The Costs of Two U.S. Blunders

Today we remember the 2,974 people who perished at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the UA and AA flights during the 9/11 disaster, as well as the 4,343 survivors and first responders who have died in the years since due to illnesses caused by exposure to toxic dust and fumes from the site. These are the thousands of first responders, rescuers, firemen/women, police, iron workers and construction workers. (1.)

Sadly, most Americans stop there. (2.) 

We tend not to include additional major losses resulting from 9/11.

For instance, total dead, including civilians, during the Iraq war is estimated to be between 600,000 to as many as 1 million. “As of 2021, 9.2 million Iraqis are internally displaced or refugees abroad.” (3.)

In Afghanistan, "The current crisis (Sept 2021) comes on top of the 2.2 million Afghan refugees already in neighbouring countries and 3.5 million people forced to flee their homes within Afghanistan's borders." (4.)

These wars were not “paid” by increasing taxes as the Korean and Vietnam wars were. The Bush administration reduced taxes for the wealthy and borrowed to finance the wars. The approximate cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is now estimated to eventually cost American taxpayers nearly $6.5tn. That includes veteran benefits and interest payments through 2050. (5.)

Finally, who did benefit from the two wars - wars which most would say are clear blunders; entered into through outright lies; and characterized with the United States committing international war crimes?

You already know the answer: The U.S. defense contractors. (6)

"In the year to June 2020 the big five accounted for nearly a third of the $480bn obligated by the Pentagon to defense contractors." And, to ensure their cash cows, the defense industry spent, "...over $2.4bn lobbying Congress since 2001, and made direct campaign contributions to most members." (7.)

Do you really believe we are the nation spreading democracy throughout the world? I don't. The proof is clearly in the results of the past 20 years. 

In fact, we have become the opposite — a Doppelganger U.S. — selling weapons of war and seeding death and misery.

Sources

1. 20 Years Later: The Lingering Health Effects of 9/11
https://www.asbestos.com/featured-stories/9-11-lingering-health-effects/

2. Iraq: the Human Cost http://web.mit.edu/humancostiraq/

3. Iraqi Refugees https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/refugees/iraqi

4. Afghanistan: How many refugees are there and where will they go? 
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58283177

5. Americans could owe $6.5 trillion for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — and that's just the interest https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-iraq-wars-debt-6-trillion-interest/

6. Military spending: 20 companies profiting the most from war
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/02/21/military-spending-defense-contractors-profiting-from-war-weapons-sales/39092315/

7. Where did the $5tn spent on Afghanistan and Iraq go? Here’s where 
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/11/us-afghanistan-iraq-defense-spending

You will find these articles interesting.

1. About 9/11 truth: Remembering 9/11 – 2,974 WTC Murdershttps://downriverusa.blogspot.com/2014/09/remembering-911-2974-wtc-murders.html

2. About recent American History seen from an “old guy's perspective”: Lies Too Big To Fail (Parts I, II, & III) https://downriverusa.blogspot.com/2014/08/lies-too-big-to-fail.html

3. About Kent State University and truth: When Demagogues & Incompetence Rule Innocents 
https://downriverusa.blogspot.com/2017/02/when-demagogues-incompetence-rule.html

Tomorrow's Reality… a Clock Cleaning or Rifkin's Plan

 

America 3.0, Rifkin's Plan 

It’s possible that we may witness a rare occurrence: the U.S. Senate actually doing something positive for the people of the nation, the politicians themselves, and their corporate enablers.

The Senate may adopt an infrastructure bill aimed at repairing our aged roads, bridges, water systems, even establishing, a modern electrical distribution grid and extending broadband services to poorly served areas of the nation.  We must wait and see, of course, whether Congress births another monstrosity or a beautiful thing.

After all, we have yet to learn how the billions will be spent.

Still, congressional action may finally launch infrastructure programs we can only hope that the “plan” will begin to bring us on par with the Europeans and the Chinese. Both are way ahead of us due to our inability to throw off the shackles of centuries-old carbon-based industries and Robber Baron Era Predatory Capitalism in addition to the equally failed policies of Reaganomics and Neoliberalism that all but eliminated the U.S. middleclass born of FDR’s New Deal Policies and economic protections and the post WWII economic boom.

While we were duct taping our economy together to please the oil industry people and expanding our American Empire throughout the world, plus most recently, distracted by Mr. Trump’s temper tantrums and neo-fascist fascinations, the Europeans and Chinese have moved ahead creating savvy infrastructures, new economies, to meet the challenges at hand. 

They have done this by listening to an implementing the ideas of Jeremy Rifkin, the "American economic and social theorist, writer, public speaker, political advisor, and activist". 

Yes, American. Like so many other examples from our past, our current “global” corporate executives and politicians are so secure in decades old, proven technology, as well as the unimagined wealth and the status it has brought them, that they have chosen to hang on to woefully outdated technology and refuse to act on the changes occurring before their eyes. 

One obviously similar example from our past is W. Edwards Deming, the guru of modern-day, flexible lean production systems. Deming tried and failed to get the American automotive “Big Three” to adopt his ideas. The Japanese manufacturers, however, implemented them and then cleaned the Big Three’s clocks, creating and selling vastly superior quality cars and trucks.

Mr. Rifkin’s plans are underway in Europe and China.

It’s time for the USA to catch up or watch our collective clock being cleaned once again.

The Rifkin Plan, 

America 3.0 The Resilient Society
A Smart Third Industrial Revolution Infrastructure
And The Recovery of the American Economy

Who is Making Big Bucks?

 

Ever wonder why elected "officials" from both parties are really interested in U.S. borders?

It's obviously not about refugees or the reasons desperate people are trying to get into the U.S. Certainly its never been about humanitarian issues. There is no money in that.

However, there is a great deal of money available to the "border industrial complex" of corporations to militarize our southern border.

Here's the story:

The Truth About the U.S. Border | Robert Reich, 15 June 2021

Life Gift: Creation of Zero Thermal Expansion Material

 

Super glue was an accident, too.

Along with graphene ( here and here), the creation of, "what may be one of the most thermally stable materials ever discovered", by Australian researchers may change our future for the better. Interestingly, this discovery is similar to many other great findings... it was uncovered by accident. Here's the story...

Extraordinary new material shows zero heat expansion from 4 to 1,400 K, Loz Blain, newatlas.com, 11 June 2021.

"A new material could find applications in aerospace components and medical implants."

"Australian researchers have created what may be one of the most thermally stable materials ever discovered. This new zero thermal expansion (ZTE) material made of scandium, aluminum, tungsten and oxygen did not change in volume at temperatures ranging from 4 to 1400 Kelvin (-269 to 1126 °C, -452 to 2059 °F)."

"That's a wider range of temperatures, say scientists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), than any other material demonstrated to date, and it could make orthorhombic Sc1.5Al0.5W3O12 (catchy name, eh?) a very handy tool for anyone engineering something that needs to work in extremely varied thermal environments."

"Examples of where this might come in handy include things like aerospace design, where components are exposed to extreme cold in space and extreme heat at launch or on re-entry. Famously, the SR-71 Blackbird was designed to expand so much at its Mach 3.4 top speed that it would liberally drizzle fuel on the runway at ground temperatures; the fuel tanks wouldn't even fully seal until they heated up. This new material stays exactly the same volume from close to absolute zero all the way up to comfortably over the heat you'd expect to get on the wing of a hypersonic aircraft traveling at Mach 5."

Please go here for more.

Advanced material has zero thermal expansion, 9 June 2021

ANSTO News

A/Prof Neeraj Sharma of UNSW and Dr Helen Maynard-Casely of ANSTO explain their research on advanced materials that does not expand or contract over a wide temperature range.

Life Gift: Sirturo, an FDA-approved TB Drug can Cause Cancer Cell "Power Failure"

 

Most likely you know someone who has passed because of cancer. I do.

All forms of cancer are my sworn enemy. The discovery described below could lead to eliminating the dreaded diseases.

Oddly, for me, the anti-TB drug Bedaquiline (Sirturo) is playing the leading role.  I had TB as a child. Please see below.

"...FDA-approved drug called Sirturo, which is used to treat tuberculosis and works by targeting this process in bacteria. In vivo animal experiments showed that the drug could target the fuel supply of these ultra-fit cancer cells and selectively create a "power failure" in them, while leaving healthy cells unharmed. This blocked 85 percent of metastasis in the animal experiments."

Tuberculosis drug causes "power failure" in ultra-fit cancer cells, Nick Lavars, 2 June 2021.

Go here for the whole story:

From the University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK, The University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy, Universitaria, Pisa, Italy.

Bedaquiline (Sirturo), an FDA-approved drug, inhibits mitochondrial ATP production and metastasis in vivo, by targeting the gamma subunit (ATP5F1C) of the ATP synthase, Marco Fiorillo, Cristian Scatena, Antonio Giuseppe Naccarato, Federica Sotgia & Michael P. Lisanti, 13 May 2021.

"Targeting ATP5F1C with Bedaquiline, an FDA-approved drug, prevents aggressive cancer cell behaviors, including spontaneous metastasis

Bedaquiline (a.k.a., Sirturo) is an FDA-approved antibiotic, that is clinically used for the treatment of drug-resistant TB (DR-TB). Originally, it was thought that Bedaquiline only affected the mycobacterial ATP-synthase, but more recent studies have indicated that Bedaquiline also potently inhibits the yeast and human mitochondrial ATP-synthase."

"As a consequence, we conclude that the gamma-subunit of the mitochondrial ATP-synthase (ATP5F1C) is a new therapeutic target, for mitigating aggressive cancer cell behaviors, including spontaneous metastasis."

Memory

Mom at Springfield Lake Sanitarium, (Edwin Shaw) near Akron, OH

Funny how memory works.

Once I had a couple of friends who could seemingly remember every detail of their childhood: toys they had… every relative… teachers… classmates… even what they wrote in kindergarten.

Me? Nothing.

Oh, there are a few scraps here and there… but nothing to make a story.

One memory does poke out every once in a while. It’s more of a photo than a real memory… you know one with dialogue and people attached to it.

No, this one is only a snapshot memory.

In it I see my mother waving at us as we drive away… me in the backseat, looking out the rear window. She was standing on a balcony, a screened-in porch, waving goodbye.

Today I know that my mom was a nurse. That she somehow contacted Tuberculosis (TB) and was confined to the Springfield Lake Sanitarium, near Akron, OH, when I was a little boy. I don’t know for how long.

I do know that attached to that snapshot is a feeling of sadness and loss. Fear, actually… that I’ll never see her again.

Like other repressed memories, perhaps one day, I’ll remember more.

But, today, my mind will only let me recall that young woman, waving as we drove from the grounds.

Today A Gift... Beau Dermott Defying Gravity

Today I waned to post something inspiring. Why? 

We so desperately need inspiration and we need to follow our own instincts today more than any other time in our lives.

I found 12-year old Beau Dermott singing, Defying Gravity from my favorite Broadway show: Wicked.

A Young Shy Girl Walks On Stage, but within Seconds Everyone’s Jaw Hit The Floor

"12-year old Beau Dermott blows Amanda away with her impressive cover of Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked with the Judge reaching for that all-important Golden Buzzer!"

"12-year-old Beau Dermott looks sweet and innocent, but the moment she began singing the audience was floored. Hidden inside this adorable young girl is a voice so powerful that the entire room hung on her every word throughout the whole song “Defying Gravity” from the popular musical Wicked. Throughout the audience, jaws dropped, eyes popped open as wide as humanly possible, and the judges were all just waiting for the opportunity to reward her with something huge."

"Her talent at such a young age shocked everyone, but beyond that, her performance was itself flawless the way she added an extra special touch to the song. She lit up with animation and excitement, showing that singing is what she is most passionate about."

"She received the golden buzzer, and just wait until you see the excitement that follows. AMAZIN!"

COVID-19 Origin Truth Matters

 

COVID-19 is a Wuhan, China lab created virus. 

It was funded through a grant by the National Institute of Health to the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab in China and presided over by Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance (New York, NY). He is the same Dr. Daszak who wrote the prestigious Lancet article declaring the virus was natural in origin. He was also a member of the World Health Organization commission which was tasked to go to China (members had to be acceptable to the Chinese government) and determine the origin of the COVID-19 virus.

A clear conflict of interest, don’t you agree? And a clear cover up, too.

The COVID-19 source does matter. 

Literally, the future of humanity depends upon it. How many more millions will die because we have permitted “gain-of-function” or virus weaponization to continue?

I posted about "gain of function" and the origin of the virus on 10 March 2020, Why Are They Killing Us?

Please read the article. (Note: My source interview has now been banned by YouTube. So, I now cite a  BitCHUTE posting of the same interview.)

Here’s the story:

Nicholas Wade: the case for the Covid lab-leak theory, 20 May 2021