What if we spent 10 billion a month helping our poor instead of murdering the poor of Iraq?

[Philosoraptor]

[Warpy]

1. What if we spent it on universal health care

plus putting unemployed people back to work repairing our roads and bridges?

There is so much this country needs and it's all being squandered halfway around the world killing people we have no grudge against to support the stubbornness of old men who wanted to die emperors.

And people wonder why I loathe the GOP.

[Philosoraptor]

2. Maybe then people would not worry so about hospitalization ruining them

[Philosoraptor]

3. It MIGHT even help our economy

[Marsala]

4. That would just ENCOURAGE them to BE poor!

We might even see people make themselves poor, just to get more money! :eyes:

[Philosoraptor]

5. Yes, the poor are holding us all back, not doing their share.

[SmokingJacket]

8. Plus they would get uppity. nt

[malaise]

6. Petraeus's war is eternal

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7618553.stm

In a BBC interview before his departure, Gen Petraeus said he would never declare victory in Iraq and that the US still faced a "long struggle" in the country.

When asked if US troops could withdraw from Iraqi cities by the middle of next year, he said that would be "doable".

[Philosoraptor]

7. He can't declare victory because it is a MYTH & a FABLE only repubs believe

[malaise]

13. 100% correct n/t

[Lyric]

9. Then people like my family

wouldn't be suffering. What enrages me the most are the accusations that poor people are lazy and/or stupid. My mother is not lazy or stupid. My father was neither lazy nor stupid. *I* am not lazy or stupid. It's just that once you fall into poverty, true poverty, it is pretty much impossible to dig your way out--at least in today's America. There are no more good factory jobs with pensions. There is only college, then grad school, and luck.

I am doing what I can. I am in college, winning awards and being honored for my stellar grades and abilities. My Mom isn't so lucky. She's 51 years old, on oxygen, and lives in a tarpapered shack in the woods. The entire focus of her life right now is to stay alive long enough to see ME make it out.

I live for the day that my own little boy considers good food and a safe home "normal." Not taken for granted, but also not a distant dream.

[Philosoraptor]

10. Poor health makes it 10 times as difficult, I know personally.

You honor your mother very well. Good luck to both of you.

[Lyric]

15. Thank you.

I keep trying to convince her to move in with us, but she and my stepfather won't do it. She's convinced that she'll be a "burden" that will make college harder for me. I keep trying, though. The place where they live is just horrible. It has an ancient barrel-shaped woodstove right in the middle of the house, and I live in terror of that thing causing a fire or a pipe getting loose and the smoke getting into the house.

I joke around with friends that my Mom doesn't have a driveway--she has a "hobbit hole." It's seriously just a vague opening in the woods that slants steeply downward. It's more of a rough ATV path than a driveway. *sigh*

[Philosoraptor]

11. Even I as an atheist know that Christ commands us to help the poor.

America is NOT a Christian nation, although it likes to brag that it is.

[JohnnyBoots]

12. Imagine all the money they spend at and on building those mega churches.

A lot of that money could go a long way to helping the poor in those communities. Instead they they waste that money on a dog and pony show for Jesus. I think he would have much rather used the money to help people.

[Philosoraptor]

14. The Vatican is a good example of a house of worship Christ would NOT build.

[barbtries]

16. we wouldn't be poor

and we would have enough left over to make reparations for the damage we've done. all of our children could get advanced degrees - nobody would have to be hungry or homeless. ain't gonna happen of course. imagine.

[The2ndWheel]

17. If the $10 billion doesn't exist for one

I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist for the other one either.

[Philosoraptor]

18. ...........

[spanone]

19. i'm with you. or how about 85 billion for health care instead of an insurance bailout

[Philosoraptor]

20. 85 billion would be a hell of a shot in the arm

[Philosoraptor]

21. .........

[Philosoraptor]

22. .........

[OneBlueSky]

23. either way, we'd still be spending money we don't have . . . n/t