this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Unfortunately, these are two completely separate pools of money. The USA could stop all military aid to all countries across the globe tomorrow and the freed up money could not be redirected to the communities impacted by the hurricanes without an act of Congress which, thanks to Republicans, just said no to doing that.
Ok I get that they're different funds, different bills, whatever. I don't really care how the sausage of the federal budget gets made, just the results. Stafford Beer said "The purpose of a system is what it does." And right now the American system of government is to kill people in the Middle East. The same Congress said "meh, not right now" to disaster relief, and "hell yeah!" to genocide. I don't see a lot of daylight between the two parties on the issue of genocide.
I'm also inclined to agree with Eisenhower on this one:
To stay focused on your original question, this is why people think statements comparing disaster relief to genocide is a Republican talking point.
The conversation has shifted from who voted for or against providing federal assistance to how the US uses its military and the genocide being committed by Isreal. Without trying to take a side on either topic, this sort of misdirection is the purpose of such statements.
I was never talking about who voted for or against providing federal assistance
To keep this on topic:
You asked why people say that it is a "right wing taking point" when you say "it's fucked up that more money is going to Isntreal than to hurricane relief" and the answer is that you are using a topic Republicans don't want scrutinized as you counter point thus directing the conversation away from what Republicans are trying to avoid. You could have used health care, education, VA benefits, or something more ambiguous. Instead you use an active topic that could erode Republican support and steer the conversation away from a Republican sore spot and towards a Democrat sore spot.
That is why some people are calling it out as a "right wing taking point". I'm simply trying to answer your question.
"What can we do? The system we created and maintained only guarantees that we pay for war."
Generations of democrats have worked to bring us here. The century since the Russian Revolution could've been spent reorienting the economy away from supporting wars on behalf of private capital and instead towards elevating the lives of workers. Democrats chose to be part of the cold war instead. They're shooting misses at weather balloons and fabricating genocides in China. These are people that don't care if you live or die. They're not regretting that they can't do better emergency response. Grow up, nerd.