On the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the current terror threat and precautions is yet another reminder (and reason) for a discussion about “keeping America safe”. The hundreds of billions of dollars spent on wars of aggression, and the tens of billions of dollars lost to fraud and waste in Iraq and Afghanistan - even tens of millions supposedly going directly to the Taliban and other insurgent groups - are more evidence of how our reaction to 9/11 not only failed to keep us safer but wasted precious resources that could be used to actually keep this country safe.
Republicans (and now a growing number of Democrats) in Congress – both now and over the past decade – are/were more concerned with writing blank checks for billions of dollars, not just putting this country at further risk, but ignore the real things that put American lives at risk and fail to keep us safe on a day to day basis. The threat of attack is nothing new – it goes back at least to the 1950s, where students had drills to hide under their desks and more recently in the 1980s with the Cold War.
But as a tremendously disproportionate amount of a dwindling pool of tax dollars is spent and wasted on “keeping America safe™” from a theoretical threat that is far less likely than, say, a plane crash, things are crumbling here at home while being ignored. Consider the following, just to name a few examples:
- New Jersey’s infrastructure is crumbling and in dire need of major investment, and the overall infrastructure in the US has consistently received close to failing grades in many areas measured.
- A recent study cited approximately 45,000 deaths ANNUALLY from a lack of health insurance.
- The bridge collapse in Minnesota killed 13 and injured close to 150 and was due to a faulty design, coupled by the patchwork upkeep.
- Pollution from coal plants is estimated to kill 30,000 people per year, yet regulations have consistently been loosened (most recently, Obama looks to loosen more EPA regulations).
- Loose oversight of imports from China have led to deaths, illnesses (short and long term) and many many recalls over the years.
- close to 12,000 people are injured each year in mining accidents, yet regulations aren’t followed and fines are small compared to the costs of correcting the violations.
- The proposed loosening of rules by airlines that relate to fatigued pilots which puts airline profit above passenger safety.
- On a very “close to home” level, hundreds of firefighters and police were laid off in Newark and Camden - which has been cited as a link to the further increase in violent crime and murder.
You get the point. I can talk about clean air, clean drinking water, cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers or the more recent demand by Scott Garrett, Eric Cantor and other Republicans for more cuts to needed programs in order to pay for disaster cleanup after the recent earthquake and hurricane.
Keeping America safe starts here at home and goes far beyond chest thumping and aggressive invasions of other countries. It involves things like, you know, keeping us safe from things that are far more dangerous, far more deadly and far more likely to kill or injure Americans than a potential terror attack.