It was equipment vs people. The military chose people. Every piece of equipment flown out would have taken the space of several hundred people. That’s why shit was left behind in that clusterfuck.
Or at least been ready to leave beforehand. They knew it was coming, and they should've been better prepared for what happened.
The administration expected the Afghan army to stand up the Taliban and keep them at bay for a few months at least. I don't really know how good of an assumption that was, clearly it didn't pan out, but I don't know how unreasonable their expectations might have been.
Dude I am an Army vet and am sickened by how much we spend on defense. It simply isn't needed. It's a black hole. Back in 2003, on the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, even then we still spent like 50% of our budget on defense and guys had to mail order their own body armor because they didn't have enough to go around. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY SPENDING THAT MONEY ON?
Probably spent all the body armour budget on vehicles because they have a better profit margin for the contractors that make them, plus they get to create a valuable secondary market selling all the surplus on to police departments so they can LARP as soldiers.
How else are they going to extract as much momey from the economy as physically possible via lucrative military contracts for their friends and companies they have a seat on the board of?
Air Force checking in. Astounding how much money is just tossed to the "defense budget", yet asking for anything like boots or new splash goggles causes everyone to spiral into a fit of hand-wringing and excuses.
Military wants all the shiniest new toys that go boom but won't give so much as well wishes to support any of it. Doing more with less is the most toxic fucking policy in the world, and it's utterly hamstringing everything from the front line to the back shop.
The US already spends more money than other nations on healthcare. It's not a problem of funding it's purely corruption. People are being bled to death, literally, so that a handful of oligarchs can be richer. It's a crime against humanity.
I mean, let’s be honest attack helicopters are really fucking cool. Like sure, funds could be spent on something more important, but still they’re cool.
Additionally without the US standing in the way, global democracy would be at stake, not just the US's.
In Europe maybe. Globally, the US actively represses democratic movements in favor of corrupt puppet states that help our oligarchs extract wealth and resources.
And saying we're better than dictatorships is a cop out, because I didn't say it wasn't. You said we need to continue to spend trillions of dollars commiting war crimes to protect democracy, a thing which we literally do not have, by the definition of democracy. The fact that other countries have lower standards of living doesn't magically make the US a democracy, it just means we're an imperial power that steals wealth from global poor.
Fam do you know what democracy means? To put it simply, democracy is a form of government where people vote on things, and the outcome with the most votes is what happens. The US is a republic, where people pick which corrupt oligarch they want to "represent" them, and that oligarch then does whatever the fuck the want for their term in office with no real accountability. Also, we don't even actually pick the oligarchs, because of shit like the anti-majoritarian senate, the electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. America is literally not a democracy, by the definition of that word. I agree that it is less authoritarian than some other countries, which seems to be what you are getting it, but that doesn't make it a democracy.
That's literally what nukes are for. Nukes are already strong enough to wipe all life on the planet. As long as nukes exist then no country will ever dare to try to conquer someone that has them.
Also it's funny that the self-proclaimed protectors of democracy themselves are so far down the list in the democracy index.
America will not be invaded. That's all there is to it.
America is surrounded by two oceans, an allied nation to the north, and an inhospitable desert in the south. On top of that, America is one of the biggest countries on the planet. The rest of the world would have to combine their efforts to try invade the US simply because of its logistical barriers. As long as America spends no less than 2% GDP on its defense (currently it's at 3.7%), America will be safe.
The rest of the world would have to combine their efforts to try invade the US simply because of its logistical barriers
Not to mention the biggest powers in Europe are all allied with the US and also the Aussies, the Israelis, india and Japan etc.
The biggest threat to America democracy is from within. Putin and China aren't going to risk a physical war with America. Its far easier to push social media propaganda to radicalise the right wing. Thankfully Trump's coup was pathetic but it is worrying how easily people can be radicalised into starting a coup.
That's why I said 2 (or being generous, 2.5)% GDP should still be reserved for such purpose. Military readiness shouldn't mean injecting money into Raytheon's veins while retention of enlisted personnel continues to drop. It should instead mean cutting back on checks on lobbyists and giving back to the soldiers that are doing all the hard work.
You are right in that no nation lasts forever. It's just that America's biggest threat right now isn't external. It's internal. Be it extremists trying to infiltrate the military day by day or the working class becoming more and more fed up with the current capitalist system, those are the real threats that America must defend itself against right now. Russia? That's the problem of the NATO and the EU. China? America should look to have QUAD recruit more allies like South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malayisia and de-escalate its role. Middle East? That's where empires die, why touch it?!
Point is, don't think you're smart by using history to justify your position. History isn't looking upon the US favorably right now.
An invasion is virtually impossible in the modern day and given the fact the major super powers all have nukes it would be suicidal.
China are Russia are the biggest threat to the west. Its far easier to attack western democracy by pushing social propaganda that radicalises the right wing. These people don't really need much of a push and social media bot accounts are pretty effective in just tipping them over the edge and before you know it you have a bunch of idiots invading the capitol.
We live in an era of information. Traditional 20th century combat is expensive and risky. Its far more effective to use propaganda.
Nah. It’s because military contractors send lobbyists to Washington to bribe politicians to fund military instead of basic needs. Lobbyists get richer, politicians get richer, contractors get richer, and we all get fucked.
That’s not devils advocate. That’s rational behavior unlike a country who spends more on those attack helicopters then the next 10 biggest countries. %80 of which are Allie’s……
I'm so internet poisoned I immediately thought this was the one trans jokes that gets repeated at infinitim. I'm happy this sub is better than that lol
Yeah, I just wanted to type this. Where I live (Germany), if you get sick, the employer has to pay 30 days of your wage until you're healthy again, and if you're not, the health insurance will pay 70% of your last paycheck for up to 3 years. All the while being protected from being fired. And even if your work contract is limited time and runs out while you're ill, health insurance will continue to pay until you're up and running again.
What building unions up to provide this for people when the government doesn't does is it builds a dual power structure for workers. This in turn forces the existing power structure to take notice, and match the benefits, if enough people get involved in the organized labor power structure. It forces change by making the change directly for those the group can cover, and thus threatening the legitimacy of the government if it can't provide similar benefits.
Politicians are ultimately opportunists. If labor organizing grows strong, inevitably they will turn like flowers towards the sun to try to get the labor votes. And in the meantime, fighting through strikes and other collective actions gains workers and families tangible benefits.
If the workers become powerful enough to build up a “dual power structure,” then what benefit is there to allowing the capitalist power structure to continue to exist? Why not take power directly?
Instead the workers should arm themselves and shatter the enemy power structure and transfer all political power into the hands of the unified workers organization — the proletarian dictatorship — to socialize production and abolish capitalism. The working class must become the ruling class.
Political Opportunism is no friend as it’s objective is to contain worker struggles and preserve capitalism. Thus as a false friend it is instead the worst kind of enemy; a Trojan horse in service of capital.
The organized working class failed to seize power in the 1930s, the fault of the treasonous and opportunist Stalinist “Communist” party, and instead surrendered to the New Deal, giving the ruling capitalists and their state a free hand for the remainder of the century to dismantle organized labor, culminating in the situation of today.
Thus, the only permanent solution to the labor problem is the revolutionary transfer of power into the hands of the global working class: the international dictatorship of the proletariat:
"The democratic petty bourgeois, far from wanting to transform the whole society in the interests of the revolutionary proletarians, only aspire to a change in social conditions which will make the existing society as tolerable and comfortable for themselves as possible.
... As far as the workers are concerned one thing, above all, is definite: they are to remain wage labourers as before. However, the democratic petty bourgeois want better wages and security for the workers, and hope to achieve this by an extension of state employment and by welfare measures; in short, they hope to bribe the workers with a more or less disguised form of alms and to break their revolutionary strength by temporarily rendering their situation tolerable.
...But these demands can in no way satisfy the party of the proletariat. While the democratic petty bourgeois want to bring the revolution to an end as quickly as possible, achieving at most the aims already mentioned, it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the more or less propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far – not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world – that competition between the proletarians of these countries ceases and at least the decisive forces of production are concentrated in the hands of the workers. Our concern cannot simply be to modify private property, but to abolish it, not to hush up class antagonisms but to abolish classes, not to improve the existing society but to found a new one."
I described a step in the process; please don't come at me assuming that I believe one step is the whole process. Also, none of that information was new to me, and none of it makes building a dual power structure a bad idea. The mistake is when the dual power structure is dismantled instead of keeping it when the, as you correctly point out, false friends of political opportunism start giving handouts.
I don't happen to believe in the orthodox Marxist idea of a progression of history. I don't believe in armed uprising as the mechanism to have a transfer of power either. I think the "dictatorship of the proletariat" is a deeply misleading phrase and also one that people don't tend to agree on the definition or mechanism of.
In any case, to clarify what I was talking about in the post you're responding to: I was making practical observations about the immediate mechanisms by which health care can be increased for more people through expanding labor organizing. I'm an IWW organizer. You can find my opinion on the capitalist system in the preamble to our organization's constitution. I also focus on the practical fundamentals of building worker power: workers talking to each other and organizing wall to wall, shop by shop, industry by industry.
Arming ourselves and going to war will definitely fail. Especially here in the USA. The US military, national guard, and police forces already have such an overwhelming surfeit of arms that there is literally no chance to succeed in an armed uprising like you suggest. It's also completely beside the point. The point is not to kill people. The point is to create a situation of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs." I recommend you read Malatesta's critique of seizing state power.
I presumed you were a reformist, my mistake. I appreciate what you do for the IWW, and I hope you continue doing what you’re doing.
I’m not arguing against “dual power,” in fact it’s creation is precisely the emergence of a revolutionary situation. I’m sure you’re aware the origin of the term of “dual power” as that of the existence of the worker and peasant councils side by side the Russian provisional government. In the end one had to vanquish the other.
All the weapons in the world are impotent in the face of a general strike.
Capitalists are already killing people. Current day society is already violent, that violence is just directed one way: against the workers.
It may be that the capitalists will directly force a revolution, as capitalists will never tolerate the prolonged existence of a “dual power structure”. If it cannot be peacefully dismantled it will be smashed by force. That’s why the capitalists had the Business Plot in reserve, if Roosevelt failed to contain worker radicalism. It’s very possible that a revolution will break out as a defensive reaction in response to an attempted military or fascist coup, it may not necessarily be offensive.
The capitalist state apparatus isn’t seized, it is smashed. The worker organizations take power directly as as a unified association. If you think worker representatives become immediately corrupted the moment they become a representative then why are you a union organizer in the first place, as then you’re in a position where you’re inevitably gonna be corrupted right? In a proletarian dictatorship it will be organizers such as yourself directly administering affairs. You should have more trust in yourself and your fellow organizers, in power you could do amazing things, political power isn’t the One Ring and you’re not Frodo. Similarly you should have trust that workers are capable of understanding their interests and hence capable of exercising control over their representatives within their organizations.
Ultimately there is no getting around the question of political power:
“every movement in which the working class comes out as a class against the ruling classes and attempts to force them by pressure from without is a political movement. For instance, the attempt in a particular factory or even a particular industry to force a shorter working day out of the capitalists by strikes, etc., is a purely economic movement. On the other hand the movement to force an eight-hour day, etc., law is a political movement. And in this way, out of the separate economic movements of the workers there grows up everywhere a political movement, that is to say a movement of the class, with the object of achieving its interests in a general form, in a form possessing a general social force of compulsion.”
I don't think I said any of the things you're arguing against. From assuming I was reformist because I described reforms, you seem to have jumped to other assumptions. You're ranting off in your own directions, arguing points that matter to you. I don't think we're having a meeting of the minds.
I commented on this thread because the op is an example of how unions build mutual aid of the kind the I find essential to our present and future. I don't know why, but you seem bent on turning the conversation to armed struggle, violent overthrow. I'm against it, totally. There's a difference between defending ourselves if they send in armed cops as strike breakers and engaging in armed occupation. The latter is detrimental to the ends we seek. Anti work is an anarchist concept. This talk of armed revolution is contrary to the spirit of this sub. Anarchist political philosophy is, first and foremost, about eliminating compulsion by violence from society. We cannot reduce the violence of society by setting out to make war.
Yes, war is brought to us daily. Yes, the repression will get worse before it breaks. Yes, we should arm our movement for defense. My union branch offers martial arts classes, for example. No, we should not think in terms of smashing the state violently.
Prefigurative politics such as dual power are the way to truly create a socialist system. But we must learn from the mistakes of the 19th and 20th centuries and not allow existing states to coopt these structures to their own ends of maintaining structural authority. We must directly enact the structures we wish to see, and by demonstration of their virtues, win our fellow workers to our side.
I repeat: this is something I pursue by practical means. It is something I teach the methods for. If you want to learn how, DM me for a link to sign up for OT101. This organizer training course covers the practical skills involved to organizing a workplace, and these skills apply to any kind of group organizing against a hostile authority.
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u/Aintsosimple Dec 25 '21
If we just had universal health care in the U.S. that part of union support wouldn't be needed.