#introduction
I grew up on Air Force bases. When dad was stationed in Yakota AB, Japan, and I was around 9 or so (give or take), a boy slightly older than me committed suicide. His suicide note said he did it so that his siblings could get more food.
These days, military families are encouraged to apply for food stamps if they qualify. Back then, no one checked if families were struggling. Considering how much we spend on our military, NO military family should ever go hungry.
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I was the child of an officer. This was the firs time that I learned life was profoundly different for NCO families, and the beginning of understanding what privilege is.
You can predict my every political decision through the lens of that suicide. Just ask: would this make it more or less likely that boy committed suicide? If less, then that's the policy position I take. I don't use this as a litmus test consciously, but every policy position I take meets this test.
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I'm half-white, and half-Asian, so I have to monitor my thoughts for signs of privilege constantly. I'm getting less awful at it. The privilege of being an officer's kid blinded me to what some of my classmates were going through at home. Growing up and finding that other kinds of privilege apply to me as well has meant learning this same lesson over and over again.
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Addendum (4/4?)
I'm a refugee from Mastodon.lol.
I'm cisgender heterosexual, but out of the list of servers I originally looked at, Mastodon.lol looked the most left-leaning, so I went there.
Anyway, if you're mean to LGBT people, I'll annoy you by arguing with you. If you use "woke" as a pejorative, I'll annoy you by arguing with you.
If you say racist [bad word], I'll annoy you by arguing with you.
I'm sure you get the drift.
@tofugolem welcome back!
@tofugolem I like you. You have empathy. It's really all we need in this world.
@tofugolem I have to ask something. What is your viewpoint on Socialism?
@jacobrogers256
That's a long story in and of itself.
Marx's analysis of the problems of capitalism are still shockingly relevant today because it's based on analyzing data. Lots and lots of data.
He offered only one solution, and his one solution is not based on any evidence. How could it be? If we had evidence for that, we would not need his analysis, would we?
If you're familiar with science, the first proposed solution is rarely right, even when suggested by someone knowledgeable.
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@jacobrogers256
Marx's one solution was simply not evidence-based like his analysis of the problem was, and so it should be treated differently.
If he were really basing his solution on science, instead of telling people an answer, he would have suggested a methodology for testing ideas, and a feedback system for examining methodology.
But because everyone is fixated on Marx's one solution, not enough experimentation is happening.
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@jacobrogers256
I would happily throw capitalism under the bus, but I also think we're a long way off from a genuinely good socialist system.
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@tofugolem I almost agree with you. Lenin's and Stalin's solution to capitalism was fatally wrong and should never be practiced ever again. But what people do not know is that Marx advocated for reformism in the western world. I would personally support a socialist society run along federalist lines. If you ran the economy by regional, democratic planning, where decisions were made at both the local and national level, 1/2
@tofugolem you would combine the benefits of American democracy and socialist planning. 2/2
@jacobrogers256
What Marx should have said was:
This is how you break the big problem into a number of smaller problems.
This is how you break those problems down into a number of smaller problems.
Iterate until you have something that can be tested with the scientific method.
Debates about results and methodologies will guide you to useful answers.
Instead, we got a fiat declaration because economics is in the Humanities department, not the sciences department.
@tofugolem You might find David Ellerman's critique of capitalism and proposed replacement for capitalism interesting:
https://www.ellerman.org/inalienable-rights-part-i-the-basic-argument/
We know of genuinely better postcapitalist systems. Ellerman's critique shows an inherent contradiction within capitalism that can only be solved by abolishing it and replacing it with an alternative democratic economy.
Some economists have shown that certain forms are social ownership are more efficient than capitalism in theory
@jlou @jacobrogers256
You don't need to convince me capitalism is a bad idea. You're arguing against a position that I'm not taking.
I used to think that FDR offered a better version of capitalism, but Reagan proved that FDR-style capitalism inevitably becomes the regular kind.
@tofugolem I understand. Ellerman's critique suggests that the alternative to capitalism is an economy of worker coops. It explains why such a system would be genuinely good where capitalism is not. It differs from Marx's one solution
@jlou @jacobrogers256
See? That's the problem. You're still thinking about specific solutions. What needs to happen is to break the problem down to simpler components, test the components, and let the resulting debates shape the next set of tests.
I mean, that's what works in science. Let the evidence direct the way towards solutions.
@tofugolem Ellerman's argument is evidence-based. He provides a set of normative criteria to test institutions with, and then shows how only worker coops pass those tests
@jlou @jacobrogers256
It's still good to iteratively break complex problems into a larger number of simpler problems until you get things that can be tested with the scientific method, then let the results of those tests guide changes in methodology and what topic to investigate next.
@jlou @jacobrogers256
And for that solution to work, you would want all corporations to be employee-owned. It would only take one privately-owned corporation to really mess things up.
A wealthy person intent on harm could absorb losses for a long time as part of an effort to convince everyone else that employee-owned corporations don't work.
@tofugolem @jacobrogers256 The position implies abolishing the employer-employee contract completely just like we have abolished slavery, coverture marriage contracts, and non-democratic political constitutions, so all firms would be mandated to be worker coops.
Your 2nd point touches on how to get from here to there. The only solution I can see is to grow the worker coop sector, so that less workers are giving the fruits of their labor to the capitalist class growing the working class's wealth
@tofugolem I'm here to get perspective! Army combat vet, too liberal for my community or the Army, probably too conservative for a sizeable portion of Fedi users. Have been in politics for about a decade in varying degrees... im retired now but I was NOT a politician. One day I'll get this book done. Anyways, if we "argue" I suspect it will be a civil argument. 
@tofugolem I’m full white, but grew up with all but one of the adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) so struggle to own my privilege. It’s easier to focus on my experience than to own it would have been worse if my disability was visible, my sexuality(bi) was repressed or I lacked a protective parent. My indoctrinated racist misogyny makes me avoidant of uncomfortable truths.
@tofugolem I was enlisted. My sister came to visit me when I was stationed at Andrews AFB MD. While driving around the base, she saw enlisted housing and officers housing. She was never in the military and this was her first time on a military base. She asked why there was such a difference between enlisted and officer housing. I said rank has its privilege. She couldn’t understand why. I said, at least it’s free!
@copter_chief
It's pretty stupid. Sadly, it took me a while to understand the privilege I was raised with, but thankfully, that made it easier for me to understand white privilege.
@tofugolem "I'm getting less awful at it." speaks to my condition. I lived in several "3rd world" countries as a child (Dad was civil engineer in the 70s where it was hard to find transportation planning work in the US, yet abroad he was a superstar). So, I knew I had profound privilege, yet learning how to speak from that awareness, with empathy, in a way that bestows my privilege on others has been a lifelong pursuit.
@tofugolem No family or singleton should ever go hungry. We should re-jig wealth so all are secure.
@eatonhamilton @tofugolem yes! there is no person that deserves more than other, all humans should be able to have daily meals, there is enough for all but greed , misinformation and selfish ignorance are stoppers.
@eatonhamilton
Indeed, but if you buy into the American propaganda about soldier-worship, no one in the military should qualify for food stamps. Ever.
We Americans are among the most indoctrinated people on the planet. You would think we would not tolerate so many destitute families on military bases. That's the part that makes me mad.
@tofugolem That is tragic. 
@claudiamiles
It is an outrage. No family in service to the military should qualify for food stamps. We could solve this problem with a tiny fraction of the military budget, and they won't do it.
@tofugolem It IS an outrage. And, of course, they won't solve that problem with a tiny portion of the military budget. Just like the US govt won't solve real problems with a portion of the $32 Bil dollars spent annually to fund NASA, which currently has a $93 Bil plan in place to get back on the moon. Yet, according to HUD, it would cost $20 Bil to end homelessness in the U.S. Doesn't that seem slightly more important than moon and mars missions right now?
#homelessness #hunger
Fellow Air Force Brat here (born at the now-defunct Chanute Air Force base in Champaign, IL) ... we were dirt poor at the time.
Long story, but my dad left the service after his 4 years and we started life in another state, dirt poor.
Though, to the AF's credit, his training allowed him to get a decent-paying job that (though, slowly) improved our circumstances.
I was too young while on base to realize how bad the situation was. My heart breaks for that boy and his family.
@VirginiaMurr
Again, we could solve this problem overnight with a tiny fraction of a percent of the Pentagon budget. That this hasn't happened is a condemnation of us all.
Every general in the Pentagon, every representative in the House, and every senator in the Senate should be made to feel shame until this is fixed.
@tofugolem man, this hurts
According to a career military person I once knew, this started with Ray-Gun. You can always count on the GQP to make things worse for everyone, everywhere, all at once.
@NoctisEqui
As much as I would love to blame Reagan for this, the event I described happened in the 1970s.
As awful as Reagan was, America was awful to enlisted servicemen and women before Reagan.
@tofugolem suicide is not good. at music school where my voice teacher (male) attacked me I wanted to suicide. My dad killed himself when all the rubber plants closed 1982 (Akron - rubber capital of the world.
@tofugolem
Same thing happened at Ft. Ord, CA in the early '80s.
@Nazani
The incident I referred to happened in the 1970s.
This kind of thing should happen a maximum of one time. After that, people should make damn sure it never happens again.
@tofugolem I agree. In theory, family services on bases should continually reach out to families, especially when the enlisted member is deployed for more than a week, but I doubt the admin staff needed to do that exists.
@Nazani
Given the size of our military budget, NO military family should ever qualify for food stamps We could end this problem tomorrow with a tiny fraction of the military budget, and yet we choose not to.
@tofugolem @Nazani and the same for everyone else, raising the minimum wage would increase employment, grow the economy, and reduce suffering. But we don't.
There is indeed a peculiar asymmetry here.
We're talking about people putting their lives on the line so elites can continue their often violent contest over which of them will control which territories and the people and resources therein.
In my book, those elites owe members of the military *everything*.