WHAT GOOD THINGS $52,000,000,000 A YEAR COULD DO


First, thank yowould long ago have been pushed off the world at the South Pole.u, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, for the brave and immensely valuable service to the world which you have provided.

Second,  rhank you, Washington Post, for printing stories about our disastrous country.

Third, what could the United States government do with $52,000,000,000 a year to make the United States a better, safer place?  Or to relieve poverty and despair in the "third world"?

It occurs to me that the United States is perhaps the first "fourth world" country.  We are the biggest negative influence on the world, the most dangerous country in the world, and the largest debtor nation--the biggest bankrupt--in human history.

If it weren't that the United States has thousands of nuclear weapons and a unique record of having used them, the United States.

I have absolutely no faith that the United States can ever be a decent nation, and sometimes I have little hope that the rest of the world can survive in a world which includes the United States.  But individuals like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden give me some hope, and nations like Germany make me believe that civilisation is possible.  And lots of young people, all over the world, help me to think beyond the dangerous disaster that the United States has become in my lifetime.

                                                                   Bert G. Hornback

Emeritus Professor of Engllish, University of Michigan
Captain, United States Marine Corps (resigned)