Reply #31: A "better return on investment" is Milton Friedman-speak.

[Peace Patriot]

Government "of, by and for" the people should be seeking the common good--including the long term goods of education, expanding knowledge of the universe, R&D for R&D's sake and inspiration--not a "return on investment." I see our political life constantly infested with the language of multinational corporate P.R. because they control the media. For instance, they have brainwashed many of us to believe that multinational corporations are more "efficient" than government at almost any task. They would love to make Social Security more "efficient," for instance (i.e., loot and destroy the best program the federal government has ever devised). And they have tried to make our educational system more "efficient" by expensive corporate standardized testing, aimed at making good little robot workers, while looting government coffers with tax cuts for the rich and corporate resource wars, resulting in the firing of thousands of teachers, the defunding of schools and the closing of libraries. But perhaps their worst--most destructive--"sell" of corporate "efficiency" has been their coup of private, corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting with virtually no audit/recount controls, now all over the U.S. They sold it as "more efficient" giving us faster election returns (i.e., great "return on investment" for ONE far rightwing-connected corporation, ES&S, which just bought out Diebold and now has an 80% monopoly on the U.S. voting machine 'market') but left out the democracy part--the part where everybody has a right to SEE and understand how our votes are counted.

Phrases like "return on investment" are designed to make us think that government should behave like Wall Street, like ES&S, like Exxon Mobil, like BP. Profit first. Profit is God. Profit is the ONLY value.

I disagree with you about the Mars explorers. I think that R&D for R&D's sake is an appropriate use of government resources. I certainly think that such programs should be monitored--democratically vetted on goals, on use of the money, on corruption, etc., as well as vetted by independent scientists on scientific validity and efficacy--but I DON'T think that they should be evaluated for "return on investment" any more than a child's ability to answer standardized questions should be used to evaluate teachers. The goal of a good teacher is to install love of learning--NOT love of rote learning, NOT love of guessing what "the authorities" want you to conclude is the right answer. We need a higher but necessarily messier, less "efficient" (less corporate), more difficult to quantify standard for programs that seek long term social good--such as the space program and the educational system.

We're throwing BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars into killing, terrorizing and controlling people in foreign lands--a crippling expenditure that is mostly padding the pockets of PRIVATE corporations. And we have let these multinational entities run wild in every respect--including their very "efficient" ruination of the Florida and Louisiana coastal waters, beaches and wildlife at the present moment. How about we give some respect, instead, to the inefficient "tree huggers" and to the "crying in the wilderness" biologists and other scientists who have repeatedly warned about both off-shore oil drilling and deregulation. Fund THEM. Give them an agency, give THEM big government contracts to provide INDEPENDENT (of corporate influence) social and scientific opinion about our ruinous dependence on oil and on control of our government agencies by multinational oil vultures like BP. An INTUITIVE lover of dolphins is a far better guide to government policy on ocean oil drilling than corporate-run Minerals Management and the EPA have been. Independent, CAUTIOUS scientists and engineers--if they had had a voice--would have PREVENTED the BP spill by requiring installation of a failsafe device that cost mere millions, instead of the BILLIONS now lost to the oil spill and what may well be permanent degradation of the environment, at a time when the entire planet is in danger from the use of fossil fuels and other pollutants.

"Return on investment" is the wrong kind of thinking for certain very important subjects--and, in my opinion, space exploration is one of them. You cannot quantify love of learning. You cannot guarantee profit from scientific research. You cannot put a dollar value on the inspiration, motivation, increase in human knowledge and future usefulness of live pictures from Mars, of soil tests on Mars, of human habitation of the Moon, of the discovery of water in many places in our solar system, of the discovery of planets outside of our solar system, of Hubble's penetration of the vast, vast, vast, VAST reaches of the universe or of the potential discovery of life elsewhere in the universe. These things are not "cost-effective." They are more important than that. They express our VALUES as a society. Are we killers and greedbags? Or are we adventurers, educators and democrats with a small d? Do we believe in human progress or do we believe that profit is God?