In addition, government research in the sciences is miniscule. You could cut ALL of science funding and be no where close to the 1 trillion that Musk claims he'll be able to reduce the budget by
also, entire military is just under 1tn - all of it, including completely nonmovable things like nuclear silos and submarines. ripping enough copper from the walls to get 2tn would involve massive cuts to social security and healthcare, and maybe education. but nooo heavens forbid that progressive tax on income be introduced
The DoD itself spent $820B in 2023. To get over $1T, you also have to include veterans benefits, like the VA hospital system.
The full bill for Vietnam started coming 20 years after the fact as all those veterans got older and started heavily using the benefits they were promised. From the start of the War on Terror, we're about at that same point right now. So unless the plan is to rug pull those benefits from people who really need them, then there's going to be a huge bill coming that no amount of efficiency trimming can ignore.
If Democrats did the rug pull, Republicans would cry bloody murder. If Trump did it, they will cheer him on while veterans suffer.
While I understand the sentiment, US veterans are in many ways victims of the capitalist system themselves. At 18 years old, they're pressured by family or school administration to go into the military. They may have grown up poor and have no viable career path once they leave high school. College is a pipe dream. Combine that with recruiters who will use every high pressure tactic in the book and outright lie to get you to sign ("sure, you can get leave later on to be the best man at your friend's wedding"). All this is happening before they're legally allowed to drink, and they certainly haven't finished developing into their adult self.
They go off to the military. Most will get through with nothing more traumatic than boot camp (which can be pretty traumatic) and some shitty food, but some will die, and others will be injured or have PTSD.
Keeping those services and improving them is part of cleaning up our mess. So is dismantling the capitalist system that creates more of those veterans.
"hey why bother going against a nationalist land grab? i am the real antiimperialist" gee i wonder
most of the rest can be made in europe, even if it would require some scaling up of production
e:
Show
i can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you bitch and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?
I leave for an hour and you come back with some snide edit to cosplay as inglorious basterds? Weird thing to do in the middle of -and I cannot stress this enough- supporting actual, seig heiling nazis in a war.
can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you bitch and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?
Look, I originally came in here to look at dunks on and then I saw it back in my feed with like, quadruple the number of comments it had when I originally saw it.
We're not brigading just because we're all in agreement that someone calling for regime change in some of the only countries and organizations who are resisting a modern Holocaust is a bad person undeserving of respect. I just wanted to read some Elon Musk hate and you decided to talk about how the Arabs should have their leaders chosen by the enlightened white Westerners.
Is that what you actually think this is? Russia, famously lacking land.
If your "defence of democracy" requires replacing a democratically elected government with a nazi puppet regime in a violent coup, supporting that regime as it commits 8 years of terrorism against its minorities, and forcing it to kidnap old men to the front lines to keep the profitable meat grinder going...maybe you're not actually doing anti imperialism? Just a thought. Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we're the baddies, and baddies lie.
But epistemology aside, why bother from a practical standpoint? The war is over. Anything sent over at this stage is either going to the scrap heap or a military warehouse in the Russian Federation. Also lol, you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree, because we, the US, blew up Europe's pipeline and ate it's energy sector, and now Volkswagen can't even keep making it's cute little nazi cars.
The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence. This is also not the first time it is happening. Because of how nationalist Putin's supporters base has become over time, he chose to use small invasions like 2008 invasion of Georgia as a tool to increase his domestic popularity. This parallels 1999 false flag bombings and response in form of second Chechen war and 2014 invasion of Donbas. In all these cases, as well as for two first weeks of 2022 war, approval rating of Putin's government soared which was exactly the point the entire time. Because of how much of that comes from nationalists, he can't back off because he'd come across as weak and lose support, he can't advance much faster because he's physically unable to, and his best bet is this kind of slow grind like we see now. Any western military aid will make it harder, so of course russian influence operations are directed against it, and you know that too
Also you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree
Speak for yourself. Orbital ATK buys european explosives, we have scaled up weapons manufacture in France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Czechia and few others, there are new Rheinmetall plants in Ukraine too.
Ukrainians don't lack resolve. In 2022, something like 85% (iirc) said that fight should go on if nuclear weapons were used by Russia. Even now 80%-ish don't think that any territorial concessions should take place in any peace agreement. They have some of their own defense industry, lots of things (other than mostly air defense, and parts of aircraft manufacture) we can do in Europe, even if it requires some scale up, then there's South Korean deliveries and few other things that still can happen.
Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we’re the baddies, and baddies lie.
who the fuck "we" is supposed to mean there? in middle east i wish everyone involved regime change, situation is fucked with any of current people in power staying in power. Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk. but it's severely off topic so maybe don't
The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence
I started laughing here and havent stopped yet. Your explanation for the historical developments of the last few years are so stupid, so hilariously, irretrievably movie-brained in their simplicity and ignorance of material incentives, and every time they completely fall through you rubes fail to learn anything.
How many times has the Russian military "been on the verge of collapse"? "Run out of shells"? "Run out of soldiers"? How many more big offensives full of terrified conscripts with guns at their backs have to grind themselves uselessly to paste before you death cultists get it through your heads that this shit is nothing but a national, generational suicide bombing? Just one more doomed advance, bro. Surely the righteousness of our (inherently superior, somehow) troops will make up for inadequade tactics, nonexistent diplomacy, grim manpower shortages and staggering logistical disparities.
You credulous liberal dipshits stink up every social sphere with smug ignorance expecting to be welcomed, and then when people push back against your unpromted chauvinistic, fight-to-the-last-Ukranian bullshit, you can only whine and complain about some tankie brigading conspiracy. Anything but your dumb ass having been refuted in the marketplace of ideas.
in middle east i wish everyone involved regime change, situation is fucked with any of current people in power staying in power. Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk.
Great man theory doesn't stop being great man theory if you add "and their cabinets" after.
At some point you need to engage with the problem of why things are the way they are, and the answer isn't "The bad guy is in charge (and his cabinet)"
In addition, government research in the sciences is miniscule. You could cut ALL of science funding and be no where close to the 1 trillion that Musk claims he'll be able to reduce the budget by
Now if he could start making cuts to the military…
How dare you threaten the poor defense contractors.
also, entire military is just under 1tn - all of it, including completely nonmovable things like nuclear silos and submarines. ripping enough copper from the walls to get 2tn would involve massive cuts to social security and healthcare, and maybe education. but nooo heavens forbid that progressive tax on income be introduced
The DoD itself spent $820B in 2023. To get over $1T, you also have to include veterans benefits, like the VA hospital system.
The full bill for Vietnam started coming 20 years after the fact as all those veterans got older and started heavily using the benefits they were promised. From the start of the War on Terror, we're about at that same point right now. So unless the plan is to rug pull those benefits from people who really need them, then there's going to be a huge bill coming that no amount of efficiency trimming can ignore.
If Democrats did the rug pull, Republicans would cry bloody murder. If Trump did it, they will cheer him on while veterans suffer.
oh nooo all the butchers who went overseas to shoot at brown children will suffer for their choices
what a terrible fate for a bunch of terrible people
While I understand the sentiment, US veterans are in many ways victims of the capitalist system themselves. At 18 years old, they're pressured by family or school administration to go into the military. They may have grown up poor and have no viable career path once they leave high school. College is a pipe dream. Combine that with recruiters who will use every high pressure tactic in the book and outright lie to get you to sign ("sure, you can get leave later on to be the best man at your friend's wedding"). All this is happening before they're legally allowed to drink, and they certainly haven't finished developing into their adult self.
They go off to the military. Most will get through with nothing more traumatic than boot camp (which can be pretty traumatic) and some shitty food, but some will die, and others will be injured or have PTSD.
Keeping those services and improving them is part of cleaning up our mess. So is dismantling the capitalist system that creates more of those veterans.
i, for one, would like to see more air defense assets going to Ukraine
Genuinely why bother at this point
"hey why bother going against a nationalist land grab? i am the real antiimperialist" gee i wonder
most of the rest can be made in europe, even if it would require some scaling up of production
e:
i can see you have came here with your instance-issued portable public opinion influence brigade. will you bitch and moan again when you get defederated from another instance?
The US is helping Israel annex Gaza and West Bank as we speak, spare us the "opposing nationalist land grabs" nonsense.
I leave for an hour and you come back with some snide edit to cosplay as inglorious basterds? Weird thing to do in the middle of -and I cannot stress this enough- supporting actual, seig heiling nazis in a war.
oh look a sexist nazi
what a surprise
shut the fuck up you stupid liberal. fuck off
Death to America
Look, I originally came in here to look at dunks on
and then I saw it back in my feed with like, quadruple the number of comments it had when I originally saw it.
We're not brigading just because we're all in agreement that someone calling for regime change in some of the only countries and organizations who are resisting a modern Holocaust is a bad person undeserving of respect. I just wanted to read some Elon Musk hate and you decided to talk about how the Arabs should have their leaders chosen by the enlightened white Westerners.
Is that what you actually think this is? Russia, famously lacking land.
If your "defence of democracy" requires replacing a democratically elected government with a nazi puppet regime in a violent coup, supporting that regime as it commits 8 years of terrorism against its minorities, and forcing it to kidnap old men to the front lines to keep the profitable meat grinder going...maybe you're not actually doing anti imperialism? Just a thought. Like when the swastikas came out and the genocide in Palestine kicked off, you should have realized we're the baddies, and baddies lie.
But epistemology aside, why bother from a practical standpoint? The war is over. Anything sent over at this stage is either going to the scrap heap or a military warehouse in the Russian Federation. Also lol, you will not be scaling up domestic weapon production to any meaningful degree, because we, the US, blew up Europe's pipeline and ate it's energy sector, and now Volkswagen can't even keep making it's cute little nazi cars.
The point is not gain of land for Russia but removing land from another state, as a punitive measure for trying to get away from russian influence. This is also not the first time it is happening. Because of how nationalist Putin's supporters base has become over time, he chose to use small invasions like 2008 invasion of Georgia as a tool to increase his domestic popularity. This parallels 1999 false flag bombings and response in form of second Chechen war and 2014 invasion of Donbas. In all these cases, as well as for two first weeks of 2022 war, approval rating of Putin's government soared which was exactly the point the entire time. Because of how much of that comes from nationalists, he can't back off because he'd come across as weak and lose support, he can't advance much faster because he's physically unable to, and his best bet is this kind of slow grind like we see now. Any western military aid will make it harder, so of course russian influence operations are directed against it, and you know that too
Speak for yourself. Orbital ATK buys european explosives, we have scaled up weapons manufacture in France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Czechia and few others, there are new Rheinmetall plants in Ukraine too.
Ukrainians don't lack resolve. In 2022, something like 85% (iirc) said that fight should go on if nuclear weapons were used by Russia. Even now 80%-ish don't think that any territorial concessions should take place in any peace agreement. They have some of their own defense industry, lots of things (other than mostly air defense, and parts of aircraft manufacture) we can do in Europe, even if it requires some scale up, then there's South Korean deliveries and few other things that still can happen.
who the fuck "we" is supposed to mean there? in middle east i wish everyone involved regime change, situation is fucked with any of current people in power staying in power. Put Netanyahu, Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei and their cabinets and top people from Hezbollah in Hague then we can talk. but it's severely off topic so maybe don't
we
I started laughing here and havent stopped yet. Your explanation for the historical developments of the last few years are so stupid, so hilariously, irretrievably movie-brained in their simplicity and ignorance of material incentives, and every time they completely fall through you rubes fail to learn anything.
How many times has the Russian military "been on the verge of collapse"? "Run out of shells"? "Run out of soldiers"? How many more big offensives full of terrified conscripts with guns at their backs have to grind themselves uselessly to paste before you death cultists get it through your heads that this shit is nothing but a national, generational suicide bombing? Just one more doomed advance, bro. Surely the righteousness of our (inherently superior, somehow) troops will make up for inadequade tactics, nonexistent diplomacy, grim manpower shortages and staggering logistical disparities.
You credulous liberal dipshits stink up every social sphere with smug ignorance expecting to be welcomed, and then when people push back against your unpromted chauvinistic, fight-to-the-last-Ukranian bullshit, you can only whine and complain about some tankie brigading conspiracy. Anything but your dumb ass having been refuted in the marketplace of ideas.
Great man theory doesn't stop being great man theory if you add "and their cabinets" after.
At some point you need to engage with the problem of why things are the way they are, and the answer isn't "The bad guy is in charge (and his cabinet)"
Love to see a Westerner demanding regime change in Arab countries and calling other people imperialists.
Didn't realize George W Bush was computer literate enough to use a reddit clone.
So what you’re saying is Assad must go?
I, for two, would like to see the same
Regardless, he'll claim he cut 500 bajillion dollars no matter what he ends up doing
My bet is that if he expects to cut 2 trillion, he will end up increasing the budget by 4 trillion.
He actually claimed 2 trillion.