Twelve Days in US Neighborhoods copying Pattern set by relentless US Foreign wars

Multilayered Crises Mount, US Politicians Play with Twitter postings

Pattern of Violence

G

lobal Killing: Cost of US wars  

 Lost opportunities

“Though military spending produces jobs—spending in other areas, such as health care, could produce more jobs.

“While investment in military infrastructure grew, investment in other, nonmilitary, public infrastructure such as roads and schools did not grow at the same rate.”

Unending War

“Through Fiscal Year 2020, the United States federal government has spent or obligated $6.4 trillion dollars on the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.”

Current [US foreign] wars have been paid for almost entirely by borrowing—borrowing that has 

• raised the US budget deficit, 
• increased the national debt, and 
• had other macroeconomic effects such as raising consumer interest rates.
  

“Unless the US immediately repays the money borrowed for war, there will also be future interest payments—estimated interest payments totaling more than $8 trillion by the 2050s.”

The $6.4 trillion figure above includes 

• direct Congressional war appropriations;
• war-related increases to the Pentagon base budget; 
• veterans care and disability;
• increases in the homeland security budget;
• interest payments on direct war borrowing;
• foreign assistance spending; and
• estimated future obligations for veterans’ care.

Omitted are many other expenses, such as the 

• macroeconomic costs to the US economy;
• the opportunity costs of not investing war dollars in alternative sectors;
• future interest on war borrowing; and
• local government and private war costs.

“Federal war costs exclude billions of dollars of state, municipal, and private war costs across the country – dollars spent on services for returned veterans and their families, in addition to local homeland security efforts.”

Source: “Costs of War” Watson Institute International and Public Affairs Brown University (data updated January 2020) https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic

Afghan losses (alone): Estimated direct costs in Afghan lives (US war 2001 – present) 

• Civilian deaths (war-related violence): 31,000-plus
• Civilians wounded: 29,900  
• Afghan (civilians, soldiers and militants) deaths in conflict:  111,000-plus
• Afghan deaths (excluding those dying in Pakistan) of indirect causes related to war:  360,000

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)

US in Iraq means USA neglect  

• One Day of the Iraq War = 720 Million Dollars, How Would You Spend it? 
• One Day of the Iraq War = 84 New Elementary Schools
• One Day of the Iraq War = 12,478 Elementary School Teachers
• One Day of the Iraq War = 95,364 Head Start Places for Children
• One Day of the Iraq War = 1,153,846 Children with Free School Lunches
• One Day of the Iraq War = 34,904 Four-Year Scholarships for University Students
• One Day of the Iraq War = 163,525 People with Health Care
• One Day of the Iraq War = 423,529 Children with Health Care
• One Day of the Iraq War = 6,482 Families with Homes
• One Day of the Iraq War = 1,274,336 Homes with Renewable Energy
  

Source: American Friends Service Committee using the National Priorities Project’s per unit costs for human needs such as health care and education to make budget comparisons between the US budget for human needs to ‘One Day of the Iraq War’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Friends_Service_Committee#Cost_of_War_project

Pattern of Violence Copied

D

omestic Shootings, Deaths, Injuries

August 1-12

1^st Alabama (Montgomery) entrance to I-85 South: 4 wounded

1^st Colorado (Denver, Westwood) (high poverty, high crime) neighborhood: 1 (16-year-old) dead, 4 wounded

1^st Texas (Pointblank) exchange of fire at a child’s birthday party: 2 dead, 3 wounded

1^st Illinois (Chicago) backyard barbecue: 1 dead, 4 wounded

2^nd New Jersey (Newark) exchange of fire by heavily armed assailants: 5 wounded (including 10-year-old child)

2^nd Pennsylvania (Philadelphia early morning) gunfire and stabbing: (all women) 4 wounded by gunfire, 1 wounded by multiple stabbing

3^rd New York (Bronx St Ann’s Ave) shooting at park’s basketball courts: 4 wounded

4^th Connecticut (Hartford early morning warehouse gathering) 1 dead, 5 wounded

4^th Missouri (Saint Louis) neighborhood of 2017 closed multinational Switzerland-headquartered corporation ABB electrical transformer plant, site of a 6-person death in 2010: 1 dead, 4 (including a 17-year old) wounded

4^th Wisconsin (Madison) gunfire into a Garner Park memorial gathering: 5 wounded  

4^th Washington (District of Columbia evening shooting): 4 wounded

4^th California (Los Angeles Mulholland Drive, Beverly Crest neighborhood rented mansion house party): 1 dead, 4 wounded

5^th Illinois (Chicago North Lawndale neighborhood, assailant opens fire on sidewalk group): 4 (including 8-year-old) wounded

6^th California (Oakland, block 4500 Fairfax Ave) shooting: 1 dead, 3 wounded.

7^th New York (Buffalo Newton Street) multiple shots fired: 1 dead 

8^th New York (Albany) drive-by multiple shooters, 25+ shots fired: 1 (18-year-old) dead, 3 wounded

• 8^th Kentucky (Paducah, block 900 Boyd St) mass shooting: 1 dead, 4 wounded.

• 8^th Pennsylvania (Philadelphia barbeque in park): 6 wounded

• 8^th Massachusetts (Brockton) mass shooting, two locations: 5 wounded 

• 8^th Alabama (Birmingham /Ensley, 426 18th St): 1 dead, 5 wounded

9^th Colorado (Denver) family gathering in park, drive-by shooter: 10 wounded

• 9^th Washington (District of Columbia southeastern neighborhood): 1 (17-year-old) dead, 20 (including off-duty police officer) wounded

• 9^th Ohio (Toledo, Monroe St and N Detroit Ave) Mass shooting: 6 wounded

• 9^th Mississippi (Jackson block 3600 Cromwell St) mass shooting: 4 injured

10^th

• Colorado (Denver/ S Eliot St, W Virginia Ave): 2 wounded 

• Pennsylvania (Reading  2931 Centre Ave): 2 wounded

• Pennsylvania (Huntingdon Valley1700 Huntingdon Park): 2 dead

• Maryland (Baltimore 2300 block of Ocala Ave): 1 dead, 1 wounded

• Illinois  (East Saint Louis block 1700 Broadway: 2 dead

• Kansas (Topeka block 3800 SW South Park Ave): 2 dead, 1 wounded

11^th California (Los Angeles Cutting Edge Productions Lockness Ave) party: 5+1 wounded (source Gun Violence Archive)

12^th

• Indiana (Indianapolis 4200 block of Moller Rd): 1 dead
• Missouri (Blackjack 4583 Whispering Lake Dr): 1 dead
  

 

W

ar inevitably comes home

Violence roots at home and travels to foreign ports; then returns home. These multiplying crises are happening all at once. 

Yet, politicians of all stripes act as though they were living on a distant planet. 

And for all practical purposes, for all the actual good they do, or rather don’t do, for the common welfare of ordinary people (here or abroad) —they might as well be living on another planet.

 

 

 

 

 

Other Sources

 

Gun Violence Archive

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/1754363

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/incident/1758774

 

Wikipedia (latest update August 11, 2020)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2020

 

WIVB UPDATE: 38-year-old Buffalo man dead in Friday night Newton Street shooting

August 7, 2020 updated: August 8, 2020 https://www.wivb.com/news/buffalo-police-on-scene-of-newton-street-shooting/

 

August 31, 2019 “53 People Died in Mass Shootings in August Alone in the U.S.” Neil Vigdor https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/31/us/us-mass-shootings.html

 

 

 

Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights Reserved