Wednesday, July 27th, 2016
Stephan: I really like this essay, and I agree with it. A man like Dwight Eisenhower would be appalled at what we have become.
Why has this happened? I believe it has happened for two reasons: First, because very few politicians are veterans. Of the present members of Congress only 20% of the Senate and 18% of the House have or are serving in the military; and under 4% of the staff. An even smaller percentage of that small percentage have been in combat, or even in an active war zone. The vast majority have no idea what war is like, and what it does to social wellness. Second, because the Congress has been corrupted by money in a profit first social structure, and war is incredibly profitable for what Eisenhower called, "The military-industrial complex" corporate world the Congressional corruption is particularly great there.
And we are going to reap what we have sown. That's my prediction, and it is already happening.
A man holds a child in the window of a shelter at the Zaatari refugee camp in northern Jordan, Sunday, June 19, 2016. Since the start of the Syrian war, 4.8 million people have fled the country, with 655,000 taking refugee in country, 80,000 of which reside in Zaatari, the largest of Jordan’s three refugee camps.
Credit: AP Photo/Sam McNeil
I recently dug my mother’s childhood photo album out of the depths of my bedroom closet. When I opened it, I found that the glue she had used as a girl to paste her life in place had given way, and on many pages the photos were now in a jumble.
My mother was born early in the last […]
Very easy to eliminate. Re-activate the draft for all qualified males and females. This will really perk up interest of the military industrial complex. It will also eliminate the present foreign legion, mercerinary military that now exists !
Unspoken in the current election cycle is choice between empire and not empire…. but perhaps that is only my imagination. Hillary: empire; The Donald: empire ; the Bern…. quiet on the subject, not wanting to open too many fronts.
‘No Supid Wars’ by the Tumpster has a sweet ring to the Sanderites, but what does that mean? Smart Wars. Ahhh. Robot fought. Our own obsequious democratic cowardice complete with drone assassination teams. Oh, we have that already.
We have not declared war in 75 years, as required by the constitution which over 20 million fellow veterans have sworn to protect. What Does This Mean?
Especially in the context of 20 vets a day offing themselves. Vets who wish to honor their oath the constitution are called right wing fanatics. Hey, I am left of Bernie (shucks, I could be aligned with Ike*) and I want that oath I took to be honored.
* I supported Adli Stevenson at the time, who was more left than our Cesear, Ike. Wildly, I think out loud, when did we, like the Romans switch from republic to empire? I think is was when Ike broke the link, which I gravely regret, between war and its declaration when we perfomed the ‘police action’ by killing millions of Koreans. Never admitting our war to ourselves, and never coming to terms that they consider us still at war with them.
I ask, What respect would you have for someone who assassinated a family member of yours from the sky? How might you want to strike back? We are planting these seeds, daily, into cultures where revenge holds the same place of honor that law enforcement holds, or used to hold, with us.
Well said, thanks for your food for thought…