The Republican Party has created the web site America Speaking Out in what it says is an attempt to adjust its political message, a forum in which Americans can “aid in the construction of a new American agenda.”
It’s an interesting political experiment, and one that is presenting quite a different message than what the GOP intended. Most of the Americans participating in the forum, it turns out, don’t agree with the Republican Party agenda.
The Republicans in Congress, have broadly supported increases in spending on military projects, even when the military itself says that it doesn’t want or need the projects. Last week, for example, about two-thirds of the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted for a program to develop a second engine for the F-35, an aircraft that can only use one engine. Rolls-Royce and General Electric would profit from the busywork spending, so most of the GOP in Congress voted in favor of the spending even though the Pentagon says it’s a distracting waste of resources.
Republican members of Congress assume that most Americans love the bloated budget of the military bureaucracy, but their own forum, America Speaking Out, suggests that they’re wrong. One of the most popular policy proposals at the forum suggests large cuts in Pentagon spending. The policy reads,
“Reduce the size of our military spending drastically. It’s currently over 50% of our national budget and doesn’t need to be so gargantuan. Our carrier fleet alone is several times larger than the entire world’s fleets put together. If you cut that by itself you’d save the American taxpayer quite a bit of money and even have some left over for infrastructure improvements, better schools and social programs that will make this nation stronger over all.”
As you can see from this snapshot of voting on the policy proposal, well over 50 percent of America Speaking Out users support the drastic reduction of military spending, and only a minority oppose it.
So, will Republicans pay attention to the majority voice on their own political forum? Is America Speaking Out anything more than a publicity stunt?
What do you think?
“There aren’t enough jobs here NOW, let alone bringing home all those GIs to do nothing. Nah, let’s keep declaring war on nations and the environment at the same time – that way we’ll employ more people while we totally fuck up the planet! Let’s start with Switzerland or some other unsuspecting country – we’ll have a lottery and pick a country EVERY WEEK to declare war on!”
“Also we gotta blow up more mountains for energy to play video games and watch porn on the internet and we need to cut down more old growth forests to make Kleenex and my favorite ass wipes. After we fill up the Gulf of Mexico with dead fish and oil we can move up to Alaska and ruin that too.”
My salute to memorial day.