Political leaders everywhere continually talk about their wishes for world peace, while endlessly preparing for war. Nowhere is this more evident than in these United States, where except for the interlude after Vietnam, when defeat briefly sapped our martial spirits a bit, our leaders are always at, or preparing for war.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, in Sweden, which remained neutral in World War II, the U.S. spent $608 billion on defense in 2008 alone. The U.S. accounted for 42 percent of the world's military expenditures. The next biggest spender, China, only laid out $85 billion. Our former enemies in Russia spent a mere $59 billion.
Our staggering outlay for weaponry, some of which doesn't work, averages out to approximately $2,000 per American citizen. It's no wonder that despite all his lovely campaign rhetoric, the well-spoken Pentagon shill Barack Obama, who I was forced to vote for to avoid Sarah No brains Palin, has done little or nothing to end our military involvements in Afghanistan and Iraq and he hasn't shut down our torture prisons either.
Global military spending reached $1.5 trillion last year, or $225 for each and every man woman and child on earth-6.8 billion at last count, give or take a country or two.
So much for loving thy neighbor as thyself. Actions always speak louder than campaign words and the pure fact is, we are far more prepared to bomb our neighbors into submission than to love them into alliance.
In lower Queen Anne, Key Bank recently fired a popular teller last week for foiling a robbery! That's right, an employee saved the bank and our fundage at no cost to anyone other than a career criminal and he was terminated for his efforts by unknown corporate hatcheteers.
Jim Nicholson, employed at the local Key branch bank for two years stopped a 29-year-old man with a lengthy criminal history of attempted robbery, then chased him from the bank and with help from passersby held the thug until police arrived.
Bank officials fired Nicholson, according to some expert, located in Oklahoma who was quoted in The Seattle Times' front-page story defending the unfair termination by claiming: "He (Nicholson) endangered everyone in the bank."
The experienced teller's instinctual belief that the thief was unarmed turned out to be correct but instead of a reward, or at worst, a cautionary reprimand, Nicholson was summarily fired.
Key's current tellers, an ever-shifting bunch aren't allowed to comment on the firing, for fear of their own tenuous hold on their low-paying jobs.
Heartless, profit-driven bosses with heartless policies is how it looks to this Key customer. Again, executives executing no more sense of public relations than Saddam Hussein exhibited.
But despite the public outcry, here's betting the bank won't rehire an employee who actually will go the extra mile for customers instead of merely parroting delusional corporate slogans about how much they care for us. That and bank robbery, not Nicholson's brave actions are the real crimes.[[In-content Ad]]
