Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves

Thinking through my fingers comments, in relation to $660 million compensation for victims of abuse which will have to be raised from the same Roman Catholic congregations which contained the abused:

Just as I sometimes wonder how the billions we have sent to Iraq could have been better used in alleviating poverty, on medical research and cure - the list is endless, and growing - I wonder how those millions could have been better used in the streets of Los Angeles, towards the same ends.

These sort of bizarre imbalances in willingness to fund oppress me, too.

Yesterday I heard a British commander in Afghanistan, charged with winning the hearts and minds of the local population, comment along the lines that if he asks for a $1m+ air strike against a village it materialises instantly without question - but if he asks for a thousand dollars to sink a well in the same village, the request disappears into bureaucracy and is never seen again.

Until we learn to think differently about priorities, placing more emphasis on investment in a better world and less reliance on crisis management, fear will be forever with us.

My post title, by the way, is an old British proverb.