1y ago

This sign says it all.

228 comments

Accurate except for the “instead” part. Road maintenance comes from local taxes, whereas military aid comes from federal taxes.
- Sorry about all the broken veterans with TBIs. We could have invested in better healthcare infrastructure, TBI treatment research even better armor and helmets for our troopers dealing routinely with IEDs. But instead we got experimental tanks with active camo, a shitty plane which we're phasing out and aid to Israel to perpetuate their ancient religious genocide program.
  It's just that US soldiers are poor and expendible and people with money tell us who and what is important.
- And there are literal laws of nature that would prevent that from ever changing.
  
  I mean, potholes in my area get fixed pretty quickly, because the local government takes its job relatively seriously.
- Well if you really want to get technical about it.... No programs or spending are really funded by taxes anyway, the government just says "OK" and the numbers in the bank accounts of the companies implementing said program go up. Taxes funding things is just a myth. Taxes just delete money. So technically, nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void.
  Edit: People seem to be down voting because they think this is tinfoil hat BS or something. It's not. Look up modern monetary theory. Governments with fiat currency don't need to collect money to pay for things. They just invent and issue more currency. See this video: https://youtu.be/75udjh6hkOs?si=dVpp9V5f96kLDV4-&t=1628
  
  the wikipedia page says:
  MMT is controversial, and is actively debated with dialogues about its theoretical integrity, the implications of the policy recommendations of its proponents, and the extent to which it is actually divergent from orthodox macroeconomics. MMT is opposed to the mainstream understanding of macroeconomic theory and has been criticized heavily by many mainstream economists.
  i don’t think your comment properly highlights how controversial MMT is. i’m not an economist, but i don’t think it’s fair to use language like “taxes funding things is a myth” and “technically nothing is funded by taxes and taxes are just a money void”, when those claims rely on such a controversial theory.
  
  I mean this is a cute clever thing that sounds smart that isn’t.
  The government pays for things. The government funds that through monetary policy that includes printing money, as well as raising money via taxes. Whether the government deletes a dollar you give them and prints another dollar vs transferring the dollar you gave them into their spending budget is super irrelevant.
  It’s functionally the same and either way, your tax dollar, whether “deleted” and replaced or transferred is still your proportional allocation of funding.
  This is real “I am very smart” vibes.
  
  That has real sovcit vibes.

It’d be way more effective if the road pictured wasn’t absolutely perfect and pothole free
- For the meme, maybe, but IRL maybe the road is no as nice as that one section.
- This isn’t a problem if your thought process is slightly more sophisticated than an 8 year old’s.
  
  Someone can’t take a joke

Please, not fixing potholes have been around longer than the current Palestinian/Israeli and also a completely stupid reduction of the complexity of this whole fucked up situation.
- There's nothing complex about it. Israel imprisons an entire people and every time the UN tries to do something about it the US vetoes it.
  The "it's complex" excuse is used to have people look the other way by turning it into a hopeless situation.
  
  If there were some psychopaths that were insanely dedicated to killing you wouldn't you want there to be a fence between you and them? It's indeed not all that complex. Israel built a fence as a barrier between them and the psychopaths Palestinians elected to be their government. Seemed a better option than sending in the IDF to attempt a regime change. But apparently the fence wasn't effective, so not many options left other than regime change now.
  Hamas has always been the problem. How would you protect people from these psychopaths?
- not fixing potholes have been around longer
  They haven't been fixing potholes since 1949? Those potholes must be huge.
  
  Yup, longer than the US has been sending aid to Israel, which actually started in the 1970s. Sorry for introducing facts into your ragefest.
  
  Try thousands of years bc. This didn't "start" in 1949.
- Yeah, but the money that should be fixing potholes, and paying teachers, and providing healthcare has been going to war for as long as the USA has been around.
  
  TBH, The US pays more for healthcare than defense. Hell social security is the number 1 expense.

Love the false equivalence. Your city taxes can't fix the potholes because your federal taxes pay for a military.
- Those federal taxes cannot be allocated to state funds which cannot then be allocated to city funds to maintain roads?
  
  No because they must be spent to kill Palestinian children. Get your Merican priorities straight.
- You're not wrong, but original point could still be right, depending in the road. There are many federal highways and interstates, where this equivalence makes sense. However most other roads are state, county or city owned.
- Federal tax funds the maintenance of the Interstate Highways.
  
  Where do you see an interstate highway in the pic?
  
  and the interstate highways aren't that bad in terms of shape tho?

We send $5,000,000,000 in outright charity to Israel, not including what our legislators are about to fork over as soon as they get their stock portfolios situated in the best ways to profit from it.
That's $100,000,000 per state that could be used to fix potholes or help Americans in other ways, but we're silly geese who 100% support neglecting our own people in favor of war, so we're getting what we voted for.
- It’s been a closer to 3B for a while. Against a budget of $1.7T. It’s not even a rounding error.
  
  It's always cute how warmongers pretend that those billions wouldn't make a huge difference for struggling Americans.
- Exactly. Israel already received tremendous amount of money way before the conflict. And yet, US Congress voted to allow more military aid package to Israel. The money could have gone to those who need them more, both to domestic and to Ukraine who are still fighting the Russians.
  
  Israel already received tremendous amount of money way before the conflict.
  The conflict has been ongoing since 1949.
- US sends money to Palestine, too. So does much of Europe.

Isn't this a photoshop? Boring Dystopia is a lot more poignant when the content it shows has some reality to it.
While the point the image is trying to make does have quite a bit of reality behind it, the shopping is to its detriment.

All children in Gaza are terriosts! Or potential terriosts! Isreal NEEDS to bomb ambulances, hospitals and water wells because that is where all the terriosts are! ya see?Any amount of infrastructure supports terriosism! Bombing is a nessecity!
It's outright ghoulish.
- "Anyone who runs is Viet Cong. Anyone who stands still is well disciplined Viet Cong."
  
  How can you shoot women and children?!?!
  Easy, you just don't lead them as much
- Well, it‘s actually true that Hamas uses civil infrastructure and civilians as shields, you can’t deny that. Of course that doesn‘t mean that Israel can just bomb everything.
  
  Somebody should tell Israel
  
  in an area where the population density is 5,300 people/km2 "human shields" is a quite weak argument. It is practically impossible to seperate civillian and military infrastructure in such densely populated areas.
  For comparision the Netherlands has about 500 people/km2 and it is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe.
  
  it‘s actually true that Hamas uses civil infrastructure and civilians as shields
  Riiight... there's a Hamas "terrorist" hiding behind every Palestinian child... and if you can't see them, it just proves how sneaky they are, amirite?
- Who said this?
  
  its a straw man, but only just, people more or less say this through implications when you hear "What else do you expect Israel to do"
  
  Israel's actions did
  
  The dude in my garden who scares away birds does.
  
  a straw man
  
  Whichever Hasbara the wheel lands on usually. Some are better than others though.
- Said no one. Ever. Except you.

Just put the babies in the potholes.
- Baby bones don't have a high enough density and material integrity for that to be an appropriate solution.
  
  You're not using enough. You've gotta re-pack the hole once compacted a bit.
  
  What if we reinforce them with rebar?
- Mr. Swift over here...

Sweet Photoshop champ.

The u.s destroyed half my country, killed tons of my people, bought up the wreckage and now owns us. But none of you gave a shit, cause the news didn't tell you to care
- Yeah that doesn't really narrow it down.
- You poor soul, you must be a citizen of a nation on planet earth.
- And what country is that?
  
  According to his comment history, the US.
- That's true for a lot of the states, let alone other extant sovereign nations.
- How are we supposed to know if the news doesn't tell us?
- What country
- Tupac cares if don't nobody else care
- True and also because people today lack empathy for what the real horrors of war actually put people through. I do give a shit -but it's like tossing a turd into the ocean of hate and thinking it will somehow sparkle. I hate war and the horrible inhumanity of war, but when I say that people accuse of me being on a "high horse of moral superiority." If it's superior to dislike war - I'm all too happy to agree with them.
- This is 100% how it works for most of the people here in America.
  It's why they're rooting for another hundred billion of our tax dollars to be sent to other country's wars even though they're living with a 30-50% cost of living increase under Biden, who has no intention of sending us our own money in the form of aid.
- Sorry to hear you did not get the option to become a vassal state and a US military base like so many others. It did give us a few good years at the cost of corrupting our societies and souls.
  Big daddy if you're watching I'm only joking, I love you with all my heart and bow at your magnificence!
- Nah, they didn't care because it didn't give them a chance to be Anti Semitic. All of these from the river to the sea chants are explicitly calling for a fucking genocide and people are proudly lining up to scream it.
  Wild times we live in. There are significant human loses happening in Yemen, China, and a host of places right now but this group of terrorists in Gaza with their supporters in Iran have figured out the tik tok algorithm a whole lot better the poor people of Yemen or the Uyghurs ever did so those people are simply forgotten.

Well gotta spend money to make money I guess

This is literally true; heads are comfy in pits of sand.

What does this abstraction contribute to the discourse? Does it rile up support for fixing potholes? Does it rile up support for Palestine?
My feeling is it obfuscates the issues and makes progress seem impossible.
- It draws attention to the fact that we are paying money to shoot missiles at innocent Palestinian children.
  
  Ok, but is this the first time? For as long as I've been alive there has been pot holes and there has been discontent in the middle east. So if anyone was wondering, yes, I know america has a failing infrastructure and is waging war across the world. In fact, I believe this is common knowledge.
- Weird take.
  
  What's so weird? Watch last week tonight every week. The problems are known. It's the solution that we have to tell people about.
- Awe, look at you using all of this weeks vocabulary words in a sentence. A++

Ain't that the truth. Not to mention the Israeli children gutted and beheaded by Hamas back on Oct 7th. Our tax dollars didn't pay for that, but they sure are going toward ensuring more kids and regular civilians are turned into worm food for some nonsensical war over a strip of land neither side really wants to be stuck with.
- Well, you forgot to mention the gas and oil field that UK companies and Shell would love to have access to.
  With gas coming from Russia is not a sustainable option, this gas field is what they really want.
  "Energy Ministry says a total of 12 licenses have been given to six companies, four of which are new players in the exploration of natural gas off the country's Mediterranean coast"
  This happens last week.
  Literally last week October 27.
  Is it fake news? Well the one reported this is "Times of Israel" https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-ongoing-war-bp-and-eni-among-firms-awarded-gas-exploration-licenses-in-israel/
  How much money in there? UN published a report in 2021 June estimated value for the last 10 years to be around 400 billion.
  More details from the UN website: https://unctad.org/publication/economic-costs-israeli-occupation-palestinian-people-unrealized-oil-and-natural-gas
  This is not "Isreal vs Hamas" or "Jews vs Muslims" or as some would love to say is a "historical religious war"
  This is US and UK companies vs indigenous people masked by layers of "confusion" but their ultimate goal is greed.
  The more you look for news it becomes clear what the goals are.
  Here are some headlines:
  2019 November: Cyprus signs $9 billion gas extraction deal with Israel’s Delek, other firms
  2023 February: Israel exports crude oil for first time, with shipment heading for Europe
  2023 February: Lebanon and Israel’s historic maritime border deal P.S. this to allow gas exploration.. P.S Lebanon government controlled hizballh and Iran.
  2023 March: Israel’s Offshore Gas Attracts Foreign Energy Giants
  2023 September: Benjamin Netanyahu holds his map of the “The New Middle East” as he addresses the U.N. General Assembly
  P.S. "Netanyahu took out his red marker and drew a diagonal line from Dubai along the Persian Gulf, through Israel and toward the ports of southern Europe. He hailed the supposed advent of a “corridor” of prosperity that threaded together these Arab countries and Israel at the heart of a new axis of global trade connecting Asia to Europe."
  2023 October: Netanyahu says Israel's response to Gaza attack will 'change the Middle East'
  While the conflict seeems a bit confusing looking into it from US imperialist poont view things make sense.
  There are four powers that would stop this exploration. Sadam Iraq, most likely, will attack Isreal and claim it a religious war to have access to this new wealth.
  Qaddafi Libya, he was already in dispute with turkey over gas in the area https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/02/gaddafis-prophecy-comes-true-as-foreign-powers-battle-for-libyas-oil
  Syria as Russia allies will never leave a piece of the cake either directly or throu distablization in the region. This cut russia market to eroupe.
  And finally, the indigenous people of the land....
  
  Oh for fucks sake. I wish we'd transitioned to renewable, maybe even nuclear, a lot sooner.
  How many future doctors, writers, craftsmen and families have been lost in the wind, all for that damnable black gold
  
  That is definitely a huge factor and should have been mentioned at the very start. Greed is always the motivational factor in what humans do to each other. Munitions dealers get fat and rich off of war so have a vested interest in keeping it going. I totally agree with all the points you're making - I wish this wasn't the world we live in - but that's exactly what we're dealing with. And good luck going up against big oil or gas companies.
- nonsensical war over a strip of land
  I've struggled to understand why civilians on either side have wanted to continue residing in that specific zone after decades of clashes/violence. I know it's not as simple as just uprooting your family to move elsewhere, but as a parent I know I'd rather any other option than living in constant fear of unbridled violence erupting at any moment in a highly volatile area.
  
  Well, a part of it is that the people of Gaza are not allowed to leave.
  There are only a handful of crossings out of Gaza and Israel controls all but one. The Egyptian crossing leads out into a desolate desert with no services.
  Want to hop on a boat and flee that way? Israel will torpedo you. Want to walk up to the wall to see the boundary of your prison? Israel will machine gun you down, no questions asked, no warnings given.
  A large portion of the population of Gaza started out as refugees, forced out of their homes and off of their land so that Zionist settlers could have it.
  
  An Israeli I know was given benefits from the government to settle near that area. Luckily he went to his in laws house the second the war started. But the government paying people to live there might have something to do with it
  
  I was a bit harsh but from the footage I've seen (and mind you it's almost all footage of war torn areas) I'm not understanding why there's a conflict over it at all. I do understand the history of Palestinian repressing by the country of Israel and I do understand the horrors that Hamas has unleashed - but as you say why favor living in a land of unbridled hostility and volatility. And what's to lose by giving Palestinians their land back and maybe a little more besides? Israel is a big place. There IS room for both muslims and jews. We all either learn to live in peace or we destroy each other until nothing is left.

Financially the US is gaining from it all, like she is from the Ukraine war. The point is good, but Israel buying weapons systems from the US means less potholes.
- They aren't being bought. It's being freely given. All profits go to weapons manufacturers.
  
  Using "freely given" and "profits" in the same sentence should've set alarms as to how the issue might be more complex than just who buys what from who.
  You are wrong and a simple research into the subject reveals how.

The dystopia will get a whole lot less boring if the civilized world allows Islamic jihadism to achieve its goals.
This is an investment in your future.
- Oh yeah, I forgot that ethnically cleansing the Palestinians will cause all Islamic terrorist to stop. Neat!
  
  If only the issues involved here were as simple as you apparently need them to be.

"Your tax dollars help protect innocent people against terror"
- Terror like bombing civilians in refugee camps?
  
  Not that I'm pro one side or the other, but what should be done when hamas tells civilians to stay, and then hides behind them? That leaves hamas alive to stage another attack on... civilians.
  Like, I get that there should have been a better solution than what was done after ww2, but we can't go back in time and the Israelis aren't leaving.
  So... what? Hamas doesn't seem to care that their avilians die, and actively use them as shielding so they can kill more Israelis. It's fucked.
- "(...) Against terror they created opressing random ppl"
  
  This is what I don't understand is so hard for people. It's not like Israel has always been there, in that spot in in the Middle East, and that Palestinians teleported into Gaza and the West Bank unannounced one day. Gazans are basically refugees shoved in a tiny plot of territory carved out of what used to be their homeland, walled in, and brutally repressed for almost sixty years now. This doesn't excuse Hamas targeting innocents, but it goes a very long way towards explaining why Gaza might be home to a hardline anti-Israeli guerilla organization that sees the lives of their own people as cheap and those of their enemies as valueless. That's kinda the dynamic that the Israelis forced onto them, and now they're all up in arms that Hamas is acting accordingly.
  Don't get me wrong, Hamas are still bad guys in this particular episode. But that sure as shit doesn't make Israel the good guys. There are only villains and victims here.
- 50% of Gazans are children
  
  In a place with the living conditions of Gaza, one has to wonder who is stupid or evil enough to have so many children.
- If I’m going to fund at least one side it sure isn’t going to be the terrorists
  
  Both sides are terrorists.
  
  Glad we agree :D

poor poor "palestinian" cinnamon rolls, never did nothin to nobody
awww cry me a fucking river, guess instead of having all those islamofascist muslim nations vote against israel time and time again, they should have gotten egypt to invade gaza sooner, through it's land crossing in raffah, to root out hamas, pij, and all the other terrorists who attack israel. what is that you say, the united nations islamofascists don't mind when muslim terrorists attack israel and kill jews, only when jews respond with force in their defense?
you don't say
Gaza was given to Arabs for self rule and determination in 2005, all Jews left Gaza, even Jewish graveyards were dug up and moved, it was theirs to do with as they liked.
They've spent the last 18 years making into a terrorist Disneyland with a dozen Islamofascist terrorist organizations with the stated goal of killing Jews and destroying the state of Israel, they've fired hundreds of thousands of missiles into Israel indiscriminately targeting civilians, and launched countless cross borders attacks against Jewish civilians, including one that caused the largest loss of Jewish life in any single day, anywhere, since the Holocaust on October 7th.
They were given Gaza to live in freedom and self determination, they used it to kill Jews. They were warned. They chose to ignore the warnings.
These acts of terrorism were perpetrated by the entire Gazan community, they voted for Hamas, and allowed Hamas to rule their government for the last 17 years, Hamas and all the other Islamic terrorists in Gaza are not outsiders, they were born in Gaza of Gazans, they were raised in Gaza, they were educated in Gaza, they married and had children of their own in Gaza, their Parents, teachers, mosques, hospitals, are all in Gaza, from which they use to hid and store weapons to attack Jews, Hamas, PIJ and all the other Islamic terrorist in Gaza ARE Gaza, there has been no uprising in Gaza, there have only been attacks on Israel. This is what Gazans have supported and sacrificed for in every way they possibly could.
And now it's here. I do hope they enjoy what they've worked generationaly to achieve.
There will be no ceasefire this time.
- Look everyone, a pro-Israel propagandist with a bunch of easily refuted 'talking points' (lies). I'm always surprised they bother with places like Lemmy.
  Colonizers and apartheidists really are the scum of the earth.
  
  He’s not entirely wrong, this all did start originally because of Islamic extremism
- Just saying you might want to look closer into Hamas' election. It was a razor thin over Fatah and fewer than 50% of the vote. Then Hamas decided to not hold elections anymore for the past 17 years. Hamas is not popular at all anymore with 70% of gazans wanting the palastinian authority to take over the strip from hamas in a 2023 poll. Hamas saw the writing in the wall and decided to task Israel with creating a whole new generation of grieving and pissed off people which they are quickly doing.
  
  I found a demographic breakdown of the population of Gaza by age and I think about 70% of people there are too young to have voted in the last election. And given the 50ish percent margin Hamas won by, is reasonable that only about max 15% of the current population actually voted for them. There's a lot of assumptions and hand waving there, but I don't imagine it's too far off.
- Joey Ramone would be disgusted with you using his face for this proganda genocidal apologist bullshit.
- Israel is so kind to have allowed Palestinians to use a small section of the territory they used to occupy entirely less than 100 years ago to create an enclave with some of the highest population density in the world, truly they're great benefactors!
- You know who really fucking sucks? Hamas. You know who else really fucking sucks? The Israeli government.

228 comments