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Does No One Get it? The U.S. is Already at War. [1]

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Date: 2022-12-16

Greed's Refugee Camp

Well, well, well… Congress managed to look behind the sofa cushions and in their coat pocket lining and find some spare change for defense. EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHT BILLION to protect you and me from the metaphorical wolf at the door. That’s not a lifetime allocation – or even a decade’s – that’s this year.

If I weren’t a polite atheist, I’d take the name of someone’s god in vain.

Imagine this scenario our leaders fear. Some nefarious yet cowardly evildoer comes to our shores and bombs the living shit out of this country. Doesn’t hit military targets – but blows our neighborhoods to smithereens! Those gutless, spineless, craven louts render millions of us homeless, break our bodies, destroy our resolve. Some of our fellow Americans flee to live with family or friends – others have no such safety net and start to live, sleep, eat, recover from their wounds, defecate (yeah, you’re picking up the nasty truth I’m putting down) and languish in the street.

Congress is afraid – without a strong military – that’ll happen to YOU.

If it did, senators and legislators would leap to their feet. They’d beat their chest and howl for more funding. They’d rally the troops and the nation. We’d be lectured about pulling together, weathering the storm, joining arms and fighting back.

But all that has already happened. Except the villains are NOT North Korea or Iran. The rogue entities are unbridled corporations, and the extremist oligarchical swine that accumulate billions in their sleep; greedy landlords that profit from unmet demand for housing, politicians supporting policies that drive wages down and rents up, pharmaceutical companies that gouge on medicines, while their insurance buddies make trillions monetizing our access to healthcare.

And every one of them have the moxie to blame the poor for their wretched circumstances. If North Korea made us homeless – you can bet your bedroll that congress wouldn’t blame the victims. The American Red Cross would be flooded with cash and Kim Jung Un would be drenched in guilt.

This ain’t new! The war on the poor has been raging for centuries. For a while the tide turned on the inhumane battlefield. Countless heroes banded together and fought back, winning concessions in the first seven decades of the 20th century that Reagan and his successors have systematically decimated ever since. When I tell people that poverty was at 10 percent when Ronnie took over in 1981, they stare dopey eyed, disbelieving that America once gave a damn.

And back then we knew that even 10 percent was too high.

But today, knowing we’ve already done it once, we still don’t invest in taking back the high ground. No, 858 billion will be poured into death machines while our neighbors a few feet away continue to suffer. It’s despicable and unnecessary.

We’ve lost the war because we stopped investing in winning. Congress knows you have to invest in winning – that’s why they handed the military industrial complex that fat paycheck this week – 45 billion more than the president wanted!

We need to talk about this – in the open air – and the light of day. Join us – at the Capitol building, west lawn, Washington DC. We’ve got a handmade #memorialblanket art installation that will be broken up that night and giving to folks in need. We’ll be there Wednesday, Dec. 21st to talk about homelessness and the millions of casualties in the war on the poor.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/16/2142190/-Does-No-One-Get-it-The-U-S-is-Already-at-War

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