$300,000,000,000.00

That's
THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS
that the YOU have spent on the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to date.
It's more than the country has, and in order to come up with the money, we've had to borrow enormous amounts from China and other countries, who now have us over a barrel, while plunging the country into such a staggering deficit that it is seriously threatening the stability of our entire economy.

And the bill will be due and payable, and every one of us, and our children, and our children's children, will all be paying for it for their entire lives.

Three hundred billion dollars. Keep that number in mind next time you hear about a Social Security shortfall, or communities struggling to make their budgets, or having to cut programs and teachers just to keep schools open, or cutting back environmental protections, or when you hear about seniors and others suffering or dying due to being unable to afford health care and drug costs, or any number of REAL problems facing millions of Americans today, problems that exist and are rapidly worsening almost daily in this country.

The things that money could accomplish for the public and national good are simply astounding. Yet those positive and humanitarian goals are not our priority.

Those on the right, and many on the left, bitch and moan and complain about social services or welfare for the poor. Yet you don't hear a peep out of them while the country, under completely false pretenses, spends this unimaginable amount of money, money that the country has to borrow from China and others, against a non-existent threat to the U.S. (Not to mention the death, wounding, and psychological damage done to thousands of our troops, and it's affect on their families forever.)

Only a handful of Americans were courageous enough to stand up and loudly protest this hopelessly misguided war when it became apparent that Bush and his thugs were hell-bent on getting their war on. And those that did were derided and dismissed as some sort of fringe "hippies" or "peace-niks".

How utterly sad and staggeringly unfortunate that the majority of us in this country appear to be little more than "sheeple", told that to dissent from war, no matter how blatantly flimsy and illogical the rationale, is somehow being a bad citizen, and meekly accepting that premise. It's appalling how easily led we as a people are as long as the elites cynically appeal to ignorant and blind patriotism.

Slapping a chincy patriotic ribbon magnet (made in China) is cheap. Wars are not.