For the amount of times I’ve heard the words “power of the purse” in regards to congress I have yet to see them exercise that power to restrain the empire.
If the answer is always yes are they really asking for permission?
nooooo the president can't unilaterally go to war nooooo they need the permission of congress, obviously we would say yes because $IMPERIAL_ENEMY_OF_THE_WEEK is evil, but you need permissiooooooon
"Of course we had to increase the military budget if we want to be able to defeat China! What with the massive tariffs on all the components and materials we need for our weapons which we are 100% dependent on China for!"
Iraq style? No. This is far closer to home. Expect faster reprecussions.
Venezuela is way closer and has a functional, modern army and Air Force. They have the ability to hit targets inside the United States, unlike Iraq.
Venezuela has no functional ability to strike targets in the United States. Unless Russia gave them some hypersonic missiles, they have no mechanism by which to do that outside of terror attacks. Maybe they could launch a drone swarm, but a) I doubt they have the numbers for that and being able to defend their own airspace at the same time and b) they would all almost certainly be shot down on the Caribbean before they entered American air space. Their air force is not nearly modern enough to penetrate American airspace in the slightest, nor is their navy large enough to really do anything. The most they could do to realistically hit targets "inside" the United States would be using their one submarine to maybe sink some ships in an American harbor, a tall feat but not impossible. Their military is well positioned to defend Venezuela against all attacks outside of air strikes (the modern US air fleet has too much stealth capability for the Venezuelan anti-air to pose any real threat), but they have as much of a chance striking targets inside the United States as Iraq did.
They have the ability to hit targets inside the United States, unlike Iraq.
extremely doubtful. at best they might get lucky and hit US military assets sitting off the coast
eh on the airforce, it will be gotten got, even if it were functional
Eh, I dont expect that they can counterstrike directly.
idk I really doubt they have the numbers to effectively do so unless they've been given some advanced Chinese shit, which would be kind of a problem on its own if they possessed it and used it (i.e. in terms of the U.S. using it as further pretext for WWIII)
Shocked only 16% of republicans want a bigger military
A decent political opponent could exploit the Republicans' contradiction between "America Fuck Yeah" and "tax is theft," but we have Democrats instead.
"I hate taxes"
"Why do you hate the troops?"
The American public really does not love war
I guess the democrats couldn't have prevented it from passing but at the same time why have all these fuckers vote yes, just fucking vote no and make the republicans be solely responsible?
They've got MiC donors as well
yeah but if their vote literally doesn't matter then it's worth more to their donors to play pretend that they're against it and not vote for it
They don't necessarily vote just because of that, they vote because their donor can just as easily give money to their opposition, or sponsor a primary against them; these companies have money to burn for days
This is of course also all overlooking the simple fact that, being even slightly against the military in this country in any way, shape, or form is often a political death sentence
i mean this just means the donor class doesn't even know what they're paying these people to do
the bourgeoisie aren't smart, just wealthy
Because there is more than likely at least 1 Boeing/Lockheed/Ratheon factory or subcontractor based in their district.
Almost three thousand dollars per person, that's baby, adult and pensioner, and that's just a fraction of the total 'real' military spend.
No money for healthcare tho
Side note: you know of any credible estimates for the real spend? That would be great for agitational content
It's the best system we got because in your system you have one rich dude who listens to nobody and does whatever they want but in our system we got hundreds of them and everyone knows bigger numbers is better numbers
I wouldnt really call this a democracy anymore. Its not run by the people and hasn't been for a while.
anymore
never was. from slavery to Jim Crow to modern debt peonage
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich— that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”— supposedly petty— details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,— we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been in close contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.
—Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917
In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favourable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation, and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slaveowners. Owing to the conditions of capitalist exploitation, the modern wage slaves are so crushed by want and poverty that "they cannot be bothered with democracy", "cannot be bothered with politics"; in the ordinary, peaceful course of events, the majority of the population is debarred from participation in public and political life.
—Lenin, State and Revolution, 1917
all states are class dictatorships, so it has only ever been a democracy for the bourgeois class since it has always been a bourgeois dictatorship.
The US has been a full-blown military junta since 1963
The US has been a full-blown military junta since ~~1963~~ 1775
Was it ever?
Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory represented the highest popular vote turnout in American history, receiving 81 million votes with "66% voter turnout". Considering that the population in 2020 was 331 million (81÷331), only 24% of Americans, less than a quarter, voted for Joe Biden. Using this same formula Trump's recent election was made possibly by only receiving votes from 22% of the population. Consistently, fewer than half of all Americans participate in the Democratic process
That’s all true but I don’t think that actually proves that the US isn’t a democracy. Australia has mandatory voting, nearly everyone votes in every election, and Australia has no more functional a democracy than we do.
The point isn't about who voted, but moreso just an indication that such a small portion of the public actually choose to support the government. Therefore it isn't representative
Obviously mandatory voting doesn't make people choose to support a bourgeois government any more because it still doesn't solve the problem or give people real choice
Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.
Rules:
-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --
Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed.
All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body.
If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include not just the twitter.com URL but also Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source (archive.today, web.archive.org, ghostarchive.org). Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed.
Mass-tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken Markov chain bot will result in a comm ban.
Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.
Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned.
Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society.
