Our National Priorities

This week has been replete with many articles about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the anniversary of his birth.

The one that really struck me was how Rev. King articulated decades ago what I see happening today.  Indeed, it seemingly has always been this way.  From a great blog post by Richard Eskow::

“Congress appropriates military funds with alacrity and generosity. It appropriates poverty funds with miserliness and grudging reluctance. The government is emotionally committed to the war.  It is emotionally hostile to the needs of the poor.” 

We "can't afford" stuff, not because it's intrinsically too expensive, but because we prioritize our spending towards other things, i.e., the military.  To the extent that our military spending alone equals that of the next 9 countries...combined (link here).