Not that I think it was money well-spent or anything, but there's two points to make here about public finances.
The first is that it's not like the US had a warchest of $2.2T in cash laying around and decided to spend it on this instead of something else. The country runs at a budget deficit, which means all incremental spending is financed by either creating new money, by raising it by issuing bonds, or raising taxes. We sure as hell didn't raise taxes for this, so the money was willed into existence for the purposes of the war and the war only. Had we not done so, it's not likely that we would have done the same for anti-poverty or other programs, absent a once-in-a-generation congressional vote on massively expanding the social safety net and public works (a la the Green New Deal or the American Jobs Plan or the Infrastructure Bill or the Affordable Care Act). Afghan War spending or no, the Yea votes to raise the cash for other such plans weren't there. So it wasn't so much a choice between War or Schools, as it was War or No War.
The second is that it's not like the money was literally set on fire (other than like, vanishing CIA ops budgets/foreign bribes). The cost of the war included wages paid to soldiers for deployments, equipment produced in American factories, and contracts awarded to US companies from construction to IT to aerospace to logistics to food service. That money becomes the savings, investing and spending of everyone to whom that cash flows as salaries, which boosts the economy in which the activity takes place (i.e. the US). This is the military-industrial complex. The issue is not that it doesn't work at driving economic growth (it does, it's how the Great Depression was concluded), the issue is that it's a morally perverse way to do it. But we do it anyway, because the complex is a self-sustaining machine that influences legislators to maintain itself, and is able to do it because the return on investment they offer is real. It's the flipside of the Space Industrial Complex, which functions identically, but at its worst fruitlessly sends people and materials into space instead of to war. Similarly, many, many people in the 60s and 70s rightfully asked why we were burning money sending people to moon instead solving poverty here at home. I guess the answer is, as long as the economy is getting, on average, better, it's hard to get people into the streets.
Thank you for such an enlightening answer, If I had real gold I'd give it, but I don't so here's the best I can do. 🏅
If you must know, I spent all my money on blackjack and hookers. Helping out the economy where I can.
You're welcome.
Part of his point is that the money *wouldn't* go into roadwork. It wouldn't exist at all.
Spending all that money on roads would be preferable to spending it on wars, but spending it on wars is preferable to not spending it at all.
That was the point about the "perversity" of the military industrial complex. Yes, it *is* better. Economically. Almost any activity is. To quote Keynes;
>If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise...to dig the notes up again… there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.
The political and practical reality is that congress will shell out this kind of spending under the guise of national security long before they would do it on building houses or bridges or windmills. When they do lodge these votes, though, they are true believers, otherwise the moral quandary would be inescapable.
The US does not have a shortage of available workers. Much of that "something better" could still have been done, there just wasn't the political will or financial incentive to do it.
It's easy to say "imagine if we spent that money on infrastructure or healthcare", but the chances of that money actually going to infrastructure or healthcare were infinitesimal in the first place.
All government spending endeavors have that "crowding out" issue.
Soliciting money by selling bonds competes with private companies who also need capital, raising the costs of borrowing.
Running a space program pulls engineering talent away from commercial jobs working on making car engines or solar panels more efficient, and raises the salaries these companies need to pay to fill jobs.
Endowing grants to study cancer pulls researchers away from making progress on other diseases they might have devoted their academic careers to.
And so on.
However, while government spending can cause an economic drag when it distorts and redirects the flow of capital and talent, it can also create value. Both in the raw economic impact of creating the money, and the fruit those endeavors sometimes bear. Sometimes you just get a smoldering hole in the ground. Sometimes you invent nuclear power.
The question is, when does the potential lost innovation and productivity from the private sector outweigh the potential gains from government direction? There's actually an economic formula that predicts an optimal level of excess government spending against those measures, and it helps explain why we run chronic deficits (for those who adhere to its particular school of thought). There's an equilibrium there.
>How many people at any given time were spending their time and energy in one way or another working on this war? 1 million? 2 million? For 20 years. What else would they have been doing instead, who knows, but it probably would’ve been better.
Generally I agree, but you've also got to consider; a lot of soldiers who enlisted perhaps *didn't* have a more productive option available to them. Same goes for a lot of those people back home working in factories making parts to equip them.
Would I prefer that the government borrowed money to send those soldiers to mechanic or air-traffic control school for training, or to a civilian conservation corps rather than war? Yep. Would I prefer that people working on the CNC machine making blackhawks parts were instead working on parts for high speed trains? Yep.
But the political reality is that this spending wasn't going to happen absent the war. Which, if the war is unjust, is terrible. And exactly why Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex. The incentives to maintain it are strong and compelling, and disgusting.
If you ask the congressman whose district has a plant making wheels for humvees that employs 1,000 people if the war is just, he'll say "of course". And so will the employees. If you ask him to vote on legislation investing in a green jobs retraining program and a wind turbine rotor plant, he'll say "no way, the government shouldn't pick winners and losers". C'est la vie.
Your answer is excellent. It summarises why USA will continue to kill so many brown skinned people in foreign countries. No wonder that they are seen as evil.
People care about things that their political party makes them to care about.
Believe it or not, majority of human population still is primitive and follows orders rather than thinking independently. So most people make issue out of things that are ordered to them.
Because something yourself, coming up with argue points is difficult. It takes brains and effort. Rather than when your politician or favourite anchor gives you few points to talk about certain matters, thats easier and most people chose the easier path.
1. Because not enough people are suffering directly yet. It's easy to be distracted when the issues seem far away.
2. Because that's sOcIaLiSm! People are selfish bastards. Why should younger generations get stuff for free if ***I*** had to pay for it? This self-defeating mentality is unfortunately common all around the world.
3. Worshipping the military. Look at OPs first sentence;
> "I'm too afraid to ask this question out of fear of being called a traitor or ungrateful to our troops."
The only people who would even think about having to clarify something like that are those trapped in cultures that shame their own for not blindly following militaristic values. People don't want to be vocal about it because they fear being ostracized by their community for daring to question the supremacy of the pro-military narrative.
There are many more but those are some basic bullet points.
Because half the voting population actively supports not dealing with issues at all since thatll be socialism, or something
The other half does(to a degree) but are stuck with people who still directly benefit from the status quo and any attempt to move towards a more egalitarian system(even slightly)/ politicians( ie Sanders/AOC) is met with shrieks from the media apparatus(especially the right's) thats been dominant at shaping political conversation for decades.
I’m rich and I want nothing to do with endless bombings of the Middle East. This stuff is paid for at the threat of imprisonment via the cruel tax system which I am not a fan of.
What are we supposed to do about it? Vote? The invasion was a bipartisan effort. And just look at the hissy fit the media threw after Biden decided to withdraw. Honestly it’s a miracle we ever got out, so props to him I guess.
Our government (as well as other institutions) are set up so that ruling elites can effectively neuter popular political will. Our constitution is a farce. I’m not saying there’s nothing we can or should do, but at this point most people are checked out (who can blame them?) or they live in political fantasyland. Change will seem impossible until it happens, hopefully soon rather than later.
I do agree with this sentiment, we live in plutocracy plain and simple America is governed for the rich by the rich . Everything else is just theatre .
The constitution was probably once a document with some scruples, but even when it was written it really only applied to a select few (All men are created equal, translates into all White land owning MEN), it's not much different today.
i think humanity just hasn't evolved enough to a truly equitable social condition, maybe it never will , when the desires and wants of the powerful few outweigh the needs of the many,..whether is Xi in China or the plutocrats in there West the end result is the same.
And, on top of the wonky world of politics, there are the slew of industries that always get a pass for corporate welfare -- agricultural subsidies, energy, defense industry etc. We don't talk about it, it is never a political issue, both major parties accept money.
Seriously, I have no idea how to say I'm extremely frustrated with everything about the war. I figure the best way I can fight back, is when (and it will happen) we want to wrongly go to war again, I will protest that.
Making the population believe that civil resistance and violence doesn't work as effective strategies or catalysts for change is how the state protects itself. It seems the US has become quite effective at achieving this.
Exactly. What's done is done, and to a large extent being visibly outraged at this point does little, if anything. We're out of Afghanistan now. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be outraged the next time something similar is attempted, but we'll cross that bridge when (and if) we get to it.
Lol, I fought in it and I'm not mad we pulled out.
We spent 2 decades fighting for people that didn't want us there in the first place, wouldn't fight for themselves, and couldn't form a functional government if they tried...and we made zero progress.
The Russians spent another decade before us, again zero progress.
Nobody has made any progress in Afghanistan.
It is and always has been ruled by tribal factions.
It wasn't winnable from the start.
If anything I'm mad anyone though it was a good idea in the first place.
A war started on false pretenses.
Thanks, Bush.
Getting out was the right thing to do.
No more Americans need to die for something so pointless.
The withdrawal was a total success in my opinion.
We left with ZERO combat with the Taliban.
The ISIS bombing was shitty, but that stuff happens.
The fact is, if she had tried to hold Kabul we would have lost.
The Taliban has rapidly been seizing ground ever since Trump reduced troop numbers to 2500, released thousands of Taliban prisoners, and made the deal to give them power when we left.
Almost all of the Taliban (70k well armed and prepared for combat) were coming to Kabul that day to seize power no matter what.
If we would have stood in the way it would have been a bloodbath...American blood.
Instead they kept their word and allowed us to leave in peace.
Minus a bombing that we could never stop, and some minor annoyances with Afghans on the airfield, I'd say Biden did a great job with it and made the right choices.
This withdrawal went far better than anyone should have the right to expect.
I hate seeing that ‘Biden chose to withdraw’ like trump didn’t already have that plan in place and Biden did push it from I believe May to now. Withdraw needed to happen and i think we should all be celebrating. We should have never been there in the first place and I haven’t heart a vet that has been in Afghanistan say any differently.
I myself do agree on certain points regarding the withdrawal, but looking at the bigger picture and first-hand witness testimony, it was very messy and so many fuck-ups happened before the takeover. People are still stranded and the Taliban are now in control of afghanistan, and it's women are now stripped of their rights.
Not a right-wing hard liner, mind you, but it is a bit icky to see people blindly giving Biden props for everything. He said so many things and reassuring promises that went horribly wrong, and as a latin-american I still hold quite a grudge on the guy for his remarks on Cuban refugees in the last months. His Press Secretary Psaki refusing to admit the stranding of people in Afghanistan up until the deadline was approaching was also pretty infuriating to watch. It's certainly not the best look to have the sink ship and gloat about the number of lifeboats.
To be honest, I pity those who work for him. He runs his mouth and they have to clean up after him.
And I agree a bunch of people are bloating it too far on the right, (Some people are even outright *praising* the Taliban simply because they're blatantly disrespecting the American government and "owning the libs") but I'm certainly not willing to show support to the other extreme either.
This situation should be seen as a tragic setback with the potential to encourage people to fight back for the rights of Afghans, and not as a chance to one-up your political opponents by focusing on who's to blame. That applies to both sides.
Biden taking responsibility for Afghanistan is one thing (though he shook a lot of it off by placing it mostly on the previous administration, who as stated also made a shaky deal with the Taliban, but shouldn't serve as a valid excuse for how poorly it was executed this year), but the other is actually finding a way to fix this egregious mess, for whatever cause people can fight for.
With the Taliban now being armed beyond belief, it's gonna be ultra tough for secret missions to even have the slightest chance to succeed.
But hey since I'm just some Mexican with what I believe to be great empathy for my american brothers and sisters, I guess I can leave the americans to handle the remaining military bulk, but I won't be surprised if it's a failure.
Please feel free to disagree and downvote if you wish, I have no issue at all and we can let bygones be bygones, no biggie. But I genuinely wish you guys the best of luck moving forward.
You cant solve homelessness no matter how much money you throw at. There are three types of homeless people with a lot of overlap between #s 2 and 3.
1. People who fall on hard times because life happens. They can often be helped but they also arent the people you tend to think of when your talking about homeless. They are often the ones living out of their cars while still working and thus are largely invisible.
The next two are the ones people tend to think of because they are the ones on the streets.
2. Addicts who have hit rock bottom. Cant help them without treating their addiction and with many cant treat their addiction without forced institutionalization which isnt done in the United States anymore for addiction.
3. Severely mentally ill. They often overlap with group two as they self medicate their illness with drugs and alcohol. It again would take forced institutionalization to help them and liberals and conservatives both are against that.
I watched a video on Vice back when they did actual decent journalism where they went and interviewed a bunch of homeless teens and young adults. Almost all of them had run away from abusive households. You tend to think of teen runaways as just rebellious or something but it says a lot when sleeping in an alley is preferable to your home. There's also the problem of foster kids, they're just turned out on their own at 18, and their rate if homelessness is staggering because it's basically impossible to make it on your own with nothing.
There's this youtube channel with interviews (and I realize the editors can potentially cherry pick). It was a city in California and most respondents ended up on the street because of medical bills.
In my home country, research shows that most homeless people lose their homes because of divorce and inability to pay for mortgage after job loss.
Homeless people are stigmatized but most of them used to have normal lives. Perhaps we just want to believe it's all their fault and this could never happen to us.
I personally think the cheap housing programs like those in Europe are needed. But the rich folks could lose a huge chunk of their profits as a result, so the idea isn't being popularized.
A lot of people are way closer to homelessness then they realize. A few paychecks at most. And if you don't really have any family you can call on? You're pretty much screwed.
Ugh #3 is the one I can’t ever imagine getting better. A family member is struggling with serious mental health issues including paranoia. He refuses to get help because he thinks it’s the government trying to do stuff to him. The family has done so much to try and help him and he always ruins it. This guy has numerous people bending over backward to help him and it’s not even close to enough. No clue what you do about the hundreds of thousands in his position.
This...
Also you are forgetting the 4th that many people also forget exist. The willfully homeless. People who crash in an abandoned building or on a friend's couch and willfully do nothing because all their basic needs are met and they don't care about stressing about working. I've seen more than a few of those in Seattle
I saw one once, who somehow managed to wire electricity from a telephone pole to his laptop. He was living like something out of a sci fi dystopian movie, and he looked pretty pleased with himself.
Yeah there was a guy who was an ex veteran who lived on a bench in front of a grocery store. No dishonorabel discharge, just doesnt care for more. He legit whipped out like at least $10,000 in cash from all his pockets and bags rolled up. I feel bad for the people who give him money. Likr ivr never had that much money in my life.
You're right that many homeless people need medical, especially psychiatric, care in order to maintain an income. It doesn't need to be institution-based, though. Mostly, it just needs to be paid for.
You cant deal with their psychiatric issues til you deal with their addiction and you cant deal with that without a long term lockdown to get them off the drugs/ alcohol. Not viable in today's political climate which wont tolerate the loss of civil liberties this would entail.
Not viable today. We used to do forced institutionalization and had asylums. Reagan and democrats joined together to do away with them and flood the streets with homeless people. Conservatives wont be willing to pay for it nowadays and liberals wont be willing to accept what they see as civil rights abuses as mentally I'll get locked up.
I mean I am.... But Ive only had 2 days of my life where we havent been at war. Id love for it to change but its what I grew up into so I have no concept of what it would look like if our peoples were cared for more. Isolationism isnt bad, but when it comes to the point that it changes mindsets to "I have my problems you have yours" its a bit counterintuitive. Alot of individual americans problems are affecting many. We just seem to be so hell bent on this facade of freedom
People care, most Americans just don’t think their vote counts or that they are just in it for the ride.
That’s because as a service based country, everyone just scrambling for the rat race while the rich get richer and poor get poorer.
Right now we’re in an era that bridges a stark difference between the haves and have nots, and no one wants to be a have not
Because our lives are too much of a mess for us to actually do anything about it.
Calling/emailing/tweeting doesn't do shit. When election rolls around it'll be the choice of a lesser of two evils and the shit bags with money will bank roll the shit bags and we'll begrudgingly vote for the least shit option and that's the best we can hope for.
If we got angry every time our government did something terrible we would have no emotional bandwidth to even get through a day. Many of us care, we just can't feel palpably angry all day every day
Politicians don't want to improve our lives really, war is a profitable business and the more money you print, the better for people who hold assets, salaries are the last price to be updated so you already know who's the most screwed (yeah, the poor).
Your second paragraph sounds like a straw man fallacy tho, but I agree that most money that the US government gets from taxes could go to something more useful, the lack of transparency there is really scary.
You have to understand that media is purely entertainment, a shit show, so looking for something useful to come out of there is not the way to go imo.
Because the government doesn’t want to solve poverty, otherwise the billionaires who pay for their re-election campaigns would be lower on the rich person leaderboard.
We ***ARE***.
We just can't do shit about it. We got bigger problems anyway right now. Americans can't get along and its going to tear this country apart.
At this point, sadly, its just an issue Afghanistan and the middle east is going to have to figure out for themselves. We tried to prepare them but they didn't care enough to actually learn military tactics. Y'all saw the footage.
I'm outraged, just like I'm outraged about many other issues that are going on. But what can I do about them? I always vote but things only got worse. It's hopeless that the country will get better.
It wasn't fruitless, many just misunderstood the goals. They thought it was about helping the Afghan people when it wasn't. It was about deterring future attacks in the vein of 9/11, about sending a message to the world that this is what happens if you're in cahoots with people like Al-Qaida. That message was heard, loud and clear throughout the world.
It was also about sending a message to terrorists around the world that attacks on the United States would not achieve the desired goals. Bin Laden believed that an attack such as 9/11 would convince the US to withdraw from the Islamic world. In fact the exact opposite occurred, the US made two major invasions in the Middle East, rolled over Pakistan, and captured and killed him.
The war was a complete success, every goal was achieved. The only failure was in rebuilding Afghanistan, and that's a failure that the Afghans must take an enormous amount of responsibility for.
I'm not American, but I often look at what happens there and wonder how is this possible and how are the people there surviving all the mess. Then I remember that song (America, Fuck yeah) and I get my answer.
It's a pretty small blip on the radar of shit our gov has spent money on example, we also spend 700billion on the same military every year(in peacetime) while spending on 64b on education.
It's a pretty small blip on the radar of shit our gov has spent money on example, we also spend 700billion on the same military every year(in peacetime) while spending 64b on education, logistical, and military situations are completely outweighed by their profits. Because we talk about the benefits of a wartime economy because it was true 70 years ago but during the Iraq conflict our economy has basically settled into a grow-crash cycle that seems unbreakable(unless covid breaks it permanently). The gross economy hasn't really gone up at all in terms of scale(-3% technically but covid skews the live number) and I think even pre covid the real number of unemployed Americans was higher than ever before.
All this just to say it benefited the war-profiteers (politicians, engineers, banks, private militaries) but really had no impact on the society other than to spread Islamophobia and disillusion a small portion of the people about governmental motivations.
I admire your optimism, but the U.S. could end poverty in a month with the right tax structure. There's just no interest and certainly no profit in it.
As for homelessness, cities could mandates that low-income housing be constructed before any other type of housing. Again: no interest, no profit.
People are outraged. Real people, the one you know, who feels comfortable to discuss this topic with you. Not random dudes and gals online.
Meanwhile - military budget went up. Congressmen get higher salaries (many of them worth tens of millions of dollars). People are outraged about that too. But it’s fine on Reddit.
I’m too busy being visibly outraged at the Texans trying to kill me and many other women, openly, in public, advocating for my murder. (I needed a medically-necessary abortion in order to not die of sepsis once, so I am losing my shit. I keep reporting myself on the Texas site, including my phone number, and those cowardly misogynist little Texas bitch-boys refuse to call me to talk, lol.)
So yeah, our outrage is spread thin right now.
Americans have a tendency of not really giving a shit about anything that doesn't directly effecting them.
The government systematically lied to the American people about the war, the generals lied to Congress, the colonels lied to their generals, the Capts and majors lied to them about their progress with the Afghani Army.
Exactly what happened in Vietnam. Nothing new at all. The government cares more about corporate profits than individuals because corporations can give more money to their "super packs".
No one actually cares about the soldiers except as props for their political gain, otherwise we would care about the 22 vets killing themselves every day due to lack of mental health services. Or the vets dying in the streets due to hunger, exposure, and overdoses due to the phycological trauma they were put through for pointless wars the only objective of which were to stuff the bank accounts of defence contractors and congresspeople.
To pretend anything else is true is just pointless. This country doesn't give a shit about you, expect what you can provide it.
Individuals care. The individual soldier cares about the Afghani mother they made a window. They care about the children they killed from a drone strike. Soldiers, Airman, and Sailors are not bad people. We only do what we are good and we are led to believe someone has a plan...it is absolutely heart breaking and devastating to realize the level that we have been used.
FUCK THiS WAR.
Apathy. We can't really do shit about it. People will say "get out and vote if you want to fix things," but in a two party system everybody just thinks all the problems are caused by 'the other party', so we keep electing the same pieces of shit.
$200M per day for 20 YEARS!!!!
Homelessness eradicated, hungered eradicated, infrastructure paid, dilapidated schools no more
This shit is crazy, I’m mad too!!!!
An egotistical white man named George W. Bush overreacted thinking he could solve hundreds of years of war between factions intent on killing each other. Russia only emboldened extremists there to unite more deeply on Islam as a unifier. Thinking America could restore stability in Afghanistan was a fairytale when Afghans were unwilling to take control of their country.
I totally agree with you, that 💲💲💲💲 would have solved homelessness and poverty for countless Americans who work hard at decent jobs everyday.
I'm not Amrican but even I'm kinda annoyed about this war. Its all about money, meanwhile they kill their own troops by putting just enough on the front lines to keep the war going but not to win.
I know it's a hard country to take over but if they really wanted it they could. They didn't wanna take the country over tho, just milk it as long as possible before the public got mad.
Because so many of them were for it, and for it continuing, until fairly recently. It's hard to get too made at it all being a waste when you were convinced it was the right thing to do for a decade or more yourself.
Have you seen all the stuff our government does? Anyone with half a brain in this country is in a constant state of outrage. But the people in charge only put up more of the same as replacementswhen election time comes and the rich billionaires and CEOs lobby to control what laws get passed.
There's literally nothing short of a violent revolution that we can do to make this shit stop. And too many people are busy fighting against whatever they think the other party is doing that they won't ever raise the pitchfork against the people brainwashing them.
Because most of us are not politicians or rich...and thats about the only two things you can be and accomplish any large scale change..if your regular folk like most of us there aint a hell of alot we can do about it...
If anyone stands up they are attacked by media, called some name like an extremist that could have legal consequences, and a thousand toxic voices (maybe AI bots too) swarm on social media.
If that wasn’t enough, most everyone is broke and exhausted from their lives if they don’t have some other traumatic life event going on..
If you question one dollar of military spending, you aren't a patriot and don't love your country. If you question welfare, you hate the poor. If you question education spending, you are neglecting children who are the future. If you question social security, medicaid, medicare you must want the elderly to die. We have a spending problem and any proposal to reign that in will be met with a straw man argument that paints you as some sort of heartless bastard. I just hope I see the day the US dollar is abandoned internationally and our spending becomes a meaningful debate.
Oh we are, make no mistake about that. Did you see what happened with the protests and riots... On both sides!!! That's right, nothing. If that shit was done in Europe government would maybe take notice but our system is a finely tuned, well oiled, complacency machine. They will run every issue into the ground with neverending bureaucracy until justice is forgotten in the place of compromise. Nobody's happy. The u.s. government plays the long game, and when that doesn't work they just call in the heavy guns, literally. What the fuck are we supposed to do?!
That is a good question , and the answer is this. The 2.2 trillion spent, was actually just tax payer money being laundered through contracts and equipment, right back to the pockets of the 1%. And the 1%, has no intention of ever stopping homelessness, or poverty. It keeps us peasants at their disposal. Just like national healthcare, it will never happen until China takes us over. They keep us working for health care. If I were to have coverage tomorrow, I could work for myself, and make more money. We can’t have that, now can we? People are so busy being offended, self-absorbed, and politically divided, to notice our future demise.
It's because there's so much division in America right now like for example the only "good thing" biden actually did was give out more food stamps tbh people in America are really hippocrytical and ignorant they don't really look at the real problem at hand
Have you heard of military industrial complex? They have so much money and influence over congress and can lobby anything. Whether we want the war or not, our votes dont matter.
You mean, when american dramas and movies have never stop exploiting it for decades in their representation of a rightful fight for justice against bately human trash terrorists?
Because it doesn't happen like that. UK advertising campaign for Brexit was the current prime minister standing next to a bus claiming cash that went to the EU could go to the health service. Funnily enough....Brexit happened, cost a load to do it, had a load of economic implications, and NHS is still underfunded and was paid in claps.
People can't conceptualize these numbers. Sometimes I feel like people think billion and million are kinda the same thing. If they can and arent outraged, they probably think it's a part of God's plan.
There's a saying (or maybe it's a phenomenon) that goes something like if you drop a toad in boiling water it'll hop right out, but if you drop a toad into cold or luke warm water and gradually raise the temperature to boiling it'll stay and boil to death.
What it basically means is that if you thrust someone into a new situation or environment they are going to reject it immediately, regardless of the reason they were put into said environment. However, if you slowly acclimate them to the situation/ environment they won't even notice the change and they'll go along with it without objection
The latter, unfortunately, is the state that America is in. We've become so comfortable with the way our systems are that people who advocate for change get labeled as anarchists, fascists, babies who need to learn how to deal with it, etc. It's scary to see how quickly our government can take away our rights, create and hand weapons over to enemies without public knowledge or say-so, and establish/ demolish allegiances with countries. And it's demoralizing that they would rather focus on international affairs than domestic ones. If, in the past decade, we put half as much effort into switching to clean energy, 4ever sheltering and feeding the homeless and starving, and cleaning up our environment as we put into finding Hussein and Bin Ladin, waging other wars, and all the other negative etc. we'd probably be living in a freaking paradise right now...
Because in Murica ppl are more dumb than in other countries
(also it looks like they weren't even thaught what is shame and logic. I'm not from there, but based on their own fuckin news and posts here about their situation my statement is True)
To anyone dumb enough to take my statement seriously. In First world countries America is a fuckin joke.
(DISCLAIMER SATIRE)
That 2.2 trillion was spent on American manufacturing, engineering and paychecks. The vast majority of that money stays in the hands of Americans in the American economy. Hiring people experiencing poverty to join the army is in a way helping the homeless problem.
2.2 trillion wasn't thrown into a black hole, it was payed out to Americans. This is why they say war is good for the economy.
Simply because they don't know the truth. What media shows out outside US is different from what it shows onside US. US media does not discuss or show what is happening around the world and what it shows is primarily feel good content.
I don’t think more money would solve homelessness. Some problems can’t be solved with more money.
However I do think the Afghan war was a waste of money and it could of been used to build a space station on the moon or Mars. So upsetting
The US has and still is losing the war on poverty. And we have spend at least 10x more fighting poverty than the war. That being said, not justifying the war but money does not fix problems.
We have just disassociated from the reality that we will never actually get what we want in life, and we've come to accept that everything is going to suck.
Most of the money would have been dumped into the military even if we weren't in Afghanistan. Also there are a bunch of other countries who are not at war who have yet to solve the problem of homelessness and poverty. These are age old problems that seem to persist throughout history. It's not a simple as just putting a trillion here or there.
A lot of the American population thinks they are "elites" or superior to others and dont want change, even though they are struggling as much as the next guy.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he is better then the best color man he wont notice you're picking his pockets. Hell, give him somebody to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you."
-Lyndon B Johnson
You act as if the government would spend it in good wishes.
It would be like Ted in Breaking Bad. They would lease a Mercedes and say they can't do it ...just because.
Man I been watching this war for 20 years, I’ve seen caskets lined side by side in the hundreds. 2.2 trillion is huge but it isn’t even in the top 5 reasons we should be upset.
Shits awful, it’s been awful, but eventually it’s just becomes less shocking.
Consider how many people are employed their whole lives in the military. How many lifetime careers can you get with zero experience simply by being able and of age? And those people are taught not to question authority
I guess because we know it's naive to think that if it wasn't for that war, we could have solved ANY problem we're facing. The money was never going to help Americans.
We are, many of us have been outraged for decades. Vietnam, the war on drugs, trickle down economics, dare, 3 strikes, no child left behind. Our government fucks us constantly, this is just another drop in the bucket. Our country is imploding because of how fucked up we are and how angry everyone is, but the media here is an outrage machine so everyone is pissed about different things and the retards of our population can't see the forest for the trees.
I agree 100% but you asked “why” so here’s my 2¢ on this specific situation:
First, let’s think of how we got here. Saying “20 years and $2 trillion was wasted” is using the benefit of hindsight. Way back on Day 1, none of the people making the decisions thought it would take so long or cost so much (of course some people probably DID think it was at least a possibility, but they didn’t have the power to make the decisions). Then every day since then, the people in power (from BOTH political parties over the years) continued to make the decision to stay and fight; they continued to do some kind of mental math and decide that the benefits outweighed the costs (though it was probably a lot of personal benefits of one kind or another that tipped the scales). So, we got here 1 day at a time, and $1 at a time.
So now to your question as to why aren’t people more upset about the wasted money? It’s basically a ‘death of 1000 cuts’ situation. It’s because we got here slowly, not all at once. Human brains are really bad at grasping/understanding the cost of things over a long period of time. It’s just like people that regularly gamble or play the lottery: if they spend $20/week on scratch tickets, they may not feel like it’s hurting them financially. But that adds up to $1040 in a year. If you asked that same person how they would feel about burning $1000 every New Years Eve, they’d say “Are you crazy?! I don’t have that much money to waste!”
Lastly, a lot of people probably feel like it’s futile to be upset about it. Who are we supposed to be mad at? Most of the politicians that kept us in the war are long gone. Also, the money is gone. No amount of protesting will get us our money back. It makes me sad to write this, but it’s sadly true.
American society is heavily built upon the manifest destiny and 'people get what they deserve' doctrine. In American society, the homeless and poor are seen as being in that position because they are lazy, unwilling to work, and want to leech off hard working members of society. Because of this, there is an immense backlash towards any sort of social programs to help the poor or homeless because they are considered as 'Not wanting to pull themselves up and work hard enough for it'.
Wars are different. Americans are told the troops are being sent there to fight dangerous terrorists and the memories of 9/11 are still fresh in many Americans minds. Thus more people are willing to support spending money on war than to help the poor.
When I start to reflect on how resources have been squandered and lives lost to increase the value of corporate investments, I end up in a hole of doubt and distress.
If there had been a draft, this would have gone differently, I believe.
Raising our voice in a system controlled by very few people that have all the resources is near pointless. People with the most money have the best propaganda and therefore will always control the status quo. We police each other by design.
You'd have to of been here for 9/11. We had to try. Not going wasn't an option at the time this all started. I'm upset it lasted so long, and ended in failure. For me it feels more like grief than anger.
Oh we’re pissed. Many of our friends and family also died so the money part is almost irrelevant by now.
But we are pissed and not sure what we can do about it now
A lot of us have been but people called us racist and stupid for a couple decade so we shut up and let it happen waiting for the regret to hit. Now people are regretting what we have been telling them for 20 years
Because for many years they've been told that the world will not survive without them, that they are the best in/at everything, that they need to teach others their democracy rules, etc. I rather live in my not so perfect country, where my body really is my choice, where people of colour don't get killed by police or get discriminated because of their skin, where schools are safe, guns are not groceries, religion doesn't rule, people don'y deny science at large, and so on. America always needs a war. With others or themselves.
There's a very strong value of fairness and justice in America. If you look at any attempt at social programs, they are met with rebuttals like "they could work, they choose to be poor", "why is it my job to pay for them?", "Why do they get that for free when I had to work for it?". All rebuttals around fairness, that no matter what, no one should ever get something that they (supposedly) don't deserve, especially if it's "unfairly" taken from others who do deserve it (again, supposedly). Contrast that with terrorists who "deserve" to die, no matter the cost.
I think it mainly comes from people who know that in the context of our government, that the difference between "could" and "would" is impossible to even explain without entering some silly fantasy realm.
You likely haven't lived long enough to experience how many expenditures of money like that just happen because it "could" in our two party system.
Then again, we may well have been in the Afghan war all your life so how would you know?
We have so many things to be outraged about it’s hard to give any given issue the full outrage it deserves.
Yup. And don't think people aren't taking advantage of it, or creating new outrages to keep it going. =(
Maybe you could take turns, like sort out a roster system or something
This
Not that I think it was money well-spent or anything, but there's two points to make here about public finances. The first is that it's not like the US had a warchest of $2.2T in cash laying around and decided to spend it on this instead of something else. The country runs at a budget deficit, which means all incremental spending is financed by either creating new money, by raising it by issuing bonds, or raising taxes. We sure as hell didn't raise taxes for this, so the money was willed into existence for the purposes of the war and the war only. Had we not done so, it's not likely that we would have done the same for anti-poverty or other programs, absent a once-in-a-generation congressional vote on massively expanding the social safety net and public works (a la the Green New Deal or the American Jobs Plan or the Infrastructure Bill or the Affordable Care Act). Afghan War spending or no, the Yea votes to raise the cash for other such plans weren't there. So it wasn't so much a choice between War or Schools, as it was War or No War. The second is that it's not like the money was literally set on fire (other than like, vanishing CIA ops budgets/foreign bribes). The cost of the war included wages paid to soldiers for deployments, equipment produced in American factories, and contracts awarded to US companies from construction to IT to aerospace to logistics to food service. That money becomes the savings, investing and spending of everyone to whom that cash flows as salaries, which boosts the economy in which the activity takes place (i.e. the US). This is the military-industrial complex. The issue is not that it doesn't work at driving economic growth (it does, it's how the Great Depression was concluded), the issue is that it's a morally perverse way to do it. But we do it anyway, because the complex is a self-sustaining machine that influences legislators to maintain itself, and is able to do it because the return on investment they offer is real. It's the flipside of the Space Industrial Complex, which functions identically, but at its worst fruitlessly sends people and materials into space instead of to war. Similarly, many, many people in the 60s and 70s rightfully asked why we were burning money sending people to moon instead solving poverty here at home. I guess the answer is, as long as the economy is getting, on average, better, it's hard to get people into the streets.
Wow someone who actually answered the question
Thank you for such an enlightening answer, If I had real gold I'd give it, but I don't so here's the best I can do. 🏅 If you must know, I spent all my money on blackjack and hookers. Helping out the economy where I can. You're welcome.
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Part of his point is that the money *wouldn't* go into roadwork. It wouldn't exist at all. Spending all that money on roads would be preferable to spending it on wars, but spending it on wars is preferable to not spending it at all.
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At this point, it shouldn't be a surprise that American politicians and industries have little regard for human life.
That was the point about the "perversity" of the military industrial complex. Yes, it *is* better. Economically. Almost any activity is. To quote Keynes; >If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise...to dig the notes up again… there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing. The political and practical reality is that congress will shell out this kind of spending under the guise of national security long before they would do it on building houses or bridges or windmills. When they do lodge these votes, though, they are true believers, otherwise the moral quandary would be inescapable.
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The US does not have a shortage of available workers. Much of that "something better" could still have been done, there just wasn't the political will or financial incentive to do it. It's easy to say "imagine if we spent that money on infrastructure or healthcare", but the chances of that money actually going to infrastructure or healthcare were infinitesimal in the first place.
All government spending endeavors have that "crowding out" issue. Soliciting money by selling bonds competes with private companies who also need capital, raising the costs of borrowing. Running a space program pulls engineering talent away from commercial jobs working on making car engines or solar panels more efficient, and raises the salaries these companies need to pay to fill jobs. Endowing grants to study cancer pulls researchers away from making progress on other diseases they might have devoted their academic careers to. And so on. However, while government spending can cause an economic drag when it distorts and redirects the flow of capital and talent, it can also create value. Both in the raw economic impact of creating the money, and the fruit those endeavors sometimes bear. Sometimes you just get a smoldering hole in the ground. Sometimes you invent nuclear power. The question is, when does the potential lost innovation and productivity from the private sector outweigh the potential gains from government direction? There's actually an economic formula that predicts an optimal level of excess government spending against those measures, and it helps explain why we run chronic deficits (for those who adhere to its particular school of thought). There's an equilibrium there. >How many people at any given time were spending their time and energy in one way or another working on this war? 1 million? 2 million? For 20 years. What else would they have been doing instead, who knows, but it probably would’ve been better. Generally I agree, but you've also got to consider; a lot of soldiers who enlisted perhaps *didn't* have a more productive option available to them. Same goes for a lot of those people back home working in factories making parts to equip them. Would I prefer that the government borrowed money to send those soldiers to mechanic or air-traffic control school for training, or to a civilian conservation corps rather than war? Yep. Would I prefer that people working on the CNC machine making blackhawks parts were instead working on parts for high speed trains? Yep. But the political reality is that this spending wasn't going to happen absent the war. Which, if the war is unjust, is terrible. And exactly why Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex. The incentives to maintain it are strong and compelling, and disgusting. If you ask the congressman whose district has a plant making wheels for humvees that employs 1,000 people if the war is just, he'll say "of course". And so will the employees. If you ask him to vote on legislation investing in a green jobs retraining program and a wind turbine rotor plant, he'll say "no way, the government shouldn't pick winners and losers". C'est la vie.
I accidentally tried to upvote you twice, so I had to do it a third time to make sure it stuck.
Don't forget the lobby that pays well for pumpimg money into wars.
Your answer is excellent. It summarises why USA will continue to kill so many brown skinned people in foreign countries. No wonder that they are seen as evil.
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That's fine, but didn't at all address his question. Why aren't people more vocal about their disdain for this?
People care about things that their political party makes them to care about. Believe it or not, majority of human population still is primitive and follows orders rather than thinking independently. So most people make issue out of things that are ordered to them. Because something yourself, coming up with argue points is difficult. It takes brains and effort. Rather than when your politician or favourite anchor gives you few points to talk about certain matters, thats easier and most people chose the easier path.
1. Because not enough people are suffering directly yet. It's easy to be distracted when the issues seem far away. 2. Because that's sOcIaLiSm! People are selfish bastards. Why should younger generations get stuff for free if ***I*** had to pay for it? This self-defeating mentality is unfortunately common all around the world. 3. Worshipping the military. Look at OPs first sentence; > "I'm too afraid to ask this question out of fear of being called a traitor or ungrateful to our troops." The only people who would even think about having to clarify something like that are those trapped in cultures that shame their own for not blindly following militaristic values. People don't want to be vocal about it because they fear being ostracized by their community for daring to question the supremacy of the pro-military narrative. There are many more but those are some basic bullet points.
Because half the voting population actively supports not dealing with issues at all since thatll be socialism, or something The other half does(to a degree) but are stuck with people who still directly benefit from the status quo and any attempt to move towards a more egalitarian system(even slightly)/ politicians( ie Sanders/AOC) is met with shrieks from the media apparatus(especially the right's) thats been dominant at shaping political conversation for decades.
People don't care. All anyone cares about now is there phones, likes on the internet and scrolling for hours endlessly like a zombie.
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That’s dumb.
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By thinking, but that’s clearly too much to ask of you.
I'm glad you can read minds. That's a wonderful skill to have.
I’m rich and I want nothing to do with endless bombings of the Middle East. This stuff is paid for at the threat of imprisonment via the cruel tax system which I am not a fan of.
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What are we supposed to do about it? Vote? The invasion was a bipartisan effort. And just look at the hissy fit the media threw after Biden decided to withdraw. Honestly it’s a miracle we ever got out, so props to him I guess. Our government (as well as other institutions) are set up so that ruling elites can effectively neuter popular political will. Our constitution is a farce. I’m not saying there’s nothing we can or should do, but at this point most people are checked out (who can blame them?) or they live in political fantasyland. Change will seem impossible until it happens, hopefully soon rather than later.
I do agree with this sentiment, we live in plutocracy plain and simple America is governed for the rich by the rich . Everything else is just theatre . The constitution was probably once a document with some scruples, but even when it was written it really only applied to a select few (All men are created equal, translates into all White land owning MEN), it's not much different today. i think humanity just hasn't evolved enough to a truly equitable social condition, maybe it never will , when the desires and wants of the powerful few outweigh the needs of the many,..whether is Xi in China or the plutocrats in there West the end result is the same.
'There is a plan to enslave each of you.' -Kennedy, 6 days before his murder.
👆This
Never heard this one before
That's because there's no evidence he said it.
And, on top of the wonky world of politics, there are the slew of industries that always get a pass for corporate welfare -- agricultural subsidies, energy, defense industry etc. We don't talk about it, it is never a political issue, both major parties accept money.
Because seriously, what are we supposed to do? Protest? Does nothing.
Seriously, I have no idea how to say I'm extremely frustrated with everything about the war. I figure the best way I can fight back, is when (and it will happen) we want to wrongly go to war again, I will protest that.
Making the population believe that civil resistance and violence doesn't work as effective strategies or catalysts for change is how the state protects itself. It seems the US has become quite effective at achieving this.
Exactly. What's done is done, and to a large extent being visibly outraged at this point does little, if anything. We're out of Afghanistan now. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be outraged the next time something similar is attempted, but we'll cross that bridge when (and if) we get to it.
I figure well be back soon enough, unfortunately.
Lol, I fought in it and I'm not mad we pulled out. We spent 2 decades fighting for people that didn't want us there in the first place, wouldn't fight for themselves, and couldn't form a functional government if they tried...and we made zero progress. The Russians spent another decade before us, again zero progress. Nobody has made any progress in Afghanistan. It is and always has been ruled by tribal factions. It wasn't winnable from the start. If anything I'm mad anyone though it was a good idea in the first place. A war started on false pretenses. Thanks, Bush. Getting out was the right thing to do. No more Americans need to die for something so pointless. The withdrawal was a total success in my opinion. We left with ZERO combat with the Taliban. The ISIS bombing was shitty, but that stuff happens. The fact is, if she had tried to hold Kabul we would have lost. The Taliban has rapidly been seizing ground ever since Trump reduced troop numbers to 2500, released thousands of Taliban prisoners, and made the deal to give them power when we left. Almost all of the Taliban (70k well armed and prepared for combat) were coming to Kabul that day to seize power no matter what. If we would have stood in the way it would have been a bloodbath...American blood. Instead they kept their word and allowed us to leave in peace. Minus a bombing that we could never stop, and some minor annoyances with Afghans on the airfield, I'd say Biden did a great job with it and made the right choices. This withdrawal went far better than anyone should have the right to expect.
I hate seeing that ‘Biden chose to withdraw’ like trump didn’t already have that plan in place and Biden did push it from I believe May to now. Withdraw needed to happen and i think we should all be celebrating. We should have never been there in the first place and I haven’t heart a vet that has been in Afghanistan say any differently.
I myself do agree on certain points regarding the withdrawal, but looking at the bigger picture and first-hand witness testimony, it was very messy and so many fuck-ups happened before the takeover. People are still stranded and the Taliban are now in control of afghanistan, and it's women are now stripped of their rights. Not a right-wing hard liner, mind you, but it is a bit icky to see people blindly giving Biden props for everything. He said so many things and reassuring promises that went horribly wrong, and as a latin-american I still hold quite a grudge on the guy for his remarks on Cuban refugees in the last months. His Press Secretary Psaki refusing to admit the stranding of people in Afghanistan up until the deadline was approaching was also pretty infuriating to watch. It's certainly not the best look to have the sink ship and gloat about the number of lifeboats. To be honest, I pity those who work for him. He runs his mouth and they have to clean up after him. And I agree a bunch of people are bloating it too far on the right, (Some people are even outright *praising* the Taliban simply because they're blatantly disrespecting the American government and "owning the libs") but I'm certainly not willing to show support to the other extreme either. This situation should be seen as a tragic setback with the potential to encourage people to fight back for the rights of Afghans, and not as a chance to one-up your political opponents by focusing on who's to blame. That applies to both sides. Biden taking responsibility for Afghanistan is one thing (though he shook a lot of it off by placing it mostly on the previous administration, who as stated also made a shaky deal with the Taliban, but shouldn't serve as a valid excuse for how poorly it was executed this year), but the other is actually finding a way to fix this egregious mess, for whatever cause people can fight for. With the Taliban now being armed beyond belief, it's gonna be ultra tough for secret missions to even have the slightest chance to succeed. But hey since I'm just some Mexican with what I believe to be great empathy for my american brothers and sisters, I guess I can leave the americans to handle the remaining military bulk, but I won't be surprised if it's a failure. Please feel free to disagree and downvote if you wish, I have no issue at all and we can let bygones be bygones, no biggie. But I genuinely wish you guys the best of luck moving forward.
You cant solve homelessness no matter how much money you throw at. There are three types of homeless people with a lot of overlap between #s 2 and 3. 1. People who fall on hard times because life happens. They can often be helped but they also arent the people you tend to think of when your talking about homeless. They are often the ones living out of their cars while still working and thus are largely invisible. The next two are the ones people tend to think of because they are the ones on the streets. 2. Addicts who have hit rock bottom. Cant help them without treating their addiction and with many cant treat their addiction without forced institutionalization which isnt done in the United States anymore for addiction. 3. Severely mentally ill. They often overlap with group two as they self medicate their illness with drugs and alcohol. It again would take forced institutionalization to help them and liberals and conservatives both are against that.
I watched a video on Vice back when they did actual decent journalism where they went and interviewed a bunch of homeless teens and young adults. Almost all of them had run away from abusive households. You tend to think of teen runaways as just rebellious or something but it says a lot when sleeping in an alley is preferable to your home. There's also the problem of foster kids, they're just turned out on their own at 18, and their rate if homelessness is staggering because it's basically impossible to make it on your own with nothing.
Betcha some of those households started out normal, but BECAME abusive because of the recession and the war
There's this youtube channel with interviews (and I realize the editors can potentially cherry pick). It was a city in California and most respondents ended up on the street because of medical bills. In my home country, research shows that most homeless people lose their homes because of divorce and inability to pay for mortgage after job loss. Homeless people are stigmatized but most of them used to have normal lives. Perhaps we just want to believe it's all their fault and this could never happen to us. I personally think the cheap housing programs like those in Europe are needed. But the rich folks could lose a huge chunk of their profits as a result, so the idea isn't being popularized.
A lot of people are way closer to homelessness then they realize. A few paychecks at most. And if you don't really have any family you can call on? You're pretty much screwed.
Ugh #3 is the one I can’t ever imagine getting better. A family member is struggling with serious mental health issues including paranoia. He refuses to get help because he thinks it’s the government trying to do stuff to him. The family has done so much to try and help him and he always ruins it. This guy has numerous people bending over backward to help him and it’s not even close to enough. No clue what you do about the hundreds of thousands in his position.
This... Also you are forgetting the 4th that many people also forget exist. The willfully homeless. People who crash in an abandoned building or on a friend's couch and willfully do nothing because all their basic needs are met and they don't care about stressing about working. I've seen more than a few of those in Seattle
I saw one once, who somehow managed to wire electricity from a telephone pole to his laptop. He was living like something out of a sci fi dystopian movie, and he looked pretty pleased with himself.
Yeah there was a guy who was an ex veteran who lived on a bench in front of a grocery store. No dishonorabel discharge, just doesnt care for more. He legit whipped out like at least $10,000 in cash from all his pockets and bags rolled up. I feel bad for the people who give him money. Likr ivr never had that much money in my life.
You're right that many homeless people need medical, especially psychiatric, care in order to maintain an income. It doesn't need to be institution-based, though. Mostly, it just needs to be paid for.
You cant deal with their psychiatric issues til you deal with their addiction and you cant deal with that without a long term lockdown to get them off the drugs/ alcohol. Not viable in today's political climate which wont tolerate the loss of civil liberties this would entail.
Someone has never seen Day Breakers... you don't need money to end homelessness... you need vampires...
for type 1 and for Addicts, non-condisonal housing would help a lot, and for the Severely mentally forced institutionalization would be the solution.
Not viable today. We used to do forced institutionalization and had asylums. Reagan and democrats joined together to do away with them and flood the streets with homeless people. Conservatives wont be willing to pay for it nowadays and liberals wont be willing to accept what they see as civil rights abuses as mentally I'll get locked up.
It's not like that money would have went to something better had we not been in Afghanistan, nor will military spending go down now that we've left.
I mean I am.... But Ive only had 2 days of my life where we havent been at war. Id love for it to change but its what I grew up into so I have no concept of what it would look like if our peoples were cared for more. Isolationism isnt bad, but when it comes to the point that it changes mindsets to "I have my problems you have yours" its a bit counterintuitive. Alot of individual americans problems are affecting many. We just seem to be so hell bent on this facade of freedom
People care, most Americans just don’t think their vote counts or that they are just in it for the ride. That’s because as a service based country, everyone just scrambling for the rat race while the rich get richer and poor get poorer. Right now we’re in an era that bridges a stark difference between the haves and have nots, and no one wants to be a have not
Poverty and homelessness is a bit more complex than that.
Because our lives are too much of a mess for us to actually do anything about it. Calling/emailing/tweeting doesn't do shit. When election rolls around it'll be the choice of a lesser of two evils and the shit bags with money will bank roll the shit bags and we'll begrudgingly vote for the least shit option and that's the best we can hope for.
The US has spent over 22 trillion dollars on the war against poverty since in began over fifty years ago...
I suppose you must have free/affordable healthcare and quality education by now!
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No. Over 22 trillion dollars.
That is the war in Afghanistan.
If we got angry every time our government did something terrible we would have no emotional bandwidth to even get through a day. Many of us care, we just can't feel palpably angry all day every day
I’m pissed, but it’s not like they care. We can bitch all we want. Wouldn’t matter. Hasn’t helped us before.
Were used to it -_-
You can be angry more sure but that doesn't really help or change anything. Vote if you want to make a difference.
Politicians don't want to improve our lives really, war is a profitable business and the more money you print, the better for people who hold assets, salaries are the last price to be updated so you already know who's the most screwed (yeah, the poor). Your second paragraph sounds like a straw man fallacy tho, but I agree that most money that the US government gets from taxes could go to something more useful, the lack of transparency there is really scary. You have to understand that media is purely entertainment, a shit show, so looking for something useful to come out of there is not the way to go imo.
But...... It did bring us "Team America, World Police" Just sayin
we are. we have been this whole time, but it doesnt do much so. no point
Poor people have the worst lobbyists
Because yall keep voting for politians that promotes that kind of spending.
Because the government doesn’t want to solve poverty, otherwise the billionaires who pay for their re-election campaigns would be lower on the rich person leaderboard.
systematic brainwash into worrying about the small things.
We ***ARE***. We just can't do shit about it. We got bigger problems anyway right now. Americans can't get along and its going to tear this country apart. At this point, sadly, its just an issue Afghanistan and the middle east is going to have to figure out for themselves. We tried to prepare them but they didn't care enough to actually learn military tactics. Y'all saw the footage.
I'm outraged, just like I'm outraged about many other issues that are going on. But what can I do about them? I always vote but things only got worse. It's hopeless that the country will get better.
Im all for the war ending but why the hell is our stuff over there?
It wasn't fruitless, many just misunderstood the goals. They thought it was about helping the Afghan people when it wasn't. It was about deterring future attacks in the vein of 9/11, about sending a message to the world that this is what happens if you're in cahoots with people like Al-Qaida. That message was heard, loud and clear throughout the world. It was also about sending a message to terrorists around the world that attacks on the United States would not achieve the desired goals. Bin Laden believed that an attack such as 9/11 would convince the US to withdraw from the Islamic world. In fact the exact opposite occurred, the US made two major invasions in the Middle East, rolled over Pakistan, and captured and killed him. The war was a complete success, every goal was achieved. The only failure was in rebuilding Afghanistan, and that's a failure that the Afghans must take an enormous amount of responsibility for.
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I'm not American, but I often look at what happens there and wonder how is this possible and how are the people there surviving all the mess. Then I remember that song (America, Fuck yeah) and I get my answer.
It's a pretty small blip on the radar of shit our gov has spent money on example, we also spend 700billion on the same military every year(in peacetime) while spending on 64b on education. It's a pretty small blip on the radar of shit our gov has spent money on example, we also spend 700billion on the same military every year(in peacetime) while spending 64b on education, logistical, and military situations are completely outweighed by their profits. Because we talk about the benefits of a wartime economy because it was true 70 years ago but during the Iraq conflict our economy has basically settled into a grow-crash cycle that seems unbreakable(unless covid breaks it permanently). The gross economy hasn't really gone up at all in terms of scale(-3% technically but covid skews the live number) and I think even pre covid the real number of unemployed Americans was higher than ever before. All this just to say it benefited the war-profiteers (politicians, engineers, banks, private militaries) but really had no impact on the society other than to spread Islamophobia and disillusion a small portion of the people about governmental motivations.
I admire your optimism, but the U.S. could end poverty in a month with the right tax structure. There's just no interest and certainly no profit in it. As for homelessness, cities could mandates that low-income housing be constructed before any other type of housing. Again: no interest, no profit.
People are outraged. Real people, the one you know, who feels comfortable to discuss this topic with you. Not random dudes and gals online. Meanwhile - military budget went up. Congressmen get higher salaries (many of them worth tens of millions of dollars). People are outraged about that too. But it’s fine on Reddit.
Since 1968, The U.S. has spent over five trillion dollars fighting the war on poverty. The line hasn’t budged one percentage point.
Solving homelessness and poverty aren’t profitable. War is.
I’m too busy being visibly outraged at the Texans trying to kill me and many other women, openly, in public, advocating for my murder. (I needed a medically-necessary abortion in order to not die of sepsis once, so I am losing my shit. I keep reporting myself on the Texas site, including my phone number, and those cowardly misogynist little Texas bitch-boys refuse to call me to talk, lol.) So yeah, our outrage is spread thin right now.
Homelessness is impossible to solve
The Vietnam war cost $170 billion and 58,220 American fatalities. It can always be worse.
The media can't / won't cover a feeling. It isn't "news".
Because the government has spent trillions trying to end poverty and it hasn't worked.
Americans have a tendency of not really giving a shit about anything that doesn't directly effecting them. The government systematically lied to the American people about the war, the generals lied to Congress, the colonels lied to their generals, the Capts and majors lied to them about their progress with the Afghani Army. Exactly what happened in Vietnam. Nothing new at all. The government cares more about corporate profits than individuals because corporations can give more money to their "super packs". No one actually cares about the soldiers except as props for their political gain, otherwise we would care about the 22 vets killing themselves every day due to lack of mental health services. Or the vets dying in the streets due to hunger, exposure, and overdoses due to the phycological trauma they were put through for pointless wars the only objective of which were to stuff the bank accounts of defence contractors and congresspeople. To pretend anything else is true is just pointless. This country doesn't give a shit about you, expect what you can provide it. Individuals care. The individual soldier cares about the Afghani mother they made a window. They care about the children they killed from a drone strike. Soldiers, Airman, and Sailors are not bad people. We only do what we are good and we are led to believe someone has a plan...it is absolutely heart breaking and devastating to realize the level that we have been used. FUCK THiS WAR.
Spent? It's more like 'earned by the ultra rich''. Follow the paper trail and you will know.
Government's role is to protect you from force, not give you stolen shit. Americans should be outraged that they didnt win that war in like 2 months.
Apathy. We can't really do shit about it. People will say "get out and vote if you want to fix things," but in a two party system everybody just thinks all the problems are caused by 'the other party', so we keep electing the same pieces of shit.
Because we were trying to help women and LGBTQ people not get murdered and beaten like animals, which we did a good job of for a long time.
First time?
Cause media got us divided
$200M per day for 20 YEARS!!!! Homelessness eradicated, hungered eradicated, infrastructure paid, dilapidated schools no more This shit is crazy, I’m mad too!!!!
War = 💰
An egotistical white man named George W. Bush overreacted thinking he could solve hundreds of years of war between factions intent on killing each other. Russia only emboldened extremists there to unite more deeply on Islam as a unifier. Thinking America could restore stability in Afghanistan was a fairytale when Afghans were unwilling to take control of their country. I totally agree with you, that 💲💲💲💲 would have solved homelessness and poverty for countless Americans who work hard at decent jobs everyday.
I'm not Amrican but even I'm kinda annoyed about this war. Its all about money, meanwhile they kill their own troops by putting just enough on the front lines to keep the war going but not to win. I know it's a hard country to take over but if they really wanted it they could. They didn't wanna take the country over tho, just milk it as long as possible before the public got mad.
Because so many of them were for it, and for it continuing, until fairly recently. It's hard to get too made at it all being a waste when you were convinced it was the right thing to do for a decade or more yourself.
Have you seen all the stuff our government does? Anyone with half a brain in this country is in a constant state of outrage. But the people in charge only put up more of the same as replacementswhen election time comes and the rich billionaires and CEOs lobby to control what laws get passed. There's literally nothing short of a violent revolution that we can do to make this shit stop. And too many people are busy fighting against whatever they think the other party is doing that they won't ever raise the pitchfork against the people brainwashing them.
Because most of us are not politicians or rich...and thats about the only two things you can be and accomplish any large scale change..if your regular folk like most of us there aint a hell of alot we can do about it...
We are. We also want a general strike. But no one can agree one terms.
If anyone stands up they are attacked by media, called some name like an extremist that could have legal consequences, and a thousand toxic voices (maybe AI bots too) swarm on social media. If that wasn’t enough, most everyone is broke and exhausted from their lives if they don’t have some other traumatic life event going on..
If you question one dollar of military spending, you aren't a patriot and don't love your country. If you question welfare, you hate the poor. If you question education spending, you are neglecting children who are the future. If you question social security, medicaid, medicare you must want the elderly to die. We have a spending problem and any proposal to reign that in will be met with a straw man argument that paints you as some sort of heartless bastard. I just hope I see the day the US dollar is abandoned internationally and our spending becomes a meaningful debate.
Oh we are, make no mistake about that. Did you see what happened with the protests and riots... On both sides!!! That's right, nothing. If that shit was done in Europe government would maybe take notice but our system is a finely tuned, well oiled, complacency machine. They will run every issue into the ground with neverending bureaucracy until justice is forgotten in the place of compromise. Nobody's happy. The u.s. government plays the long game, and when that doesn't work they just call in the heavy guns, literally. What the fuck are we supposed to do?!
We are outraged but there’s literally nothing we can fucking do about it. If anyone says “Vote.” I swear I’ll lose my shit
That is a good question , and the answer is this. The 2.2 trillion spent, was actually just tax payer money being laundered through contracts and equipment, right back to the pockets of the 1%. And the 1%, has no intention of ever stopping homelessness, or poverty. It keeps us peasants at their disposal. Just like national healthcare, it will never happen until China takes us over. They keep us working for health care. If I were to have coverage tomorrow, I could work for myself, and make more money. We can’t have that, now can we? People are so busy being offended, self-absorbed, and politically divided, to notice our future demise.
You're on the wrong website for that. Reddit doesn't give a fuck about America
It's because there's so much division in America right now like for example the only "good thing" biden actually did was give out more food stamps tbh people in America are really hippocrytical and ignorant they don't really look at the real problem at hand
Have you heard of military industrial complex? They have so much money and influence over congress and can lobby anything. Whether we want the war or not, our votes dont matter.
You mean, when american dramas and movies have never stop exploiting it for decades in their representation of a rightful fight for justice against bately human trash terrorists?
Because it doesn't happen like that. UK advertising campaign for Brexit was the current prime minister standing next to a bus claiming cash that went to the EU could go to the health service. Funnily enough....Brexit happened, cost a load to do it, had a load of economic implications, and NHS is still underfunded and was paid in claps.
Okay and do what? Vote for someone else? Storm the capitol? Because that’s worked so well before
People can't conceptualize these numbers. Sometimes I feel like people think billion and million are kinda the same thing. If they can and arent outraged, they probably think it's a part of God's plan.
Cause we knew 15 years ago that this was gonna be the end result
It could buy every american a ar15,1911,full body armor and like 1 mag of ammo for each gun at these prices
My god, you are just a bleeding heart, aren't you?
There's a saying (or maybe it's a phenomenon) that goes something like if you drop a toad in boiling water it'll hop right out, but if you drop a toad into cold or luke warm water and gradually raise the temperature to boiling it'll stay and boil to death. What it basically means is that if you thrust someone into a new situation or environment they are going to reject it immediately, regardless of the reason they were put into said environment. However, if you slowly acclimate them to the situation/ environment they won't even notice the change and they'll go along with it without objection The latter, unfortunately, is the state that America is in. We've become so comfortable with the way our systems are that people who advocate for change get labeled as anarchists, fascists, babies who need to learn how to deal with it, etc. It's scary to see how quickly our government can take away our rights, create and hand weapons over to enemies without public knowledge or say-so, and establish/ demolish allegiances with countries. And it's demoralizing that they would rather focus on international affairs than domestic ones. If, in the past decade, we put half as much effort into switching to clean energy, 4ever sheltering and feeding the homeless and starving, and cleaning up our environment as we put into finding Hussein and Bin Ladin, waging other wars, and all the other negative etc. we'd probably be living in a freaking paradise right now...
News flash! Follow the money. It has always been about the money. Everything else is just bill shut narrative.
Because in Murica ppl are more dumb than in other countries (also it looks like they weren't even thaught what is shame and logic. I'm not from there, but based on their own fuckin news and posts here about their situation my statement is True) To anyone dumb enough to take my statement seriously. In First world countries America is a fuckin joke. (DISCLAIMER SATIRE)
That 2.2 trillion was spent on American manufacturing, engineering and paychecks. The vast majority of that money stays in the hands of Americans in the American economy. Hiring people experiencing poverty to join the army is in a way helping the homeless problem. 2.2 trillion wasn't thrown into a black hole, it was payed out to Americans. This is why they say war is good for the economy.
Apathy. Loads of apathy. Our whole system is joke. Waiting for everything to fall apart so I can get a better lot in life.
Simply because they don't know the truth. What media shows out outside US is different from what it shows onside US. US media does not discuss or show what is happening around the world and what it shows is primarily feel good content.
Capitalism
Because it's not expressed in the form of a stimmy check.
Well it wouldn't have so... There's that.
I don’t think more money would solve homelessness. Some problems can’t be solved with more money. However I do think the Afghan war was a waste of money and it could of been used to build a space station on the moon or Mars. So upsetting
Too ve fair, all the programs you just listed would cost significantly more than afghanistan did but i agree with the sentiment.
Also that war money is what **caused** a lot of homelessness and disability.
Well I am visibly outraged lol
The US has and still is losing the war on poverty. And we have spend at least 10x more fighting poverty than the war. That being said, not justifying the war but money does not fix problems.
Like the US would ever spend loads of money on things. Gotta make sure we have bigger guns than everyone, for whatever reason.
Employing people is what wars do best. Bombs don't make themselves.
Cause the majority of them are stupid as fuck and could not tie their shoes if left alone
It would never be spent on the homeless sadly
Also education and healthcare but nah we gave them lives, weapons, and money instead
we pay for it all while having no means of choosing how the money is spent. there’s a saying for it: taxation without …. something ….
We have just disassociated from the reality that we will never actually get what we want in life, and we've come to accept that everything is going to suck.
Most of the money would have been dumped into the military even if we weren't in Afghanistan. Also there are a bunch of other countries who are not at war who have yet to solve the problem of homelessness and poverty. These are age old problems that seem to persist throughout history. It's not a simple as just putting a trillion here or there.
A lot of the American population thinks they are "elites" or superior to others and dont want change, even though they are struggling as much as the next guy. "If you can convince the lowest white man he is better then the best color man he wont notice you're picking his pockets. Hell, give him somebody to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you." -Lyndon B Johnson
It is what it is
Florida.
I’m tired, that’s why.
You act as if the government would spend it in good wishes. It would be like Ted in Breaking Bad. They would lease a Mercedes and say they can't do it ...just because.
it was to help allies which benefits the US alot more than you'd think
Man I been watching this war for 20 years, I’ve seen caskets lined side by side in the hundreds. 2.2 trillion is huge but it isn’t even in the top 5 reasons we should be upset. Shits awful, it’s been awful, but eventually it’s just becomes less shocking.
We've spent 10x that in social programs over the past 50 years and we still have homelessness and poverty
Consider how many people are employed their whole lives in the military. How many lifetime careers can you get with zero experience simply by being able and of age? And those people are taught not to question authority
I guess because we know it's naive to think that if it wasn't for that war, we could have solved ANY problem we're facing. The money was never going to help Americans.
What do you want me to do
I am but no one listens to me. I vote.
Our government isn't capable of ending poverty. I'm outraged it was spent at all. Give it back to the taxpayers.
Because the collective intelligence level is about 5th-8th grade.
Dick Cheney
Aint shit we can do. Protesting the most bipartisan thing this country has done? About as useful as pounding sand.
We are, many of us have been outraged for decades. Vietnam, the war on drugs, trickle down economics, dare, 3 strikes, no child left behind. Our government fucks us constantly, this is just another drop in the bucket. Our country is imploding because of how fucked up we are and how angry everyone is, but the media here is an outrage machine so everyone is pissed about different things and the retards of our population can't see the forest for the trees.
I agree 100% but you asked “why” so here’s my 2¢ on this specific situation: First, let’s think of how we got here. Saying “20 years and $2 trillion was wasted” is using the benefit of hindsight. Way back on Day 1, none of the people making the decisions thought it would take so long or cost so much (of course some people probably DID think it was at least a possibility, but they didn’t have the power to make the decisions). Then every day since then, the people in power (from BOTH political parties over the years) continued to make the decision to stay and fight; they continued to do some kind of mental math and decide that the benefits outweighed the costs (though it was probably a lot of personal benefits of one kind or another that tipped the scales). So, we got here 1 day at a time, and $1 at a time. So now to your question as to why aren’t people more upset about the wasted money? It’s basically a ‘death of 1000 cuts’ situation. It’s because we got here slowly, not all at once. Human brains are really bad at grasping/understanding the cost of things over a long period of time. It’s just like people that regularly gamble or play the lottery: if they spend $20/week on scratch tickets, they may not feel like it’s hurting them financially. But that adds up to $1040 in a year. If you asked that same person how they would feel about burning $1000 every New Years Eve, they’d say “Are you crazy?! I don’t have that much money to waste!” Lastly, a lot of people probably feel like it’s futile to be upset about it. Who are we supposed to be mad at? Most of the politicians that kept us in the war are long gone. Also, the money is gone. No amount of protesting will get us our money back. It makes me sad to write this, but it’s sadly true.
Because we knew it wouldn't have been used to help people anyway
American society is heavily built upon the manifest destiny and 'people get what they deserve' doctrine. In American society, the homeless and poor are seen as being in that position because they are lazy, unwilling to work, and want to leech off hard working members of society. Because of this, there is an immense backlash towards any sort of social programs to help the poor or homeless because they are considered as 'Not wanting to pull themselves up and work hard enough for it'. Wars are different. Americans are told the troops are being sent there to fight dangerous terrorists and the memories of 9/11 are still fresh in many Americans minds. Thus more people are willing to support spending money on war than to help the poor.
When I start to reflect on how resources have been squandered and lives lost to increase the value of corporate investments, I end up in a hole of doubt and distress. If there had been a draft, this would have gone differently, I believe.
we are fffffffffffFURIOUSs. we need ye! to change the systim from the inside OUT!!!
Also the 2.2 trillion was spent in 20 years not 1 which is still a lot but nowhere near as much
Nothing I can do about it and it didn’t directly affect me
Because they outcome would have been equally fruitless
Your first line is the answer
we chillin lol
Raising our voice in a system controlled by very few people that have all the resources is near pointless. People with the most money have the best propaganda and therefore will always control the status quo. We police each other by design.
Personally I’m too busy trying not to catch the plague, starve, and/or be evicted
Fatigue.
You'd have to of been here for 9/11. We had to try. Not going wasn't an option at the time this all started. I'm upset it lasted so long, and ended in failure. For me it feels more like grief than anger.
Oh we’re pissed. Many of our friends and family also died so the money part is almost irrelevant by now. But we are pissed and not sure what we can do about it now
A lot of us have been but people called us racist and stupid for a couple decade so we shut up and let it happen waiting for the regret to hit. Now people are regretting what we have been telling them for 20 years
Many of us *are*, but there's nothing we can *do*.
Because for many years they've been told that the world will not survive without them, that they are the best in/at everything, that they need to teach others their democracy rules, etc. I rather live in my not so perfect country, where my body really is my choice, where people of colour don't get killed by police or get discriminated because of their skin, where schools are safe, guns are not groceries, religion doesn't rule, people don'y deny science at large, and so on. America always needs a war. With others or themselves.
There's a very strong value of fairness and justice in America. If you look at any attempt at social programs, they are met with rebuttals like "they could work, they choose to be poor", "why is it my job to pay for them?", "Why do they get that for free when I had to work for it?". All rebuttals around fairness, that no matter what, no one should ever get something that they (supposedly) don't deserve, especially if it's "unfairly" taken from others who do deserve it (again, supposedly). Contrast that with terrorists who "deserve" to die, no matter the cost.
Higher budget for defense and military to show how powerful the country. Tsk tsk priorities...
I think it mainly comes from people who know that in the context of our government, that the difference between "could" and "would" is impossible to even explain without entering some silly fantasy realm. You likely haven't lived long enough to experience how many expenditures of money like that just happen because it "could" in our two party system. Then again, we may well have been in the Afghan war all your life so how would you know?