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10 Apr, 10 tweets, 3 min read
Reducing US Military Spending Always Meets With Resistance; Increasing It Never Does

"A political establishment which thinks it's sane and moderate to increase a morbidly obese military budget is a crazy and extremist political establishment. "
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/reducing-us-…
Last year Senator Bernie Sanders led a public push to reduce the insanely bloated US military budget by a paltry ten percent. His push splatted headfirst against a bipartisan solid steel wall which shut him down definitively.
theguardian.com/world/commenti…
Sanders' bill was killed in the Senate by a vote of 23 - 77, with half of Senate Dems stepping up to help Republicans stomp it dead. It's companion bill in the House was killed by a margin of 93 - 324, with a majority of House Dems (92 - 139) voting nay.
defensenews.com/congress/2020/…
Contrast those numbers with those who voted to approve Trump's $741 billion military budget this past December. The House voted to approve the NDAA budget by a margin of 335 to 78, 195 of those yes votes coming from the Democratic side of the aisle. The Senate passed it 84 to 13.
This trend of a continually increasing US military budget has been going on for years.
macrotrends.net/countries/USA/…
And those are just the official numbers going directly to the "defense" budget. Once you add up the full costs of US wars, preparations for wars, and the impact of those wars, the annual budget is actually already well in excess of a trillion dollars:
thenation.com/article/archiv…
And now, under the "harm reduction" candidate Joe Biden, it's about to get even bigger.
We may be absolutely certain that the Biden administration will get the spending increase it seeks, because that's how it always works:
A political establishment which thinks it's crazy and extremist to reduce a morbidly obese military budget by ten percent is a crazy and extremist political establishment.
A political establishment which thinks it's sane and moderate to increase a morbidly obese military budget is a crazy and extremist political establishment.

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More from @caitoz

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
11 Apr
Media Concern Trolling About Afghanistan Withdrawal Again

"Concerns mount that US withdrawal from Afghanistan could risk progress on women's rights," blares a new headline from CNN.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/media-concer…
"Concerns are mounting from bipartisan US lawmakers and Afghan women's rights activists that the hard-won gains for women and civil society in Afghanistan could be lost if the United States makes a precipitous withdrawal from the country," CNN tells us.
What follows is yet another concern-trolling empire blog about why US troops need to stay in Afghanistan, joining recent others geared toward the same end like this CNN report saying the US can't withdraw or it will be sued by defense contractors:
Read 22 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
11 Apr
Aspire To Greatness (The Real Kind)

"Aspire to greatness,
but not the kind they teach you about in school."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/aspire-to-gr…
Aspire to greatness,
but not the kind they teach you about in school.
Not the kind where you can all be astronauts and presidents when you grow up
so long as you "apply yourself" (whatever that means)
and other such nonsense. Image
Aspire to greatness,
but not the kind they teach you about in church. Image
Read 10 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
9 Apr
When the empire wants to topple a government their first step is to psychologically uncouple it from the nation and its people by consistently using labels that make it look like an alien, occupying force. "The CCP", "the Assad regime", instead of just that country's government.
This is why you now hear so many indoctrinated automatons constantly bleating the mantra "I don't hate the Chinese PEOPLE, I hate the CCP!" They've been trained to uncouple the nation's people from its government, despite the overwhelming support they have for their government.
This is all the alien-sounding word "regime" exists to do: to uncouple a government from its nation and its people in the eyes of the world. And the mainstream press is happy to do this, because the mainstream press is propaganda.
fair.org/home/a-regime-…
Read 4 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
7 Apr
Most people get that the US is imperialist per the conventional definition: projecting power beyond its borders etc. Not enough people get that it's also functionally a literal empire: the hub of a group of nations ruled by a single power structure. It's imperialist AND imperial. ImageImageImage
Empire building is what you're seeing when coups are staged and regime change wars launched to bring a nation into alignment with the US-centralized power structure. It's literally adding a new member state to the empire. It keeps its name and flag, but it's imperial property.
When people ask why I talk about "Australia" instead of "America", it makes as much sense to me as saying you should focus on California instead of America. It's a member state of the same empire, added via coup. I just focus on the empire's head.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Read 8 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
7 Apr
This is a really really common complaint from lefty commentators @jack @TwitterSupport. Why are so many of them getting notifications flooding in for new followers, but their follower account stays the same? Happens to me too off and on for days on end.
More:
More:
Read 5 tweets
Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture
6 Apr
I have no platform; I have followers, and some outlets re-publish my writings for free. If you don't like how I write or what I write about, you've got ten typing fingers and access to all the same free blogging sites I use. Write it yourself. You have the exact same tools as me.
I don't have connections; in fact I actively avoid them. I write directly to the people, and the people decide how much that's worth. The only reason anyone knows who I am is because regular people enjoy and share it. You can do that too. Just don't pester me to do it for you.
And I really do mean that; I wish there were a lot more people doing this. The world needs more indie media. If you see too few people doing it the way you think it should be done, please do jump in and help out with indie content creation. We need all the help we can get.
Read 6 tweets

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