For plasma TVs and luxury vacations, lives are lost
IT IS A WAY of life to talk about our way of life, without questioning the way our lives are headed.
In Sunday's address to the nation, President Bush said terrorists ''object to our deepest values and our way of life." Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Americans ''honor the sacrifice of our many sons and daughters who have fallen in Iraq and around the world to protect our way of life." This month Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, ''The Patriot Act has given investigators additional authorities they need to help stop terrorists before they can hurt Americans and harm our way of life."
In a press conference last month to counter the call by Democratic House hawk John Murtha to withdraw troops from Iraq, House Republican Louie Gohmert of Texas said such calls ''tell our enemies over there, those who would destroy freedom and our way of life, they don't have the stomach . . . to finish the job." Last month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, ''I've watched the spread of communism and the fall of communism, the spread of fascism and the fall of fascism. At teams, each toxic ideology was considered the wave of the future and was predicted to triumph over our way of life by people who should have known better."
With all this talk about soldiers dying for our way of life, with all the pontifications about the Patriot Act and with the calls for national fortitude against John Murtha, you would think the ''way of life" being protected here is quite serious. It cannot be about protecting our freedoms, since Bush rather proudly admits -- after it was exposed -- that he secretly ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on those he suspects of terrorism without obtaining warrants.
The truth, magnified by the materialistic marketing of the holiday season, is embarrassing for a nation that loves to talk about military sacrifice. While the sons and daughters of the middle and lower classes die in Iraq, the wealthy count their toys, literally.
The top 20 percent of households in terms of income -- the households Bush and the Republicans want to give so much of their tax cuts to -- spend an average of $4,516 a year on entertainment according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is more than:
The $2,121 spent on education.
The $3,255 spent on clothing.
The $3,606 spent on healthcare.
The $254 spent on reading.
The wealthy spend virtually the same on entertainment as on food at home ($4,503). The biggest increases in entertainment spending were for televisions, radios, and sound equipment. Entertainment spending drops dramatically as you move down the quintiles, the quintiles more likely to produce our soldiers.
The next 20 percent spend $2,471, the middle 20 percent spend $1,776, the second lowest 20 percent spend $1,307, and the bottom 20 percent spend $703 a year on entertainment. Contrary to stereotypes about the poor not caring about education, the amount that the bottom 20 percent of American households spend on education, $583, is much closer to the $703 in entertainment than the gap between the $2,121 spent by the rich on education and the $4,516 spent on entertainment.
While the upper 20 percent spend more on entertainment than healthcare, the remaining 80 percent of Americans spend more on healthcare than entertainment. Household healthcare spending for the bottom 20 percent is double the spending for healthcare, and the next 20 percent spends $2,132 on healthcare, compared with the $1,307 on entertainment.
Bush has used the line about terrorists going after our ''way of life" without much challenge since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His most notable early use was in his speech from Chicago's O'Hare Airport in which he urged Americans to trust airline security again. ''Get on board," Bush said. ''Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots. Go down to Disney World in Florida, take your families and enjoy life the way we want it to be enjoyed."
No one has a problem with enjoying special treats with the family. But the invasion and occupation of Iraq is headed toward its third anniversary. To this day, Bush has not called for a national sacrifice to match the courage of the soldiers dying in Iraq. Not even giving up our plasma TV screens and our video games. He says our soldiers are protecting our way of life. We have yet to question whether it is a way of life worth living.
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com. 
