this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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"I think it's time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It's time to pay attention to the needs of working families."

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Is ripping more or less severe than slamming someone?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

More. Rips bleed, slams bruise.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Our military budget is beyond ridiculous and one of the biggest waste of money are our own contractors. We've watched them charge the govt $1500 for a $10 bearing and the list of contractors has continued to shrink with a long list of acquisitions that have killed all competition. I can't imagine what this country could be if we spend half of that budget on education and modern infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 days ago

People are not even willing to learn how much they're being fucked. They wouldn't do much with the resources.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago (2 children)

“I think it’s time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want"

is he talking about active servicepeople because we've been there since forever

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago (8 children)

MIC is the private companies that supply/support the military and profit from it. Everything from fuel to uniforms to electrical wiring in the bases.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago

Of course not, active servicepeople are just another currency to the military-industrial complex.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (15 children)

Defund the police and military.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

Billions for Ukraine? No debate, full send. Billions for Israel? No debate, full send. Billions for healthcare? Whoa whoa whoa, gotta balance that budget!

Edit: if you prefer, forget I said healthcare and substitute in anything else that would help the working class.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

THE ISSUE IS NOT GIVING MORE MONEY TO HEALTHCARE.

Healthcare is our largest expense. The issue is the money going there, which can easily fund universal healthcare, doesn't go towards helping people, it goes towards a select number of people.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If my taxes went up $1000 a month I would still be saving money with universal healthcare

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The point is it doesn't need to. We could easily fund it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Right. But either way it's an invalid argument. We don't need to raise taxes, but even if we did it's still worth it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Extra spending on health care is not actually required (even though america could afford it). Americans spent more per capita on health care than anyone else already. American health spending is extremely inefficient, with parasites like for-profit insurance (whose profits and much of their revenue are literally just inefficiency in the system) embedded at every layer. The problem is that allowing it to get to this state means many of these bad actors will gladly spend hundreds of millions on politicians and ads to defend the billions they make, and American voters are easily confused.

If you call profits a bad thing too many times you get called a communist or whatever even though in this case it's objectively true. The shooting of that parasite CEO should have brought this into focus - that worthless person profited directly from making people's health care expenditures less efficient (and also from the corresponding human suffering in case anyone cares).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I agree with all of that. Almost wish I hadn't used healthcare as an example since there's plenty of other programs that suffer from low funding.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Every single time someone brings up anything about cost and the government, ask them how much money the DoD loses every year. Every single time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

see the dod brings in money because of pineapples and crack

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

the US already allocates $1.5 trillion for direct healthcare spending

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

If you don't like healthcare as an example, choose anything else that helps the working class. I don't just mean adding new money either, but how eager they are to make cuts to existing programs.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The US military budget is designed to independently fight and win another two-theater war in Europe and Asia. Has been since WWII. I think it would be justifiable to shrink the Europe portion of that; Russia's military capabilities are awful by this point, and Ukraine has done an excellent job demonstrating you don't need the kind of budget the US would expect to at least hold on that front.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago

Doubtless they’re worried about the rest of us getting ideas above our station.

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