Thread by @JYSexton

We need to talk about this "debate" in Congress over necessary investment in infrastructure and the social safety net.

This system is EXPLICITLY set up to deny Americans everything in order to redistribute money to the wealthiest few.

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/money-for-em…

I've talked recently about Manchin and Sinema and how they are bought and sold by special interests in order to derail anything that might help Americans.

What they represent is a massive effort to keep redistributing our wealth from the bottom up.

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jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/the-best-sen…

As Congress continues pushing this gridlock into more and more ludicrous directions, it's important to remember what they agree upon.

What "consensus" they find.

And that's the military, or rather, the business of using "defense" as a means of redistributing wealth.

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This same Congress that frets over every single penny spent trying to help people and invest in a better society are more than fine throwing billions upon billions of dollars at unnecessary aircraft carriers, a military that is bloated and wildly excessive.

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Recently, Congress even voted unanimously to fund aid for US diplomats and intelligence agents suffering from "Havana Syndrome," a "disease" that literally no one can explain that's supposedly caused by technology that doesn't exist.

They passed it. UNANIMOUSLY.

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All of this fretting over deficits, this posturing put on by both the GOP and neoliberals in the Democratic Party, is about putting on a show.

They don't care about debt. What they're concerned about is never allowing the government to actually help people.

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There's a reason Congress doesn't pass helpful legislation.

It's not intended to. Villains like Mitch McConnell are there to make sure the body pushes money only to the wealthiest few and denies anything approaching an actual investment in human lives.

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This current era of austerity is the result of the Neoliberal movement forwarded by Ronald Reagan in America and Margaret Thatcher in the UK.

The point of all of this is to redistribute wealth from the bottom up while shredding anything remaining of a social safety net.

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It's no coincidence that the era of neoliberalism and hypercapitalism came at the same time the defense industry ballooned.

They're inextricable from one another. Our Military Industrial Complex is the main organ of redistribution of wealth.

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Because austerity at home creates investment in "defense," there was an opportunity for our military to seek out opportunities for markets and resources around the world.

This is what makes war necessary. The pursuit new opportunities for wealthy Americans.

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The implied deal all along has been this: suffer temporary austerity so that American Empire can grow, and eventually you'll see a return in rewards.

Supposedly empire would lead to wealth, comfort, and leisure. Instead, it's been one tragedy after another.

A lie.

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Our money has been redistributed, used to prop up massive weapons manufacturers that create unnecessary arsenals, all while growing bloated on our wealth.

This industry is supported without question, without debate.

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As politicians discuss "means testing" for social programs, programs that build giant failures like the F-35 are funded without question.

That F-35, which is useless? Cost us $1.7 trillion dollars.

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Only a segment of our population has seen the benefits, mostly in Military Industrial Complex hubs where they enjoy cosmopolitan lives, expensive houses, great school districts.

Meanwhile, the rest of us? Left to fend for ourselves.

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What Congress is doing right now is more than a disgrace. It's an abomination.

The agenda currently being destroyed isn't even ambitious. It's common-sense, an attempt to begin making up for DECADES worth of austerity that has ripped this country apart.

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Because we've been so busy redistributing wealth from the bottom up, we've allowed our schools to fall apart, for teachers to be underpaid, for our educational system to fall completely behind.

We've mortgaged our future in more ways than one.

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Infrastructure is boring to talk about, but as we've spent trillions fighting unnecessary wars in search of resources and power, all of in vain, our roads and bridges and power grids have languished.

These are consequences of the neoliberal/hypercapital era.

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Our inability to reckon with climate change and the oncoming catastrophe is, in large part, a side-effect of this awful "bargain."

We're facing a massive disaster on a scale we've never seen before, and we're completely unprepared.

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And though coverage won't tell you this, the tragedy of the Coronavirus Pandemic could've been avoided or at least lessened had we actually spent money on our healthcare systems.

The scale of our deaths is a marker of a great, great betrayal.

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But some of the effects of this unnecessary austerity aren't as visible as roads collapsing or even the Covid tragedy.

Conspiracy theories, paranoia, antidemocratic movements gain power and force the more these conditions worsen. They are a consequence of empire.

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Demagogues like Donald Trump take advantage of the austerity and offer conspiracy theories and weaponized lies to explain this entire system and the suffering it causes.

Empire has led us to this moment, it has made possible a radicalization that threatens us all.

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What media coverage of this current "debate" misses is that we're not just talking about investment or dollars.

We're talking about a country coming apart at the seams and how that crisis was enabled by continual austerity in pursuit of wealth by the already wealthy.

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If you want a more in-depth look into how this tragedy came to pass, I cover it in my book AMERICAN RULE.

We can't continue watching all of this unfold and pretend like we're not watching a crisis come to pass that is a long, long time coming.

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penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/a…