I'm a little confused. The terrorist groups are recruited because of our involvement. Because, you know how if people from anywhere were coming here and getting involved, the NRA ultra conservatives of course would never retaliate; they'd take it lying down.
And we were ever there to begin with, why again? Defending the interests of Israel. Gee, I suppose if you're in Israel or MAYBE jewish, this is a huge deal. I don't know why this justifies a half century parade of boogie man, enriching military/defense contractors, claiming we don't have money to feed people, provide services, keep schools open and improve infrastructure, all while we spend over half a trillion annually on defense.
Or maybe you're the Bush family and you're mad because we encouraged a new regime in Iran who we then had to arm Iraq to subvert, but we really just love oil and oh, yeah, that's right.. because Dick Cheney commissioned a study at the end of Bush 1 to determine if a private company could massively profit from a war.. and the answer he got was "yes."
And on to the boogie man propaganda. We've seen what, 10,000 people die due to foreign terrorism? That's terrible, but what nobody steps back and says is, there is a cost to being free. If we went back to before the Patriot Act and just continued living life the way we were… much more free, yes, some terrible people would do some terrible things, but what would your odds of actually dying in one of these events be? What, would they go from 0.0000001 to 0.00000035? That's worth doubling (or more) our defense spending after the cold war instead of reigning it in?
In the meantime, police silence a woman who is trying to show people how lavish the life of defense contractors in Virginia are. She's trying to show people what it looks like when we spend $50 on a six pack of coke for troops or $100 for a load of laundry.
And don't even get me started on the troops. The percentage of money we spend on these people… people who in their mind are just trying to do something valiant, is laughably low. They are the used children of working people. I'm sure they may say "hey, I'm not used, I'm doing this willingly so you can even type those statements." 1) The last people who fought a legitimate threat to our sovereignty were World War 2 vets, since then it's turned into a jobs program that could be cut by 70% before you talk about going below what we legitimately need. 2) I don't doubt that they are doing in their mind, a great thing.. however, it's not them this criticism is of.. it's those who are supposed to take care of them. Where's the pay? Where's the care after they get home? It's going to pay "brilliant businessmen" who can get a six pack of Coca Cola for $1.85 and turn around and sell it for $50. I suspect if troops could see the actual balance sheet, there would be a lot of "wait a minute" moments.
Here's my thing.. if you take an isolationist approach, $300 billion instead of $700 billion still buys you a pretty damn potent military. My guess is, if the boogie man were as scary as everyone says and everyone knew we weren't willing to spend 1/3-1/2 of OUR national budget on military, you'd see the international community get involved pretty quickly. You'd also have a lot of money to spend on things that we need before poor conservatives have to cry about higher taxes preventing them from buying each member of their family a yacht and having to go with the dreaded "family yacht" … UGH, omg, wtf.. family yachts are for losers, hello..
Now, on to the migrants. 99% of these people, if not high 99% are just trying to get to a new place, survive and move on. If you got to know them you'd likely find them to be just like your brother, sister, dad. Do many have severely warped views on women and other things? Sure. I'm not naturally on anyone's side. I take every issue and think and break it down for myself. I'm on the side of people who are wandering in despair being persecuted. By the way, I also tend to think this dude named Jesus would be too... But once they get here or wherever they are going, they have to abide by the rules of that place.
Why do conservatives get away with spreading this propaganda? Because there is a lot of money in it for certain people and because most well meaning people think that if they just ignore it, the rich and powerful will go away and not try to screw them. So they play ostrich.
Well enough of that.
