The strength of a country is in the strength of its people. When we regularly ignore the people’s needs in favor of military or industrial needs, we damage people’s belief in democracy and ultimately weaken our country. For example, we have neglected the health of the system that is supposed to serve the health needs of the people ( as COVID has shown us). This neglect weakens everything that America is about. We have neglected the unfulfilled promise of millions of children and adults that we let become mired in poverty and hate, so we lose the full potential of all those people because we neglect their education, safety and potential. This is exceedingly short sighted and wasteful. The most important democratic investment we can make is in our people. If we want to be a strong country, we must use our democracy for the people in order to create a stronger, United States. (in response to the NYTimes article: History is Clear. America’s Military is Way Too Big by Jeremi Suri on 8/30/21)