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Of Course Daily Kos Covers Ukraine, Democrats are Militarists [1]

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Date: 2023-03-02

I was slightly amused and not at all puzzled at Mark Sumner’s recent article explaining Daily Kos’s consistent war coverage, one is not aware of the militarism of the Democratic Party and Daily Kos? Sweetie, you’re soaking in it.

US Defense spending for 2021 was reported at an astronomical $800 billion, the Democratic Party mute and supportive. Aircraft carriers used to cost $5 billion, now they’re $12 billion–okay. The F-35 fighter jet is so expensive it’s been rated a boutique aircraft, nothing near the total replacement for the F-16–-bummer. We’re all waiting on the bill for the Space Force, whatever billions that will be the Democratic Party will vote for it, no problem, mi amigos.

In fact the dire warnings that if you build it they will use it has been borne out twice this century in Afghanistan and Iraq, two profound violent killing failures that garnered our country nothing but humiliating regression and put away forever the lie that what we build is for “defense.” The Democratic Party’s response? Keep building it bigger!

Take a look upper left at the Daily Kos logo, that’s military stencil. In a land far away a long, long time ago there used to be speculation as to why Daily Kos became basically the main hangout for liberal writers, a flagship, if you will, the infamous Great Orange Satan. One sure variable was that Markos was a veteran, and in the frantic politics of post-9/11 it was perceived as a place where militarism was accepted and Democrats immune from traitorous charges of weakness.

Not nearly the only reason, no, Markos himself isn’t sure. Don’t look at me, I don’t know.

I’m also not precisely sure why the Democratic Party is so accepting of such rank, dangerous militarism it so blithely votes for annually. Obviously the charge of weak non-aggressiveness made by Republicans would politically make them wary, but the screaming dangers of American militarism should have made many more Democratic politicians opposed to all the insanity, but it hasn’t.

Morally not surprisingly as an American liberal I’m utterly appalled at the vast machine of violence we’ve created, and don’t sit there and tell me we can afford it, take a good look around at what our little people are going through.

Along with the cruel insanity of ignoring our little people there’s the mental acid of accepting military deterrence, the vast machine is built with the terrible rationale that hopefully it will never be used. Good luck as a liberal asking for 20 new solar plants, we’ll build them but hey, never use them.

I don’t accept the concept of conventional deterrence at all anyway, the United States possesses an array of impressive nuclear weapons. We can be all the conventional militarists we want at $400 billion annually with nuclear weapons, as a liberal I wouldn’t be happy with it, but I wouldn’t have the feeling of being a stranger in my own Party, of voting for politicians who are so dangerously lost.

Instead of laying the keels for USS John F Kennedy and USS Enterprise, a cool $25 billion bill, we should be using that precious money for the great solar conversion, as a country and species we’ve got a huge job to do with the climate crisis.

About twice a year I see a good liberal publish a Daily Kos diary about this, and the retired great writer MeteorBlades used to write regularly about all the insanity, but on the whole there’s just this great blithe acceptance that terrible US militarism is just the way it’s supposed to be in America.

It’s not, for the first half of our existence we were proudly anti-military, and yes the world has changed but obviously not for the better, as stated many times we haven’t won a damn thing if all we can do is build a vast war machine.

I’m certainly no life master, heh, I don’t enjoy blasting my own Party and politicians for being militarists. Or for being weenies in multiple dimensions for not prosecuting Trump. All this ultimately leaves me confused, fearful for the future and seriously rueful for what has been lost, we could have made the United States an Eden with all the money and lives wasted on our military.

You carry on in a confused, lonely place, throwing your tiny voice out in a hurricane place that has always been a war blog, always will be.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/2/2155824/-Of-Course-Daily-Kos-Covers-Ukraine-Democrats-are-Militarists

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