from technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com to world@lemmy.world on 19 Dec 16:39
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/59919866
US President Donald Trump signed the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law Thursday, completing the passage of the largest military spending bill in US history—$901 billion, or over $1 trillion when combined with supplemental funding passed earlier this year.
The Senate voted 77-20 on Wednesday to pass the bill. The Democratic leadership, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, voted for the bill. They were joined by Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both of whom released a video last month calling on military personnel to disobey illegal orders—as Trump was sending the US military on a murder spree off the coast of Latin America.
Citing Trump’s statements about using troops to shoot protesters in America, Slotkin invoked the legacy of the Nuremberg tribunals, which convicted Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against peace. But when it came time to vote, this invocation was revealed to be completely meaningless. Slotkin voted to hand Trump the resources to pursue his military adventure against Venezuela…
#world
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The sooner every American realizes that there is NO ONE in the government with the desire and the power to help us, the better.
Edit: VOTE and be educated, but don’t expect anyone therein to be accountable and reponsible. Get ANGRY about that.
Well, more like 20 people out of 100, so not many.
Mm, I’d be willing to bet that there are some who really are America first. It just so happens that includes waging war and extracting resources from places too weak or otherwise unable to defend themselves.
The choice U.S. citizens are being given is clear. We can extract resources from you or we can extract resources from someone else. Resources will be extracted either way.
They’re doing both.
Correct, the difference is which will happen first. Given the option, the American people will choose the latter. They just need to be coerced into it first.
This is a dangerous narrative. Many people are not voting because this narrative the two sides are the same. They can do a lot in common but they are definitely not same. This year alone proves it.
If the political parties are scared a narrative is going to reduce turn out they should probably stop enforcing that narrative with their decision making. Neither party can vote against their constituents then claim they’re the good guys.
The whole point is that we know they are shitbags and money hungry whores, but they are undeniably better for your everyday life and wellbeing than Republicans, full stop.
Lesser of two evils turned into lesser of two genocides and soon it will be lesser of two fascists and that logic is exactly why were slow walking into it. Other countries look at the US like we’re insane for this type of shit. It doesn’t have to be this way, but if you keep voting for evil you’ll keep getting evil.
Oh and the democrats you insist are better just helped the republicans pass a bill that legally invalidates intersex people, and the republicans could not have passed it at all without the dems help. There’s literally no issue they won’t compromise on if it’s politically expedient. Nothing.
There’s a time and a place for everything refraining from voting on election day is not a good time or place. You want to help get other parties in motion? Now’s the time. Abstaining your vote doesn’t do shit but help the least popular policies come to fruition every single time.
I didn’t abstain from voting so you’re welcome. I like how you have no argument against helping slow walk fascism to the US other than being patronizing and assuming I didn’t vote. The least you could do is not parrot decades of American lesser evil propaganda that has been the dominant voting culture while the US has been regressing, maybe take a critical long term look at that.
Did you forget the thread you’re arguing on? This is about voting and not voting.
Get involved in other ways than this if you want real change, you being right isn’t going to accomplish that.
“Reinforcing the narrative” in this case is not letting the annual military budget lapse.
Yes I understand and would not discourage voting. Its currently the only way to have any influence at all. Whole system needs to be turned over for anything to meaningfully change; vote as much as possible and get thoroughly educated, just don’t expect politicians to do anything helpful when they’re already owned by money.
I simple don’t understand why anyone buys the sentiment that you are an expressing here. The unfortunate truth is that, in every substantive way, it is true that the two parties are in lock step. I am aware that Democrats will sometimes use rhetoric that implies that they have more enlightened positions on some issues. However, it’s not credible when they consistently cave, pre-compromise, and shift rightward at nearly every opportunity. I’ve been observing the party, from within and without for 40 years. I’ve come to the conclusion that as an organization, the party as currently organized, has NOT A SINGLE principled stand on any policies whatsoever. Let me be explicit: there is no issue on which Democrats organizationally are not willing to compromise or flip on including: abortion, civil rights, democracy, and so on. They are a loose conglomerate of self-interested corporate sell outs, period. Are there a few individual exceptions, of course. But as a collective, the party is trash, and they are the reason that fascism has been allowed to progress in this country for decades.
What is needed is a wholesale reconstruction of that party. Replace nearly everyone in power and completely reject corporate funding. BTW, accomplishing that involves two things: 1.) voting, and 2.) rejecting the voices that demand that we lower our standards for short term political expediency.
Yea it seems like a lot people don’t want to face the fact that US politics are a theatre drama. And of course they also presume that you’re implying that means one shouldn’t vote, indeed a dangeous (and irritating) assumption. I believe one should vote based on a politicians actions and character, and try to notice when they’re bought and performing. The preponderance of evidence that anyone with any power is bought out is defeaning.
A 2014 Princeton study found that the US is not a democracy, and I remember thinking back then that it was already fairly obvious.
Bills like this come through when Republicans have power. It’s been more often than not lately because the DNC have had 48 or less Senators for over a decade.
They still do good things sometimes, they generally do fewer and less bad things. Definitely need to be entirely reformed, but practically that’s a future us problem.
Priority one is dismantling the other party. Blue collar Americans love socialism when you don’t call it that. Start a “right wing” party that’s just leftism wrapped up in Jesus and 'Murica. Split the right, let the neo-libs stabilize things for a couple cycles while the 'Murica party siphons the working class from Republicans. Then, after the Republican party is dead, hard shift on the left from Democrat to 'Murica, massive mandate, start passing sweeping socialist reform.
Passing electoral reform at the state level so more then two political parties can exist without a spoiler effect.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now) Videos on alternative electoral systems STAR voting Alternative vote Ranked Choice voting Range Voting Single Transferable Vote Mixed Member Proportional representation
That would be included prominently in the “sweeping socialist reform”. Absolutely a high priority, but negligible odds of success under the current composition.
Priority one is achieving a Congress that will pass RCV.
Right, not the same. One tells you they hate you, the other tells you they love you but fuck you over anyway and let the first get all the blame.
I think the main point is “the desire and the power”. There are a few with desire, but without numbers they don’t have the power. The more people with desire we can get into seats, the more power they’ll have, collectively, to do something.
The dangerous narrative is that Democrats are different. The number of people killed under the Democrats is staggering. Stop propagating this narrative that somehow voting for Democrats is better.
I think we should redesign the system so candidates are nominated, and anyone who has ever expressed a desire to hold office is instantly disqualified.
Basically make it more like jury duty, except make it pay very well.
We have the tech right now to do direct democracy. We dont need to hope some representitive surfaces our needs someday. Politicians and lobbyists need to be job categories that get eliminated due to tech improvements. Then we wont need political parties either and we can end them entirely. No more dems, no more repubs.
Isn’t this the site with the socialist AI garbage?
Look at OPs history. It’s full of this crap.
It's literally the propaganda arm of a fringe political party. Like, the party runs it. Not just aligns with it to make money like Fox and conservatives.
All of their articles are opinion pieces. But they are open to discussion with other viewpoints, so long as those viewpoints align closely with their own:
So you dismiss the content just because you dislike the source?
How is that any different from what the guys in your camp do?
I do personally dislike the wsws but there is nothing arguable about the headline here, it is publicly accessible information. I will question western sources when they make unsupported claims about geopoltical adversaries, as much as I’ll question state propaganda from another country when doing the same (such as Russia claiming genocide of Russians in Eastern Ukraine for example).
Your claim was, “So you dismiss the content just because you dislike the source?”, and my retort was that people in your camp, that is the ml instance and the other instances from the triad, also do the same because they disregard UN or Reuters sourced info on the basis of sumply being bourgeois.
If you personally don’t do that, then the argument doesn5apply to you and you can ignore it
Hey, aren’t you the same person complaining about red herring on another comment thread? Instead of following your logic of answering with the Wikipedia list of logical fallacies, I’ll answer to your point:
Tankies like me don’t generally refuse all information coming from UN or Reuters on the basis of being bourgeois. If Reuters reports on domestic events in western nations with evidence, that’s generally trustworthy. When it comes to geopolitical topics, the thing changes from “journalistic reporting of easily provable stuff” to “geopolitically charged claims without serious journalistic work”, and that’s when tankies like me are careful of western sources.
If you believe otherwise, you can bring me some examples instead of generally referring to something tankies do that I don’t think we do
I think you should go look at that link again.
Right, so only taking the points that they agree with you on.
Here’s one:
lemmy.world/comment/20878099
Here’s another doing this when asked to cite the UN or Reuters as a neutral source:
lemmy.world/comment/19851916
The Wikipedia list of logical fallacies was a meme exaggeration. It’s a trope that edgy redditors will answer to serious comments by discarding their content according to one of the fallacies in the Wikipedia list. But sure, I’ll answer to you accordingly: fallacy fallacy. Even if my comment were a fallacy (which I disagree), that’s irrelevant because a logical fallacy can still be true. How about you answer to the content of the comment then, and not to a logical structure.
Regarding the other stuff about western sources and tankies, my claim was this:
And you bring me one link about Venezuela and one link about DPRK, the former including links to western “Freedom Burger Eagle association” type organizations, not even to journalistic or UN claims. This seems to align very well with what I claimed.
A logical fallacy can be true yes but when it’s things like red herrings and ignoratio elenchis that don’t contribute to the discussion, they don’t need to be brought up. If you actually looked at that link that I provided instead of just outright dismissing it because it’s ‘edgy’ or what not, you’d see examples there of how certain arguments don’t contribute to the discussion, only muddying conversation.
Right, so you’re you’re doing the very thing you were questioning that commenter of doing: Disregarding the source instead of the content.
Fwiw, I’m not saying it’s wrong to do that, I’m only showing you the contradiction in your claims.
I also dismiss people when I don’t like their tone
A “socialist” using a fascist, capitalist tool. Fuck outta here tankie.
You may be surprised that the “tankies” over at lemmygrad and hexbear have been having a field day mocking the “socialist AI” for the past days, here’s an example post. The majority of “tankies” in the so-called “tankie triad” are Marxist-Leninists and not Trotskyists, the latter being the ideology best characterizing WSWS (org behind the “socialist AI”) to the best of my knowledge. So yeah, you’re late to the party of criticising this organization, the “tankies” that you so hate have got you covered on that front.
However, “tankies” aren’t afraid of sources by their country of origin or ideology because we can do good analysis of the source and of the material in question, and if they bring something important to the table we can pick it up and agree with them.
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/6d58a287-4543-4db6-aa43-dae7a6565580.png">
🤮
Choose your political flavor (must choose one or self righteous assholes online will blame society’s problems on you for not voting instead of the neoliberal billionaires who control the politicians)
Republican: 🇺🇸✝️💣 Democrat: 🏳️🌈💅💣
The world socialist website parrots Chinese Communist Party propaganda only, they even support China’s aggression against Taiwan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, among other things. This is not a reliable media source.
I think the title reveals their bias and honestly they are not wrong.
You then certainly agree that essentially all western media, given its support of Israel’s genocide, is not reliable and shouldn’t be listened to? Or those standards are only to be applied to the evil leftists?
How about we meet in the middle: lets not listen to the nytimes about the middle east or trans people and not listen to Chinese government media about the US?
I am yet to encounter a link to Chinese state media in lemmy.world.
I think given the context of this conversation you should have sufficient information to correctly interpret what I wrote.
Calling the CCP leftists is amusing. They’re totalitarian state capitalists, Han nationalists and imperialists.
China doesn’t have colonies and hasn’t waged a war in 40 years, hilarious that you’d call them imperialistic likely coming from a western nation.
Han nationalists is also very funny, I’m from Spain, a country where the police recently literally went and violently repressed a vote for independence from Catalonian people in a clear violation of the right to self determination. But sure, multiethnic China is totally Han nationalists. How many non-Han Chinese living in China have translated this opinion to you?
Keep yapping western anti-China propaganda, useful CIA tool.
Yes.
mediabiasfactcheck.com/world-socialist-web-site/
This site says it’s a mostly factual American leftist outlet with zero failed fact checks in the past five years. Even highly factual outlets like Reuters have distributed state propaganda.
This is a propaganda site as they intentionally seek information supporting propaganda and information supporting propaganda only. They have a strong article selection bias, and they support China’s aggression against Taiwan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, among other things. We must clearly say that this is not a reliable source.
WSWS is run but trots, you can say a lot about trots but being pro CPC is definitely not one of those things lmao
Regardless of the article source, here is the actual bill: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/…/1071
And who voted Yay and Nay: www.senate.gov/…/vote_119_1_00648.htm
While its good to know mine voted no, the end result still sucks.
So you think the DNC should have just let defence budget lapse until a better deal magically manifested?
So you think we shouldn’t try to rein in Trump starting another forever war?
The bill mentioned by the Chinese propaganda outlet above is the passing of the annual military budget. It increased by a very large amount this year because Republicans and fascists are running the show.
It has NOTHING to do with Trump starting another forever war, any more than not signing it has to do with welcoming a Chinese invasion across the pacific. It explicitly only has to do with how much the USA is spending on its military specifically for 2026.
Straight to the point, I think the main thing was giving soldiers a raise.
Even a government shutdown doesn’t prevent trump from starting another war. He can do literally anything he wants, clearly including war crimes, with the military he already has.
War crimes and also just plain old third degree murder. He used to joke about walking down park ave and shooting somebody in the face, well I guess he proved it correct when he blew up boats full on unarmed civilians.
True, first it was murder and then it was war crimes
OK…
Which would greatly benefit from increased defense spending. So it looks like, in fact, it has a lot to do with it.
FYI that user fights anyone that isn’t 110% pro democrat.
Yes, that would be the correct thing to do. The DOD isn’t going to go without money while legislators haggle over spending for the next fiscal year.
That is exactly what would happen. That’s how budgetary spending works. If congress doesn’t pass it, they don’t get the money.
Why not? Apparently that’s how MAGA thinks things should be handled. They should be happy to see Dems adopting the same strategy.
Why not? Because the world is at the precipice of WWIII due to the USA’s diplomacy going limp and heavy aggression from Russian and Chinese expansionism. Whatever tens of millions suffer because of Republican letting social safety nets falter, which is not mutually exclusive mind you, is nothing compared to the amount of suffering caused if hostilities broke into US backed nations and states across the pacific.
It’s one thing to say “we should spend less on military” or “the military should be able to pass audits”, but to say “defund the US military” is some clear Tankie propaganda shit of the highest order.
I’m not advocating for dismamtling the military, but I do think we should hamstring the MAGA traitors as much as possible. Only a small minority of Americans truly support these PedoCon Traitors, and we shouldn’t allow them to turn the entire world against us. Limiting their use of the military via budget and legislation and courts is the responsible thing to do for the future of our country.
Once America is back in the responsible hands of sane adults, we can talk about re-establishing a reasonable military budget.
These pedocon traitors are the majority in congress. They write the offers and we either have a military budget or we don’t. There is no middle ground we can claim.
That doesn’t mean they have to vote for it. They can refuse, and the MAGAs can pass it on their own. The Dems are under no obligation to support ANYTHING the MAGAs do.
For this entire administration, there shouldn’t be a single Dem vote for ANY MAGA legislation. Force them to win with MAGA votes only. I’m keeping track of DINO appeasers, and will be loudly calling them out for their disloyalty to their constituents, and supporting their primary opponents. One of them is my own guy, who is as weak as any DINO I’ve ever seen. He needs to go.
And if it means our military doesn’t have funding for the next year, they can blame the MAGA majority, who didn’t vote for it, not Dems, who are obligated to oppose ALL MAGA legislation.
They don’t have to vote for continuing to have a military budget, thats right, but they fucking should because thats unfortunately something we need as a result of eastern bloc aggression.
They’ve been using it to support Gaza Genocide, and to hold a hammer over Zelensky’s head, and to threaten American citizens, so they have too much.
Nobody is coming for us, and if they do start getting froggy, we can release enough dough to get through, but not enough for MAGA to start thinking they can fund a war of corruption.
When we have responsible people, and not toddlers, handling the guns, we’ll give them some bullets.
The majority of aid to israel is SELLING weapons to them, which does not require any budget because it very literally pays for itself.
Russia is moving west, China is moving east, deny the facts all you want.
I don’t even have to check, I know my Blue guy voted Yes. He might as well be MAGA.
Schumer is such a douche bag
Schmuck Schumer
Cuck Spooner.
Goddamnit I thought better of the astronaut.
A lot of politicians like Mark Kelly and Mark Warner have good views overall but are fairly militaristic.
Yeah I know, McCain was relatively ok until dementia made him pick Palin but still a total warhawk. It’s just fucking infuriating to have voted for both Sinema and him on a straight blue ballot and then see they’re all just in it to play the game, not create positive change.
Damn, I kinda missed when Democrats get back power, last tims I checked they held minority in all the branches
A bunch of them voted yes and helped this to pass.
Yes, they agreed to have a mitary this year just like every year before now, because there literally is not another option.
If they have no option but to vote yes that’s not really a vote, is it?
The military isn’t going to fall apart if they vote no. And if it did, frankly that would be a good thing.
No it would not fall apart, but it would be severely diminished in capabilities for that fiscal year, which is something we can’t allow when China is ramping up military capabilities and Russia is actively expanding westwards.
But god forbid we give people food, housing, or health care.
More war = less people = more food for the survivors. It’s simple maths {taps head }
But those aren’t fReEdOmS according to all the fragile egod snowflakes in under armor and grunt style tshirts
The genocide on Palestine has had a
singlepurpose, to prepare/desensitize the world for the genocide on Venezuela.Nah, it had the purpose of doing a genocide on Palestine. It desensitizing people to Venezuela is just a highly hoped for bonus, per those pushing it.
Eighty years of genocide and land theft of Palestinians would sure be a long game considering Trump probably only learned Venezuela exists a couple months ago
Shhhh these kids only heard about Palestine 2 years ago and anything that happened before that is irrelevant! I just came from a post where they were advocating for Palestine to have nukes to deter the USA. Your history has no power here!
I’m 38, I’m not a kid.
But I do have a fever right now.
Hey me too! And I remember caring deeply about Palestine when I was 18! Then I learned more about the conflict and watched for 20 years. Now I have nuance hbu?
There’s nuance in every conflict, nobody sane goes on the attack without reason. That’s what I believe.
True, multipurpose.
They can’t give that to Trump. How is Elon Musk going to become the world’s first multi-trillionaire?
If you pick the right currency, Musk is already the first multi-trillionaire!
Wtf… Those are human beings you are talking about.
The worst savages on this planet right now are MAGAs. They are the biggest threat to humanity, and must be purged from our government and our society. They have no place in our culture, any more than Nazis or KKK.
And what corrupt third world country do you live in?
Chile
Nice little racist over generalisation there bud. You really belive all the young innocent children in that country are an ‘infestation’? You strike me as unintelligent and corrupt.
You know which other group of people dehumanized their victims? Nazis.
Valid.
Low life groyper trash here folks; nothing to see here.
YOU are the entire problem with America. Every single MAGA, without exception, is a traitor, corrupt, racist, pedophile, misogynist, ignorant, and incompetent. That includes you.
I am brown. I cannot be racist according to your Twitter rules.
Well, I don’t support your convenient rationalization (MY Twitter rules? WTF? I’ve never used Twitter in my life), but even if it were true, it would still mean that you are a traitor, corrupt, pedophile, misogynist, ignorant, and incompetent. So, not much of an improvement, and BTW, nobody is buying the story that you aren’t racist, either.
Only a MAGA would pick out one thing out of a list of vile characterizations, and think that was a withering defense, LOL.
Only white people can be any of that. Us racial minorities are protected from it.
That statement alone is racist. You’re like most MAGAs - you aren’t intellectually capable of recognizing your own racism. At least a few realize it, although usually because they’re proud of it.
I am not racist, I am just xenophobic
🧐🦅🦅🍔🍔🔫🔫
Same thing.
The world under capitalism is so twisted that war is good for the economy. Let’s start using ecology as a measuring stick. That money thing is old and worn out and it shows us humans to be fools.
Well said. I hope this happens in my life time.
No one can eat money.
The rich will eat other humans without question if it meant getting fresh meat.
They came come take my meat from my cold dead hands.
Yeah. I said it, lol
war is good for business
peace is good for business
volatility/uncertainty is even better, for those who know how the casino actually operates
We live in a purposely unbalanced hell for profits.
Two wings same facist bird
see, this is why we say voting won’t solve your problems. don’t hate the messenger.
you could use rethinking instead of blaming russians or tankies or whatever.
God dude the lectures from liberals when I tell them I dont vote cause its not worth a damn and I have better things to do with my time.
Until heads literally roll, nothing will change.
all while asking themselves what to do. it would be hilarious if it weren’t tragic.
The progressive ones voted against this. Bernie Sanders, Elisabeth Warren, Ron Wyden and 17 others did vote against this. Voting has an effect. It does move the needle.
Voting is not enough on its own. You can do more. You should do more. Your have power over the government goes beyond the ballot box, but its best to use both.
and did it work? i mean when the literal nazis in power can outvote any resistance, it just means something has been very wrong for very long, and we shouldn’t waste our time.
…
voting takes one day. It doesn’t prevent you also doing direct action, or general strikes, or whatever more forceful actions may be needed. Its not an either or situation. Use all the tools available to you including your vote
it does, and i do. but let’s not pretend it is meaningful or legitimate at all.
Where at my USA citizens, who will run for their life’s if a war starts, if, if. Instead of de-throning Trump.
Just sit and watch…
Remember when he was impeached twice and nothing happened? The mechanisms through which to de-throne him do not exist. The system is broken.
But what about those checks and those balances?
They’re really going great, yeah?
Check^book^s and balance^sheet^s , you say? They’re looking great for the top 0.001%.
Why not, the US dollar is going the way of Venezuela anyway.
No, that’s just silly, of course Democrats would hold the line and vote against such measures!
Unless…
Too many of them in the Epstein files, too?
Well, so much for universal healthcare.
It is just a distraction from the epstein files /s
I guess both could be distractions, from each other. Splitting our attention. Keep us off balance.
Obscenely corrupt. These people shouldn’t be helping Trump on a single bill…even if he placates them with what amounts to a jobs program. Not a single vote until ICE is gone and he starts following the law…just for starters.
WHY DIDN’T THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY STOP THEM!!!¡???
What? The news calls out dems because it’s already safe to assume that the R’s are doing everything their dear leader demands as always. The dems betrayed their constituents again, that’s the only thing news worthy thing here.
no shit.
Well great - a customary /s would have left no doubt.
C’mon, this isn’t reddit.
No, but it IS still the internet, where nobody can hear your tone of voice or see your facial expressions. How do you suppose anyone is supposed to tell the difference between OP and someone saying the EXACT same thing, totally serious?
For me it was the upside-down exclamation mark that gave it away. And I’d rather see it as satire.
fuck you and your customary slash s
Congress has been passing this spending authorization bill every year since 1961.
Notably among House Democrats, it’s mostly the New Democrat Coalition (older, moderate, Clinton era 3rd way) voting for this & the Congressional Progressive Caucus (newer, liberal, progressive) voting against it. They’re a big tent party.
Senate Democrats were likewise split with 28 for & 18 against with the more progressive tending to vote against.
Slotkin will do whatever is best for Israel, every time, as will Schumer.
I’m starting to think that the republicans and democrats are just one party and, as George Costanza says, “They’re scattin’ and be-boppin’ all over us!”. They only have allegiance to themselves, not the citizenry.
Why am I suddenly reminded of that moment from Attack of the Clones when Chancellor Palpy was given unlimited war rights.
I live in NW Ohio and the Ohio Air National guard has been flying maneuvers daily for months. I have the disturbing thought in the back of my mind this is all a military buildup for when the orange nazi pulls the US out of NATO next year to “celebrate” the 250th bday of the nation and starts doing what Germany did with the outbreak of WW2
The Empire in Star Wars literally represents the US. The rebels represented the Vietnamese.
<img alt="" src="https://lemy.lol/pictrs/image/2a918030-4b3b-4b7e-a04f-fe0d0c3319d5.jpeg">
Both sides gotta get their share of the quatloos.
youtu.be/YD3RNouwvOU
A world war you say? Golly.
« Third time’s the charm!! »
We’re helping them be free but it’s actually for the oil and now a bunch of my friends are going to get killed and messed up.
Didn’t we already do this a few years ago?