Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Our nation has become a military empire analogous to ancient Rome, another Republic that lost its bearings because it became the mightiest fighting force of its time. That we owe this to having spectacularly won what could be called “The Last Just War”, World War II, merely ironically underlines our descent into become the World’s most bellicose nation. This bellicosity has been masked by propaganda that makes us out to be the one nation responsible for ensuring “freedom and safety”. In this strife torn Earth, that idea cannot be supported since the truth is that we are the chief threat to peace in the world today. Now in truth, the use of the United States military to intervene in this Nation and other Nation’s affairs is not simply a phenomenon that began with World War II as you can see from this timeline linked here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations . What World War II marked though was the absolute dominant position in world military power which our country attained during our participation in that war. Given the magnitude of its scope it is easy to forget that for the United States World War II lasted only a brief four years. However, the incredible mobilization of troops and the supporting materiel of war were accomplished via a total mobilization that in the end fully turned the vision of Corporate America towards the great profits and benefits to be derived by American military dominance. Indeed, for generations to come there was a fluidity of personnel between leading corporate entities and the Department of Defense.
Since 2001 our Armed Forces have been totally engaged in two major, unjustified wars and various minor “peace actions”. A child born in 1990 in the U.S. grew up in a world where there has been constant warfare and warfare’s necessary companion glorification of military service. The admixture of America’s warlike behavior and the faux glorification of the nobility of our military has become a constant in that young persons mind, only to better make them future cannon fodder for our dominant Corporate/Military Industrial Complex. Sadly, the less educated that young person is the more they are gullible to the siren call of that propaganda of military glorification. As the Great U.S. General Smedley Butler said so long ago: “War is a racket”.
In truth we honor our soldiers far more in words than in deeds. “America’s Greatest Generation” as establishment mouthpiece Tom Brokaw put it, was also the one generation of military personnel that was actually very well treated in the aftermath of their service. The World War II returning troops were educated via the generous G.I. Bill, had their homes financed through special discount programs and entered the marketplace at a time of phenomenal growth of the U.S. economy due to our country’s new position as the World’s dominant power. Every generation of returning veterans before and after World War II was treated rather shabbily in comparisons, despite the lavish praise given them for their service. The huge backlog in receiving benefits and medical treatment for our latest generation of returning veterans is masked by our presumed “honoring of the troops”, which is constantly accomplished merely in words, with a paucity of actual services delivered.
The reality is that the only real bi-partisanship that exists in our politicians today is that the overwhelming majority of both Democrats and Republicans are enthusiastic supporters of American military hegemony and bought stooges of the Corporate/Military Industrial Complex. That many beyond their corporate donors are indeed true believers in American military supremacy is no doubt true. The fact is that if you were born after let’s say 1960, your view of the world was shaped by American interventionism and American military supremacy. Barack Obama was born in 1961 and one can count him as one of those who for the most part supports America’s military interventionism. The proofs of my assertions are simple. In this time of supposed budgetary crisis, there is barely minimal support for cutting anything out of our Military and Intelligence budget. I lump Military and Intelligence together because there has been such a blurring of the lines between these two formerly discrete government entities, that today it is impossible to distinguish boundaries.
When it comes to my premise for this piece which is that this country will soon be involved in its “next” war, let me explain my reasoning. First of all there is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the room of American politics that almost no one that I’m aware of talks about. We are mired in a recession with countless American unemployed. If we bring our troops home and cut our defense budget we will add hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to our jobless rolls. Truly, the military has been the escape for many with otherwise poor employment prospects into obtaining a respectable job and the semblance of a future career. By cutting the military/intelligence budget, as things now stand economically in this country, we will recede from “recession” into “depression”. However, without something to justify the existence of our military budget, the U.S. spends more on our military budget than the next thirteen countries combined military expenditures, the truth that we are squandering the riches of this country to support the profits of private corporations becomes obvious. Therefore we need something to justify this unnecessary expense and that is another war.
As I see it there are three good prospects for that coming war, though I won’t preclude that we might fight all three at once. The first prospect is that ever handy, oil rich, example Iran. The justification would be similar to that of Iraq, which is “weapons of mass destruction”. The idea is that we can’t allow a country as unstable as Iran to have nuclear capacity. Underlying this justification is that Iran has a massive supply of oil riches and so would be a prize similar to Iraq and the oil leases we forced Iraq to agree to. Naturally, a partial excuse would be its threat to Israel, but in truth that is merely a convenient overlay for Saudi Arabia’s competition with Iran for dominance in the Muslim world.
A second possibility is intervention in Syria for humanitarian reasons. The Syrian dictator Assad is no doubt a brute, but we live in a world where a great many country’s are ruled by brutes. The “humanitarian” interest in Syria is its strategic location, the presence of American military bases close by and the various economic benefits to be supplied by controlling that country.
Now a third possibility rearing its ugly head comes from the clownish dictator of North Korea. Again we find a nuclear threat involved and also this is paired with the “humanitarian” need to rid this unfortunate country of its hereditary dictator. That North Korea is a failed state, unable to feed its people and geographically located next to one of the World’s great powers China may be ignored because the silly posturing of its’ “dear Leader” can be propagandistically twisted into a “threat” to our country.
It must be noted that possibly the most unstable country to possess nuclear capability in the World today is Pakistan, yet that ill-governed country is somehow never cited as a threat to the U.S., even with its harboring of Osama Bin Laden and of the Taliban, next door to the country we are currently deeply involved in.
These are my reasons for my believing that quite shortly our country will be involved in another war. Unless thinking by both parties in Washington changes drastically, which I don’t see as likely given the gravy train our politicians are on, we will receive the same propagandist buildup as a preparation of the American people for yet another war. We will squander the lives of our troops and the wealth of this country maintaining our role as the “Leader of the World”. We will move ever closer to Rome’s example as a republic turns to empire and the empire is ruled by military heroes and so it goes.
The reader will note that I used no links to back up my suppositions and in truth this guest blog was my meditation on the militaristic character that has prevailed in our nation. However, my musings are not merely the product of a fevered brain this morning, but actually a continuation of an ongoing theme of a portion of my guest blogs. The links below supply the information and detail that have influenced my feelings and a the combination of work that both Gene Howington and myself have produced in the past year or so.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/09/petraeus-the-problem-with-heroic-hagiography/
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/02/02/why-they-hate-hagel-and-american-mythology/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/15/this-changes-everything/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/08/the-drum-beat-goes-on/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/08/25/lest-we-forget/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/23/missing-the-point-when-the-point-is-obvious/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/06/17/propaganda-102-holly-would-and-the-power-of-images/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/05/20/propaganda-101-what-you-need-to-know-and-why-or/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/04/01/defending-our-freedoms/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/25/hypocrisy-democracy-whats-going-on/
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/07/americas-transcendent-issue/
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/24/as-we-careen-towards-a-dream-of-armageddon/
http://jonathanturley.org/2011/09/10/the-president-has-been-afraid-of-what/
Hey. Anyone out there remember the movie: The Producers. Here are the lyrics for one of the theme songs. Substitute Morsi for Hitler and you will see the 1933 Parallels. It is Winter for women and Coptics.
Springtime for Hitler by
CHORUS:
Germany was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore
Its former glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me!
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
And now it’s…
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
We’re marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Rhineland’s a fine land once more!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Watch out, Europe
We’re going on tour!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany…
CHORUS:
Look, it’s springtime
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
Winter for Poland and France
CHORUS AND STORMTROOPER:
Springtime for Hitler and Germany!
CHORUS:
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
Springtime! Springtime!
STORMTROOPER:
Come on, Germans
Go into your dance!
STORMTROOPER “ROLF”:
I was born in Dusseldorf und that is why they call me Rolf.
STORMTROOPER “MEL”:
Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party!
ULLA:
The Fuhrer is coming, the Fuhrer is coming, the Fuhrer is coming!
STORMTROOPER #1:
Heil Hitler!
STORMTROOPER #2:
Heil Hitler!
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
Heil Hitler!
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
ALL:
Heil Hitler!
ROGER:
Heil myself
Heil to me
I’m the kraut
Who’s out to change our history
Heil myself
Raise your hand
There’s no greater
Dictator in the land!
Everything I do, I do for you!
CHORUS:
Yes, you do!
ROGER:
If you’re looking for a war, here’s World War Two!
Heil myself
Raise your beer
CHORUS:
Jawohl!
ROGER:
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Nazi stand and cheer
CHORUS:
Hooray!
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Nazi…
ROGER:
Heil myself!
CHORUS:
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Nazi…
ROGER:
Heil myself!
CHORUS:
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Nazi…
ROGER:
…stand and cheer!
THE HEIL-LOs:
The Fuhrer is causing a furor!
He’s got those Russians on the run
You gotta love that wacky hun!
The Fuhrer is causing a furor
They can’t say “no” to his demands
They’re freaking out in foreign lands
He’s got the whole world in his hands
The Fuhrer is causing a furor!
ROGER:
I was just a paper hanger
No one more obscurer
Got a phone call from the Reichstag
Told me I was Fuhrer
Germany was blue
What, oh, what to do?
Hitched up my pants
And conquered France
Now Deutschland’s smiling through!
ULLA:
Challenge Tap, Challenge Tap,
Adolf digs a challenge tap,
Bring on the allies to hear the news,
the facts is the axis, cannot lose!
Cos’ Mr H.
ROGER:
Who is that?
ULLA:
Mr H.
ROGER:
That’s me!
ULLA:
Is wearing his dancing shoes!
STALIN:
I am Stalin,
You’ll soon be fallin’!
CHURCHILL:
I am Churchill,
I’m here to win the day!
ROGER:
It ain’t no myst’ry
If it’s politics or hist’ry
The thing you gotta know is
Ev’rything is show biz
Heil myself
Watch my show
I’m the German Ethel Merman
Dontcha know
We are crossing borders
The new world order is here
Make a great big smile
Ev’ryone sieg heil to me
Wonderful me!
And now it’s…
CHORUS:
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Goose-step’s the new step today
ROGER:
Springtime!
Goose-steps!
CHORUS MEN:
Bombs falling from the skies again
CHORUS:
Deutschland is on the rise again
ROGER & CHORUS:
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
U-boats are sailing once more
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
ROGER:
Means that…
CHORUS:
Soon we’ll be going…
ROGER:
We’ve got to be going…
CHORUS:
You know we’ll be going….
ROGER:
You bet we’ll be going…
ROGER & CHORUS:
You know we’ll be going to war!!
[Thanks to Roger for corrections]
Thanks, Mike. I definitely couldn’t have said it better myself. The chicken hawks start the wars that others fight and others pay for it because chicken hawks don’t fight and they don’t pay taxes.
We don’t really honor the soldiers we deify the generals, like Petraeus, rhymes with betray us, and McCrystal. Funny think about those generals they don’t actually win wars. They explains why they can’t win wars and why torture is a good idea. Of course not that clearly. They become gods in their own minds and in the minds of Congress. They behave like Caliglia and get medals and have their subordinate lie for them.. Hands up everyone who thinks Petraeus didn’t start that affair when his biographer was with him in the “trenches”. Since WWII which of the wars that we hopped into did the mightiest fighting force in the world win? NONE, except maybe the first Gulf War where we saved Kuwait from that dictator Sadam. You know Kuwait that shing star of democracy in the Middle East.
We don’t win wars and that’s ok for some people. They make more money that way and as the scare level rises they can sell more and more tools to turn the US into a prison.
One last thought, Syria. That “we gotta do something for the the PEOPLE” quagmire that certain politicians see as a good opportunity to keep the money flowing. Assad is a thug. The rebels or a portion of them have sworn allegiance to Al Queda just after we dropped a bundle of money in their lap, not enough I guess. I feel for the people, the little people who live in constant fear of these “righteous” killers on both sides of this civil war; however, if we go in it won’t be for the PEOPLE and we won’t win. It will be another win for the military industrial complex.
I feel for our people.
Gene
about bill maher, i recall before the 2000 election he would refer to the candidates as gush and bore, saying that they were interchangeable.
also from the old show politically incorrect i got the impression that he’s slept with ann coulter.
so he’s not as right or as bright as he thinks. more like a bill o’rielly that smokes weed and is on the invitation list for hugh hefners parties.
Tom Friedman’s pre-war advocacy for the invasion
By Glenn Greenwald
12/1/2006
http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2006/12/tom-friedmans-pre-war-advocacy-for.html
Excerpt;
Beginning in November, 2002 all the way up until and including the day of the invasion — March 23, 2003 — Tom Friedman essentially made every single argument about the war, including many that conflicted with one another, except for one — we should not invade Iraq. But on the day of the invasion, he mocked the argument of “the French,” whose views he said were “unserious” and should result in their removal from the U.N. Security Council ( specifically, “the French argue that only bad things will come from this war — more terrorism, a dangerous precedent for preventive war, civilian casualties”).
And despite having repeatedly said that the Bush administration’s pre-war actions were disastrous, Friedman declared on March 23 that the war would produce the outcome the Bush administration argued would result and that The Dreaded Unserious French would be proven wrong…
Gene,
Off topic–but on the subject of Thomas Friedman:
Thomas Friedman and Wealth
By Norman Solomon, the author of a dozen books including “War Made Easy.”
Posted: October 30, 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/thomas-friedman-and-wealt_b_32837.html
Excerpt:
Last week my column was a parody of how Thomas Friedman writes about the global economy. Since then, I’ve learned that I was in error on a matter that shines some light on the worldview of the syndicated New York Times columnist and best-selling author.
“Let’s face it — at this point I’m a rich guy, and I work for a newspaper run by guys who are even richer than I am,” the satirical version of Friedman said in my article. But actually, Friedman is not just “a rich guy.”
Days ago I read a long feature story that appeared in the July issue of The Washingtonian magazine. It provides some background on the world of Thomas Friedman — and the personal finances that have long smoothed his path.
Much of Friedman’s emphasis in recent years has revolved around economic relations. He’s been a strong supporter of “globalization”: the international trade rules and government policies allowing corporations to function with legal prerogatives that routinely trump labor rights, environmental protection and economic justice.
“Globalization” is largely about relations between the rich and the poor — and often that means the very rich and the very poor.
The lengthy profile of Friedman in The Washingtonian this summer had scant ink to spare for criticisms of Friedman’s outlook — which corporate media outlets frequently hail as brilliant. But the article did include a telling comment about him from the renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said: “Participation in the new world requires resources, computers, education, and access to those is very unequally distributed. He has this high level of optimism that means that anyone can do it if they just have wills.”
Stiglitz, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, added that Friedman has understated the impacts of “some of the forces of inequality.” And Stiglitz pointed out that “globalization inherently increases the inequalities in developing countries.”
Friedman’s great wealth is a frame for his window on the world. The Washingtonian reports that “his annual income easily reaches seven figures.” In the Maryland suburbs near Washington, three years ago, “the Friedmans built a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million,” on a parcel of more than seven acres near Bethesda Country Club and the Beltway.
Throughout his journalistic career, Friedman has been married to Ann Bucksbaum — heiress to a real-estate and shopping-mall fortune now estimated at $2.7 billion. When the couple wed back in 1978, according to The Washingtonian article, Friedman became part of “one of the 100 richest families in the country.”
Does Friedman’s astronomical wealth invalidate what he writes? Of course not. But information about the extent of his wealth — while not disclosed to readers of his columns and books — provides context for how he is accustomed to moving through the world. And his outsized economic privileges become especially relevant when we consider that he’s inclined to be glib and even flip as he advocates policies that give very low priority to reducing economic inequality.
Supposedly rigorous about facts and ideas, Friedman has prostituted his intellect. During a CNBC interview with Tim Russert in late July, the acclaimed savant made a notable confession: “We got this free market, and I admit, I was speaking out in Minnesota — my hometown, in fact — and guy stood up in the audience, said, ‘Mr. Friedman, is there any free trade agreement you’d oppose?’ I said, ‘No, absolutely not.’ I said, ‘You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade.'”
Friedman went on: “Why am I so obsessive about that? Because it is a free, open, flexible economy that means you really gotta compete, but that you really can compete and you can really be quick in responding. That, Tim, is the most important asset we have.”
Tim Russert didn’t bother to pursue the fact that one of the nation’s leading journalists had just said that he fervently advocated for a major trade agreement without knowing what was in it. “But beyond Russert’s negligence,” David Sirota wrote at the time, “what’s truly astonishing is that Tom Friedman, the person who the media most relies on to interpret trade policy, now publicly runs around admitting he actually knows nothing at all about the trade pacts he pushes in his New York Times column.”
It’s reasonable to ask whether Friedman — perhaps the richest journalist in the United States — might be less zealously evangelical for “globalization” if he hadn’t been so wealthy for the last quarter of a century. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the corporate forces avidly promoting his analysis of economic options are reaping massive profits from the systems of trade and commerce that he champions.
I admired Hitchens as a writer. Thought he was a masterful debater. My opinions of him as compared to what I’d consider a decent human being are far less charitable. That being said, I’m no fan of Maher either.
Friedman is a joke and a bad one at that. Doubly so because some people think he knows what he’s talking about.
As far as our “defense” spending goes? Oligarchical pillaging of national resources is a sure fire sign of a nation in free fall. Our militarization and senseless aggression geared toward private interests is not the only commonality we share with the Roman Empire. We will continue on this ruinous path until we either fix our manifestly corrupted political system (starting with Congress) or until something truly horrible happens at which point we with change the way we as a nation conduct our business, for the better or worse remains to be seen. And largest military or not? If the rest of the world gets tired of our bullshit, no one wins a nuclear war. And as horrifying as that prospect is, the more insidious threat is a biological war in age of easy genomics.
The universe is an active place. Everything oscillates. Everything is reciprocal. This is the idea behind many concepts both philosophical and scientific, not the least of which is “you reap what you sow”.
Our national policy is to sow destruction for personal profit as a form of free enterprise.
When that circle completes, it will not be a pretty picture.
I once thought – and not that long ago – that we as citizens had a chance to “right the boat” before it was too late.
Looking at our governmental and MSM institutions, I’m not so sure any more.
I still hope for the best, but the reality is likely to be far starker and harder than the best.
Report: The Pentagon Must Cut Spending
By Ben Armbruster
Apr 12, 2013
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/04/12/1861201/pentagon-cut-spending/
Excerpt:
President Obama’s Pentagon budget proposal exceed’s last year’s request by $1 billion and CAP defense budget experts Lawrence Korb, Alex Rothman and Max Hoffman think the White House can do better. “This is a missed opportunity to realign our national security priorities,” they write in a new brief, adding, “Unnecessary defense spending does not make us safer; it diverts resources away from other critical investments here at home that create jobs and rebuild our infrastructure.”
The report notes that in 2011, the United States spent more on its military than the next 13 biggest spenders combined (a majority of those nations are U.S. allies) and note that Obama’s defense budget proposal maintains an “unwillingness to return military spending to prewar levels or historical norms in real terms.”
Mike,
More on Thomas Friedman:
Rewrite Thomas Friedman’s Syria Column, Win a Free Hand Grenade
By Matt Taibbi
POSTED: November 14, 2012
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/rewrite-thomas-friedmans-syria-column-win-a-free-hand-grenade-20121114
Excerpt:
I know, this is getting very old. I promise, after this, to not mention Thomas Friedman for a long time. But his column today was so old-school, it deserves some attention.
Friedman on the Middle East this morning:
“Ever since the start of the Syrian uprising/civil war, I’ve cautioned that while Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Tunisia implode, Syria would explode if a political resolution was not found quickly. That is exactly what’s happening . . .
“What to do? I continue to believe that the best way to understand the real options — and they are grim — is by studying Iraq, which, like Syria, is made up largely of Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Kurds. Why didn’t Iraq explode outward like Syria after Saddam was removed? The answer: America.”
Friedman’s idea seems to be that ethnically-fractured Middle Eastern countries like Syria would be more stable today, if they’d only been occupied first and had their nation-states built on a foundation of political compromises brokered by a strong military power like the United States. Veteran Friedman readers know that this line of thinking usually leads to either an “iron fist” column, or a “midwife” column. Today, he went with both.
Friedman used to believe that Arabs were not physically capable of resisting the urge toward ethnic violence. Years ago, in an effort to explain what he called his “Pottery Barn” metaphor (the “You break it, you own it” line used to describe Iraq, and later appropriated by Colin Powell), Friedman remarked that in the case of Iraq, the pottery pieces were broken long before we arrived. They were, he said, “broken . . . by 1,000 years of Arab-Muslim authoritarianism, three brutal decades of Sunni Baathist rule, and a crippling decade of U.N. sanctions. [Iraq] was held together only by Saddam’s iron fist.”
So you had all of these pottery pieces being held together by an iron fist, but we took away the iron fist, and the pottery pieces fell apart again. This could have been fixed, he wrote, by inserting our own iron first, and commencing therapy, but we screwed that up, resulting in a vacuum: “Had we properly occupied the country, and begun political therapy, it is possible an American iron fist could have held Iraq together long enough to put it on a new course,” he wrote. “But instead we created a vacuum by not deploying enough troops.”
That was six years ago. Friedman was very down on Iraq then. “There are so many people killing so many other people for so many different reasons,” he wrote, that Iraq is “not even the Arab Yugoslavia anymore. It’s Hobbes’s jungle.” It was a jungle, he wrote, where we were “throwing more good lives after good lives into a deeper and deeper hole filled with more and more broken pieces.”
An endlessly-deepening hole, containing broken pottery pieces at the bottom, rapidly filling up with the dead bodies of good people. That is a very strange and depressing image, and it’s what Friedman saw in Iraq in 2006.
Now, however, Iraq looks good compared to Syria. In an attempt to explain how that could be, given that six years ago it looked quite a lot like our invasion of Iraq triggered a wave of ethnic violence, Friedman is re-explaining the history of the Iraq war.
why we need eleven nuclear super carriers when the rest of the world has only eleven carriers of any type.
eleven US carriers that can’t go through the panama canal
After reading all the comments I think that we should push the proposition to Make The World Safe FROM Democracy.
All of the United States rhetoric has been in favor of Arab Springs. Then we get Arab rats. Springtime for Hitler in Germany was autumn for Poland and France.
Interesting Dredd….
I joined the military (at 18) for the GI Bill, which let me go to college when I got out.
That said, I know a lot of the guys that joined with me had what I thought (even then) was a naive sense of patriotism, heroism, serving the country, protecting the civilians, elitism, whatever.
I did not believe it then, I do not believe it now; I did not see battle but I was cannon fodder, trained (by random drills we were purposely kept from knowing whether they were the real thing) to do my job without question or hesitation to the final second of life even if I was about to be vaporized in an atomic explosion. I worked beneath colonels and generals that proved to me on a daily basis they were phucking morons. I still think so thirty five years later.
I think that some young, like me, join out of desperation or cold calculation, but the majority join because they are conned into thinking they are serving their country and protecting citizens and doing something noble, when they are in fact suffering and dying to protect corporate profits.
Dredd,
That “Patriotic tug”. Here’s a good skit parodying this “tug-o-war”.
Anonymously Yours 1, April 13, 2013 at 8:26 pm
Kinda off topic…. But I think this new Pope as started out on the right track of corrective measure…. I’ve yet to read anything negative or even controversial in his decisions….
============================================
Have you read my study of the prophecy (Shades of the Mayan Calendar?) declaring he is the last Pope?
It is a most ancient “shiver me timbers.”
Excellent post, Mike! have you seen Why We Fight?
*****
“Why We Fight” – Eugene Jarecki – Part 1 of 12
Otteray Scribe 1, April 13, 2013 at 7:17 pm
…
“The character of a nation can be measured by the way that nation …
=================================================
“overcomes the senseless lust for parading and abusing veterans.” – Arthur Unknown
rafflaw 1, April 13, 2013 at 6:41 pm
OS.
Some of the kids that signed up for the military and who lived through 9/11 felt a patriotic tug or pull to join up. Our son talked about the Marines all through college and we suggested to finish school and then decide. He went in and really gained an immense amount of confidence and leadership ability that landed him a couple of good jobs since he got out of the Marines. The hard part for us as parents was his tour in Afghanistan. But he and many of his fellow officers felt that patriotic tug following 9/11 …
===========================================
“The kids” … Patriotic tug?
Oh I get it tug-o-war … kids stuff.
Sincerely raf, my bad, I cannot remember if you are an evolutionist JT guy or a religious JT guy.
So, I do not understand what you mean by “patriotic tug following 911.”
Obviously it wasn’t the one that wanted justice for the 15 of 19 Saudi Arabian hijackers.
Hell, hit the little guys, not the big powerful Oil-Qaeda who actually did it.
Sorry raf, most Americans did not then, and still do not now feel that patriotic tug.
It is a tug boat pulling the battleship “My
LaiLeg” to a junkyard somewhere nobody needs to go, wants to go, or has to go.Bill,
I’m sorry…. I didn’t realize that just because someone listened to a particular news program that it I’d them as a supporter….. But sir, you may know more than I……