Civil Defense Budget Cut
Greene doesn’t want us to cut funding for civil defense. She says, “We cannot allow politics to prevail over reason.” I think that if we really could put reason first we’d cut all civil defense funds.
She’s talking about protecting Americans against the combined effects of 50,000 nuclear warheads. The next big war will be the explosive equivalent of 10,000 World War II’s, all in an afternoon. I agree, 119 million civil defense dollars won’t protect us from that. But will 119 billion? 119 trillion? I doubt it. Certainly the figures Greene is arguing about are meaningless.
In those first few minutes more than two-thirds of all doctors and hospitals will cease to exist. At the same time, every surviving community in America will face local disasters of earthquake and plague proportions.
Even if we diverted the entire Medicare budget to civil defense what could we do, save those doctors and hospitals? And would that be good enough? I doubt it. Not in that kind of emergency.
Greene mentions stockpiling food. She has no conception of the size of the catastrophe. What’s the total value of American farmland? What will it be worth after 10,000 radioactive wars have landed? What does $119 million mean in that context, or $119 billion or trillion?
DAVID CUMMINGS
Las Vegas
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