The life, or lack thereof, of the once-esteemed Zebster.
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When you join the armed forces (remember, it's a volunteer force. I'd have some a tiny bit of sympathy if these assholes were drafted) and sign that blank check, you're no longer entitled to a public opinion.
Read this article, the latest regarding active duty troops taking to Twitter and Facebook, hiding their faces and protesting that they didn't join to do whatever. I didn't join and spend eight years on active duty to have my name sullied by things like the Iran/Contra Affair and $25 toilet seats (and I could go on and on about my 8 years that dovetailed the reign of the sainted Ronald Reagen) but I did what I was told because that is exactly what I swore to do when I joined. If you disagree, then show your face and get your less-than-honorable discharge, which is the honorable thing to do if your signature on that blank check is worthless.
Thank you, Senator Pressler, a Republican, for so succinctly and eloquently and passionately saying what needs and should have been said for quite some time now. Below is an excerpt from Senator Pressler's endorsement letter of President Obama:
As a combat veteran of two tours in Vietnam with twenty-two years of service as a Republican member of the U.S. House and Senate, I endorse President Barack Obama for a second term as our Commander-in-Chief. Candidates publicly praise our service members, veterans and their families, but President Obama supports them in word and deed, anywhere and every time.
This is a rather long letter as far as letters go but it lays out so well why it's not even close when it comes to how much support the President has given the troops and the military, and how much the Republican Party has let them down, which is putting it kindly, and presents a stark contrast between the President and Mr. Romney. This is something the average conservative has ignored for years, though admittedly so has the average Democrat. If you haven't read this letter, you need to and you can do so here. It'll be interesting to see whether this gets anywhere near the press coverage and conversation it deserves.
Brent, I assume living in South Dakota, you've seen this?
And I want to throw in a great quote (sort of, since I don't now remember it exactly) by Chris Matthews tonight, paraphrasing, "Why do conservatives believe that the way to get rich people to work harder is by giving them money but the best way to make poor people work harder is by making things more difficult."
By now I'm sure most of you, even if you're not Nascar fans, have heard that an audible portion of the crowd at Miami/Homestead Speedway booed Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden yesterday.
They were there as Grand Marshals, which in Nascar speak means you get to say "Gentlemen, start your engines." The First and Second ladies were there to honor the troops and get out the word about their troop related causes, which is what First Ladies do.
Now, I know all about free speech and don't even try to sidetrack the discussion. If you can picket a soldier's funeral, you can certainly boo the First Lady. That doesn't mean that these "expressions" are not classless. Since when do we as a country boo the First Lady? Well, since Hilary Clinton was First Lady, that's when. When the right boos the First Lady, it's a free speech issue; but if the left were to boo a First Lady, which I have never heard happen, then it would be unAmerican, unpatriotic, disrespectful. Well, I submit to you that booing the First Lady is all of those things.
Now, let's be clear that I have nothing against Laura Bush. I'm just using her as an example. If it isn't alright to boo someone who negligently killed a young man in an auto accident as a teenager but wasn't punished due to her family's political influence, then it isn't alright to boo this First Lady just because she's a Democrat at best and, at worse, black. Can't we in this country at least show enough class to not boo the First Lady? President George W. Bush's policies, actions, lack of actions and words made the left in this country every bit as angry at him as the right is at President Obama but I never once heard his wife booed. Why? I can only mostly speak for myself but it's because we recognize who's The Decider and who isn't. And honestly, on the right there is no limit, no guideline, no civil restraint, no modulation. Name five of the nastiest, most hateful political pundits you can think of, and they're all on the right and have enormous followings.
Lastly, I want to challenge Nascar to come out publicly and denounce this as unAmerican. They won't because they'll claim to be apolitical but they're anything but apolitical. If the same sanctioning body that shoves the American flag, the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance down your throat at every race doesn't come out and call this unpatriotic, they'll be showing you just exactly where they stand. Again, these ladies were there to support the troops (supporting the troops, something the right claims to own exclusively) and yet they boo her. As someone said to me, "They might as well have pissed on the flag" because booing her in this instance is booing her cause, the troops.
And an added note to the right, now that I've searched the net in an effort to see whether Nascar had condemned this and seen the internet exploding with a disgusting display of the right, in typical fashion, lying about how if it's fair to boo George Bush or Sarah Palin, it's fair to boo Michelle Obama. Listen fucknucks, look at yourselves in the mirror and see what you've become -- how nasty, ugly, disgusting, trivial you are. You'll say anything to defend your ugliness. Booing someone who is running for public office is NOT the same thing. And I won't even begin to address and certainly not give examples of some of the name calling directed at the First Lady that I saw on some very high profile right wing blogs. Thank you for continuing to scratch a big ugly scar into what once was the most envied country on the planet. You should be ashamed of yourselves but I know it's not in your DNA. Good people have the capacity to look in the mirror and fairly judge their actions and feel remorse accordingly. All I see from the right these days is a never-ending capacity for ugliness and hate in response to being called out.
UPDATE: And now one of the ugliest Americans of them all has weighed in, saying the reason they booed the First Lady is because she's uppity and they don't like uppity. That's not very well disguised, Rush. I'm surprised you just didn't say the N word because that's exactly what you meant and exactly what your dittohead listeners heard.
What happens when one party doesn't care about deficits until the opposing party is in the White House? What happens to deficits when one party only asks the working class to pay off the debt that that party helped build by giving tax breaks to the richest one percent and to corporations who pay no taxes? What happens when one party convinces its base that deficit reduction at a time of zero growth is more important than creating jobs? What happens when one party represents the 1% percent at all cost and at the peril of the 99%?
What happens when the other party doesn't have the balls to stand up against that first party and for the people they claim to represent?
You get a gridlocked, do-nothing Congress, an economy that's working great for the 1% and failing the 99% and a Super Committee proposing benefit cuts like these:
If you hadn't yet realized that the Republican Party's mission of doing anything to make sure Obama was a one-term President was being done counter to what was in the best interests of the country as a whole or that "anything" was meant literally, then you should know it now. Semper FU indeed! If that doesn't piss you off and make your blood boil, nothing will.
On this Veteran's Day I'd like us all to remember the sacrifices of so many in all branches of the United States military, and supporting organizations; sacrifices big and small. Patriots come in many different forms. Remember especially that those who wore the uniform wrote a blank check to the people of this country, a check payable up to and including their lives. It is because of that unselfish sacrifice that we have this great country and the freedoms it holds.
Today I'd like to open this blog up to the readers to say in their own words how appreciative they are of our veterans. Leave in the comments of this blog a little anecdote, a remembrance of someone close to you, what it means to you to live in this country because of the sacrifice of our veterans, or just the names of veterans that are important to you, whether they be serving currently or in the past, whether they be your ancestors, friends or just someone you look up to.
I'll start it off by remembering my Great Grandfather Stanley Basford Sr, who served during WWI in the Army, and my stepson Timothy, who served on active duty in the Army and is still in the National Guard.
Happy birthday to all the Marines out there; those who are no longer with us, those who are retired, those who are currently serving and those who will some day serve. But most especially a great big oooh rah, Semper Fi and a toast with my glass of scotch to those very special Marines who I had the great privilege to know and become friends with, who welcomed me into this very special group with open arms and who I still have a special bond with to this day. You have some idea, I know, how it feels for me to be one of you but let me just say that feeling resides in a place in my heart and soul that no one else has ever entered.
Now enough of the mushy stuff and back to the scotch, a gentleman's drink offered in friendship and camaraderie, cheers as I share with you this video message from the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
I don't know whether, if you're not a Marine, that brings an ear-to-ear smile coupled with a tear like it does this Marine but I suspect it does. But there is another feeling that only we feel. Now, I never served in combat and would never act like I know what it feels like but I do feel like I'm there with them and I "bleed" when they bleed.
One final thing, since I'm reminded of this watching that video and being a proud native of the State of Maine, is to give a toast and an ooh rah to the fine people of Bangor who welcome all those troops, every one of them, when they arrive back home.
I would encourage you to leave the name of a fallen Marine in the comments, like a permanent honor roll.
Imagine for just a minute that you're 22 year old PFC Bradley Manning, a patriotic soldier doing your job and minding your own business, when one day the worst possible moral and patriotic dilemma falls in your lap. You're working as an intel analyst when you see part or all of what's become known as the Collateral Murder footage, where it certainly appears that an Apache helicopter is firing on unarmed people trying to keep from being shot at. So for the sake of this discussion, let's assume it is what it appears to be.
If you're unfamiliar with this issue, here's some background from the PBS show Need To Know that includes a videotape of the incident.
Now I could care less about the website Wikileaks or its founder, Julian Assange. My concern is that the issue easily gets sidetracked when you talk about Wikileaks because, the Collateral Murder tape aside, most of us would agree we don't agree with their methods and their choices.
But just from a purely patriotic and moral standpoint, how do you feel about the fact that Manning released a sensitive US military "document" that plainly puts the US in a bad light?
Is it that simple...thou shalt never release anything, no matter the circumstances, at any time? No.
Is it worse because he was an active duty soldier as opposed to a civilian? I don't think so. You don't have to obey an unlawful order, for example. The issue is certainly complicated by the fact that this whistle blowing incident takes place during wartime, where doing the right thing can often also be doing the wrong thing. Yes, both at the same time in my opinion.
This is where I fall on this if I were to put myself in his shoes. I know if I go against my government and cause this material to become public, I'm going to go to jail for a long time and rightfully so. No matter the cause, I'm breaking the wartime laws of my country that I've sworn to uphold. But I'd do it anyway. The releasing of that material is detrimental to our country but the incident in and of itself is detrimental to this country and the ramifications of not coming clean (YET AGAIN) in these kinds of incidents is much worse.
I can envision instances where during wartime I could witness a murder and still know that the right thing is to keep it a secret. This isn't one of those instances.
