this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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chapotraphouse
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I can not understate the level of indoctrination that exists in all facets of the ~~public works~~ government work sector. There is a real chilling effect and group think mentality where the rules of the game exist for the game. Introspection is frowned upon, and deviation is punished. The higher up you are, the more effective the propaganda is until you reach a point where you write the policies.
At that point the propaganda is both a core belief and a tool you deploy in order to justify anything and everything. To say "war bad" or "what defines a terrorist" will have your career ripped from under you by an endless hoard of people going after the bread.
I cant emphasize enough that this is an extremely normal belief among so much of the gov dependent population. There is a real belief war is inevitable with zero consideration over what role the US plays in bringing on that war. Once an entity is labeled an enemy, you cannot use words or reason to understand why they're an enemy.
To the people this quote was meant for, it's a normal Tuesday. Weapons are an undeniable good. Being able to start and end a Holocaust in a days time is considered a virtue.
Yes I am depressed this week, why do you ask?
The US in it's current configuration requires an enemy. An enemy is like food, without one it will starve. So much of what makes the country run requires war. It's a common talking point, the MIC, deeply entrenched into the political system.
Politically the US is incapable of pivoting it's defense industry towards non defense use. It theoretically could with a fearless political movement, shift defense research into energy, materials, etc but it won't because a large aspect of the industry is the veteran to contractor pipeline and the military attitude carries over. Everything is a mission, a fight, good guys, bad guys, allies, and enemies. It's the backbone of the industry, the GI bill for make-work.
In order to pivot that deep culture of make-work to civilian use cases, the book would need to be rewritten. The US would suddenly need to be okay with social uses for research, development, and manufacturing. This would mean the gov would be in direct competition with greater industry, which would be a massive contradiction for the political classes and their intermingling with business.
Currently, the only customer for the massive defense industry is the the military. They're the only ones allowed to buy the product, and their wallets are deep.
Tl;Dr they can't stop this train. The only way forward for them is war, and war requires an enemy. The train could be stopped, but it no longer has brakes of its own. The ensuing derailment would be catastrophic and politically untenable. To any politician, if they want to make any changes period, they need allies. Without allies they can't make any changes.
Even the best politicians must operate within their political system and need to make tradeoffs in order to prioritize their goals. Kamala must suck up to the military if she has any hope in implementing the most minor incremental changes.
Spot on
I wanted to add something but you pretty much nailed it, the only thing I'd add is your last paragraph could be misread to imply Kamala is one of the US's "best politicians," which I guess could be true but is a huge indictment on the country as a whole lmao
Yeah that last bit was referring to a platonic ideal of politicians in the States, not necessarily Kamala.
It's like that example of news papers reporting on their advertisers from manufacturing consent.
The politician is effectively handcuffed to the policies of the supporters. I get frustrated when I see posts that are like "oh you like Kamala? Well she did xyz villainous act". All I can think is "yeah and? We're in the states and she's one of the two candidates for president in 2024. We're lucky she's not somehow worse.
The issue is that the US can't handle casualties so they have to use other countries as proxies. What need is there for actual people in the military? So they can sail to the red sea and get destroyed by a missile they can't intercept? Or send a ship to spy on Israel and die?
There was also a rumor that a US sub was attacked by a sonic weapon when it was near China and they were forced to surface.