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Comment by johnnyanmac

6 days ago

>The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.

The truth is Americans mostly don't like this, but have little means to do much due to the political structure of how our government works. Our legislature is silently approving and it is clearly costing the seats, even thought it is still 10 months before the next cycle of elections for those seats. But that's 10 months away, and while tensions were strong for months this happened in a single day. It's so much easier to tear down than to build up.

And the truth is that most of us aren't going to try and perform a violent upheaval against a trillion dollar military complex. We lack the skills, resources, and even geography for that. I can't even afford a plane ride to DC at the moment.

I'm not a particular fan of the "you critique society yet you participate in it" argument. This assumes a lot of agency in the individual that doesn't exist without collective bargaining.

>As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.

Every country has inconvenient truths it tries to hide. It being brazen about the evils it commits is the truly surprising part. The whole point of propaganda is convincing your people that they are the good guys, and there was none of that pomp here.

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johnnyanmac

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lumost  6 days ago

The strategy of the administration appears to be that they have authorization to “breaking things quickly” and then can ask the powers at be to approve any “fix” or simply accept the broken state.

If Venezuela descends into a state of anarchy, they can ask congress to approve a plan to restore order. We’re irrevocably involved in the situation now.

But I will be blunt, the problem is not just the current government. One of our political parties starts at least one large conflict every time they are in power. This has happened for 35 years now, if this continues my entire lifespan will have existed in a perpetual state of war.

  • edmundsauto  6 days ago

    Haven’t all the large conflicts in the past 40 years been started by one party? Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq 1, all the stuff in South America in the 80s…

trivo  6 days ago

Bush Jr. was re-elected after invading Iraq. So majority if Americans do want this.

  • _moof  5 days ago

    George W. got reelected - by a razor-thin margin - for three reasons: lucky timing, an unpopular opposition candidate, and a deliberate campaign to smear Kerry's record in the service.

    GW's popularity steadily declined from the summer of '03 until the end of his presidency. If the election had been any later, he would've been below 50% and wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Meanwhile Democrats chose the least energizing presidential candidate I've seen in my entire adult life. (I've been voting since Bush v. Gore.) And when Kerry was nominated and the Swift Boat smear campaign started - a group whose claims have been since been discredited - Democrats did very little to fight back.

    Even if we did "want this" back then, support for the invasion of Iraq plummeted during Bush's second term and has never recovered. Two-thirds of Americans, and almost that many veterans who actually fought in the war, said it wasn't worth fighting and still say so today.

    So no, the majority of us don't want this.

    • kaycey2022  5 days ago

      What does it matter 49 or 51?

      More than 40% want this. You would condemn cultures around the world happily if significant percentage are like this. Why are you so special then?