Socialism for the elite but not for the masses?
It’s like the VA of grocery stores, or like the Medicare of health insurance, or the public schools of education, or the taxpayer-funded firefighters or judiciary or police or highways or ports or bridges or hydropower dams or the forest service or national parks or public health and science and technology research or NASA
LOL at the idea that we don’t do this sort of thing all over the place
MAGA will find a way fuck it all up.
Free Healthcare and and Higher education are the main reasons enlisted soldiers join the US military; both things that countries that aren’t Empires offer to all their citizens.
So Mamdani’s idea was not even new, and took it from the military? What was all that fuss about supposedly communist run groceries?
Because benefits people at the cost of corporations.
At least with DeCA there is a stone wall of needing to not die during service to access it. So it doesn’t threaten corporations as much.
Cuz he’s a Commie. /S
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The military in general is like a complete socialist economy: socialized health care, home loan programs, car loan programs, banking, insurance, housing vouchers, tenant and homeowner protections, groceries at cost, retirement and pension, and to top it all off the thing itself is the country’s largest jobs program.
Indeed, the military tells you which uniform to wear on a daily basis. I do not understand the soldiers who say they despise socialism, when they’re in the middle of it.
My husband and I, who are both Enlisted, have been saying for years that the military is proof that a form of socialism CAN work in the US. It’s not “true” socialism because we still have an owning class, but ffs, it’s a goddamned start. And its not just Active Duty who gets taken care of. Its also dependents, veterans (to an extent), and retirees. So there is the proof that the model is scalable.
At this point, I honestly believe that the biggest reason reason the government won’t let the US have free or even affordable Healthcare isn’t solely because of profits. It’s because they won’t be able to dangle free healthcare over the heads of poor teens to get them to Enlist. Same thing with the pension for re-enlistments.
I feel like those two items are purposefully withheld from the public to keep the military stacked.
Amazing insight. Thanks for sharing. Counterpoint: it can be both. And a third — they’re giant pathological assholes. Trifecta of people getting screwed.
To add to this, something I like to point out to people, but (for the US) only ~60% of military personnel are ever deployed. Of those 60% only 10-20% will ever see combat. To top that off ~25% of the military are actually civilian service members, people who work for the military but are not soldiers.
So in summary, for each soldier that sees combat there are:
- ~6 deployed soldiers who will never see combat.
- ~11 non-deployed soldiers who never will be.
- ~6 civilian military staff who will probably never need to move for work.
Of these 24 people, all have access to the commissary, retirement and pension, top tier insurance, paid child care, up to 26 days of paid time off with 13 sick days and 11 fed holidays. The only things the military civilians don’t get are the VA, loan programs, and special protections.
So unless you’re a complete block head with no skills or talent your odds of joining the military and basically getting socialism with no risks is pretty high. Remember this the next time someone gets mouthy about respecting “the troops” or “serving their country,” odds are they didn’t do shit.
I used to work with a whole group of guys who their whole military career (20 years) was running a wastewater treatment plant on an Air Force base in the US, that’s it.
And all you have to do is kill whoever they tell you to.
Including yourself.
especially if you have 800bn funding it every year. half goes to contracters(which includes the stuff you mention) plus giving welfare to other countries instead of citizens.
Valid, except now they aren’t giving the money to other countries, they’re just keeping it for themselves.
Welfare as in giving aid to countries like Israel, Ukraine,etc
Oh, yeah, I was thinking more like USAID.
But yeah, he loves siphoning money to countries that kiss his ass, like sending $40
millionBILLION to Argentina cover their latest economic malfeasance, while Americans were literally starving during the shutdown.I think it was 40bn but it was for bessenets friends who made bad investments there.
Copy that.
sounds very exclusive, though. Is it really ‘complete’?
Hey I put like in there 😆
During the first year of Obama’s first term, with the push for the ACA, conservative pundit Bill Kristol got trapped by Jon Stewart into admitting the US government can run a first class health care program, but only for the soldiers because the rest of the public doesn’t deserve it.
I just had a MRI on the VA’s dime and if I would have gotten it with my insurance it would have cost me 2400 bucks. The VA paid a civilian hospital 98 dollars for the procedure. I paid nothing.
The Green Lantern?
Yes. Kristol clearly fears his might.
First class? HAH!
Granted, my anecdote is more than 20 years old, but a simple blood test almost put me out because the intern taking my blood had to try 5 times, in two veins, just to get the few ml she needed, after exploding the first vein
That can happen anywhere. I’ve had phlebotomists sink a needle without even feeling it, while others are butchers.
I ALWAYS ask, in a joking manner, if they’ve done this before, but I am actually serious. If they act like it’s a dumb question, I can relax a bit, if they are young and aren’t super confident, I’m on alert.
If they get it wrong the first time, I tell them they have one more chance, and then we’re calling in someone else. And I mean it. I don’t care if I hurt some young nurse’s feelings over this. I respect nurses like crazy, and always defend them in strikes, wages, etc., but I’m not going to just let someone practice on me like I’m a cadaver. I can FEEL that, and it HURTS! Get it right, or get someone who can get it right.
That can happen in privately run care, too. The point was more that a then-leading conservative admitted he doesn’t actually believe that socialized health care can be of good quality, but the common people just don’t deserve to have access to it.
Like I said… anecdotal. I’ve never had that problem with any other blood draw, ever.
When I was enlisted, the care sucked
Also, there are other, better examples. Messing up a blood draw is a known and acceptable risk that can happen anywhere. Everyone has stories about someone’s bad experience and nobody is calling for investigation and change, much less calling it ‘bad healthcare’. It just happens sometimes. Your experience sucked, and I get that - nobody likes it when acceptable risk rolls less favorable.
It wasn’t too long ago that unresponsive patients in the VA were suffering from bedbugs and made national news. That alone speaks volumes about what was wrong, medical and non-medical, that just should not happen. And that it happened to multiple people at the same time, in the same place, showed it was systemic. Investigations needed to be done to determine cause and if any criminal activity took place. So if we really want to discuss bad healthcare, there are much better hard hitting examples.
A single phlebotomy is a useless data point when talking about anything at scale. Especially when you yourself say it was the only one you have had a problem with.blem with.
When my daughter was an infant she needed a blood draw, I forget why, but the three people working in the hospital had no idea how to draw blood from an infant. They were trying to do it like you would an adult… and failing. Finally I told them to stop and went and found an older nurse. She came in, pricked her heel and all was done.
Mistakes can happen anywhere.
Honestly I haven’t heard an American healthcare, active duty, va, or private that was good. Including my own experiences.
The insurance model, tons of regulatory capture, and low investment in quality or even availability makes it just kind of shit. Way too much time and money spent on avoiding helping people.
If you want an opposite anecdote, the VA took pretty good care of my granddad, especially as he needed end of life care, so, I guess ymmv.
I go to the what some considered one of the best VAs in the country in Asheville, NC. I will pick it over any civilian doctor any day.
I hope you’re able to get the care you need. :)
It’s amazing how having health care, housing, consistent employment, and a lot of support services also end up creating the best US school system. But the radical left is hell bent on destroying the world. \s
The largest social program in human history is the US military.
the best US school system
what a flex 😐
It is, because the US numbers are so incredibly dragged down by the worst of its school systems. I live in New Jersey, and we rank highly and are considered globally competitive (although I never really understand how you can compare them, they’re very different approaches to learning), but if you go to the shit hole parts of the US it’s a stark contrast. That being said, NJ has over 500 school systems, so there’s even stark contrast within the state.
But yeah, the DOD school system is consistently the best place to educate your kids. And it’s all free (if you’re doing your part).
Its more than a grocery store. I knew a guy who was buying german VCRs in the late 80’s and early 90’s and shipping them home. The german machines didn’t have the copy protection circuit in them and would make perfect copies of any tape. The machines were all bought at cost from a US base’s PX.
That would be the Base Exchange/Post Exchange, but it, the Commissary, Shoppettes (convenience stores), and Class Six (liquor stores) all fall under the Army Air Force Exchange Service. The Navy has their own service.
Funny enough there is still rationing. If you are in an overseas base, alcohol and cigarettes are rationed to cut down on black market sales to host nation citizens. We still bought stuff for our friends, though. Bourbon and cigarettes were super cheap compared to what they could buy on the economy. Coffee was also on my ration card, but I don’t think it was actually rationed. No one ever signed it off.
Thanks for the added detail. It was only the end result I saw. He got out in 90 right before Iran invaded Kuwait. It is unlikely he would have been deployed. He was Cobol programmer.
Its not just the commissary. The entire way the military works is functional communism. Housing is assigned by rank, is available to anyone currently in contract, as well as healthcare and obviously, work. Pay is rated by rank and not by position, a Physician assistant gets the same rank pay as a Lt working command staff in any other unit. There is no capitalism in the DoD at all not even under their procurement systems.
Housing is assigned by rank
Pay is rated by rank
Is there really a rank in communism? Who decides the details of a rank?
Dawg, I dont know man…. To each according to their needs is kinda hard to subscribe to before the definition of a post-scarcity society, considering we all have the same needs generally speaking. To use Stalinist USSR as an example work was assigned according to ability, and in some cases who you were or who you knew. Someone had to work the party lines and admin to assign this stuff based on “something”
Edit: i know this example isnt real communism
The U.S. Military currently has a lot of problems with housing, feeding, and providing healthcare for service members. Check out USAG’s hawaii barracks for example. There’s a large number of lawsuits against the living conditions of family-housing. Dining Facilities that are intended and required to feed service members simply don’t.
Until recently Service Members couldn’t do anything if there was medical malpractice against them (and there was a LOT). And the act allowing medical malpractice suits was not retroactive, meaning everybody who served before 2020 was simply fucked.
Commissaries are (usually) genuinely good though. No complaints.
Understand that the government provided living conditions are not as good as you may be imagining.
Anyways here’s my personal anecdotes to bitch about: Goodfellow AFB many years ago. Sewage was leaking into the barracks’ (already shitty) Concho water pipes making it unsafe to drink and bathe. Lasted weeks. The water pipe above my room in particular was dripping onto our fridge and smelled like shit. I made a dumb fuckin gummy-bear funnel that diverted the leak into our sink because every single god damn person I asked to fix this problem said it wasn’t their issue.
and here’s the barracks room I was issued at my first duty station (that’s all mold):
So, just like communism? Only half joking here.
Alright Airman, I, no We in your command staff have heard you! We want to do better…./s
Hawaii barracks has been complained about by everyone since…forever I think. The contaminated drinking water on bases is endemic. Moldy old barracks aside the family living conditions were always bad and only get worse with age and wear. I didnt mean to imply that anything was good about it, and the complaints definitely outweigh the compliments on military living with or without family accommodations. There is a lot of room for improvement, whats killer is that all the wrong people are acutely aware of the glaring issues.
Housing is assigned by rank, is available to anyone currently in contract
Not only that, but government owned housing is assigned not based on pay, rank, or whatever, but size of household. So an E-7 with no kids gets a 2 bedroom and an E-3 with three kids gets a four bedroom (depending on age/gender of the kids). So according to need.
Base pay may be the same, but there are several incentive pays available for various duties. Flight pay, sea pay, jump pay, hazardous duty pay, etc.
I knew someone would point out “hazard pay”. It is not really common, but if youre gonna split hairs; what about BAQ/BAH? The pay differential isnt any more significant than shift differentials. There is a difference between flight crew and ground crew in aviation and they get different hours and pay, but the base rate is absolutely the same by rank.
I was agreeing with you, just pointing out that there is some variation depending on the duties assigned.
No disagreement implied! I was attempting to ignore the smaller rules to avoid confusion, but I knew someone would point it out. Much love, brother!
No worries man. Text can be hard to interpret tone sometimes. Right back at you friend.
lol… yeah that 225 dollars…
The entire way the military works is functional communism. Housing is assigned by rank,
Uhh - that would be a ‘bourgeois right’, going Marx’s ‘Critique of the Gotha Programme’. Very much the opposite intended outcome.
Honestly I would compare it to group project eugenics because of the strict processing and selection of who can join. Cant be disabled, have to have all your arms and legs, picky even about eyesight. They might be picking the poor but theyre also grabbing the healthiest of the poor.
You can see the prices here. These are sales flyers, but pretty on par with Kroger or Walmart neighborhood stores. Little more expensive than lidl though. https://shop.commissaries.com/
More expensive than WinCo as well. Interesting.
But also the only place to get American goods in lots and lots of countries. I believe they’re also duty free.
TIL the military is the elite
Bud if you think US military members are the elite you are clueless.
This is hilariously out of touch with reality.
First off, how many redneck trailer park kids joined the military because of a paltry $3,000 signing bonus? The Bush administration scraped restrictions against felons after 9/11. Who, exactly, are the “elites” that shit in a bucket you light on fire once a week? Rich kid don’t join the military.
Second, that’s not how commissaries work at all. It’s not socialism in any way. It’s hyper-capitalist if anything.
A huge amount of resources are put into name brand items being shipped across the globe to lock in brand loyalty for life. It’s not free either, only duty-free. No import costs. A $4 small pack of sour patch kids or $10 frozen 4-pack of frozen Jimmy Dean breakfast includes shipping costs. Containers from the States cost $80K+ to ship, which the commissary pays for. Every commissary is a business that operates as an independent business. Except for the ones managed by huge contacts to companies.
They’re non-profit only because of host country laws about profits without import duties.
paltry $3,000
idk about you but that would literally be a life-changing amount of money for some people (like me lol, not gonna join the military tho fuck that noise)
But there are many in American soil that are significantly cheaper than Walmart and similar. Of course if a commissary is placed in a base in Okinawa, in the middle of the ocean on the other part of the globe, then stuff is much more expensive
Right, so what you’re missing here is that AAFES and NEXCOM are independent corporate entities under the DOD that are almost entirely self-funded (I would guess some basic admin elements are staffed by DOD staff or something very basic, but I’m not sure). That puts them into a weird category of company that is usually referred to as a parastatial corporation or “state-owned company” in most places outside the US. The US usually contracts out rather than have state-owned companies, as a limit to liability.
They’re basically 100% independent entities with no taxpayer budget so they can operate with less bureaucracy and government requirements for how they spend their money and contract with vendors and contractors. AAFES has a civilian CEO. Their employees are not members of the military, they’re civilians. It IS a non-profit, as they’re also captured to only have a limited client base. Their goal is to break even and save money for things like buying a new meat cooler for when the ones they have break. Which means they get much easier taxes to deal with.
They key here is that they save money on things like real estate costs and import/export duties compared to Wal-Mart, but leverage the same corporate relationships. So taxpayer money isn’t exactly going to commissaries, they’re just not getting charged as much for facilities or utilities because they’re leveraging military economies of scale. That does count as a subsidy in a sense, but it’s not like they get cash from DOD to run any commissary.
It’s not “socialism” in any sense of the term. It’s a company store if anything - it’s just the one version of this where the prices are not jacked up to exploit people.
You do know the UK and a few European countries also sometimes have commissaries on joint bases or diplomatic properties, right?
OP likely just saw this video https://youtu.be/PQOXdtPBGXI
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Lol. Brilliant reaction.
I’m sadly well-educated on the subject matter and wish I wasn’t. Or at least wish I had gotten paid.
If you think the military personnel that use a commissary are “elite”, you’re sadly mistaken. Vast majority are enlisted personnel that are no better off than the average blue collar types.
