A question for DUers who frequent the Poverty forum

[unhappycamper]

I'm attempting to show how ridiculous military spending jeopardizes things like head start, food stamps, unemployment, etc., etc., etc.

My goal is to put some perspective to the extraordinary costs we have been paying for military hardware in terms that we can all understand. I put this thread up yesterday --> http://www.democraticunderground.com/1118186 and received 180 views and one response.

There's some good stuff in that thread but I'm not sure how to present it. Would you guys take a look at that thread, beat the shit out of it and offer suggestions on a better way to write something like that? I would like people to read this stuff and relate to the numbers.

TIA,

unhappycamper

[kdmorris]

1. I've been meaning to respond for a couple of days

But time just keeps getting away from me (7 month old twins).

I saw that post and for me, it was a little confusing. It was hard to link the plant that was being built to the military and how that links back to what we COULD buy with it. There was a 1 missing in the beginning of the title, as well. I might try to present it more like:

1,000,000,000 - what can it buy?

Then list out all the ridiculous expenditures for military hardware. Then I would add maybe OR it can feed X number of people with an average food stamp allotment of y per person. It can pay for Head Start for X number of children for Y number of years, etc.

For me, that is where the true disgust of the military expenditures comes into play. I'm sorry, but I really didn't understand what the plant had to do with the military expenditures you listed (this could be my fault due to getting little sleep -both of my sons are teething). Maybe make the plant secondary, or part of the lists of things that could be built/created with 1 billion dollars... like after sending children to Head Start, mention Build a plant that provides jobs for X number of people (didn't see the # in the Wikipedia article).

I hope that helps. I've noticed that the plight of the poor is not often a subject that gets lots of replies. I believe this may be due to the fact that most people agree with the need to provide a safety net and controversial subjects usually get the most responses.

Keep up the fight, unhappycamper!

[unhappycamper]

2. THANK YOU !!1!

I tried to show what you could by with one billion dollars. A KIA plant or......

The Science channel had a "Build It Bigger" show about the new $2 billion Mumbai airport. A new Mumbai airport or a week's occupation cost in Afghanistan.

Ditto for the new $2.5 billion Melborne desalinization plant.

The problem I've been having is one of scale. A billion of anything is hard to get your head around, and all of the larger weapons systems play in the billion dollar range.

Thanks for the reply!