speaking of the need for a renewed anti-military movement, copied from a friend but I cosign 100%
"Every single person that voted "yea" to approve this $607B military budget, the largest since the peak of the Iraq war, should be primaried then made to volunteer in an Afghani hospital.
That's all but seven of your senators, by the way. And only one of those seven wasn't a Republican.
Totally normal country."
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00212
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 03:51 (five years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rV2CwmzRLw&feature=youtu.be
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:03 (five years ago) link
anti-military movementyeah, that’ll sell itMaybe try “bring the troops home” or “end the war” or any of a dozen other simple options? Christ, what’s with the self-owns on this front.
― El Tomboto, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:05 (five years ago) link
that is a fair point, I am using outdated 80's terminology and I agree with you
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:07 (five years ago) link
and I meant "militarism" but was lazy and tired, your terms are better and blaming "the military" is a terrible idea as you note.
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:09 (five years ago) link
Veterans under 50 are generally really sympathetic to increasing domestic spending and taxing the rich to pay for it. They’re middle class or blue collar and they didn’t go over there to fight for tax cuts for the rich.
― El Tomboto, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:20 (five years ago) link
A lot of Senators who voted for that are good. Seems like it would be bad idea to focus on primarying them for this one vote.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:31 (five years ago) link
with all due respect I don't think there's anything a Democrat could do, no matter how craven and awful, that would make you think they needed to be primaried
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:33 (five years ago) link
your viewpoint is basically the viewpoint that I want the party to move beyond
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:34 (five years ago) link
and yeah I'll give Merkley a pass here but I would LOVE to see Wyden replaced with an actual progressive
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:35 (five years ago) link
No I’ve voted against incumbents in primaries before. Chris Murphy is good on foreign policy and this vote on military spending doesn’t negate remotely that.
You’re friend seems like a million other people who don’t follow policy and just really feel the surface level appeal of “they’re all the same”
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:47 (five years ago) link
Wyden has done yeoman's work on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He observed the rules and never leaked classified info, but he all but blinked out distress messages in Morse Code to let the public know when the NSA was spying wholesale on American citizens. Snowden nailed that stuff to the church door, but Wyden was waving his arms about that stuff for years, back when the NSA director was flat-out lying to Congress about it.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 21 September 2018 04:49 (five years ago) link
So what are some good nuanced reasons to support this much military spending
― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Friday, 21 September 2018 04:52 (five years ago) link
xxp you would be incorrect there
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 04:55 (five years ago) link
Can anyone give a reasonably succinct rundown on why all the Democrats went along with this increased spending for military? Its supposed to be that compromise will then get them some of the stuff they want? Can't see where the positives are in terms of optics, right before midterms though - unless I'm misreading?
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:05 (five years ago) link
Spending bill isn’t an endorsement of military policy. Who and who doesn’t agree with say John Bolton’s views on intervention is about a million times more important and imperative a thing to be looking at.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:09 (five years ago) link
"Why?" is my question to both of those sentences.
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:10 (five years ago) link
The nuanced reasons for massive military spending are mostly about our sitting in the geopolitical driver's seat by creating and maintaining dependencies within our alliances on the military protection and intelligence that we pay for and they either cannot afford or do not wish to pay for. Countries outside our treaty alliances that have regional or global ambitions, like Russia, Iran or China play the same game in much the same ways as we do, but we are the global big dog and maintain a world that is mostly inside our sphere of influence. If the USA backs away from that role, other powers will fill the resulting vacuum and influence the world in directions they find preferable.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 21 September 2018 05:11 (five years ago) link
Xpost Jobs would probably a big factor depending on which states they represent.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:12 (five years ago) link
xp to Aimless disagree, look at what China's been doing in Africa with (largely) soft aid, although they do sell weapons
"jobs" seems like a stretch here, honestly, but it depends on the district I guess
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:13 (five years ago) link
while we waste all our money on this bullshit we are rapidly being surpassed and out maneuvered on the world stage in nearly every other arena, there's no excuse for this spending orgy other than "America is insane" imho
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:14 (five years ago) link
Circulating money into your district via the military-industrial complex doesn't count as 'nuanced' in my view. That's just raw back-scratching pork barrel politics of the crudest sort.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 21 September 2018 05:15 (five years ago) link
now that I agree with
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:15 (five years ago) link
Did your friend ever post about the Trump Admin pulling out of the Iran Deal?
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:16 (five years ago) link
not sure how that's relevant, honestly. fill me in if you want.
going back to that second sentence of yours, do you really still think Congress has any say in the use of military force? I'm pretty sure Bolton doesn't give a fuck what the Senate thinks when he orders the latest Yemeni drone strikes, or worse.
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:19 (five years ago) link
If you’re genuinely concerned about the dangers of militarism the US pulling out of the Iran Deal is far more important and consequential than this military spending bill. One the biggest nuclear/non-proliferator agreements in history torn up by hawks who want a war we’ll never be able to extract ourselves from, broad destabilization, won’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and could lead to escalation with other nations.
RE: Bolton. Impending wars have a huge public relations component. It’s very important that congress as well as activists be opposed be vocal and public in their opposition and warn of the dangers. It’s one of the worse things to be “we can’t do anything about that!” about
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:27 (five years ago) link
I'm highly suspicious that no one left of center who's upset about defense spending is nonplussed about pulling out of the Iran deal. It's not really an either/or situation.
― louise ck (milo z), Friday, 21 September 2018 05:30 (five years ago) link
xp we literally can't do anything about it other than vote the fuckers out, they do not give a shit about protest anymore (I think protests are still worthwhile, but for other reasons like networking and therapy)
also milo's right, it's not a zero sum game where you only get one choice
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:40 (five years ago) link
Just slightly upthread there’s “let’s primary every democrat that voted for this one spending bill regardless if they would have never done/will strongly oppose the very dangerous Iran Deal pullout”
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:42 (five years ago) link
yup. and I agree with it 100% and would support any primary attempt based on that reasoning, they don't get a free pass because there's some other vote they made that you like
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:44 (five years ago) link
also, wtf is wrong with primary challenges from progressives?
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:45 (five years ago) link
your assumption seems to be that they are de facto bad
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:46 (five years ago) link
Let’s definitely focus right now on bitching about the Democrats who are against the apocalypse
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:46 (five years ago) link
do you know what thread this is?
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:47 (five years ago) link
unconditionally supporting this level of military spending is definitely apocalypse-friendly and I am well within my rights to hold my Democratic Senators accountable for this horror show (that they also supported).
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:49 (five years ago) link
My question was asked in good faith! I'm prepared to accept the premise that voting for the increased spending was good because of reasons xyz! I just don't know what reasons xyz are, either stated or real
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:50 (five years ago) link
that's because Nerdstrom can't actually give us any good reasons
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:51 (five years ago) link
I went to Kamela Harris's twitter and she doesn't even mention it. Am i missing something or even if for some reason this is a good idea, aren't the optics bad? right before midterms
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:51 (five years ago) link
Primary challenges are not inherently bad obviously.
But the mentality of getting riled up about this one spending bill at the “vote them out!” level given what’s going on now is indicative of why we’re all going to die.
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:52 (five years ago) link
it's not up to you to dictate where I draw my lines, especially since you seem to have none whatsoever regarding what's unacceptable
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:54 (five years ago) link
and honestly you haven't answered any of the questions here to my satisfaction
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:55 (five years ago) link
I am riled up, yes!
One thing would stop me being riled up
A decent answer as to why this is a good thing. I don't want to primary anyone, I want an answer to my question that makes me go "ok, fair enough, I can accept that". Can be from Harris, Poindexter, or...anyone!
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:56 (five years ago) link
Guy who didn’t know what the Iran Deal is probably doesn’t know what is and isn’t “apocalypse friendly”
― Nerdstrom Poindexter, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:57 (five years ago) link
:(
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:57 (five years ago) link
um I said I didn't see how it was relevant, I am familiar with the issue and am aware that other countries are working to bypass it, but thanks for the useless condescension instead of an actual answer
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:58 (five years ago) link
we're waiting
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 05:59 (five years ago) link
Warrens twitter: NothingBookers twitter: Nothing
dispiriting
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 06:03 (five years ago) link
If the USA backs away from that role, other powers will fill the resulting vacuum and influence the world in directions they find preferable.
― A is for (Aimless)
surely you mean the fifth international?
― the late great, Friday, 21 September 2018 06:04 (five years ago) link
I'm actually persuadable that there is a good reason and its just I don't understand it, because the alternative is really grim
― anvil, Friday, 21 September 2018 06:05 (five years ago) link
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/519%2B72oO4kL._SX318_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
― sleeve, Friday, 21 September 2018 06:06 (five years ago) link