56
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
56 points (83.3% liked)
Asklemmy
43760 readers
1179 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Working class, independent, American nationalist.
The government should be working for the people, not for corporations. Sadly both parties would rather continue shipping out manufacturing jobs while pretending a few chip factories are a major victory for the working class.
It's crazy how we spend billions on relief for people in poor countries, but when it comes to helping the American citizen we either "can't afford it" or are supposed to go on welfare, as if that's something desirable.
I'm a trans woman and the stuff that affects my life the most deal with are affording food, shelter, healthcare and bills. I'm going to guess that's the same for the majority of Americans.
The amount we spend in foreign aid is basically negligible (wars don’t count as aid).
By far, our biggest expenses are internal. The military-industrial complex and inefficient healthcare make almost all other spending a drop in the bucket.
I think the "billions on relief in poor countries while we can't afford helping Americans at home" bit is a false dichotomy. The money spent on other countries isn't to help their people, it's to curry favor with foreign governments and advance American empire.
Really, the people who are stealing our rightful wealth are not poor people in other countries (or "welfare queens" at home) but the rich and powerful who aren't paying their fair share.
It's not a dichotomy, it's just an observation of fact. We give corporations so many breaks and benefits, help feed billions across the globe, but can't seem to focus on giving people worthwhile jobs that they can thrive on. There's no reason it must be this way.
We clearly do not disagree on where the problem lies.
I just don't think framing the issue as "Us, the first-world middle class vs. Them, impoverished third-worlders" is a helpful one. We are both victims of Imperialism. Nationalism can be important for these third-world countries but I think it's counterproductive in America as it exists.
What percentage of the US annual budget is spent on foreign aid?