Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Query to a Best Friend "Liberal"

Dear John,

Did you volunteer for the duty with Stars and Stripes, or were you drafted?

I ask this because you have always projected a positive, tho critical attitude toward your  service.
It is a point of intellectual honesty and logic, I approach.
Some Americans  hate  the present armed conflict and the administration that mounted it because, they say, in print, on the air and in flim / tape  that it is criminal for the United States to  "kill 900  American kids"  and that these "kids' " families and all Americans should be outraged.

This is couched in language that brings up, at worst images of press-gangs and privateers  savaging the populace by  wresting children from the protective and loving arms of their parents and teachers---and at best,  leaves the impression that the United States still conscripts unwilling youth for the armed services.
Actually, Senator Scoop Jackson (D)  and Gordon Allott (R)  teamed up with a couple of their astute advisers, Richard Perle and Dr. George Will, to draft the legislatiuon that ended the draft and created an all-volunteer armed force for the United States.

These are mostly young men when they first train, yes.  But, they are no longer mostly black, or mostly latino, but a pretty  homogeneous cross section of the populace.

They are professionals.  They sign contracts to train and learn how to kill people and break things and sink and blow up stuff. 
 
Without regard to their admittedly low pay  and poor family living conditions in SOME cases,  they are hired to do what they are doing.
In fact, in most cases, theri parents sign them into the armed services.  And they get perks,  skills, education guaranteed, and so on.

As the grandfather of a Marine pfc at Camp Pendleton, headed for Falujah in September,  I keep up with them and hear from them weekly.

By "them", I mean a Master gunny  and a T-4 at Quantico  who have done more than their year in Iraq.They  were among some people I was lucky enough to salvage, and in some cases, restore their families.
So, all I'm asking, is...Isn;t it either illogical or intellectually dishonest to decry the deaths of the 900 as  cruel and unnecessary?
They were doing the job they and their failies signed up for.   I understand that.  Grandson John, Godson Eddie  and Sheri's Husband Richard and all their living relatives understand that.
It  devalues them, and devalues all of us to make invidious characterization of their  service, which is, after all, a professional contract held inviolate by them.
Thanks for listening.  I trust your level head to straighten me out if I am off base.
Love,
Bill

Monday, July 26, 2004

HISTORY IS>>>>Whaaaaaat????!!

Strictly from the perspective of a man in his eighth decade, there are three historical incidents that have shaped the national "discourse" in the United States since 1952, when General Eisenhower was elected president.

Before that, the Great Depression, FDR and World War II (implicit in which was the advent of the Nuclear Bomb / Age).

But, JFK’s commitment of the American Military to Viet Nam, his subsequent assassination by a communist dupe / Castro sympathizer and the first resignation of a president of the United States (Nixon) have been most influential in changing the way Americans see themselves and the world.

I maintain that we are still, whether the pundits and pols like it or not, instinctively isolationist, and extremely vulnerable to whatever propagandist or drmagog can manipulate this deep, George Washington-based national suspicion.

This isolationism is ironically overlaid by a desire by Americans for the rest of the world to admire us.

"Look! But don’t Touch!"

Two Great Americans, Henry Ford in this century, and Thomas Jefferson, in America’s first century said–and believed—"History is Bunk!!!"

Jefferson wrote that the slavish  conf conformity to laws and constitutions more than 20 years old, should be wiped clean—that former generations had no moral "hold" on "this" one (or any subsequent one.

I muse on this, and invite the thoughtful to join me in the musing, because we have arrived at the time when even Jefferson’s idea of  generational revolution has been compacted by guileful propaganda and astute demagogy (that LOOKS better than demagoguery!!) into any chosen election cycle.

Everything that was considered GOOD between 1192 and 2000 is now denigrated and shunned by those who promoted the same schemes before.

Removing Milosevic and bombing Serbs was great "nationbuilding".

Removing Hussein and bombing Iraquis is criminal.

Reforming welfare was truly a miracle.
Reforming trial lawyer welfare is abominable.

I’ll just let you find the other examples. There are many.

But the point is that we are going off the cliff and down the rabbit’s hole unless a sudden fit of Sanity takes hold.

Take for instance the fact that airport security is under a rule that it is illegal to "profile" young, Arab or Muslim or "middle-eastern-looking" men to be strip searched.

Congressman John Dingell with a screw and plate in his leg—YES! Get him NEKKID!

General Joe Foss, carrying a "curious object" (The Medal of Honor for most air combat kills in history). Strip him nekkid!!!

But HANDS OFF  our brothers Ahmed,  Feisal, Hassan, Yassim, Khalid, Sheik,  or  Sudana!!!

Snatch that ole deaf lady in the wheelchair!

Please, O God of My Understanding, take me back to my brierpatch and deliver me from ZooZooland......