seems likely to me 
that the real reason for having so many bombs was that someone was selling 
them, and someone in government had a reason to give money to the seller.

By the way, if you want to sell widgets to the government, it is wise to 
figure out who the most powerful senators are who might sit on the 
widget-appropriations committee, then build widget factories in their 
states and promise to hire from the local workforce.  That will help you 
for sure.  It will also help you to come up with some lies that the 
senators can use -- things like "without more widgets, our nation will not 
be able to compete on the world stage" or "the cold war may be over, but 
it is only by maintaining a large stock of widgets that we can ensure our 
safety."  I think "widget gap" would be another useful term.

That works on both Republican and Democrat senators.

Mike

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