2 posts tagged “bush”
Yet at the same time, I look at that photograph and feel that there is a certain naivete amongst those who protest with signs on the streets, and clamor to get out the vote. Neither major party offers a viable solution to the problems facing the nation, and the multitude of constitutional faux pas enacted by the Bush Regime. And with 2.8 billion dollars being spent on this year's midterm election by both parties, it would be lunacy to imagine that the same old politics of reciprocity will not take play once everyone is safely in office. Add flawed electronic voting machines without paper backups, the threat of the still-registered dead rising from the grave to vote, and the politics of fear and ultimately what this nation has is less of a true, democratic election and more of step forward towards the edge of that Orwellian abyss.
I look at that photograph and part of me wants to join them, to rise in civil disobedience against the government and ameliorate the problems of our government. But my first bright-eyed election was in 2000, and I have had none since. I know, when I go cast my ballot tomorrow, I am only choosing a lesser evil, not a true solution, nor a truly democratic representative of my, or my fellow voters' interests.
Part of me is furious at having such poor choices, at having politicians who look out more for those who will fund their next campaigns than the actual voters who put them into office. Part of me wants to take this Tuesday and paint the streets red and fowl with all the lobbyists, executives and self-serving hypocrites that populate and manipulate our government to do almost everything but what is good for the people of the country. I want to wear red and yellow and wave a banner high in the air and scream that this is for the people, that every country has growing pains and it is our mandate, as the people, to force a restoration in true Jeffersonian fashion.
But that part of me will never be appeased. No call to arms will ever be answered in this country. Not enough people seem to truly care. Sometimes, though, I wonder if anyone feels the same way--if they would pick up the banner too, and fight in the streets for the idea of America, not what America has come to be....
I will cast my ballot tomorrow, but my hands and heart will be left wanting.
So the Republitards are at it again, deciding to turn all their rhetorical artillery against their favorite flip-flopping foe. I won't cite Kerry's comment, it's all over the news, but the jist of what was said was that overly smart people don't form the bulk of the armed forces, so get an education and stay out of the quagmire in Iraq.
What's wrong with this assessment? American citizens always gasp with terror at any comment against the armed forces as though their own mother has been slighted in the worst way (god forbid a politician points out something with a shread of truth, right?). Will they open up to reason? No. The Army is not made up of the brightest and the best. To think it is is a ridiculously fallacy, one made all the more poignant by the military's current lower standards of recruitment.
News flash: The military is not seeking to forge divisions of Albert Einsteins with M-16s and K-bars ready to gun down the enemy jihadist and revolutionize physics in their spare time. The military does not espouse the virtues that allow intelligence, and especially intellectual development, to flourish. Thinking is not good for the average foot solider. "There is not to ask why, but to do and die." It's that simple. The military does not want average enlisted men questioning the purpose of their mission, why they are in the conflict they are, and whether their orders (and/or commanding officers) are sound in their judgement. The military seeks obedience.
This is where the practicality of training enters the scope. You can train almost anyone set methods of reaction to any number of circumstances. Drills exist to burn responses into a soldier's mind despite fear and panic. Soldiers are trained to think in terms of the boundaries of warfare and obedience to the chain of command. Those who excel, who are intelligent (and can fall in with the obedience demanded of them) will move up the chain of command (some will perhaps choose special forces are a route). But there are far more privates than NCOs or officers. They are the core of the military, and intelligence is not demanded from them--indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't frowned upon to a degree.
What John Kerry said implies a degree of truth: good education, a good understanding mind will keep you out of the Iraq clusterfuck. The simple truth is that smart people are less likely to join the military over a war like this (opposed to something like World War II, where the cause and danger were so very clear and present). The dregs of society will jump on the bandwagon, however. Where else will they go? And I don't think the army feels quite so bad about accepting them. They are, after all, a means to an end for Iraq, and anyone who says Iraq isn't a purely Machiavellian play (although a botched one) is either a neo-con, or signing their enlistment papers.
Now, as for Mr. Bush's demand for an apology, I say this: Isn't it time you apologized to the troops, Mr. Bush? Apologize to them and their families for the brothers, sisters, best friends, sons, daughters they have all lost; for the limbs they have left behind in a country all your stated reasons for invading were false. And apologize to the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, and their broken, displaced families, Mr. Bush. Maybe then you can demand an apology from John Kerry for a truthful, albeit blunt, statement.
