Bring Them All Home

So much hand-wringing is going on in this country about the deficit. We can't give unemployment benefits to 2 million Americans because it would add to the deficit. And we have to cut Social Security and Medicare payments. But of course we have to continue to give tax cuts to the rich. This is all so incredibly ridiculous and cruel.

What we need to do is bring all our troops home. And let's include the contractors in that group too. Let's close the 170 some bases we maintain throughout the world. Let's end the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and let's not start wars in Yemen, Iran, or North Korea. All our messing with the world's peoples makes us far less safe than if we would just mind our own business and stay home. The CIA itself said that the world is less safe because of our so-called war on terrorism. It has given would-be enemies of the U.S. a reason to become real enemies.

This would solve the budget deficit in one fell swoop. The military, after all, takes up more than 50 percent of our budget. Remember, folks, that the U.S. spends more on its military than all the other countries of the world combined. What are we so damn scared of!

Instead of these men and women killing people in other countries or messing with the affairs of other nations, they could be home building infrastructure, cleaning up toxic waste sites, policing the borders, and helping out in disasters. We could turn our military into a works projects corps. This would improve this country and make us safer since we wouldn't be prone to attacks from people seeking revenge for the wrongs done to them. Such a simple solution, but no politician has the guts to propose it.

Dragging

Today was a day like so many in the last few months--wearying. All that I accomplished was taking Rasputin for two short walks and doing four loads of laundry. And this tuckered me out.

Again today I felt an upwelling of fluids into my chest whenever I'd do the slightest bit of exercise--like walking across the room. These fluids put pressure on my chest, making it difficult to breathe and giving me an overall feeling of constraint and constriction.

I would carry a load of laundry to the laundry room behind my apartment, stop and take a rest, load the laundry into the wash machine, take another rest, carry the dry laundry into the apartment, sort it and hang it up, then lie down to take a half-hour nap. That was my day. Rasputin, of course, is a big believer in naps, so he snuggled next to me.

I keep thinking that once I get a kidney transplant, I'll be able to walk across the room with ease, do simple tasks like the laundry with no sweat, and even have enough energy to hike and surf again. Wow, wouldn't that be something!