A Lesson for The Economist

Many of you, especially those from the Veteran community, are already aware of the article from The Economist which claims veterans are receiving “absurdly generous benefits”.

Yes, that is the headline. Yes, that is real. No, it is not parody.

If your immediate reaction is a loud and thunderous “Fuck you!” to The Economist, you aren’t alone. I have seen zero support for the article. I mean nothing. Not a peep from anyone “brave” enough to agree. What I have seen are TONS of people responding with anger bordering on rage, lots of profanity, and plenty of sadness on behalf of Veterans.

As a disabled Veteran, it would be very easy for me to jump on the profanity laced bandwagon. Believe me, I can toss around some swear words. I certainly don’t support the article or what it is claiming. The fact is, I am MUCH closer to grabbing pitchforks and torches to find the author of the article and make a public spectacle of him or her.

I won’t because clearer heads must prevail.

The underlying message of the article was an anti-Trump message. It was about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and DOGE and President Trump’s effort to cut spending and reduce debt. “If Trump really wants to cut spending, especially at Department of Defense, start here!”

The message is “You voted for this, so no one and nothing should be exempt, including disabled Veterans!”

The article points out how much money was spent last year in disability payments to Veterans. Hint: it was about $150 Billion. There are a lot of things the article doesn’t say, like the fact that disability payments span all the way back to the last few living WWII Veterans through the current generation. It doesn’t take into account our latest war went on for twenty years and impacted multiple generations of veterans like no war before it. It doesn’t take into account the increased survival rate of seriously wounded servicemembers due to technology improvements in things like vehicles and body armor.

Yes, in years and wars past, the government would have paid out more often in death benefits (one-time payment) than it would have in disability (long-term) but because we had more of our wounded SURVIVE the ratio of wounded to killed is higher and therefore, disability numbers increased. In other words, the sheer number of wounded survivors from WWII, Korea, and Vietnam would dwarf the current generation if they had the benefit of our technology. We wouldn’t even be talking about this, frankly.

But, we ARE talking about it. We are talking about the article. And The Economist.

What we have is an author and a publication with what we believed was a shortsighted view and a political motivation that published a controversial article to get attention.

And we all reacted. We all jumped up and down. We have brought MORE attention to this article and MORE clicks and MORE readers to The Economist from demographics that NEVER would have read a single word than they could have hoped for.

They got us. We got suckered. And they got the clicks.

Yeah. I’m on to you folks at the Economist. I believe this was a backhanded shot at President Trump. I also believe this was complete and total clickbait. They wanted this reaction, and they got it. And they used disabled Veterans as the bait.

It’s pretty disgusting.

So, stop talking about it. Stop clicking on it. It is bullshit and they know it. So, let’s end it.

End your subscription if you have one (doubtful) without a word. Never click on The Economist again, no matter what. Tell your friends and neighbors to do the same. This is the response from the clearer heads.

Don’t ever think you can exploit us for YOUR gain ever again. Shove your politics up your ass. And your clickbait. Make The Economist pay dearly. Quietly shut them down. We are smarter and more powerful than they are.

That’s A Lesson for The Economist.

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Let the Dogs Off the Chain