They give millions to our most powerful (and corrupt) politicians with no regard for party lines or anything else.
If you back Israel without question, line up and get your money
If you ever dont, they'll throw an insane amount of money to primary and general opponents.
Our system has been broken for a long time by "donations" we might not be able to to fix, but bare minimum we need to acknowledge it needs fixed.
I think it's fair to point out the donation patterns of various superpacs, but we should probably also acknowledge that even independent of campaign finance the US stands to gain substantial benefit of maintaining military superiority in the ME.
Couching your understanding entirely inside finance rhetoric falls dangerously close to a conspiracy theory and should be cautioned.
Yeah, but your line of thinking relies on politicians caring more about the country overall than themselves...
They care about defense spending, because they also get "donations" from weapons manufactures.
By no means did I mean they're only taking money from Israel, just that Israel's money comes with a single string:
Support Israel no matter what
Obviously they get money from more people
Like, did you see the name at number 2 between the Dem candidate for 2016 and the Dem candidate for 2020/2024?
It's the guy (also a dem) that had gold bars lining the suits in his closest.
They're taking the money, because they'll take money for almost anything.
That's not a conspiracy, corrupt politicians tend to care about money over everything else
In my experience as an American, "fuck you pay me" is our only practiced and sacred value, and all our other supposed values are just empty feel good platitudes that allow us to play pretend our culture doesn't revolve around greed and greed worship.
Most Congresspeople got into politics explicitly to be bought, and working your way up in local/state elections is a process both major parties use to measure your ability to both be amenable to and effective at funneling that sweet, sweet bribe money into the party.
That's why the few that don't take Superpac money are usually spoiler candidates with economic policy positions both parties loathe, as yes, the economics of political bribery, especially since Reagan converted his former opposition that used to get bribed by unions to rake the bigger corporate bribe checks as Republicans always did creating today's neoliberals, greatly exceed any other force in American politics.
There's nothing ideological about petrochemical subsidies, for example, that industry can and does just write "donation" checks to our elected leaders, and their bribes trump our ballots every time.
I've no hope of this changing, and have accepted this greed rot is going to be our end sooner rather than later, and that greed is creating a swath of vectors, Climate change induced famines/droughts, AI, fascism rising to defend the mass ignorance required to support such thoughtless corporate greed in the face of all evidence, etc to do just that.
but bare minimum we need to acknowledge it needs fixed.
I will never acknowledge the validity of that weird Pittsburg-ism where they omit the "to be"!
I thought it was a British thing.
I swear people give the south shit for the wrong reasons. Yes it’s racist, and sexist, and homophobic, and transphobic, and corrupt as hell, and WAY too serious about their imaginary friends, and I will happily admit all of those terrible flaws about my homeland and bear the shame of my ancestors for creating that world, but yinzers are the ones that talk weird and make up dumb words. At least y’all makes linguistic sense
One of the problems is that yellow there isn't a single guy. There's a sunset that is actually just blue guy with a different name for sky-daddy.
The Israeli government is doing what Hamas wants the power to do. I wish fundamentalists of all types would just fuck off.
No, don't worry, I've been assured that Hamas really are left-wing freedom fighters who just want to live in peace.
No, don’t worry, I’ve been assured that Hamas really are left-wing freedom fighters who just want to live in peace.
Interestingly, from both sides that;s the ONE idea I've never heard suggested by anyone.
"If we don't do it to them they'll do it to us"
*apartheid
thanks, fixed it
Okay, but what IS the yellow option? What does a "Free Palestine" look like if not Apartheid?
Please do recognize that, for whatever reason, valid or not, many these people want to kill each other. And it's not easy to identify which.
I'm just spitballing but secular democracies seem to work a bit better
Okay. Good luck making them both secular. We can't even make the US secular.
I’m just spitballing but secular democracies seem to work a bit better
Cool. What's the over-under on Hamas accepting a secular democracy?
In case you ever wondered why those two positions are our only options:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
They've bought out both parties long ago.
They give millions to our most powerful (and corrupt) politicians with no regard for party lines or anything else.
If you back Israel without question, line up and get your money
If you ever dont, they'll throw an insane amount of money to primary and general opponents.
Our system has been broken for a long time by "donations" we might not be able to to fix, but bare minimum we need to acknowledge it needs fixed.
I think it's fair to point out the donation patterns of various superpacs, but we should probably also acknowledge that even independent of campaign finance the US stands to gain substantial benefit of maintaining military superiority in the ME.
Couching your understanding entirely inside finance rhetoric falls dangerously close to a conspiracy theory and should be cautioned.
Yeah, but your line of thinking relies on politicians caring more about the country overall than themselves...
They care about defense spending, because they also get "donations" from weapons manufactures.
By no means did I mean they're only taking money from Israel, just that Israel's money comes with a single string:
Obviously they get money from more people
Like, did you see the name at number 2 between the Dem candidate for 2016 and the Dem candidate for 2020/2024?
It's the guy (also a dem) that had gold bars lining the suits in his closest.
They're taking the money, because they'll take money for almost anything.
That's not a conspiracy, corrupt politicians tend to care about money over everything else
In my experience as an American, "fuck you pay me" is our only practiced and sacred value, and all our other supposed values are just empty feel good platitudes that allow us to play pretend our culture doesn't revolve around greed and greed worship.
Most Congresspeople got into politics explicitly to be bought, and working your way up in local/state elections is a process both major parties use to measure your ability to both be amenable to and effective at funneling that sweet, sweet bribe money into the party.
That's why the few that don't take Superpac money are usually spoiler candidates with economic policy positions both parties loathe, as yes, the economics of political bribery, especially since Reagan converted his former opposition that used to get bribed by unions to rake the bigger corporate bribe checks as Republicans always did creating today's neoliberals, greatly exceed any other force in American politics.
There's nothing ideological about petrochemical subsidies, for example, that industry can and does just write "donation" checks to our elected leaders, and their bribes trump our ballots every time.
I've no hope of this changing, and have accepted this greed rot is going to be our end sooner rather than later, and that greed is creating a swath of vectors, Climate change induced famines/droughts, AI, fascism rising to defend the mass ignorance required to support such thoughtless corporate greed in the face of all evidence, etc to do just that.
I will never acknowledge the validity of that weird Pittsburg-ism where they omit the "to be"!
I thought it was a British thing.
I swear people give the south shit for the wrong reasons. Yes it’s racist, and sexist, and homophobic, and transphobic, and corrupt as hell, and WAY too serious about their imaginary friends, and I will happily admit all of those terrible flaws about my homeland and bear the shame of my ancestors for creating that world, but yinzers are the ones that talk weird and make up dumb words. At least y’all makes linguistic sense