At least, he's saying something. No, I don't particularly care for Beto's idea, but bringing the subject into the light is better than leaving it festering in the dark.
At first I thought this idea was more absurd pandering to the War Machine, but I like it better on further consideration.
Nixon's ending of the draft took the middle class out of the anti-war movement and turned the US military into a mercenary outfit on the make. When the middle class might have to send their kids to die for corporate interests or the ambitions of politicians, they oppose war. When it's poor kids who go, the middle class doesn't care.
However, we really do care about the costs. We don't want to fund the VA. We don't want to pay the human costs of war.
And don't let anybody fool you; as long as we spend well over $1 Trillion per year on the War Machine, counting all departments, the spy agency secret budgets, and the off-budget wars; we aren't going to be able to fix any of America's snowballing domestic problems.
If we cut our war spending to, say, $200,000,000,000/yr., an 80% cut, we'd still be among the top war-spending countries on Earth, but we'd have to focus on actually defending our nation with its 2 sides bordered by oceans and the other two by friendly nations. If we did that, we'd have exactly no military adversaries. And, within a decade, we could bring our infrastructure up to Developed Nation levels, fix our problems with education, healthcare, retirement, homelessness, and most of our other concerns as well.
So a War Tax might actually focus the dumb US middle class on the incredible destructiveness of our run-amok War Machine. And it would force war hawks to beg for money through taxes, which is never popular.
The last damn thing you want in the United States is to be called a "Hero." All that means is that you aren't going to get paid.
Whom do we call "Heros?" First responders, cops, soldiers, teachers, nurses. We're happy to give them lip service and maybe hold a parade for them. But what happens when they want to be paid, or taken care of? Then they're moochers and ungrateful and we want them to shut up and go fly a sign on a freeway off-ramp.
One more thing. As far as putting a price sticker on troops. We already have one.
Servicemember's Group Life Insurance. The maximum payout is $400K. With an additional $100K one time payout for dependents to take care of immediate needs that is not part of the SGLI payout for death in a combat zone.
So if I died I would have been worth $100-$500K depending on if and how much of the SGLI I paid for monthly.
I'm technically a veteran because I had an ROTC scholarship, which I lost after my freshman year due to not keeping my grades up. That was enough to get me an Honorable Discharge. I enlisted again five or six years later and was again discharged from basic training because a congenital shoulder/upper back issue made it impossible for me to pass the physical tests. I think that was just an administrative discharge. I would never call myself a vet, but the government considers me one.
My father-in-law was one of the best people I've ever known. He was the youngest son of a well-to-do family of Frankfurt Jews. After Kristallnacht, his family sent him and his cousin at age 16 to Chicago where some parts of the family were already established, just to make sure that some got out. (Most of the rest managed to get out a couple of years later.) Anyway, during his Chicago years, he learned English, took up smoking (three packs a day when he could get them until a quadruple-bypass in the late '70s), became an Eagle Scout, and signed up for the US Army not long after Pearl Harbor. He returned to Europe via Utah Beach as part of the second wave. He wasn't John Wayne - he spent the first couple of weeks after D-Day driving supply trucks from the beach to forward depots until he got a flat and, doing what he had been taught to do, backed his truck off the road. Unfortunately there was a landmine just off the road that blew his truck all to hell. He wasn't seriously injured, and while he was waiting in the replacement depot to be reassigned an officer heard his German accent and asked him if he spoke German. He did, of course, but he also spoke French and even had knowledge of the roads in France and Belgium because he'd gone to a boarding school in the area. The officer, a major in an engineering battalion, said "Come with me" and my FiL became his driver for the rest of the war. That meant that while he was stuck in The Bulge, he at least got to sleep on a floor in a half-demolished farmhouse.
Anyway, he came back after the war, worked at the family business in Chicago for a while until it went belly-up (Sears Roebuck used to suck their subcontractors dry the same way Wal-Mart started doing 40 years later), drove a cab, moved to NYC, worked as a baggage handler for TWA, met and married my MiL (who was a wonderful human being) and, following her lead, became a New York State civil servant working in the Department of Employment in The Bronx. After he retired, he said that he considered his civil service work much more important than his military service. Getting jobs for people in The Bronx was the reason he went to war in the first place. People don't seem to have this idea in them any more - it's not about about the war, but the peace that comes after.
Minor addition. A lot of the logistics got farmed out to contractors as an end run around force caps set by Congress. Every logistic job you can outsource, be it cook, mechanic, truck driver, paperwork, or what have you frees up a space got another combat arms spot that can be added without busting the force cap.
No, he's ok. I'd like him in the Senate - although I'd like almost any Dem to replace Cornyn - and this is his moment in news.
I think the draft should be reinstated. When non-poor white people's kids could get killed, non-poor white people will pay attention.
I don't like the phrasing " giving war declaration powers back" to Congress. We should DEMAND they do their damn job!
At least, he's saying something. No, I don't particularly care for Beto's idea, but bringing the subject into the light is better than leaving it festering in the dark.
At first I thought this idea was more absurd pandering to the War Machine, but I like it better on further consideration.
Nixon's ending of the draft took the middle class out of the anti-war movement and turned the US military into a mercenary outfit on the make. When the middle class might have to send their kids to die for corporate interests or the ambitions of politicians, they oppose war. When it's poor kids who go, the middle class doesn't care.
However, we really do care about the costs. We don't want to fund the VA. We don't want to pay the human costs of war.
And don't let anybody fool you; as long as we spend well over $1 Trillion per year on the War Machine, counting all departments, the spy agency secret budgets, and the off-budget wars; we aren't going to be able to fix any of America's snowballing domestic problems.
If we cut our war spending to, say, $200,000,000,000/yr., an 80% cut, we'd still be among the top war-spending countries on Earth, but we'd have to focus on actually defending our nation with its 2 sides bordered by oceans and the other two by friendly nations. If we did that, we'd have exactly no military adversaries. And, within a decade, we could bring our infrastructure up to Developed Nation levels, fix our problems with education, healthcare, retirement, homelessness, and most of our other concerns as well.
So a War Tax might actually focus the dumb US middle class on the incredible destructiveness of our run-amok War Machine. And it would force war hawks to beg for money through taxes, which is never popular.
The last damn thing you want in the United States is to be called a "Hero." All that means is that you aren't going to get paid.
Whom do we call "Heros?" First responders, cops, soldiers, teachers, nurses. We're happy to give them lip service and maybe hold a parade for them. But what happens when they want to be paid, or taken care of? Then they're moochers and ungrateful and we want them to shut up and go fly a sign on a freeway off-ramp.
Beto really is a bit shit, yes?!?
One more thing. As far as putting a price sticker on troops. We already have one.
Servicemember's Group Life Insurance. The maximum payout is $400K. With an additional $100K one time payout for dependents to take care of immediate needs that is not part of the SGLI payout for death in a combat zone.
So if I died I would have been worth $100-$500K depending on if and how much of the SGLI I paid for monthly.
I know what my life was valued at.
I'm technically a veteran because I had an ROTC scholarship, which I lost after my freshman year due to not keeping my grades up. That was enough to get me an Honorable Discharge. I enlisted again five or six years later and was again discharged from basic training because a congenital shoulder/upper back issue made it impossible for me to pass the physical tests. I think that was just an administrative discharge. I would never call myself a vet, but the government considers me one.
My father-in-law was one of the best people I've ever known. He was the youngest son of a well-to-do family of Frankfurt Jews. After Kristallnacht, his family sent him and his cousin at age 16 to Chicago where some parts of the family were already established, just to make sure that some got out. (Most of the rest managed to get out a couple of years later.) Anyway, during his Chicago years, he learned English, took up smoking (three packs a day when he could get them until a quadruple-bypass in the late '70s), became an Eagle Scout, and signed up for the US Army not long after Pearl Harbor. He returned to Europe via Utah Beach as part of the second wave. He wasn't John Wayne - he spent the first couple of weeks after D-Day driving supply trucks from the beach to forward depots until he got a flat and, doing what he had been taught to do, backed his truck off the road. Unfortunately there was a landmine just off the road that blew his truck all to hell. He wasn't seriously injured, and while he was waiting in the replacement depot to be reassigned an officer heard his German accent and asked him if he spoke German. He did, of course, but he also spoke French and even had knowledge of the roads in France and Belgium because he'd gone to a boarding school in the area. The officer, a major in an engineering battalion, said "Come with me" and my FiL became his driver for the rest of the war. That meant that while he was stuck in The Bulge, he at least got to sleep on a floor in a half-demolished farmhouse.
Anyway, he came back after the war, worked at the family business in Chicago for a while until it went belly-up (Sears Roebuck used to suck their subcontractors dry the same way Wal-Mart started doing 40 years later), drove a cab, moved to NYC, worked as a baggage handler for TWA, met and married my MiL (who was a wonderful human being) and, following her lead, became a New York State civil servant working in the Department of Employment in The Bronx. After he retired, he said that he considered his civil service work much more important than his military service. Getting jobs for people in The Bronx was the reason he went to war in the first place. People don't seem to have this idea in them any more - it's not about about the war, but the peace that comes after.
Something something Military-Industrial Complex.
Half measures are worse than none.Remember Breaking Bad?
The proper solution is what two-time Medal of Honor winner General Smedly Butler had in mind.High war taxes on those who profit from war.
Extremely high taxes.Wage and price controls.
The Draft does not just apply to the human materiel of war but it's financial materiel, as well.
Make it not so profitable, then we might, MIGHT, see less of it.
Beto's idea here just shines things along..........
Minor addition. A lot of the logistics got farmed out to contractors as an end run around force caps set by Congress. Every logistic job you can outsource, be it cook, mechanic, truck driver, paperwork, or what have you frees up a space got another combat arms spot that can be added without busting the force cap.
he reminds me of joggers who jog in the middle of winter
Great story. Sounds like a truly good person.
He reminds me of joggers who jog in the middle of the bike path.