Fight cancer, not Iraq
The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change. It needs to become a priority again.
Polls say people are much more afraid of cancer than of a plane flying into their house or a bomb or any other form of terrorism. It is a priority for the American public.
Lance Armstrong, quoted in USA Today.
posted by Iqbal Khaldun @ 1:46 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I remember seeing this a while back but forgot to bookmark it. Thanks mate.
No need to apologise, a fascinating and important topic. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s most comforting to know I’m not the only one who thinks all this space shuttle is a little absurd. Students and younger people per se (um, I guess that includes me… still) really are key to any social change. The older you get the more you tend to get plugged into the great institutional ‘machines’ that dominate society. To over simplify for a moment, you get a job out of necessity. To excel at it you need to develop skill and expertise in it. Doing this necessitates some degree of intellectual consistency with the system that perpetuates the job. Amongst professional classes (the end product of a university education) this generally means buying into the ideology of one’s employer. I remember when I first worked for the Government learning quite unconsciously how to provide a legal justification for racially discriminatory legislation. Um, if that’s not a big hint as to where I used to work, then I don’t know what is… :-)
Thanks for those links Vasco. I do remember that discussion on Antony’s blog and your post (I think globalnomads is another discussion group I need to bookmark). I really think the term ‘aid’ is a great doublespeak term. I mean it makes us (ie donor nations) look like these grand charities. The reality is almost every donor nation has the capacity to donate to poorer nations because of a long standing history of domestic economy protectionism and the exploitation of weaker states. A bit like Martha Stewart having her apparel range manufactured by children in sweatshops yet advertising to consumers that a portion of proceeds from sales will go to children’s orphanages.
Re preventive health messages – would like to hear more!
Actually been thinking about doing just that, will do!
My gawd, this McKnight is such a stereotypical, starry-eyed technophile. What kind of argument is it to say 'let's spend heaps on colonising Mars because we fucked up Earth so bad'. Hmmm...
Ok, I think points 2 and 3 on your list have relatively self-explanatory. Re alleviating poverty what type of thoughts have you had? I'm what you'd call a flirtatious socialist (aka crypto-capitalist slut). IE – a key ingredient to alleviating poverty is to gear it towards the benefit and welfare of the general population. After all, isn’t market capitalism premised on corporate welfare?
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