Our soldiers should be factored into the cost of wars just like the machines of war, like bullets, missiles, tanks, airplanes, ships, guns—large and small, clothes and all the high tech equipment. All of which corporations get very rich from and all these things are replaceable for a cost. But, most all the equipment is useless unless you have a human soldier to use the equipment.
So why is it everyone gets rich, including the politicians and lobbyists and the soldiers are left holding the bag, begging for jobs when they are discharged or looking for mental or physical medical help, and a lot of times having to turn to charity when homeless.
The costs to care for our veterans should be paid up front by the war racketeers and put into a trust for when the soldiers come home from the corporate-sponsored wars from whom we buy the machines of death and destruction. This concept of banking for the future could be administered like union pensions.
We spend billions on the countries we invade for oil and even spend billions on countries that we are just trying to buy control or friendship, like Israel. This money should be spent on our people in the form of healthcare, education, housing, job creation, food, among others, and this is not just our problem. This is a worldwide problem. The war profiteers should be the ones paying for the damage they inflict on the toilers of the world.
Veterans should not having to depend on cupcake sales or begging in the streets to finish out their war-torn bodies, which can be mentally and physically damaged. Setting aside this money for veterans would be considered a cost of doing business, which the corporate-loving- GOP-backed war hawks should understand. If the money people don’t understand this concept, the toilers will wise up and there just won’t be humans to operate their war equipment—then what? Peace?
If you don’t believe the GOP are war loving mongers, consider this: Jeb Bush has surrounded himself with the same policy advisors his father and brother had: Paul Wolfowitz, Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, James Baker, George Schultz, Poster Goss, John Negroponte, Stephen Hadley, Michael Mukasey, Meghan O’Sullivan, Otto Reich, John Hannah, Kristen Silverberg, Paula Dobriansky, Roger Noriega, Kenneth Juster, Robert Natter, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Pierra Prosper, and who are the ones pushing to bomb Iran or confronting Russia—Republican war profiteers.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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