It's not really a shutdown at all.
As Patrick Martin (WSWS) observes:
According to the Trump administration—and on this, there is no difference between the Republican president and his “opposition” among the congressional Democrats—the vast American military-intelligence apparatus must remain on duty, killing people overseas, patrolling battlefields on distant continents, and spying on the entire world, including the American population.
As Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan wrote in a memo Thursday, the US military “will, of course, continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and ongoing operations against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, including preparation of forces for deployment into those conflicts.”
But federal government functions that actually relate to the health and welfare of the American people will be shut down as inessential. This includes furloughing more than 60 percent of the staff of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (under conditions of a rampaging nationwide flu epidemic), 80 percent of the Department of Education (including supplementary funding for local public schools throughout the country), and a staggering 95 percent of the employees of the National Transportation Safety Board, (shutting down investigations into such disasters as the recent commuter rail crash in Washington state).
There's always money for war. In fact, this country will spend its way into the poor house to continue wars -- including the Iraq War.
Iraq never attacked the US.
But we're about to hit year 15 of the Iraq War and it will keep going because there's always money for war.
Both major political parties agree, war is a necessity.
Human life?
Not so very much.
And that's why in the latest nonsense passing as 'protest' we saw yet again no speakers concerned with the ongoing wars.
The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict by Linda J.... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393334171/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_GH1tAbQD60FZQ … via @amazon
