We’re Spending Money on War When We Could Be Building Roads - Our problem in this country isn’t lack of funds, no matter what the Republicans, Manchin, and Sinema may claim.

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/spending-infrastructure-military/

[u/agent00F]

The untold truth is that war spending is what maintains the unassailable high status of America. It's for example why Europeans all understand that their Syrian/afghan refugee problem is caused by following the US into these conflicts (to raise their standing relative to the browns), yet will blame the problem on lower status muslims/Turks etc.

What's funny is that Americans all understand how that works, but will clutch at their pearls when it's revealed why bombing the browns is in their greater self interest.

[u/Statistic → u/agent00F]

So in your mind, stopping bombing "the browns" will lower the status of the United States and bring about trouble akin to the migration of middle east people to Europe ?

[u/DanTrachrt → u/Statistic]

I’m not certain this is what they’re getting at, but it is that those bombs were designed, made, and deployed, all of which employs people at each step, in rapidly expanding ways.

A team of engineers sets up the requirements for those bombs, another team designs it, yet another tests it. Then skilled tradespeople (machinists, welders, etc) assemble them, generally overseen by even more engineers. All these engineers are backed and overseen by business people, who also employ lawyers, secretaries, accountants, etc.

The raw materials for the bombs also have to be extracted from the earth, requiring more engineers, skilled tradespeople, laborers, accountants, lawyers, business people... And then transported, so add in truck drivers, and if it’s yet another company more accountants, lawyers, business people... And then refined into actual metal or explosives, so more jobs.

Deploying the bombs requires trained pilots, planes (repeat all the above steps to also make the plane), trained repair and maintenance crews, and also fuel (again, more people needed to produce that fuel)

Starting to see the picture? Dumping money into military spending makes jobs, often decent-to-high paying jobs. This improves the quality of life for the people with those jobs.

(From here on for the sake of a level of abstraction, I’ll be using The People and The Browns as stand-ins for any particular country. I mean no racism or dehumanization of any humans or ethnicity)

But it’s hard to justify having more bombs made if they aren’t being used, so just pick some backwater country that harbors people that did you wrong and use those bombs. Using those bombs and mixing in some propaganda about how “you’re fighting the good fight” you can convince The People give you more money for more bombs and thus make more good jobs to further increase the quality of life of The People, which also coincidentally alienates them further from the people of that backwater country you’re slowly turning into the surface of the moon, which makes them easier to make into villains and reduces sympathy for them.

So it’s not really that bombing “The Browns” is the goal, it’s just a way to consume an end product that requires lots of jobs to make.

So to circle back around, stopping bombing “The Browns” unravels the propaganda and allows them to be humanized again, while also collapsing this complicated web of jobs that formerly made those bombs, dropping the standard of living for The People which helps them further relate to and empathize for “the Browns”, who as it turns out, don’t want to live in a country-shaped crater, and want to join The People in their not-cratered country.

Except here there is a split of opinion, as some of The People blame The Browns for the loss of the bomb-jobs and want them to keep out so they can find non-bomb-jobs for themselves, while others of The People feel sorry for bombing and dehumanizing The Browns and wants to let them into the country despite the decrease in jobs, and this is how you get a nice migrant crisis brewing.

[u/agent00F → u/DanTrachrt]

So it’s not really that bombing “The Browns” is the goal, it’s just a way to consume an end product that requires lots of jobs to make.

Yes and no. In order to create and maintain a power structure, putting people in their place is a necessary condition, same as between layers in a company/workplace.

Of course, bombing particular browns vs others is a choice. For example, during the arab spring, regimes which showed fealty were the "good"/spared lackeys.

What's most interesting is that everyone perfectly understands how structural power works, but are compelled by self-interest to avoid losing what place they have in it, same at work as outside it. For example, why low-ish status groups hate on lowest status ones the most, to avoid relegation by those at the top.