Kamala Harris says “I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.”
This means that if another country's military is capable of ending a person's life, the USA must find a way to one-up that somehow. Otherwise both fighting forces are equally lethal.
What does she have planned? Do they have a weapon that can destroy the eternal soul?
I can not understate the level of indoctrination that exists in all facets of the public works government work sector. There is a real chilling effect and group think mentality where the rules of the game exist for the game. Introspection is frowned upon, and deviation is punished. The higher up you are, the more effective the propaganda is until you reach a point where you write the policies.
At that point the propaganda is both a core belief and a tool you deploy in order to justify anything and everything. To say "war bad" or "what defines a terrorist" will have your career ripped from under you by an endless hoard of people going after the bread.
I cant emphasize enough that this is an extremely normal belief among so much of the gov dependent population. There is a real belief war is inevitable with zero consideration over what role the US plays in bringing on that war. Once an entity is labeled an enemy, you cannot use words or reason to understand why they're an enemy.
To the people this quote was meant for, it's a normal Tuesday. Weapons are an undeniable good. Being able to start and end a Holocaust in a days time is considered a virtue.
There is a real belief war is inevitable with zero consideration over what role the US plays in bringing on that war.
Wasn't it this same speech she said something about like "beating China in the competition for the 21st century"? Any alternative to complete economic and military domination of the entire world is unthinkable to these people.
The US in it's current configuration requires an enemy. An enemy is like food, without one it will starve. So much of what makes the country run requires war. It's a common talking point, the MIC, deeply entrenched into the political system.
Politically the US is incapable of pivoting it's defense industry towards non defense use. It theoretically could with a fearless political movement, shift defense research into energy, materials, etc but it won't because a large aspect of the industry is the veteran to contractor pipeline and the military attitude carries over. Everything is a mission, a fight, good guys, bad guys, allies, and enemies. It's the backbone of the industry, the GI bill for make-work.
In order to pivot that deep culture of make-work to civilian use cases, the book would need to be rewritten. The US would suddenly need to be okay with social uses for research, development, and manufacturing. This would mean the gov would be in direct competition with greater industry, which would be a massive contradiction for the political classes and their intermingling with business.
Currently, the only customer for the massive defense industry is the the military. They're the only ones allowed to buy the product, and their wallets are deep.
Tl;Dr they can't stop this train. The only way forward for them is war, and war requires an enemy. The train could be stopped, but it no longer has brakes of its own. The ensuing derailment would be catastrophic and politically untenable. To any politician, if they want to make any changes period, they need allies. Without allies they can't make any changes.
Even the best politicians must operate within their political system and need to make tradeoffs in order to prioritize their goals. Kamala must suck up to the military if she has any hope in implementing the most minor incremental changes.
I saw photos yesterday of a massacre in Iraq in 2005, where US marines killed several families including small children in houses that just happened to be nearby after an IED went off
It was one of the most horrific things to come out of the US occupation of Iraq, made global headlines, and let to the arrest and investigation of the marines responsible before General Mattis and Trump had them pardoned. It was disgusting.
It was significantly less horrific than things I’ve seen on nearly a daily fucking basis out of Israel. The most horrific war crimes the US committed that were so bad they actually sparked an investigation were less bad than the IOF’s standard operating procedure.
Every member, former or current, of the IDF needs to be imprisoned, investigated, and tried for crimes against humanity. I’d argue most, at the very least most who’ve been enlisted since Oct 7 2023, should be fucking hanged. Yes, that’s something like 70% of the adult Israeli population.
: “Hey kiddo, guess what you get to do? Die to steal oil! We thought about letting the wealth trickle down in the form of jobs, but I thought….nah! We have boomers happily working those pesky jobs for you well into their 80s, and AI takes care of the rest. Come on kiddo, it’ll be like those video games!”
for sure. pre-9/11 it was already a full court press for military recruitment in high school, and probably half the guys I knew did it because they didn't have the scores / grades for a scholarship and their parents were too broke to help.
back then it was all about getting free college and OK pay with out going to go get your dome rattled by an IED somewhere the thermostat hits 120°F. most I knew from high school got out before the Iraq invasion, said "that sucked" and set about going to school on a full ride, but one younger, late enlisted guy was in his last year when he got sent over. everybody prior to that was like stationed in places like Germany or San Diego and doing nonsense like checking boxes, handing out socks, or guarding a warehouse of toilet parts. the work was described as mind numbing, but they liked the places they got to visit when on leave.
he went over to iraq kinda dumb and cameback fully dumb but full of confidence and started carrying a handgun literally everywhere. didn't use the GI bill at all, and was pretty much the nail in the coffin for anybody I knew from high school believing the military opened doors anymore.
I've ben seeing more pro join the military propaganda lately, even at anime conventions. Guess the new Top Gun didn't work so they're getting more creative
i mean, we already have multiple generations of people playing COD which is funded and promoted by the us military, and that isnt gonna change anytime soon
On the one hand, those games are ridiculous imperialist military propaganda overseen by the DoD
On the other hand, a lot of players never touch the campaigns and the multiplayer from CoD4 to BO2 was really good, so it's impossible to tell if it's bad or not
As someone with a 'real degree' I want to fist fight everyone who says that. They're just telling on themselves that they've never read a book outside of assigned reading.
The one-handed "mobile infantry made me the man I am today!" guy will be some 45 year old who his nuts blown off in Iraq by a brave resistance fighter around 2005
What keeps me awake at night was wondering if he actually changed, or i just got first-hand experience that maybe i had projected my own beliefs on him all along? I didn't look super critically at his history when i was stumping for him. I grabbed on to the best hope i had and i probably got hoodwinked by my own beliefs of who bern was rather than who he really was...
That's the thing... young Bernie was great. Dude had the receipts. He just had to soften and try the "inside" game which we should know by now is a game we can't win.
Our military can already end all life on the planet if they want. Maybe she's gonna build an even more lethal doomsday device? Cobalt bomb? Or something that even cockroaches couldn't survive, so that life would have to re-evolve from worms?
The US military may as well be a cosmic horror like the Ideon - endlessly gaining power until it's cracking planets and completely destroying the universe, again
Was making a reference to Overlord: an overworked salaryman from near-future cyberpunk Japan wakes up in a fantasy world as his VRMMO player character (i.e., the skeleton in the pic), and alongside with the evil NPCs created by himself and his former guildmates (they were a guild dedicated to roleplaying evil grotesque monsters) proceed to take over the world using the power of fantasy violence. Because the MC and his NPCs are absurdly over-leveled compared to the fantasy world natives, the casualties are incredibly one-sided and genocidal.
The show's a bit above average compared with other isekai, as it balances out its shameless powerfantasy with some decent comedy of errors and quite some effort being put into the worldbuilding/power system. It has a fair amount of typical anime horniness though, though I think it's relatively tame compared to the lowest common denominator isekai slop.
Clearly the most lethal force is the one capable of destroying both the opposing force and itself. Kamala must be signaling an end to the MAD doctrine and will replace it with Unilaterally Mandated Annihilation: Double Belligerent Removal Obligatory
It's that scene from Borat where Borat gets a rodeo audience to cheer to the idea of their president bathing in the blood of children, except as declared election mandate.
Set up in November 1933 as a tool to promote the advantages of Nazism to the German people and internationally, it was also used to ease the process of the rearmament of Germany. Through its structure of organized events and promotion of propaganda, it was also intended to prevent dissident and anti-state behavior.
On November 27, 1933, Strength through Joy was announced by Robert Ley as a subset of the German Labour Front whose goal was to provide Germans with access to once-privileged leisure activities such as cruises and the ownership of motorcars.[5] The government feared that increasing wages would dampen the rearmament process and decided to raise living standards differently to influence the opinion of Nazism, and paid for the program by taking deductions from workers' wages.[6] By providing these luxuries, the government hoped that class divisions would be bridged leading to the building of a 'people's community,' and that a common national consciousness would end class conflict and enable all classes to work together for the greater benefit of the nation.
The address by ex-President Bill Clinton was a perfect example. “We’ve seen more than one election slip away from us when we thought it couldn’t happen, when people got distracted by phony issues or overconfident. This is a brutal, tough business,” he told the crowd, before concluding a few minutes later: “We need Kamala Harris, the president of joy, to lead us.”
As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. And I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families, and I will always honor and never disparage their service and their sacrifice.
Genuinely I watched this speech live and by the end I was ready to vote for Trump. It was the most terrifying, bone chilling speech I’ve heard in years.
IMO the military industrial complex is gonna do exactly what it's gonna do regardless of president. It's not like Trump wouldn't sign off on an increased military budget. It's just that when Tump tries to come off as threatening you get his slightly awkward "fire and fury" stuff that didn't go over so well.
The only things I think we're behind on are hypersonic missiles and recruitment, so maybe that's what she means. Then again China is catching up to us on aircraft and navy vessels, so maybe there's talk about expanding the Air Force/Navy to maintain our lead in those areas.
there was an interview with a dumbass American general where the interviewer asked the general what to tell the iraqi kids who would be scared of the sounds of bombs falling and helicopters at night and the General deadass said "Tell them that's the sound of freedom"
guy who's so insecure about the drug test observer seeing his penis that he takes three dick pills beforehand, his dick is so hard he can't push it very far from vertical and he has to catch a parabolic arc of pee into the sample cup
EDIT: sorry I thought this was the general megathread