Federal government officially offers a jobs guarantee program...to the Taliban

Let's be clear: You and I will not be getting a federal jobs guarantee with a living wage. It's for our own good. We just don't understand that having the safety and the security of a guaranteed job so we can provide for our families is not in our best interests.

The Taliban, on the other hand, are more deserving of a U.S. federal government jobs guarantee program than American workers.

US offers safety, job security for Taliban over Afghanistan peace process
The US is eager to persuade the Taliban to join the peace process in Afghanistan and is offering a safety network that includes job opportunities for the insurgents, a media report said Thursday.
...
"Although some members of the Taliban may be weary of fighting and ready to lay down their weapons, they will only rejoin society if they believe their safety and the safety of their families are guaranteed, and if they have an opportunity to earn enough money to provide for their families," the report said, quoting a Pentagon plan sent to Congress this week, along with the proposals for addressing US security concerns and the interests of Afghanistan's neighbours.
Eager to persuade Taliban to join the Afghan peace process, the US is offering them a safety network that includes creating job opportunities for the insurgents, the report said.

I have no problem with giving the Taliban living wage jobs, because the commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan himself admitted that we can't win militarily in Afghanistan.
So giving them jobs would be MUCH cheaper than continuing this war.

My question is: how do American workers get in on this? Is it necessary to join the Taliban, or will any terrorist group satisfy the requirements?

The news media tells us to forget about it.
A 'Federal Jobs Guarantee' Idea Is Costly, Misguided.
Federal work programs can have real downsides.
The Jobs Guarantee Is Absurd.
The Democratic establishment agrees with Republicans when it comes to not granting a jobs guarantee.

Still the government already subsidizes jobs.

Subsidies from state and local governments to attract employers to locate their facilities cost as much as $80 billion a year. I have to say “as much as” because local governments and businesses keep these deals secret. Even though the Governmental Accounting Standards Board requires localities to make such “economic development” deals public, around half of all local governments just don’t comply.

But thanks to public filings and the subsidy trackers at Good Jobs First, we know enough to confidently make the $80 billion a year estimate. Wisconsin promised $3 billion to Foxconn for a factory employing around 13,000 people at its peak. Cities and states have offered as much as $8.5 billion to Amazon for its second headquarters, which would house around 50,000 people.
... A report from the Economic Policy Institute on Amazon’s $1.1 billion in known subsidies for “fulfillment center” warehouses found that they do not increase overall private sector employment within a particular county.

The $80 billion in economic development subsidies is just the beginning. The Trump tax cuts were sold on the basis of job creation effects. The Republican Congress called the bill the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.”

Then there is the fact that the cost of a job guarantee would be partially offset by reduced demand for benefit programs for the working poor, like food stamps, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

I believe the cost of a jobs guarantee program has nothing to do with establishment opposition.
This is all about control.
TPTB can't control the Taliban, so they negotiate. You and me, OTOH, they can dismiss.

The lesson to be learned here is that if you want something from the TPTB, you must take it by force. They don't respect anything else.

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It makes perfect sense to me

Kim and President Donald Trump met June 12 in Singapore where they agreed on a vague goal for the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula without describing when and how it would occur. The leaders are trying to arrange another meeting for early next year.

But North Korea for decades has been pushing a concept of denuclearization that bears no resemblance to the American definition...

“The United States must now recognize the accurate meaning of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and especially, must study geography,” the statement said.

“When we talk about the Korean Peninsula, it includes the territory of our republic and also the entire region of (South Korea) where the United States has placed its invasive force, including nuclear weapons. When we talk about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it means the removal of all sources of nuclear threat, not only from the South and North but also from areas neighboring the Korean Peninsula,” the statement said.

Do we want peace with North Korea? Or do we want them to unilaterally surrender?

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@gjohnsit
but only if the U.S. stays out of the negotiations. Even if the U.S. were to accept the idea of complete nuclear disarmament of the entire peninsula, we'd get hung up on the issue of verification.
Ne3ver mind Trump, can you imagine the congressional whackoos allowing North Korean inspections of our military facilities to make sure there aren't nukes statched away?

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

@gjohnsit It's not unreasonable, except for North Korea's demand that the United States "must study geography".

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@artisan
I thought that was rather rude and presumptuous of them.
Next thing you know they'll expect us to know something about the people we are at war with.

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@gjohnsit Nearly every foreign policy discussion is settled by pointing out that the American people can't find these countries on a map.

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snoopydawg's picture

“Terrorism finance” is what’s generally referred-to by the official phrase “state sponsorship of terrorism.” This cable from Clinton contained the US Government’s confidential list of state sponsors of terrorism. Her cable discussed exactly how bad the situation was in each of those countries. The supply of money to jihadists is what makes a government a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Supplying money to jihadists is illegal in almost every country, including the United States. And very little even of private money is paid from Americans to jihadists. However, the US Government hides its own quite substantial supply of weapons to jihadists. Here are some examples of that: On 24 March 2013, the New York Times bannered “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.”, and reported that “From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons,” and that “‘A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,’ said Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who monitors illicit arms transfers.” The US Government tried to hide its involvement in this, by doing it through allied “Arab governments,” which were named in this news-report: “Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey,” and all four of these Governments (US, Sauds, Turkey, and Qatar) were trying to overthrow Syria’s Government. Then, on 8 September 2014, AFP headlined “Islamic State fighters using US arms: study”, and they reported that the US Government was supplying ISIS. On 1 September 2017, Russian Television reported that the US Government was secretly supplying weapons to ISIS and that an anti-Assad fighter had even quit the CIA-backed New Syrian Army because of that.

Then there's the White Helmets in Syria who are being paid by us and our allies to create fake rescues while they get away with their terrorist activities that Wendy wrote about including organ removal. Just what are they doing with them? Black market organ donations?

More up to date jobs program

Yup. We're not going to get a jobs program because they want to control us is my guess.

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Look what happened last time Americans felt somewhat secure, in the 60s.

I commented about this yesterday in another thread. It's so much easier to keep us under the thumb when we're in that middle ground between broke-and-desperate-enough-to-rebel and secure-enough-to-challenge-the-power. Most people now are a short margin away from economic disaster. If we weren't spending our time and energy struggling to survive (but not quite nothing-to-lose go-for-broke desperate), many more of us might be out there challenging the corporate power. They have us right in that sweet spot where joining the army looks like job security.

Not to mention getting everyone hooked on hyper-expensive surveillance toys like smartphones. Another whole area of discussion, the self-financed panopticon.

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dervish's picture

Who knew that there were so many Russians on Twitter?

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

The Aspie Corner's picture

for 'Murica? Oh, that's right. They "can't afford it." If that's the case, then we can't afford them.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.