Monday, January 2, 2017

Veterans get little help when they most need it. Veteran care is not profitable.



"I got blown up seven times, I would go see my medic, get bandaged, get percs (narcotics) and get on with it." Injured Afghanistan veteran.

US capitalism is not the only country that treats the working class youth it sends to fight its wars with disrespect. The only reason that it protects its soldiers at all is that if too many die, the resistance will grow. The likes of Kissinger or Rumsfeld and the unelected few that make the decisions behind the scenes, care no more for our youth than they do for the millions of lives their actions destroy. It is simply a tactical battlefield decision, a necessity of achieving their goals, that they bother to protect the troops at all.

I don't know if it comes across clearly in this video but it bothers me when people fall in to line with all the flag waving and patriotic singing and such then see how the very people the ruling class claims are American heroes and all that are basically dumped when they need help the most. I do feel that people do it in many cases because they don't want to face the fact that the working class is being conned, our young people are being lied to, or that they are basically being denied opportunities that should exist for all in society in order to direct them in to the trenches, ensuring that someone, anyone but their kids, fight to defend capitalism and profits.

If they were to admit the truth to themselves they'd have to do something about it, face being called unpatriotic or un-American. But if we don't reject this false view of the military and the idea that the US has hundreds of military installations abroad is involved in regional wars and the bombing of seven or more countries not to defend these shores or our, (workers) way of life, but the plunder and subsequent profits that plunder brings to a small minority of  American families.

It's sort of insulting to listen to their commentators, the mouthpieces of US capitalism in the media talk of veterans in glowing terms yet except for rare occasions, say nothing about how they are treated in society. It's not new. About a third of all homeless people were Vietnam veterans at one time. And what was that war about? Why did the US military slaughter some 3 or 4 million Vietnamese and pour dioxin on their food? They never threatened us.

There is a difference between a hedge fund managers America, Donald Trump's America, or to be exact, the  America of the capitalist class, the 1% as we have called them of late, and working and middle class people. It's as if we are in different worlds and we are. We have more in common with workers in other countries which is why we should be working to build unity with them rather than the few thousand billionaires that call themselves American.

The US ruling class like all of them, will work with any monster that shares the loot, helps fill their coffers and maintains the system of capitalism and the filth that comes with it. Hell, they've installed most of them. Putin is an enemy of workers, so are the Mullah's so is the Saudi's and other more extreme regimes, but it's OK, there is loyalty among thieves----to a point.

We have many national disasters. The prison industrial complex is one of them. The poverty, destruction of cities and communities is another. The lack of fresh water in Flint which is a city that is surrounded by fresh water is another. And so is the shameful and tragic treatment of veterans, working class youth who, if they had other opportunities, would take them. Unemployment is always good for war.

Workers don't need to be bribed in order to defend our homes, livelihoods and communities. We shouldn't have to fight in predatory wars for US capitalism on behalf of Wall Street where we are forced to kill workers in other countries in order to get an education assuming we survive it. For some, the unfortunate thing is they do survive, when before they would have died.  But they survive as broken men and women and they find that the money is just not there for them then.

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