Daily Resource Highlight - 01/24/2022

Posted by on January 24, 2022 at 3:16 PM

Below are the highlights and featured resources of this past week’s Daily* Resource.

January 18, 2022 - We Can’t Act Like Campaigns; Attacking with EUTM, Part 2

During my undergrad years, I volunteered for a presidential campaign. We developed relationships with local activists in the name of registering voters and recruiting more volunteers, and my teammates and I became a fixture in the community. Once the election was over, however, everybody was gone, along with the campaign “infrastructure” we had created.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach – it’s how campaigns operate. But it does underscore the need for organizations like Nonprofit VOTE, who operate like it’s always election season. Democracies need year-round maintenance to work properly, and you can play a vital role in the upkeep. Here are some ways:

And if you’re already an activist, make sure your organization knows about BillTrack50. They can help you stay in-the-know on what lawmakers are doing in all 50 states and in Congress. Here’s a video of Karen Suhaka explaining how to get the most out of the platform.

 

January 21, 2022 - Demanding Oversight of the Military While Appreciating It

I went to a Quaker school for middle school and high school. If you don’t know anything about Quakers, just know that they are committed pacifists. So I was taught that the U.S. military is too big and that its budget – which is objectively huge – should be reduced substantially.

As I’ve gotten older, my views on the military have become more nuanced. For instance, I now have an appreciation for the impact that its research and development work has had on our everyday lives; work that led to inventions like the Epipen, duct tape, GPS, and – perhaps most famously – the internet. Military technology has revolutionized civilian life.

Nevertheless, a nearly $1 trillion proposed annual budget merits oversight and special scrutiny, and we are lucky to have organizations like Project on Government Oversight demanding answers and accountability. In recent weeks, POGO has shined a light on the Pentagon’s revolving door and a possible corruption scandal that has resulted from that revolving door.

POGO also went into detail in criticizing the military’s latest budget requests. These include another attempt to build a gun with lightning quick bullets (the first attempt failed due to a price tag of nearly $1 million per bullet) and a $123 million contract to build laser weapons.

I won't pretend to know whether these projects are worth their cost or not. But I firmly believe it’s worth asking the question. The mission of the military is to protect the American people, and we, as Americans, have the right to question the cost and effectiveness of that protection.

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