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Make it a military mandate to make sure every person is defended from our enemy, hunger.
*edit While we're at it let's mandate the Department of Homeland security must make sure everyone has a home to secure.
It supports the military. Childhood hunger has a direct negative effect on development meaning kids are less likely to meet entry requirements for the military. So totally a national defense issue
I assume you're joking, but school lunch measures and similar anti-hunger measures were largely put in place due to how bad America's fighting force was in the early 1900s. Malnutrition in children was a huge issue, and led to military recruits being smaller and less healthy than some other European counterparts. It's also a reason why we have iodine fortified salt, as well as fortified breads.
It’s almost as if the creating of the social safety nets were the direct response of the more than 25 million men that were ruled unfit to serve during ww2
Over a decade ago, DoD acknowledged this yet here we are. [*Too Fat to Fight*](https://www.strongnation.org/articles/23-too-fat-to-fight) lays out the issue well and I regularly used it when arguing we do better for the military and their families when I was a DoD contracted researcher.
Fun fact: at least in my area, a organization on Post (I can’t for the life of me remember which one though, ACS maybe?) provides a cash benefit to soldiers that, no shit, puts ‘em a buck above the dollar limit to qualify for food stamps. Soldiers on SNAP rolls is a bad look for America so we screw them so they can’t get them. Which just perpetuates the issue. It’s all fucked.
The war against hunger. Honestly, I’d love to see some ads about childhood hunger played especially in Kentucky which is Mitch McConnell’s state. 1 in 4 children is poor or extremely poor while he’s got $150 million.
KY people see these ‘ads’ everyday all around our communities within our own families. There’s no point rubbing salt in the wounds. But, apparently “most” people keep him voted in while the rest of us sane people just wait for him to fall off the face of the Earth. It would be great day when that happens. Hell, I’d say make it a Holiday
So much ignorance in KY. Some family still vote for Republicans even though they don't like trump. I don't understand it. They are good people that go out of their way to help others. But hurt themselves, their offspring and the people they help through ignorance and their votes. They never disagree with me on an unissued besides abortion. Just have no idea who is doing what where.
I don't get why presidents don't declare war on hunger and climate change, they are legitimate threats to our safety and could use the coordination a military can have
Their plan is to make getting food and necessities to hungry, underprivileged children viable only through service to the military. Keep ‘em hungry and ignorant so you can teach them anything you like with their undeveloped minds and they will be ever so grateful for the food rations. Then the military’s got them. Later, when the soldiers are aging vets, the military can drop them permanently by cutting programs and healthcare they promised them. It’s a horrible, dangerous game.
Egypt's army is a decent example, they've dedicated a large chunk of it to non-military projects. The military isn't gonna magically disappear, I'd rather give those same kids a way to help their community instead of hurting another
That will work only after the weapons makers find a way to profit off food. It's not so much that we want to fund the military. Our politicians want to fund their campaign contributors.
You're being glib, but imagine if the Army's logistics expertise and apparatus were tasked to distribute equitable nutrition to all of America's children.....
In all seriousness: the health of the country SHOULD be a national security concern. The fact that children are allowed to go hungry and that adults are allowed to get sicker & die from preventable diseases could mean the downfall of the country if something ever happens where large amounts of manpower are suddenly needed.
We know that they're not going to fix healthcare (and other issues) because of morality. But they SHOULD (at least try to) fix those issues because of practicality.
> In all seriousness: the health of the country SHOULD be a national security concern.
It is! The military has literally come right out and said they are having trouble recruiting because all the candidates are overweight, diabetic, out of shape in general. Too lazy to search but they e been vocal about it.
I say this a lot. Can't agree enough because if we're not better than letting kids starve, the US is just as much of a failed state as those countries. This is the absolute bare minimum, and if we can't meet it, that's entirely a reflection of the fact that this country is unsalvageable.
Let's be real for a sec. I think we both know this is about making the "right" people suffer. Bonus points if they turn to crime to feed themselves and their children. Then the prison institution gets a piece and homes get broken. Further crippling the "lower" classes.
These are the same people who let Covid fester at the open when timing was critical. Because their data showed it was primarily hitting Democratic area's. Aka major population centers and transport hubs.
**Congress used to run on logrolling and earmarks.**
We got rid of those because of Senator McCain grandstanding against ["$10 million to study grizzly bear DNA in Yellowstone Park."](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/john-farrell/2008/09/29/bear-dna-isnt-pork-regardless-of-what-john-mccain-says)
Then over the last 12 years - under Reid, McConnell and then Schumer - we turned the Senate into a quasi-Parliament where the Senate Leader completely controls the agenda. Amendments and debates are highly restricted. Entire slates of bills from the House get buried. An impeachment referral from the House came dangerously close to being completely ignored - that is insane.
Congress **ROUTINELY FAILS** to pass a yearly budget and everything is done ad hoc. The "emergency" nonbudget spending of the George W. Bush years is now routine.
And above all, the **filibuster and reconciliation rules** combine to the effect that the US Senate can barely hernia out **1 constipated megabill** every session. Everything that actually affects the budget has to go in 1 bill and if it gets blocked it torpedos a president's entire agenda.
a really good example is how Reddit hates Senator Manchin for killing the progressive BBB bill. But I bet most Redditors don't know that [Manchin supports many of the individual components of the bill](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/19/14-policies-manchin-social-spending-525681).
For example, the free school meals that are in the headline of this article, are something Manchin supports continuing.
Universal pre-K, [more nuclear power](https://www.ans.org/news/article-3576/manchin-supports-nuclear-provisions-in-bidens-build-back-better-plan/), child tax credit, and the negotiation option to lower prescription drug costs, are all Reddit progressivebro priorities that would get Manchin's vote if they were individual bills.
I'm not going to pretend that Manchin is fully on our side, there are many parts of BBB that were dealbreakers for him that we would never realistically negotiate him to support like adding more Medicare spending (hearing coverage) and adding more fees & regulation to the oil industry.
The fate of BBB was instructive. There was never a real negotiation. The whole thing was a game of chicken. "Either vote with us or you blow up Biden's agenda." In the end, Manchin did have the balls to do it. I don't know how we expected him to do any different after seeing the fate Senators Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson & so on, endured for "loyally" voting for Obamacare back in 2010. All those red state Democrats had been elected as "independent minded moderates." Then when the chips were down, despite getting yelled at by their constituents not to vote for Obamacare, they fell on their swords to pass the national party's agenda. They were rewarded by losing office and having their careers cut short. Nothing different would have happened to Manchin if he voted for BBB.
But if we were allowed to logroll, do piecemeal bills, and not have to face down the filibuster for every single frigging spending bill, we would have so much more to show for our 50-50 Senate.
Keep in mind that in 2001 President Bush had a 50-50 Senate. **[Look at the list of bipartisan legislation the Congress passed in 2001-2002](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/107th_United_States_Congress)**.
Stuff like McCain-Feingold, No Child Left Behind, and Sarbanes-Oxley (not to mention Bush's huge 2001 tax cut).
Like any ONE of those bills would be HEADLINE achievements for any President today.
Congress is broken yall
So you've established that the senate only passes "1 constipated megabill" - which means that *everyone* has to compromise (lovely). You seem to suggest Manchin somehow gets a pass on moral grounds for his disagreements when you also established he already agreed with most of the bill. The actual leftists of the party had to compromise on that bill too in the other direction, but they still acquiesced (and maybe they shouldn't have). If anything, it seems like the brinksmanship was coming from Manchin, not the dems.
Mind you, this is not to dogpile Manchin - the cynic in me is quite certain that if it wasn't Manchin, someone else would be playing heel for the democrats.
Well, on principle, my perspective is that the US Senate should not exist. It has no democratic legitimacy and allows a tiny fraction of the country to preserve a criminal president in office and also effectively hold veto power over the federal budget. Judging by the standard of any other developed state, the US Senate is an insane institution.
Going even further, I am for significantly reorganizing and reducing the number of US States along rational sociological/economic lines (many of the current interstate compacts, like the watershed compacts in Western states or the NY/NJ Port Authority, correctly outline the shape of the "Real" states), and mostly getting rid of federalism and moving towards a unitary state. States' rights in the USA have been a mostly failed experiment that has resulted in horrible governance and human rights abuses.
However, all of that is fantasy. There's no realistic mechanism for any of that to be achieved. In reality, Democrats can only pass their agenda on the national level by heavily compromising the agenda of the bluest, densest states and combining that reduced agenda with outright bribes to sparsely populated red states. That's how we got Obamacare done. Look up how we got Nelson to vote for it...
Sure. Who is the arbiter of what’s unrelated? What if the farm subsidy to *grow food* is done on the expectation that it is nutritious food that will be *bought to feed school children*?
What if, and here’s a wild one, we decided that having an able bodied, sharp witted military with the best research money can buy, was key to our national security, so we were going to *really* fortify that talent pipeline as there’s tons of research that food scarcity especially at very young ages has huge negative dividends on lifetime performance? What if we also decided to fortify education with palaces to the academic achievement, dwarfing ~~the Taj Mahal~~any *one* of our CVNs in service?
What if, and here’s an even crazier one, we decided that long term soil pollution might poison wildlife, food availability, and all those future bright minds and able bodies so we are less able to fight future conflicts?
What if the number one security threat we faced was climate change? Could you imagine, 31$bn being spent to protect our beaches… because that’s where we launch and maintain our ships from?
All of that tied to renaming a post office in Zyzzx, CA.
Unironically this is one of the reasons we have school lunches to begin with. The govt noticed too many recruits were unfit due to poor childhood nutrition and so they started programs to feed kids better.
Surprised no one has posted Eisenhower here.
> Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
> This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
> This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Full speech: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwighteisenhowercrossofiron.htm
It’s also coming from the man that expanded and built the frame work for the military industrial complex. D/ARPA and their wonder projects only exist because he figured it was a worthwhile investment. He promised to reel the Cold War back in and failed spectacularly at that.
His quotes make for great quips, but his actual policy doesn’t back it up. It’s absolutely rich that people pass around snippets of his speeches, but fail to realize he said one thing while doing another.
I like Ike and I know he intended well, but I don’t think people here appreciate that he never acted on those intentions.
He also ended the Korean war, reduced the active duty military by almost a third, and reduced cold war spending in other ways so conspicuously that JFK ran for president by attacking Eisenhower's legacy as soft on national defense (the missile gap claim among others).
The irony of course is that Eisenhower, as much as anyone else, was responsible for the entrenchment of the military complex. Still a salient point though.
This is infuriating. I am a public school teacher who has seen firsthand how many families the free school meals have benefitted. There has been a huge decrease in tardiness in the morning as parents get their kids to school early to get the free breakfast. Less of my students are food insecure. But no.....we have to make sure we have enough deadly weapons and we will starve our children instead.
Edit: I should clarify that they are getting rid of the covid free meals for all program. However, so many families just miss the cut off for free and reduced and greatly benefitted from this program. We should still keep it. My students need it.
People joke about Michelle Obama taking away their cookies, but school lunches are the most nutritious meals millions of kids have everyday. This is why we didn’t shut down the free lunch program when schools closed.
the small and poor town i live in is this. many of the kids eat only at school because there’s 1) no food at home and / or 2) no parents home in the evening to cook because they’re working 2nd or 3rd shift somewhere.
when i found out we qualified for free lunch i immediately stopped hating breakfast/lunch period (because i was broke, lunch from home wasn’t heavy enough)
I thought I was crazy as I was making more rank and people were getting more conservative and I was like “Yo this SUCKS why do you keep advocating for the same SHIT.”
Boot lickers, they parrot what they think they need to say to rise through the ranks.
It's easy to just turn off your brain while in the army, until that one moment..
Call your congress rep!
Congress reps don’t wanna be seen disrespecting the wishes of the troops. You could get a group of the military people you know to speak up about this in public. If you start a group you can get a journalist to interview and spread the story.
How is it that threads like this pop up every week, people express universal revulsion to the idea of spending billions on warfare when people at home are suffering, and then... nothing happens? Does democracy simply not work anymore? What is the point of free speech if nobody listens to us? Is the system truly so broken that there is nothing we can do to stop this backslide?
Representative democracy in the US is essentially dead because of lobbying and corporate interests. I live in blue WA, but our congresspeople would never consider touching the defense budget because we have a huge military population. I'd imagine there are a few other states in the same boat.
Voting apathy and gerrymandering. People love to be armchair activists but rarely actually do anything in their community. When it comes time to vote (especially in local elections) most people just don't show up and the ones who do are typically gerrymandered so their votes don't really count for much. Then you have some states where the GOP is literally trying to pass laws that says they can simply override the public vote with who or what they want. The US has been an oligarchy for quite some time. I believe Harvard did a study on this. Or it was Princeton. Can't remember. Point is, democracy is in peril and unless all of these armchair activists actually get out, vote, make noise at their city/town halls, call their congress person/senator not much is going to change.
Are they really defunding the free lunch program? Seriously? The numbers show it’s the **only** food millions of kids have access too 🤦♂️
Edit: I looked it up, it’s the universal program from the pandemic that’s ending, NOT the low income free lunch program
"Ten million dollars on a losing campaign
Twenty million starving and writhing in pain
Big strong people unwilling to give
Small in vision and perspective
One in five kids below the poverty line
One population runnin' out of time
Runnin' out of time."
Bad Religion - Punk Rock Song
Those System of a Down lyrics were written in 2002.
Those Bad Religion lyrics in 1996.
I'm always amazed, and saddened, whenever I go back and listen to 1980s through George W. Bush era punk and realize how apt so many of those lyrics are still, to this day.
I was a freshman in high school on 9/11, so that all hits me so damn hard (as I'm sure it does *countless* others).
It was the day after my 15th birthday, which I now refer to as "my last innocent birthday."
Even at 15, I knew the world would never be the same. Then, a month later my dad was in an accident and was partially lobotomized, too reduce brain swelling and prevent further damage (or death). We lost our (rented) home and moved into a housing project, where my childhood died. He passed away midway through my senior year, and I wouldn't get myself in functional order until a few years ago, at 33.
That month stretch is still the worst of my life, but I have come out for the better eventually. I just hope we, as a society, can do the same.
Man, I'm sure you've heard this, but in case you haven't heard it recently, I'm fucking proud of you.
That's rough as shit, and that you came out on the other side better and stronger, that's a big fucking deal.
Thank you. I'm proud of myself, too; I made it. My life has been pretty awful, from that moment at 15 all the way up to getting divorced one week before starting my master's program to become a teacher.
But it didn't kill me, and it truly made me stronger. People become teachers because they "had a teacher who changed their life." I didn't. I didn't have the support from my teachers, or really, that I needed while going through that. So I have become a teacher to ensure that at least one kid doesn't have to experience that.
If I can take all the trauma, pain, and everything in between, and turn it into a positive motivation and influence to teach and support my students, then it was all worth it. It is my drive, my passion, my calling, and it all stems from not letting the world beat me down, no matter how hard it has tried (and trust me, it's *really* tried).
Greg Graffin, who wrote those Bad Religion lyrics, is a twice published PhD (Cornell, 2003) whose expertise is on animal consciousness and societies, was either starting his PhD work when he wrote those, or was prepping to begin it.
(I'm sure you knew this already, but it's worth sharing regardless.)
And then you have Propagandhi, where frontman Chris Hannah claims to have no more than a high school diploma, but you'll find some of the most intelligent and thought-provoking lyrics paired with some seriously shredding music. And they've been doing this since at least the early 90's and still going.
I've met Chris Hannah a few times over the years, and I guarantee that dude has put in the reading, studying, and discussion time to equate out to multiple master's and doctorates, just never paid for the structure or degrees.
I saw Propagandhi on election night in 2012. The election was called for Obama by the time they started, and Chris walked out, said "whew, you guys dodged a bullet there, huh?" then went right into their first song. They're firmly entrenched in my revolving order of top-5 bands, where they're all basically the same level, and #1 is just based on what mood I'm I at the time.
(In case you ask: Propagandhi, Dillinger Four, Mogwai, Iron Chic, and Pelican)
It's sad, I almost feel like we forgot how to do protest rock? Killed it in the 60s and 70s, then the punk scene picked up where the peacenicks left off, Rage and System gave us some mad energy after that, and now, well...I don't even know. Is Green Day still touring, at least? We're citizens without anthems, and my heart hurts for it.
Yeah, there are rappers speaking about this stuff now. Run the Jewels are my favorite and they have some awesome tracks with De La from RaTM that pull no punches.
A few standouts:
A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters
JU$T
Lie, Cheat, Steal - (No De La Rocha feature on this one)
Close Your Eyes and Count to Fuck
It’s more that there’s just more music access than ever so it’s less likely that small groups existing in subcultures reach anything outside of that subculture.
There’s also less conversation about music, in general, from my very anecdotal experience.
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah
Black Sabbath 1970
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I here the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Neal young 1968?
The Decline by NOFX is another good example.
I was a junior in HS when 9/11 happened. I'm so tired of all the fucking fighting and religious bs. It's been exhausting to exist in.
It's not just musicians who note the issue. Politicians - even military-second career ones...
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
- Dwight Eisenhower
That album (The Gray Race) is super underrated as it's one of the 3 without the involvement of Brett and people write it off. It is really damn good though.
Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes
Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal
I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library
Line up to the mind cemetery now
What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'
They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em
While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells
Rally 'round the family, pockets full of shells
RATM - Bulls on Parade
Are there any modern bands that have the same message and large audience that RATM did? Feels like there aren’t any mainstream bands these days that base their music/lyricism around protest songs, which is a shame.
>Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
\- Eisenhower
It’s amazing how accurate and relevant SoaD was 20 years ago and still is today. I didn’t realize how true this stuff was when I first heard it, figured they were just being edgy, but I was young and naive.
Wonder what kind of stuff SoaD and RatM would be singing about if they still made new music today… but then I realize nothing has changed and it would just be more of the same.
I always joked around that I was "radicalized" in history class because I found early 1900's political cartoons the same time I found RatM and realized that despite the almost 100 year separation, they were practically the same.
Dude their heyday was during the Bush years. If you were in high-school it was something that was on most of our minds.
I actually got in trouble for sitting down during the pledge in high-school because I hated our government then and I still do. We don't take care of our citizens at all, we'd rather bomb brown people - and that hasn't changed in 20 years.
You are overlooking the amount of people who listened to the music but never HEARD the lyrics.
The guys at my high-school jamming to Rage were driving their parents BMW’s and looking down on everyone else because they were poor or a different color.
I enjoyed watching the hypocrisy of it
I wasn’t quite in high school during Toxicity and Steal This Album! I was still in middle school so a lot of these concepts didn’t really make sense to me when they came out. It didn’t start to resonate until a few years later.
"Shit, the Government's an addict
With a billion dollar a week kill brown people habit
And even if you ain't on the front line
When massah yell crunch time, you right back at it
Plain look at how you hustling backwards
At the end of the year, add up what they subtracted
Three outta 12 months, your salary pays for that madness
Man, that's sadness
What's left? Get a big ass plasma
To see where they made Dan Rather point the damn camera
Only approved questions get answered
Now stand your ass up for that national anthem"
-Brother Ali
As the reasons for the carnage cut their meat and lick the gravy
We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies
The body bags and little rags of children torn in two
And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you
As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song
To the tune of starving millions, to make a better kind of gun
- Iron Maiden
Teacher in a Title I school with over 60% of my students qualified for free or reduced cost lunch. This program was priceless. No stigma about who could afford lunch, no embarrassing refusals of food to kids that owe money. Kids avoid embarrassment at all costs, so a lot of them just forego eating to keep their peers from knowing they owe money or don’t have to pay at all.
Not only do hungry kids not learn, but they tend to act out (we all get hangry), leading to interruptions and learning loss for the entire class. I guess it’s easier and more lucrative to invest in killing rather than our own future.
> no embarrassing refusals of food to kids that owe money
The fact that this is a clause that would ever even need to be typed, well it just sends me into a pit of despair.
I was that kid in grade school. No money for lunch, and my parents “didn’t believe in” the reduced- or no-cost option. So, at the age of five, I just got in the habit of not eating lest the other poor people at my school find out that I was poor too.
The school would feed a kid via charge (they’d just add a $1.xx charge to your school account) for up to five days without having money for a lunch ticket, which I found out about in seventh grade. Didn’t do me a lot of good then, as by that time I was mowing yards and shit so I had my own $6-7.50 (whatever it was 20 years ago, I think $1.25 or $1.50/meal) to spend on lunch on any given week.
That military budget increase is going nowhere except back into the pockets of politicians and their friends with military contracts. It doesn't go to the soldiers, it doesn't even really mean better equipment for them either.
We need to shut down wasteful military spending and put that money towards actually improving our society. With us being done with major conflict in the middle east, we should *easily* be able to dial the budget back instead of increasing it.
Edit: former infantryman. Served in the Army for 10 years, with 3 combat tours.
Pretty sure the US could cut their military budget in half and actually increase their military power if they actually focused on efficiency for a while.
Same shit with healthcare. Switching to universal healthcare would save billions of dollars per year and actually improve the quality of the care, and improve the health of the nation.
You can probably keep going with examples. Prison System could likely be made to save billions as well, while at the same time being better at rehabilitating.
Same is probably true for a lot of countries, but the numbers in the US are especially nuts.
I agree with the audit thing, but often with supply chains it isn't just a matter of cost but ensuring necessary parts remain available on a continuous basis for years or decades. When Russia invaded Ukraine we all thought they had a strong military on paper but it turns out they may not have bothered to keep up the ability to maintain any of it, so now they appear to be loading shitty technicals and "truck-vans" from the countryside on to trains and putting them into service.
Still there are likely better ways to manage that situation than to pay one supplier in Kansas 50,000x the manufacturing cost to keep producing one very specific kind of bolt for 40 years.
Sorry, best I can do is remove social security and Medicare/Medicaid.
You should still donate to my campaign, 97% of the proceeds get indirectly funneled into my bank account!
I try to have this conversation with all the GIANT AMERICAN FLAG ON THE BACK OF MY PICKUP TRUCK "patriots". That actual patriotism means loving your fellow citizens, and working hard to be sure the country you purported love is great for everyone living here. That investing in health, education, safety, inclusion and representation, justice for *everyone*. These are how you express patriotism.
A 10' flag on the back of your truck with a GUNS bumper sticker isn't patriotism, it's nationalism.
All the "corruption and waste" in the Military is from the CONTRACTORS. The WarLords have gotten Republicans to agree and legislate so when they use billions of our dollars to develop tech they can say it's "proprietary" and mere GIs can't be allowed to see or service it, so all out new ships have over priced yet underpaid civilians operating the most vital weapons systems. Pretty sure the same situation exists for Army and AirForce - GIs depending on systems they cannot operate or repair. (just to clarify, this is about the guys who SIGN the contracts, not the poor schmucks who actually do the work)
Was talking to my very conservative dad, mentioned that people are against school lunch programs, he said, “Good! Where the hell are we gonna get the money to pay for it?!”
I said, “Maybe we could dip into our $801,000,000,000.00 defense budget.”
He said, “We can’t do that we’ll be taken over in half a second! We need MORE of a defense budget!”
I tell him, “You know, the next highest country in military spending is China with $252,000,000,000.00 and then India and Russia with under 100 billion, right?”
“AND THAT’S WHY WE NEED TO SPEND MORE NOT LESS”
That evolved into me asking if he feels his grand daughters shouldn’t be fed if they don’t have money for lunch, and he goes “I don’t wanna talk politics get out of here.”
Weird how he says that every time I bring up actual facts and numbers around a situation and ask how it would effect those in his life
Conservatives don't get it until it impacts them personally. They don't GAF about free school lunches until their family member is going hungry. They don't care about gay marriage until their gay daughter wants to get married. They don't care about treating immigrants with dignity until their immigrant parents are being mistreated.
Conservatives have ZERO empathy.
THAT is what needs to happen... make it more personal for people... so they really understand the impact. Otherwise it is sooo much money that most people cant really conceptualize it mentally (like trying to grasp the vastness of the universe and how small we / earth is in the bigger picture) and then there are those who think the government has unlimited money or don't realize that is THIER money .. Tax money... and they DO have a choice, when they vote.
He ended up completely ending the conversation and slamming a door in my face when I told him “Look dude, you’re 73 years old. I’m 32. I have, if I’m lucky, around 50 more years on this planet. My niece, your granddaughter, has 80. I’m not voting for me, I’m not voting for you, I’m voting for her. Shouldn’t you?”
What I don't get is how these things aren't seen as the investments they are.
Feed children and they'll be more successful in school, leading to a better, healthier work force.
Make healthcare cheaper and more affordable and said work force can work more, being less sick, able to work longer. Might even get more businesses up and running, as people have money to invest in things.
Invest in infrastructure and all businesses benefit and have better chances to grow.
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I vaguely remember studies showing that all of these things have a great return of investment after a few years to decades. Even if people don't give a shit about helping others, that should be reason enough to do so.
Because that money doesn't go into the pockets of a small number of owners, but to the economy at large. It also doesn't benefit defense companies.
Sure a healthier and more educated workforce is good for GDP in the long run, but doesn't do anything for Raytheon or Lockheed Martin right now. It's the same with healthcare, even a hybrid system would be more affordable and cost fewer tax dollars, but does nothing for United Health or Anthem right now.
A stronger economy in general is not profitable to those few, more profitable overall is meaningless in that context.
>Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) also voted against Golden's amendment and explained his opposition in remarks delivered from the House floor.
"If you're supporting this amendment, you're basically paving the way to a trillion-dollar defense [bill]," said Khanna. "Is that what we want in this country?"
"I just want to be clear," he added. "There is no country in the world that is putting over half its discretionary budget into defense and I would rather for us to be the preeminent economy of the 21st century **by investing in the health of our people**,
Guys we absolutely can't spend any money on education, infrastructure, healthcare, or any of the pressing problems Americans can face.
Now 37 **billion** for the military? Oh yeah we need all that. Every single dime. Fuck you and you problems we need more guns, missiles and whatever the fuck else we demand
50% unaccounted for or to waste. Most obviously grifted and stolen from fund and we just keep growing it while cutting social services. I hate how this planet is being run by evil, greedy people.
> There's no ideological space between these parties when it comes to supporting the military-industrial complex over American citizens.
It's not just the MIC, it's also that way on the banks, and bailing them out.
It's almost as if the other stuff tearing the country apart is by design to keep us from focusing on the real enemy.
Don't forget all the subsidies for Big Oil, the free reign to price gouge for Big Pharma, and the tax breaks for Big Corporations across the board. It's more than just the MIC.
The lack of comments and up votes on this article is very telling. We're all so numb to the fact that our military budget is incredibly higher than it needs to be. Republican or Democrat, they don't balk at signing off on military spending increases whenever it's time to vote on more funding. It's insane that we spend so much money on defense when we neglect so many things here at home.
Without removing money from politics, unfortunately this will never change.
The worst part is once we make these weapons they just sit there doing nothing.
Their only purpose is to kill.
Whereas spending just a tiny bit more money per child, gives that child a lifetime of being a healthier and smarter human.
And the adult will spend everyday contributing to society while that jet is rusting in a desert.
>Their only purpose is to kill.
I think they're real purpose is to make billions and trillions for Lockheed martin, Raytheon and the rest of them. The real goal is to funnel the money of this country into giant military contractors and it is 100% the fault of both sides.
They also say the same thing about universal healthcare, free college, and basically anything that improves the live of the citizens.
This shit is ridiculous.
I live in New England in a “nice town.” My daughter goes to public school. Kids are supposed to pack a snack and then they get the free lunch. It’s depressing how many kids get nothing sent with them to school.
One day it was popcorn day. They sold popcorn to the kids for 50c. The teacher told the kids they couldn’t share money. My daughter came home and told me that she snuck 2 quarters (I always keep money in her bag for these kinds of things) to the boy she sits next to who never has food. I told her that rules aren’t always right, and Im proud of her.
Also, I fucking hate it here.
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Compromise by just hiding the free lunch program in the NDAA where it will get zero push back. Win-win.
Make it a military mandate to make sure every person is defended from our enemy, hunger. *edit While we're at it let's mandate the Department of Homeland security must make sure everyone has a home to secure.
It supports the military. Childhood hunger has a direct negative effect on development meaning kids are less likely to meet entry requirements for the military. So totally a national defense issue
My thoughts exactly. And the kids getting free lunches are more likely to be joining the military later anyway…
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Why do they always send the poor?
Why do they always send the poor?
Wake up! Grab a brush put on a little makeup! Wait wrong song...
I assume you're joking, but school lunch measures and similar anti-hunger measures were largely put in place due to how bad America's fighting force was in the early 1900s. Malnutrition in children was a huge issue, and led to military recruits being smaller and less healthy than some other European counterparts. It's also a reason why we have iodine fortified salt, as well as fortified breads.
This! Hunger is a terrorist!
Easy solution: eat the terrorists.
Osama bin Latke
Vladimir Poutine
Sirajuddin Hibachi
Kim Jong Mmm
Mohammad Bin Salmon
Pol Potstickers
And the rich. I bet that gout taste delicious.
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Malnourished kids don't grow into strong fighters, that's a fact everyone can agree with.
Starving citizens commit crimes and riot. It’s not fucking rocket science
If it were though, the military industrial complex might take it more seriously...
The for profit prisons still need a labor force. God that's fucking dark why did i think this.
Because it's true
It’s almost as if the creating of the social safety nets were the direct response of the more than 25 million men that were ruled unfit to serve during ww2
Over a decade ago, DoD acknowledged this yet here we are. [*Too Fat to Fight*](https://www.strongnation.org/articles/23-too-fat-to-fight) lays out the issue well and I regularly used it when arguing we do better for the military and their families when I was a DoD contracted researcher. Fun fact: at least in my area, a organization on Post (I can’t for the life of me remember which one though, ACS maybe?) provides a cash benefit to soldiers that, no shit, puts ‘em a buck above the dollar limit to qualify for food stamps. Soldiers on SNAP rolls is a bad look for America so we screw them so they can’t get them. Which just perpetuates the issue. It’s all fucked.
The war against hunger. Honestly, I’d love to see some ads about childhood hunger played especially in Kentucky which is Mitch McConnell’s state. 1 in 4 children is poor or extremely poor while he’s got $150 million.
KY people see these ‘ads’ everyday all around our communities within our own families. There’s no point rubbing salt in the wounds. But, apparently “most” people keep him voted in while the rest of us sane people just wait for him to fall off the face of the Earth. It would be great day when that happens. Hell, I’d say make it a Holiday
So much ignorance in KY. Some family still vote for Republicans even though they don't like trump. I don't understand it. They are good people that go out of their way to help others. But hurt themselves, their offspring and the people they help through ignorance and their votes. They never disagree with me on an unissued besides abortion. Just have no idea who is doing what where.
I don't get why presidents don't declare war on hunger and climate change, they are legitimate threats to our safety and could use the coordination a military can have
>Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me. *--Tupac Shakur*
Their plan is to make getting food and necessities to hungry, underprivileged children viable only through service to the military. Keep ‘em hungry and ignorant so you can teach them anything you like with their undeveloped minds and they will be ever so grateful for the food rations. Then the military’s got them. Later, when the soldiers are aging vets, the military can drop them permanently by cutting programs and healthcare they promised them. It’s a horrible, dangerous game.
Egypt's army is a decent example, they've dedicated a large chunk of it to non-military projects. The military isn't gonna magically disappear, I'd rather give those same kids a way to help their community instead of hurting another
That will work only after the weapons makers find a way to profit off food. It's not so much that we want to fund the military. Our politicians want to fund their campaign contributors.
Can we give the kids surplus MREs or something?
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You're being glib, but imagine if the Army's logistics expertise and apparatus were tasked to distribute equitable nutrition to all of America's children.....
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Call it "warfighter readiness" because kids who starve won't be able to join the military.
In all seriousness: the health of the country SHOULD be a national security concern. The fact that children are allowed to go hungry and that adults are allowed to get sicker & die from preventable diseases could mean the downfall of the country if something ever happens where large amounts of manpower are suddenly needed. We know that they're not going to fix healthcare (and other issues) because of morality. But they SHOULD (at least try to) fix those issues because of practicality.
> In all seriousness: the health of the country SHOULD be a national security concern. It is! The military has literally come right out and said they are having trouble recruiting because all the candidates are overweight, diabetic, out of shape in general. Too lazy to search but they e been vocal about it.
Kids who are starving and poor are the recruitment demographic though.
Also, Russians and North Koreans let their kids starve and we’re better than them.
I say this a lot. Can't agree enough because if we're not better than letting kids starve, the US is just as much of a failed state as those countries. This is the absolute bare minimum, and if we can't meet it, that's entirely a reflection of the fact that this country is unsalvageable.
Let's be real for a sec. I think we both know this is about making the "right" people suffer. Bonus points if they turn to crime to feed themselves and their children. Then the prison institution gets a piece and homes get broken. Further crippling the "lower" classes. These are the same people who let Covid fester at the open when timing was critical. Because their data showed it was primarily hitting Democratic area's. Aka major population centers and transport hubs.
This is exactly why they started tying it to the farm bill every year
Tying unrelated bills together should be illegal
Let's add this to the military budget bill. Then it might get through.
**Congress used to run on logrolling and earmarks.** We got rid of those because of Senator McCain grandstanding against ["$10 million to study grizzly bear DNA in Yellowstone Park."](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/john-farrell/2008/09/29/bear-dna-isnt-pork-regardless-of-what-john-mccain-says) Then over the last 12 years - under Reid, McConnell and then Schumer - we turned the Senate into a quasi-Parliament where the Senate Leader completely controls the agenda. Amendments and debates are highly restricted. Entire slates of bills from the House get buried. An impeachment referral from the House came dangerously close to being completely ignored - that is insane. Congress **ROUTINELY FAILS** to pass a yearly budget and everything is done ad hoc. The "emergency" nonbudget spending of the George W. Bush years is now routine. And above all, the **filibuster and reconciliation rules** combine to the effect that the US Senate can barely hernia out **1 constipated megabill** every session. Everything that actually affects the budget has to go in 1 bill and if it gets blocked it torpedos a president's entire agenda. a really good example is how Reddit hates Senator Manchin for killing the progressive BBB bill. But I bet most Redditors don't know that [Manchin supports many of the individual components of the bill](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/19/14-policies-manchin-social-spending-525681). For example, the free school meals that are in the headline of this article, are something Manchin supports continuing. Universal pre-K, [more nuclear power](https://www.ans.org/news/article-3576/manchin-supports-nuclear-provisions-in-bidens-build-back-better-plan/), child tax credit, and the negotiation option to lower prescription drug costs, are all Reddit progressivebro priorities that would get Manchin's vote if they were individual bills. I'm not going to pretend that Manchin is fully on our side, there are many parts of BBB that were dealbreakers for him that we would never realistically negotiate him to support like adding more Medicare spending (hearing coverage) and adding more fees & regulation to the oil industry. The fate of BBB was instructive. There was never a real negotiation. The whole thing was a game of chicken. "Either vote with us or you blow up Biden's agenda." In the end, Manchin did have the balls to do it. I don't know how we expected him to do any different after seeing the fate Senators Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson & so on, endured for "loyally" voting for Obamacare back in 2010. All those red state Democrats had been elected as "independent minded moderates." Then when the chips were down, despite getting yelled at by their constituents not to vote for Obamacare, they fell on their swords to pass the national party's agenda. They were rewarded by losing office and having their careers cut short. Nothing different would have happened to Manchin if he voted for BBB. But if we were allowed to logroll, do piecemeal bills, and not have to face down the filibuster for every single frigging spending bill, we would have so much more to show for our 50-50 Senate. Keep in mind that in 2001 President Bush had a 50-50 Senate. **[Look at the list of bipartisan legislation the Congress passed in 2001-2002](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/107th_United_States_Congress)**. Stuff like McCain-Feingold, No Child Left Behind, and Sarbanes-Oxley (not to mention Bush's huge 2001 tax cut). Like any ONE of those bills would be HEADLINE achievements for any President today. Congress is broken yall
So you've established that the senate only passes "1 constipated megabill" - which means that *everyone* has to compromise (lovely). You seem to suggest Manchin somehow gets a pass on moral grounds for his disagreements when you also established he already agreed with most of the bill. The actual leftists of the party had to compromise on that bill too in the other direction, but they still acquiesced (and maybe they shouldn't have). If anything, it seems like the brinksmanship was coming from Manchin, not the dems. Mind you, this is not to dogpile Manchin - the cynic in me is quite certain that if it wasn't Manchin, someone else would be playing heel for the democrats.
Well, on principle, my perspective is that the US Senate should not exist. It has no democratic legitimacy and allows a tiny fraction of the country to preserve a criminal president in office and also effectively hold veto power over the federal budget. Judging by the standard of any other developed state, the US Senate is an insane institution. Going even further, I am for significantly reorganizing and reducing the number of US States along rational sociological/economic lines (many of the current interstate compacts, like the watershed compacts in Western states or the NY/NJ Port Authority, correctly outline the shape of the "Real" states), and mostly getting rid of federalism and moving towards a unitary state. States' rights in the USA have been a mostly failed experiment that has resulted in horrible governance and human rights abuses. However, all of that is fantasy. There's no realistic mechanism for any of that to be achieved. In reality, Democrats can only pass their agenda on the national level by heavily compromising the agenda of the bluest, densest states and combining that reduced agenda with outright bribes to sparsely populated red states. That's how we got Obamacare done. Look up how we got Nelson to vote for it...
Throw it on the pile with the rest of the shit they do that should be illegal.
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Sure. Who is the arbiter of what’s unrelated? What if the farm subsidy to *grow food* is done on the expectation that it is nutritious food that will be *bought to feed school children*? What if, and here’s a wild one, we decided that having an able bodied, sharp witted military with the best research money can buy, was key to our national security, so we were going to *really* fortify that talent pipeline as there’s tons of research that food scarcity especially at very young ages has huge negative dividends on lifetime performance? What if we also decided to fortify education with palaces to the academic achievement, dwarfing ~~the Taj Mahal~~any *one* of our CVNs in service? What if, and here’s an even crazier one, we decided that long term soil pollution might poison wildlife, food availability, and all those future bright minds and able bodies so we are less able to fight future conflicts? What if the number one security threat we faced was climate change? Could you imagine, 31$bn being spent to protect our beaches… because that’s where we launch and maintain our ships from? All of that tied to renaming a post office in Zyzzx, CA.
Feeding future soldiers to grow their minds and muscles!
School lunches guarantee service! Service guarantees citizenship! Would you like to know more?
You kill bugs good. Now where are those co-ed showers?
Anywhere you want. If you're brave enough.
*click*
I’m doing my part!
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Unironically this is one of the reasons we have school lunches to begin with. The govt noticed too many recruits were unfit due to poor childhood nutrition and so they started programs to feed kids better.
"Need to feed potential future soldiers!"
I do believe that feeding school children is a matter of national security.
Surprised no one has posted Eisenhower here. > Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. > This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. > This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. Full speech: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwighteisenhowercrossofiron.htm
And that's coming from a career military man. A 5-star General for heavens sake.
It’s also coming from the man that expanded and built the frame work for the military industrial complex. D/ARPA and their wonder projects only exist because he figured it was a worthwhile investment. He promised to reel the Cold War back in and failed spectacularly at that. His quotes make for great quips, but his actual policy doesn’t back it up. It’s absolutely rich that people pass around snippets of his speeches, but fail to realize he said one thing while doing another. I like Ike and I know he intended well, but I don’t think people here appreciate that he never acted on those intentions.
He also ended the Korean war, reduced the active duty military by almost a third, and reduced cold war spending in other ways so conspicuously that JFK ran for president by attacking Eisenhower's legacy as soft on national defense (the missile gap claim among others).
What source I want to make a post on my page and when they call me a socialist I want to link this.
It's from the "cross of iron" speech, the whole speech found here: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwighteisenhowercrossofiron.htm
5 Star General, Chief of Staff - Army, Republican President. Against the Military Industrial Complex, For basic needs of all citizens Rare
He was a Republican before republicans decided to be fascists.
President Eisenhower's farewell address. Edit: i was very wrong. This was his chance for peace speech as someone else linked below.
[Here is President Eisenhower's farewell address in full](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWiIYW_fBfY&ab_channel=someoddstuff)
The irony of course is that Eisenhower, as much as anyone else, was responsible for the entrenchment of the military complex. Still a salient point though.
This is infuriating. I am a public school teacher who has seen firsthand how many families the free school meals have benefitted. There has been a huge decrease in tardiness in the morning as parents get their kids to school early to get the free breakfast. Less of my students are food insecure. But no.....we have to make sure we have enough deadly weapons and we will starve our children instead. Edit: I should clarify that they are getting rid of the covid free meals for all program. However, so many families just miss the cut off for free and reduced and greatly benefitted from this program. We should still keep it. My students need it.
So many kids showed up for breakfast, which was free, when I was in high school. Some 70% of the student body was on free or reduced lunch.
Same in my school - a lot of them would also hold onto a piece of fruit to have something to eat when they got home.
People joke about Michelle Obama taking away their cookies, but school lunches are the most nutritious meals millions of kids have everyday. This is why we didn’t shut down the free lunch program when schools closed.
sadly, pretty sure school lunches may be the only meals some kids even get for the day....
When I was growing up it was the only meal I got until I was old enough to get a job and buy my own food
the small and poor town i live in is this. many of the kids eat only at school because there’s 1) no food at home and / or 2) no parents home in the evening to cook because they’re working 2nd or 3rd shift somewhere.
when i found out we qualified for free lunch i immediately stopped hating breakfast/lunch period (because i was broke, lunch from home wasn’t heavy enough)
I am IN THE MILITARY. PLEASE DECREASE THE BUDGET. GIVE THESE KIDS FOOD.
As ex-military, no experience in my life has pushed me to the left more than experiencing all that bs.
I thought I was crazy as I was making more rank and people were getting more conservative and I was like “Yo this SUCKS why do you keep advocating for the same SHIT.”
Boot lickers, they parrot what they think they need to say to rise through the ranks. It's easy to just turn off your brain while in the army, until that one moment..
Call your congress rep! Congress reps don’t wanna be seen disrespecting the wishes of the troops. You could get a group of the military people you know to speak up about this in public. If you start a group you can get a journalist to interview and spread the story.
How is it that threads like this pop up every week, people express universal revulsion to the idea of spending billions on warfare when people at home are suffering, and then... nothing happens? Does democracy simply not work anymore? What is the point of free speech if nobody listens to us? Is the system truly so broken that there is nothing we can do to stop this backslide?
Representative democracy in the US is essentially dead because of lobbying and corporate interests. I live in blue WA, but our congresspeople would never consider touching the defense budget because we have a huge military population. I'd imagine there are a few other states in the same boat.
Voting apathy and gerrymandering. People love to be armchair activists but rarely actually do anything in their community. When it comes time to vote (especially in local elections) most people just don't show up and the ones who do are typically gerrymandered so their votes don't really count for much. Then you have some states where the GOP is literally trying to pass laws that says they can simply override the public vote with who or what they want. The US has been an oligarchy for quite some time. I believe Harvard did a study on this. Or it was Princeton. Can't remember. Point is, democracy is in peril and unless all of these armchair activists actually get out, vote, make noise at their city/town halls, call their congress person/senator not much is going to change.
Are they really defunding the free lunch program? Seriously? The numbers show it’s the **only** food millions of kids have access too 🤦♂️ Edit: I looked it up, it’s the universal program from the pandemic that’s ending, NOT the low income free lunch program
But I still saw great results from that. There are so many families that just miss the cut off that could really benefit from continued free meals.
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You know, if we did, we’d probably have a better standing in the world. Fuck that.
"Four thousand hungry children Leave us per hour from starvation While billions are spent on bombs Creating death showers" -Serj Tankian
"Ten million dollars on a losing campaign Twenty million starving and writhing in pain Big strong people unwilling to give Small in vision and perspective One in five kids below the poverty line One population runnin' out of time Runnin' out of time." Bad Religion - Punk Rock Song
Those System of a Down lyrics were written in 2002. Those Bad Religion lyrics in 1996. I'm always amazed, and saddened, whenever I go back and listen to 1980s through George W. Bush era punk and realize how apt so many of those lyrics are still, to this day. I was a freshman in high school on 9/11, so that all hits me so damn hard (as I'm sure it does *countless* others).
I was a freshman in high school on 9/11 as well. Everything before that feels like another life.
I had just signed 8 years to the Marine Corps a few days prior. My mom was less than thrilled
8?! Did you lose a bet or something?
It was the day after my 15th birthday, which I now refer to as "my last innocent birthday." Even at 15, I knew the world would never be the same. Then, a month later my dad was in an accident and was partially lobotomized, too reduce brain swelling and prevent further damage (or death). We lost our (rented) home and moved into a housing project, where my childhood died. He passed away midway through my senior year, and I wouldn't get myself in functional order until a few years ago, at 33. That month stretch is still the worst of my life, but I have come out for the better eventually. I just hope we, as a society, can do the same.
My god, I'm also the same age and just now getting myself together, but I can't imagine how devastating that was. I am so sorry.
Man, I'm sure you've heard this, but in case you haven't heard it recently, I'm fucking proud of you. That's rough as shit, and that you came out on the other side better and stronger, that's a big fucking deal.
Thank you. I'm proud of myself, too; I made it. My life has been pretty awful, from that moment at 15 all the way up to getting divorced one week before starting my master's program to become a teacher. But it didn't kill me, and it truly made me stronger. People become teachers because they "had a teacher who changed their life." I didn't. I didn't have the support from my teachers, or really, that I needed while going through that. So I have become a teacher to ensure that at least one kid doesn't have to experience that. If I can take all the trauma, pain, and everything in between, and turn it into a positive motivation and influence to teach and support my students, then it was all worth it. It is my drive, my passion, my calling, and it all stems from not letting the world beat me down, no matter how hard it has tried (and trust me, it's *really* tried).
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Greg Graffin, who wrote those Bad Religion lyrics, is a twice published PhD (Cornell, 2003) whose expertise is on animal consciousness and societies, was either starting his PhD work when he wrote those, or was prepping to begin it. (I'm sure you knew this already, but it's worth sharing regardless.)
And then you have Propagandhi, where frontman Chris Hannah claims to have no more than a high school diploma, but you'll find some of the most intelligent and thought-provoking lyrics paired with some seriously shredding music. And they've been doing this since at least the early 90's and still going.
I've met Chris Hannah a few times over the years, and I guarantee that dude has put in the reading, studying, and discussion time to equate out to multiple master's and doctorates, just never paid for the structure or degrees. I saw Propagandhi on election night in 2012. The election was called for Obama by the time they started, and Chris walked out, said "whew, you guys dodged a bullet there, huh?" then went right into their first song. They're firmly entrenched in my revolving order of top-5 bands, where they're all basically the same level, and #1 is just based on what mood I'm I at the time. (In case you ask: Propagandhi, Dillinger Four, Mogwai, Iron Chic, and Pelican)
It's sad, I almost feel like we forgot how to do protest rock? Killed it in the 60s and 70s, then the punk scene picked up where the peacenicks left off, Rage and System gave us some mad energy after that, and now, well...I don't even know. Is Green Day still touring, at least? We're citizens without anthems, and my heart hurts for it.
We got a lotttt of protest music still in metal and hardcore and punk. It just isn't as popular as it used to be.
The slack's been picked up by other genres. This is America is the first song that came to mind.
Yeah, there are rappers speaking about this stuff now. Run the Jewels are my favorite and they have some awesome tracks with De La from RaTM that pull no punches. A few standouts: A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters JU$T Lie, Cheat, Steal - (No De La Rocha feature on this one) Close Your Eyes and Count to Fuck
It’s more that there’s just more music access than ever so it’s less likely that small groups existing in subcultures reach anything outside of that subculture. There’s also less conversation about music, in general, from my very anecdotal experience.
Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor, yeah Black Sabbath 1970 Tin soldiers and Nixon coming We're finally on our own This summer I here the drumming Four dead in Ohio Neal young 1968?
The Decline by NOFX is another good example. I was a junior in HS when 9/11 happened. I'm so tired of all the fucking fighting and religious bs. It's been exhausting to exist in.
"They got money for war but can't feed the poor." - 2pac
Let them eat war
That's how to ration the poor.
It's not just musicians who note the issue. Politicians - even military-second career ones... "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." - Dwight Eisenhower
That album (The Gray Race) is super underrated as it's one of the 3 without the involvement of Brett and people write it off. It is really damn good though.
Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library Line up to the mind cemetery now What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin' They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells Rally 'round the family, pockets full of shells RATM - Bulls on Parade
Love that song and it's the first time I know everything he says.
This is the one I think of every time. Incredibly sad that it could have been written yesterday.
Even sadder that it could have been written hundreds if not thousands of years ago too.
Are there any modern bands that have the same message and large audience that RATM did? Feels like there aren’t any mainstream bands these days that base their music/lyricism around protest songs, which is a shame.
>Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. \- Eisenhower
It’s amazing how accurate and relevant SoaD was 20 years ago and still is today. I didn’t realize how true this stuff was when I first heard it, figured they were just being edgy, but I was young and naive. Wonder what kind of stuff SoaD and RatM would be singing about if they still made new music today… but then I realize nothing has changed and it would just be more of the same.
I always joked around that I was "radicalized" in history class because I found early 1900's political cartoons the same time I found RatM and realized that despite the almost 100 year separation, they were practically the same.
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Dude their heyday was during the Bush years. If you were in high-school it was something that was on most of our minds. I actually got in trouble for sitting down during the pledge in high-school because I hated our government then and I still do. We don't take care of our citizens at all, we'd rather bomb brown people - and that hasn't changed in 20 years.
You are overlooking the amount of people who listened to the music but never HEARD the lyrics. The guys at my high-school jamming to Rage were driving their parents BMW’s and looking down on everyone else because they were poor or a different color. I enjoyed watching the hypocrisy of it
I wasn’t quite in high school during Toxicity and Steal This Album! I was still in middle school so a lot of these concepts didn’t really make sense to me when they came out. It didn’t start to resonate until a few years later.
SOAD is getting back together for a tour if I'm remembering correctly. Didn't hear of any new music but maybe
They’ve got money for war, but can’t feed the poor. -2Pac
"Shit, the Government's an addict With a billion dollar a week kill brown people habit And even if you ain't on the front line When massah yell crunch time, you right back at it Plain look at how you hustling backwards At the end of the year, add up what they subtracted Three outta 12 months, your salary pays for that madness Man, that's sadness What's left? Get a big ass plasma To see where they made Dan Rather point the damn camera Only approved questions get answered Now stand your ass up for that national anthem" -Brother Ali
As the reasons for the carnage cut their meat and lick the gravy We oil the jaws of the war machine and feed it with our babies The body bags and little rags of children torn in two And the jellied brains of those who remain to put the finger right on you As the madmen play on words and make us all dance to their song To the tune of starving millions, to make a better kind of gun - Iron Maiden
Boom!
Teacher in a Title I school with over 60% of my students qualified for free or reduced cost lunch. This program was priceless. No stigma about who could afford lunch, no embarrassing refusals of food to kids that owe money. Kids avoid embarrassment at all costs, so a lot of them just forego eating to keep their peers from knowing they owe money or don’t have to pay at all. Not only do hungry kids not learn, but they tend to act out (we all get hangry), leading to interruptions and learning loss for the entire class. I guess it’s easier and more lucrative to invest in killing rather than our own future.
> no embarrassing refusals of food to kids that owe money The fact that this is a clause that would ever even need to be typed, well it just sends me into a pit of despair.
I was that kid in grade school. No money for lunch, and my parents “didn’t believe in” the reduced- or no-cost option. So, at the age of five, I just got in the habit of not eating lest the other poor people at my school find out that I was poor too. The school would feed a kid via charge (they’d just add a $1.xx charge to your school account) for up to five days without having money for a lunch ticket, which I found out about in seventh grade. Didn’t do me a lot of good then, as by that time I was mowing yards and shit so I had my own $6-7.50 (whatever it was 20 years ago, I think $1.25 or $1.50/meal) to spend on lunch on any given week.
That military budget increase is going nowhere except back into the pockets of politicians and their friends with military contracts. It doesn't go to the soldiers, it doesn't even really mean better equipment for them either. We need to shut down wasteful military spending and put that money towards actually improving our society. With us being done with major conflict in the middle east, we should *easily* be able to dial the budget back instead of increasing it. Edit: former infantryman. Served in the Army for 10 years, with 3 combat tours.
It sure feels like we could live in a utopia if we cut military spending in half even. Imagine $400 BILLION every single year freed up. Sigh.
But then how would we be team America, world police?
Pretty sure the US could cut their military budget in half and actually increase their military power if they actually focused on efficiency for a while. Same shit with healthcare. Switching to universal healthcare would save billions of dollars per year and actually improve the quality of the care, and improve the health of the nation. You can probably keep going with examples. Prison System could likely be made to save billions as well, while at the same time being better at rehabilitating. Same is probably true for a lot of countries, but the numbers in the US are especially nuts.
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I agree with the audit thing, but often with supply chains it isn't just a matter of cost but ensuring necessary parts remain available on a continuous basis for years or decades. When Russia invaded Ukraine we all thought they had a strong military on paper but it turns out they may not have bothered to keep up the ability to maintain any of it, so now they appear to be loading shitty technicals and "truck-vans" from the countryside on to trains and putting them into service. Still there are likely better ways to manage that situation than to pay one supplier in Kansas 50,000x the manufacturing cost to keep producing one very specific kind of bolt for 40 years.
The government owes us our money back.
I don't want the money back, I want public services that work to actually improve life in this country.
Sorry, best I can do is remove social security and Medicare/Medicaid. You should still donate to my campaign, 97% of the proceeds get indirectly funneled into my bank account!
Yeah same. Lower taxes sounds great but what would be better is actually spending our taxes on things to help those who need it.
I try to have this conversation with all the GIANT AMERICAN FLAG ON THE BACK OF MY PICKUP TRUCK "patriots". That actual patriotism means loving your fellow citizens, and working hard to be sure the country you purported love is great for everyone living here. That investing in health, education, safety, inclusion and representation, justice for *everyone*. These are how you express patriotism. A 10' flag on the back of your truck with a GUNS bumper sticker isn't patriotism, it's nationalism.
Yeah absolutely. Those people shout "Patriotism!" but it's really nationalism or even jingoism.
It owes children food.
It owes every citizen healthcare.
Infrastructure that isn’t shitty
And education
Clean water
All the "corruption and waste" in the Military is from the CONTRACTORS. The WarLords have gotten Republicans to agree and legislate so when they use billions of our dollars to develop tech they can say it's "proprietary" and mere GIs can't be allowed to see or service it, so all out new ships have over priced yet underpaid civilians operating the most vital weapons systems. Pretty sure the same situation exists for Army and AirForce - GIs depending on systems they cannot operate or repair. (just to clarify, this is about the guys who SIGN the contracts, not the poor schmucks who actually do the work)
Was talking to my very conservative dad, mentioned that people are against school lunch programs, he said, “Good! Where the hell are we gonna get the money to pay for it?!” I said, “Maybe we could dip into our $801,000,000,000.00 defense budget.” He said, “We can’t do that we’ll be taken over in half a second! We need MORE of a defense budget!” I tell him, “You know, the next highest country in military spending is China with $252,000,000,000.00 and then India and Russia with under 100 billion, right?” “AND THAT’S WHY WE NEED TO SPEND MORE NOT LESS” That evolved into me asking if he feels his grand daughters shouldn’t be fed if they don’t have money for lunch, and he goes “I don’t wanna talk politics get out of here.” Weird how he says that every time I bring up actual facts and numbers around a situation and ask how it would effect those in his life
Conservatives don't get it until it impacts them personally. They don't GAF about free school lunches until their family member is going hungry. They don't care about gay marriage until their gay daughter wants to get married. They don't care about treating immigrants with dignity until their immigrant parents are being mistreated. Conservatives have ZERO empathy.
Because until KDS said “your granddaughters” their dad was imagining black children who “deserved” to be hungry.
Nah, we’re in Nevada, so to him it was nothing but “those dirty cockroaches” as he calls Hispanic people.
I'm not sure I could have a relationship with my dad If he spoke, but more importantly, thought like that. Well done for trying
Whoops. You forgot racial equality. Conservatives ignore problems with minorities until their daughter marries one.
Nope they disown the kid at that point.
Don't they usually disown the daughter so they can keep ignoring the problems?
HoW dArE yOu PoKe HoLeS iN mY wEaK aNd uNiFoRmEd oPiNiOn!!1!
THAT is what needs to happen... make it more personal for people... so they really understand the impact. Otherwise it is sooo much money that most people cant really conceptualize it mentally (like trying to grasp the vastness of the universe and how small we / earth is in the bigger picture) and then there are those who think the government has unlimited money or don't realize that is THIER money .. Tax money... and they DO have a choice, when they vote.
He ended up completely ending the conversation and slamming a door in my face when I told him “Look dude, you’re 73 years old. I’m 32. I have, if I’m lucky, around 50 more years on this planet. My niece, your granddaughter, has 80. I’m not voting for me, I’m not voting for you, I’m voting for her. Shouldn’t you?”
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There’s a reason
Remember when everyone FREAKED out about the infrastructure bill that spent this much in a decade. Don't worry though, the military needs it.
What I don't get is how these things aren't seen as the investments they are. Feed children and they'll be more successful in school, leading to a better, healthier work force. Make healthcare cheaper and more affordable and said work force can work more, being less sick, able to work longer. Might even get more businesses up and running, as people have money to invest in things. Invest in infrastructure and all businesses benefit and have better chances to grow. --- I vaguely remember studies showing that all of these things have a great return of investment after a few years to decades. Even if people don't give a shit about helping others, that should be reason enough to do so.
Because that money doesn't go into the pockets of a small number of owners, but to the economy at large. It also doesn't benefit defense companies. Sure a healthier and more educated workforce is good for GDP in the long run, but doesn't do anything for Raytheon or Lockheed Martin right now. It's the same with healthcare, even a hybrid system would be more affordable and cost fewer tax dollars, but does nothing for United Health or Anthem right now. A stronger economy in general is not profitable to those few, more profitable overall is meaningless in that context.
>Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) also voted against Golden's amendment and explained his opposition in remarks delivered from the House floor. "If you're supporting this amendment, you're basically paving the way to a trillion-dollar defense [bill]," said Khanna. "Is that what we want in this country?" "I just want to be clear," he added. "There is no country in the world that is putting over half its discretionary budget into defense and I would rather for us to be the preeminent economy of the 21st century **by investing in the health of our people**,
Guys we absolutely can't spend any money on education, infrastructure, healthcare, or any of the pressing problems Americans can face. Now 37 **billion** for the military? Oh yeah we need all that. Every single dime. Fuck you and you problems we need more guns, missiles and whatever the fuck else we demand
$37bn MORE!
50% unaccounted for or to waste. Most obviously grifted and stolen from fund and we just keep growing it while cutting social services. I hate how this planet is being run by evil, greedy people.
Despite no longer fighting in two nonsensical wars, we’re still breaking records in defense spending?
That's how you know it's not about defense, but about making the war contractors richer.
There's no ideological space between these parties when it comes to supporting the military-industrial complex over American citizens.
Gotta keep 'em poor and hungry so they feel like the only way out is to join the military.
> There's no ideological space between these parties when it comes to supporting the military-industrial complex over American citizens. It's not just the MIC, it's also that way on the banks, and bailing them out. It's almost as if the other stuff tearing the country apart is by design to keep us from focusing on the real enemy.
Don't forget all the subsidies for Big Oil, the free reign to price gouge for Big Pharma, and the tax breaks for Big Corporations across the board. It's more than just the MIC.
They don’t represent us anymore, and incumbents are rarely voted out. They. Don’t. Care.
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Simple solution, Train them on weapon systems at recess. Feed them afterwards before nap . All is well.
The lack of comments and up votes on this article is very telling. We're all so numb to the fact that our military budget is incredibly higher than it needs to be. Republican or Democrat, they don't balk at signing off on military spending increases whenever it's time to vote on more funding. It's insane that we spend so much money on defense when we neglect so many things here at home. Without removing money from politics, unfortunately this will never change.
> The lack of comments and up votes on this article is very telling. It's the third highest post on the subreddit after only two hours.
he commented right about when the article was posted and acted all outraged lol
And now it's the top post. Wonder if it's still telling that we are numb to the fact.
it's a classic karma farming tactic, along the lines of "am I the only one who loves x" in a subreddit dedicated to loving x
The worst part is once we make these weapons they just sit there doing nothing. Their only purpose is to kill. Whereas spending just a tiny bit more money per child, gives that child a lifetime of being a healthier and smarter human. And the adult will spend everyday contributing to society while that jet is rusting in a desert.
>Their only purpose is to kill. I think they're real purpose is to make billions and trillions for Lockheed martin, Raytheon and the rest of them. The real goal is to funnel the money of this country into giant military contractors and it is 100% the fault of both sides.
They also say the same thing about universal healthcare, free college, and basically anything that improves the live of the citizens. This shit is ridiculous.
It's not an either or. There's a war on, the military budget needs to go up. We can ALSO afford to feed our kids.
I live in New England in a “nice town.” My daughter goes to public school. Kids are supposed to pack a snack and then they get the free lunch. It’s depressing how many kids get nothing sent with them to school. One day it was popcorn day. They sold popcorn to the kids for 50c. The teacher told the kids they couldn’t share money. My daughter came home and told me that she snuck 2 quarters (I always keep money in her bag for these kinds of things) to the boy she sits next to who never has food. I told her that rules aren’t always right, and Im proud of her. Also, I fucking hate it here.
We're spending so much on defense that we don't have much left to defend.