Two-Thirds of Presidential Debate Should Be About Militarism
By David Swanson
https://davidswanson.org/two-thirds-of-presidential-debate-should-be-about-militarism/
Over half of the money that Congress decides what to do with every year is for wars and war preparations, year after year.
When you add in police and prisons, and the militarization of police and prisons — and of borders and airports — and the Veterans Administration, you’re talking about two-thirds of the money.
So the big question is, of course, why do I hate Veterans?
Oh, go Dick Cheney yourself. I support universal free healthcare and education and guaranteed retirement and childcare and transportation and sustainable energy for every human being, veteran or not.
So the serious question is how the hell am I going to pay for that?
Well, with a fraction of what’s spent now on the militarized budget, of course.
Plus a fraction of what should be taxed from corporations and the ultra rich.
But what about the non-discretionary spending?
What about it? Much of it is for Social Security and healthcare, but a big chunk of it is for militarism — including debt for past wars.
So really I think we’re left with: why do I hate the troops?
I adore them. I want to offer them the choice of free college instead of enlistment — don’t you? Or do you not love them as much as I do?
Now, can we focus?
The U.S. government is not a government. It’s not an institution that can watch a deadly disease pandemic approaching from thousands of miles away, pick up a baseball bat, swing, and hit anything other than its own rear end.
The U.S. government is a war making, weapons dealing, death machine.
It is leading the world in:
- coronavirus
- wars
- war preparations
- weapons bought
- weapons sold
- nations bombed
- bases abroad
- bases in the Fatherland
- oops, I mean Homeland
- people locked up
- people killed by police
- people killed by guns
- contributions to climate collapse
- contributions to risk of nuclear apocalypse
A debate that mentions none of this, between two senile elderly male white servants of corporate power who oppose Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, free college, defunding police, demilitarization, ending drone murder, ending wars, closing bases, or converting to peaceful industries is not a debate. It’s filler for advertisements.
Asking one of them if he’ll respect the election results he’s busy rigging is interesting, but how much lower can standards go? None of the corporate-approved topics is unimportant (if done right), but all of them misrepresent the job being auditioned for. The leader of the biggest ever war machine is an important position in the world. Pretending it’s an election for a model human being, a prom king, a figure head, or pretending it’s an election for a leader of a normal government of some other country is irresponsible.
Two thirds of the debate should be about what the U.S. government spends two-thirds of its time and our money doing: killing.
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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
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