Wake Me Up When September Ends

across the country contracted COVID nineteen. Now, while hospitalizations of these young people remains low, it is in fact surging where before in twenty twenty with the alpha variant we were told right and again, I am not putting any blame on scientists or doctors. They are learning as they are going and it requires all of us to be intellectually nimble right to adapt to information that we are

getting and move with that new information. With the alpha variant, in twenty twenty, we were told that children were really not susceptible, that they were fine, and they had the immune systems to be able to fight off COVID. Well, push back now push forward, I should say, a year later, and we were in an entirely different place with an

entirely new variant. And right now they are roughly a little over two thousand children across the country that are hospitalized, and you were hearing from pediatric doctors telling us that children's hospitals are getting to capacity which they've never seen. And what we know to be true is this is that when we are dealing with hospitals that are at capacity with COVID, that other ailments that people are coming in with, that children are coming in with, are not

being treated. So what does that say about this kind of domino effect that is happening with our healthcare right now as it pertains to kids. Something else is very notable, and it is the constant. I got to tell you this. It's incredibly troubling to me that we are having just a couple of days since school has begun across the country that there's a school in San Antonio, Texas where every kindergarten teacher has contracted COVID. And get this, the

school did not alert parents to that fact. And as a matter of fact, the students and the teachers basically have to rely on the trust that they have in the institution to tell them what's why, because they're relying on each other, because they're getting mixed messages. Why are

they getting mixed messages? Probably because they live in the fucking state of Texas, where Abbot right, I don't know, the executioner of Texas has decided to not include mass mandates right to make it so that we don't have social distancing in schools, to make it so that students right can be harassed by adults as they're heading into the building, so that people can totally begin to threaten and attack all of these school administrators that are trying

to keep their kids safe well without anybody's mandates, and without with the fear of losing income if you are sued right or your salaries are caught like death Santis is doing in Florida. Teachers, parents, students are all left juggling a bunch of balls in the air and hoping that they don't just drop on their heads. It is incredibly, incredibly disgusting to me that parents are being put in a situation where, you know, we're basically allowing these governors

to play Russian Roulette with your lives. So the school that I'm talking about is kind of Ranch Elementary and it is in San Antonio, And it was being reported by an epidemiologist and health economist, Eric fagel Ding on Twitter, and it was also posted on my San Antonio dot com that how parents discovered the fact that their kids were exposed to COVID. I mean, this is just bullshit.

Folks like I can't imagine the anxiety and the stress that parents and caregivers are having right now, just hoping to God that the teachers and the administrators where they are dropping their kids off are doing the right thing. And clearly at this place where again we're in Texas, so there are no vaccine mandates, there are no mask mandates, there is nothing. You're just crossing your fingers and kind of pushing your kids through the door and hoping that

they come back. What. Well, and here's the thing, even if we are at a situation in a place where we're saying, okay, well, I guess three thousand hospitalizations for kids across the country is not that big of a deal, which is outrageous for these quote unquote you know, pro force birth folks who are all about telling me and telling every woman and telling everybody with the uterus what they can and cannot do right to protect a life.

Fucking bullshit, Because if they were really interested in protecting life, you tell me why they wouldn't be on the side of mask mandates, Why they wouldn't be on the side of vaccinations to keep everybody safe, since you know life is so precious and all given to you by the Great Lord above. Fucking hypocrisy, And I want Democrats to call out the hypocrisy on a day to day basis.

And frankly, I want these parents right that are concerned about the wellbeings of the wellbeing of their kids to sue the fucking school district because if I were a parent at Kinder elementary school, I would absolutely be suing this school district because how are you not sending emails or text messages or making phone calls to let people know exactly what is happening? Right? Why are they finding out?

Why are these parents finding out through the grape vine like a game of telephone with other parents to find out whether or not they're safe. And mind you, these kids are coming home. Some of these kids live in intergenerational homes, right, So what does that mean about the

safety of the adults in those homes. It is we are at an infuriating place when it comes to COVID nineteen because what I fear and what I continue to say, and what our friend doctor Jonathan Metzel tells us, is that the middle of October is going to tell us a whole fucking lot about what it is that American

school systems are doing completely and totally wrong, folks. Coming up next is my conversation with American University professor David Vine, who is going to talk about and I'm very interested in this conversation about his new book, The United States of War. It is a third in a trilogy of books about war in peace and our obsession with empire building in this country and our militarized society. That is

coming up next, folks. I am so excited to welcome to wok F for the very first time David Vine, professor of anthropology at American University and the author of the United States of War, which is a provocative examination of how the US military has shaped our entire world, from today's multi ti trillion dollars decades long wars to

the prominence of violence. David you know, we're talking to you at a really interesting time, and obviously your book is incredibly timely with our recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, America's longest war were twenty years we have been fighting alongside Afghans to defend against the Taliban and to bring some

type of semblance of democracy. But in that time, what we realize is as the withdrawal was being announced that within weeks, twenty years of effort, twenty years of lives lost on both sides of the conflict, whether it be Afghan civilians or American military members, it was all poof gone within weeks, and now the Taliban has full control over a country that the United States had supposedly been

keeping safe for the last twenty years. Before we jump into your book, The United States of War, what were your feelings when you heard about the withdrawal happening, And then, honestly, what are your thoughts about how the withdrawal actually happened and whether or not we should have been in Afghanistan to begin with? I think those are all the right questions. First thing, thank you, Danielle for having me. I'm really excited to speak with you. You know, I supported it

and support President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan. I think it was the right thing to do. I think the withdrawal itself was handled poorly on the whole. I think, you know, evacuating upwards of one hundred and fourteen thousand Afghans plus several thousand more from Afghanistan was impressive in a very short period of time. But the chaos that a formal withdrawal of most of the US military from Afghanistan did not need to happen and should have been better with

the Taliban. Now, that said, the war should never have been fought. This was not a war for democracy. This was not a war to protect Afghans. This was a war that was fought for a variety of reasons having to do with the Bush and Cheney administration desire for revenge, supported by large segments of the US population. But it was barbally. Of course, the one member of Congress stood up and opposed the war in Afghanistan, who of course was right from the beginning. And there were others anti

war movement brewing then and that was speaking out. But this was a war that was built on lies twenty years lies about the progress of the war lies that the war was indeed to bring democracy and peace and freedom and security to Afghans. This is a war that I think it more appropriately characterized as a massive wealth transit. Robert Reich is just wow that literally of dollars two point three kinds of trillion dollars to put three trillion with a T dollars that went to funding for the

US war in Afghans. The vast majority of it ended up in the coffers of the military industrial complex, weapons manufacturers. And this is I think the major effect of the war. In addition to taking the lives of six hundred thousand Afghans, that includes those side and indirections, the lives of US military personnel and contract. Each death, each injury is a terrible cost at this war. But we have to keep our eyes first and foremost that's been inflicted on Afghans,

which is really catastrophic and which continues. And will can you after the US AD all you know to listen to you say that essentially, and I'm going to paraphrase, this was a money laundering scheme, right, a two point three trillion with a T dollar money laundering scheme. My question to you about it is how was this able to survive over four presidents right on Republican and Democrats? How was this able to survive for that many years? Knowing that, I mean, do we not provide progress reports

with the military? Do they not let us know how efforts are going on the ground, and so then we can then analyze whether it makes sense to keep expending the money, keep expending the life and the energy force in order to be in a situation that we know that we can't change. I think the short answer is lives and credit cards now lives mean we were given progress reports. We were given by generals and admirals and civilian government officials who consistently lied about the progress, consistently

lied about how things were going in this war. And the Washington Post Afghanistan papers they sort of echoed the Pentagon papers of the Vietnam era. The Afghanistan shows these lies, and I would ret to anyone. This of course came after the Washington Post and other major news outlets were

really cheerleaders in Afghanistan and Iraq. Years later, they of course cast a more critical the credit card part that these wars, the war in Afghanistan, but also the US war in Iraq and all the post nine to eleven wars in twenty five countries where US combat troops have

been deployed. These have been fought on a credit card, which is to say that administrations have and congresses behind them have charged the cost of these wars rather than raising taxes, which is how have been fought in the past. We're US citizens fatally the effects of these wars, the efecial effect of going to war. In the case of the post nine eleven wars, these wars have been put on a credit card, effectively inflicting the costs on future

to pay back all that. But that's another way that the wars essentially have been hidden and away, in which

four administrations have kept them going. You know, I just find it so atrocious the amount of money that our tax dollars, the amount of tax dollars that are funneled into our military industrial complex, funneled into the Pentagon, you know, and I think about what it is we don't spend money on, right, We're always told that there isn't enough There is enough money to put in health and human services, there isn't enough money to put in public education, There

isn't enough money to fight climate changer isn't there's never enough money. But you know who's always like, you know,

neck deep in money is the military. So talk to us about your book The United States of War and how you think that the military and our militarization of our police right which we saw for the first time really I think up close during Ferguson in twenty fourteen, when we're seeing the fact that our local police departments had all the latest Gi Joe outfits as well as tanks as well as you know, weaponry that you would see in an Afghanistan as opposed to a suburb of

the United States. Talk to us about how this militarization has happened over the years and how it has accelerated. I think the militarization of the police is actually a really good example and terrible atradious example, as you said, of how the post nine eleven wars and a much longer process of militarization that dates to independence in some ways, as I show in my book The United States War

really dates to Columbus surviving in Americas. It's an example of how this has come back to bite us here in the United States. The effects of these wars have been felt not just by people in Afghanistan or Iraq, or Syria or Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Philippines and on, they've been felt here in the streets of the United States and have damaged our lives in profound ways, beginning with

the money that has been spent on these wars. In total, the post nine eleven wars have cost US taxpayers eight trillion dollars eight trillion dollars, and that is really a hard sun to comprehend. But I think, as you rightfully pointed out, so frequently when people, you know, we're asking for money for universal healthcare or universal education, the universal college, that is for you to house the homeless, to make sure that there's no one in this country goes hungry.

To rebuild bridges and streets and other infrastructure, public transportation, we're told there isn't enough money. There is there's always been enough money. We've invested eight trillion dollars in war since two thousand and one. In total, that's just the war budgets. In total, if you include the regular quote unquote regular Pentagon budget, it's twenty one trillion dollars. Now the US government, yes, I mean it it's mind boggling

and should really make us weep. I mean, how many literally hundreds of thousands of people died of COVID because we didn't invest even a small portion of that eight trillion just takes eight trillion alan in pandemic for apiredness because we didn't invest in PP, because we didn't invest in ventilators, because we didn't invest in vaccine production capacity.

And then we think about how many people have died because we don't have universal healthcare in this country, or how many people have died sleeping on the streets at night in places like Washington, DC. It's really I you know, it should make us weak. And as I show in my book The United States War, this is a long term process, especially since World War Two, dominated by an increasingly powerful military industrial complex that is so addicted to war.

There's so many profits to be made from war. It has created a self perpetuating system that we have to break. We have to bring down the military industrial colurewise, we're going to keep fighting. And that's my greatest fear, that we're going to end up in another Afghanistan, another Iraq, which really in my mind that you know, all the posto a living wars are our Vietnam. For those of us who grew up after the Vietnam War, this is

our Vietnam. It's not recognized as such, but the damage that's been inflicted is just as great, and we're going to end up in yet another Vietnam, another Afghanistan, another Iraq if we don't change the underlying system of terry industrial complex and the system of a permanent war. That's it for today's Woke a f Daily podcast. To hear more from today's show, including my full interview with David Vine, support me on Patreon at patreon dot com Slash Woke

AF Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.