General Casey Wants To Give Afghanistan What We Don't Have In America, And He Wants Us To Waste Another Decade Giving It To Them

Speaking at the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival Friday, Army Chief Of Staff Gen. George Casey says we may be fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq another ten years. Whose idea is that? Certainly not mine, but I'm not invested in the military-industrial complex, so I won't be making a dime by bleeding the country dry.
But what's more upsetting are the objectives of the military in the region.
1.)You are only going to succeed when the people perceive there is a government represented by their interests-So why should the people of Afghanistan have what we don't? My interests don't include making the rich people richer, mine include something like providing decent health care for every American,or that those struggling through tough economic times not of their creation can keep their homes and feed their families. These were both wars of choice, only I didn't choose them.
2.)when there is an economy that can give them a job to support their families-Wait a minute-we had that here! I remember it well. Then our corporate idiocracy said, you know what, if we outsource your jobs to another country that doesn't have organized labor, we'll make out-we mean, you'll be able to buy more consumer goods because they won't cost as much. And the television watchers all said "Yup, yup, yup, more stuff for me! I like the sound of that~!"
3.)when there are educational systems that can educate their family-Do you mean like we used to have? Nowadays, many right wing candidates are calling for the abolition of the department of education. Why? Because the Official Party of 'NO!' said that education is bad because they won't let your myths be taught to other people's children, science is bad because it disproves their faith, and the only thing children should be reading is our big book of approved fables.
4.)States, non-states and individual actors who are increasingly willing to use violence-You mean, like flying unmanned drones into civilian areas, casually referring to civilian deaths as collateral damage, and bombing areas where we think there may be people we want to kill? Doesn't anybody in charge have at least one iota of common sense to realize that maybe the reason that they are shooting at us is because we started shooting at them first?
Of course, the general, who is set to retire in nine months , was followed by a Pentagon spin doctor, who stated:"General Casey was speaking of the types of conflict we will be fighting for a decade or so. He did not, nor did he intend to, imply that we would be fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan for 10 more years."
What he really meant to say was "We'll be fighting in Iran as well. That could take some time."

It All Comes Down To Tuna

We've been told for years that the reason businesses needed to offshore many of our manufacturing jobs is because the cost of American labor had gotten too high. Things such as taxes, health benefits and other costs that kept the worker able to complete their mundane tasks and live comfortably were hurting the bottom line. But I see it differently.
The company I work for provides food service for corporate settings. We provide breakfast and lunches, and dinners in factory and executive locations. This gives me a unique perspective to see the differences between the two extremes.
A good example of this is tuna. The line worker in the factory gets canned tuna, usually made into tuna salad. The bread usually comes in frozen and is never fresh. The worker also pays for this food from their own pocket. The worker has twenty minutes to eat their food, unable to leave the grounds, because the company feels if they return late from their lunch break, productivity will be compromised.
The executive flying on the corporate jet, however, is fed sushimi grade tuna. While the worker in the factory would be fortunate to get flank or skirt steak on rare occasions, the executive can have nothing less than steak cut fresh from tenderloin. And the executives meals are provided for by the company itself.
Once a quarter, if the worker has not missed any days of work, the company will throw an "attendance celebration", where they get to dine on a five ounce strip loin steak, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and off brand fruit juices. The executive has weekly meeting where only the finest pastries, juices, and fresh fruit are served. While the factory worker has to make do with regular-old-coffee, the executives can have nothing less than Starbuck's coffee.
The executives have their own dining area, where they are waited on by good looking young women (as opposed to the worked, who gets food slopped on a plate by an old cafeteria worker), and have their choice of refreshments (including beer, wine, and liquor) to wash down their meals.
The job of a CEO is to make their company as profitable as possible, which in turn will make the price of the stock rise along with profitability . You would think that meant manufacturing products that people would buy, but as of late, it has meant cutting costs to make the company more attractive to prospective investors. Trade agreements such as NAFTA allow these companies to offshore manufacturing jobs with impunity. The downside to this is that the service jobs created don't pay as well as the manufacturing jobs they are replacing, and as a result, the economy has slowly been sliding downhill because people no longer have the money to buy the items made in this country that have traditionally driven the US economy, such as new cars or houses.
And now, the subprime crisis has led to a global $77 trillion in stock market loss, and the country is headed towards a recession. And it's all because some bigwig is too good for canned tuna.