The Military Mind

I just finished watching a PBS program on our Civil War (which was quite uncivil). We killed more Americans in that war than in all the wars we have fought before and since—killing each other, killing our own brothers! just one hundred and thirty years ago they stood together in solid phalanxes, firing at each other and in so doing giving each other the best of all possible targets.

Military officers treat their soldiers as materials. Soldiers give up their powers of reason. The whole program is one of adults with the minds of children playing a most dangerous game. It might be OK if bystanders did not have to pay for it all and often get killed as well.

I remember playing soldier when I was a little boy but, thank God, I grew out of it.

The military mind has made my country a debtor nation for the first time ever. The military mind has stolen our resources from the poor and given them to the rich. The military mind has brought us to the brink of nuclear annihilation. The military mind cares about the military—period. The Defense Department is a War Department, purely and simply. And fire departments don't stay in top shape without fighting a few fires now and then.

This is called a Christian nation by some folks; Ha! Is that the same Christianity that was started by the great general Jesus Christ? And then there are those other great generals Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther. King, Jr.

The military mind makes you believe you are peace loving while it builds the greatest war machine the world has ever seen. The military mind ships tons and tons of our war materials abroad to be sure they will stay in business.

The military mind has never grown up. The military mind is not that of a mature adult human being. The military mind is far from approaching the potential of a human mind. The military mind prevents us from becoming really civilized.

...W. H. Oberteuffer...
Smilin' O Ranch
Elgin, Oregon

The "Good" Trade Surplus

The United States is not to worry about the trade surplus with Japan. A Japanese study quoted in the Washington Post for Friday, June 1, 1990 says Japan's $45 billion trade surplus with the United States is really a good thing. The trade surplus enables the Japanese to lend money to the United States to finance its government, which it can't seem to do without borrowing money and secondly the Japanese can use the surplus to supply much needed capital to the developing world and Europe, a task the United States used to do in its role of world leader.

We should be very pleased to learn that the Japanese have graciously agreed to assume our role in the world and we should be proud that our trade deficit makes all this possible. This is an obviously unexpected bonus from the foreign policy of the United States and points to a remarkable achievement for our government, not only to have rehabilitated an enemy of a bitter war, but to have made it possible for the former enemy to take our place as the leading democracy and benefactor of the modern industrial world. We should be very proud. Our trade negotiators don't have a thing to worry about since we can all be proud of what a good citizen Japan is as a result of our thoughtfullness in running up a huge national debt which they so generously support with funds with the trade surplus they have with us. Probably never before in our history has our foreign, domestic, and trade policy converged to do so much good with an economy so completely botched up by our Federal government. Just think how lucky we are that Japan lost World War II, otherwise this might never have happened.

...Ted Sudia...
Washington, DC.

President Rewards Slipshod Work

Magellan, the spacecraft orbiting Venus, would blank out. Mission control on Earth hadn't the faintest idea where the satellite Was or what it was doing during these blackouts. The solar panels on Magellan would not open, limiting the amount of power the spacecraft had for doing its work and sending the result to Earth. Magellan's problem was found to be a bug in the basic software NASA uses in many of its satellites..

The Hubble telescope does not have an "error" in it main mirror. The mirror was ground to the specs provided—they were the wrong specs. The satellite is not useless since computer simulation can provide corrections for its images, but it's not the same as if the telescope's mirrors were ground to proper specs in the first place. Mirror grinding has been an exact art for about 300 years. Quite recently, Hubble's gyros have been failing. There is enough redundancy to keep the satellite working, but the situation is critical. A rescue mission has been planned for Hubble, but if gyros keep falling, that mission may have to be moved up to an emergency mission.

The Next Goes weather satellites may never be launched. The Next Goes was to replace the aging GOES (geo orbiting environmental satellite) satellites currently in orbit. NASA decided to combine research and operations with Next Goes and designed a new satellite. Next Goes does not rotate on an axis, and so must be otherwise stabilized in flight. Since Next Goes always has the same side toward the Earth one side is hot and the other cold. That does strange things to its circuits. The GOES satellite is a spinner and does not need stabilization or hot and cold adjustments. Next Goes has wiring that interferes with its radio. Next Goes is an experimental model that has never been flight tested. The GOES satellites will expire in the near future and it is not at all certain that Next Goes will be launched. We have begun discussions with the European Community and Japan to use their weather satellites, since it is very likely that the United States will not have any of its own, so to speak.

Would you believe that NASA, this year, received 6 (six) Presidential Rank Awards for excellence in management?

The failures and the awards they generated point up the sad fate of this one-time splendid organization. NASA was not created to be an operational space agency in the full glare of politics. It was created to do space and aeronautic research. Its soul is the old National Aviation Advisory Board, the little known Federal agency that literally created the age of flight. Where is the research the NAAB did? Has NASA continued it? We don't hear about it. The golden age of our space program was the planetary exploration program and the sending of man to the moon. With the advent of the space shuttle and the commercialization of space, NASA has become the captive of politicians who want to exploit space. It has to stop. NASA should be relieved of the space shuttle program. Even before the Challenger launch, the space shuttle was a reliable spacecraft. Had Challenger been launched in the proper climatic window for its safe performance, there most likely would have been no tragedy. Even so, with the improvements in the space shuttle since the Challenger, it is even more of a reliable operational space vehicle.

The weather satellites are operational. Our weather service and the weather services of the world depend on them, as we depend on the daily newspaper. In no way can they be considered a research program. What to say about communications satellites? They are bread and butter operations—they are not research.

NASA must be excused from the day-to-day commercial aspects of space activities and freed to pursue a research program for space. We need one badly. NASA should not be charged with deployment of a space station for uncertain and dubious industrial purposes. I think we need manned and unmanned-research missions. The present plan for the space station seems to be a manned boondoggle. If NASA were freed to pursue a program of space research, it could be hoped that politics in the agency would diminish. For the operational and commercial aspects of space, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce should be established and given that charge. The Commerce Department, not NASA, should be charged with working with the commercial and industrial community to provide the services the nation needs.

We need NASA. We need NASA to be free and independent, to be able to explore and carry out research on the near-Earth environment, the Solar System and perhaps beyond. Let Commerce handle commerce and let NASA do the research.

The Presidential Rank Award, Distinguished Executive, carries with it the presidential handshake and $20,000.

...Ted Sudia...
Washington, DC

Pennies

There is a move afoot to eliminate the penny as lawful currency in the United States. The notion is the penny has lost so much of its value that it costs more to make them than they are worth. In addition pennies are difficult to keep in circulation since so many people save them. Retailers have dishes of pennies on their counters to make change, allowing customers to take pennies from the dish to complete the purchase and to return pennies from other purchases in the dish to add to the stock. And finally, pennies are a nuisance. People accidently drop pennies on the sidewalk and walk away from them since they are not worth the trouble to pick up. I pick them up and I personally think the penny should be saved.

In the movie Superman III, the character played by Richard Prior raised his salary from $225 a week to $89,000 by embezzling the fractional pennies from the financial accounts of the company for which he worked as a computer operator.

The Japanese buyers of U.S. bonds waited until the percentage was raised from 8% to 8.5% i.e. a half cent, before they bought their $30 billion worth.

In the international money markets a move of the price of currency in one market relative to another of half cent is enough to cause crash buying, which might result in gains of $200,000 in the volumes that are bought and sold. In many parts of the United States, real estate taxes are fixed in mill rates. A mill is one-thousandth of a dollar and the tax is fixed at mills/dollar: Ten mills equals one cent.

If the penny is eliminated just think of the billions of transactions that will be rounded to the nearest nickel—four whole cents or more. Prices will be rounded up not down and the consumer will again lose. Removing pennies from circulation will affect those people who make numerous small purchases in cash. For the most part the poor.

We should keep the penny as the symbol of a once proud economy where the penny had value. They're like the flag, let's keep them. We should keep the penny because to eliminate it will cause immediate inflation at the bottom of the economy where it is not needed or desired. We should keep the penny because for many people, particularly children, it's all they can save. If the penny is worth less than the copper/nickel alloy it takes to make it, its the only coin we have with real intrinsic value some where near its face values and we should keep it for that reason.

If the United States is tired of making pennies why not privatize the manufacture of pennies. Sample pennies can be submitted to the U.S. Mint for inspection and if, they meet the specifications for the coins of the realm, the submitters should be permitted to manufacture pennies and sell them at face value or simply put them into circulation. Who knows someone may be able to make a good penny for 0.9 cents. An number should be able to play. A free enterprize system should be able to profit from such skill.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1991
Institute for domestic Tranquility