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silveradeptHappy Father's Day, to those that qualify. Hopefully, your children love you still.
This week,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
annaonthemoon comes to visit again, in preparations for her cross-state move next month. Hopefully, she'll get everything squared away with housing and jobs so that she can dive right in when she arrives. We hope she likes it here well enough to stay, even after we remove our charming presence from this town when we graduate next year and go seek our fortunes elsewhere.
I note that my spam, when it comes to dating, used to read "Christian Singles". Apparently, that's either passe or the spammers have figured out that that doesn't interest me. What they've replaced it with, however, is "Meet black singles". Either they think that I am racially black or extraordinarily interested in them. I wonder where this will go next. (For the record, to me, attractive people are attractive people, regardless of their race. I have no particular fetish for one over another that I am aware of.)
A pair of related materials, from Republicans for Satan: Americans want an end to Iraq war, Senate disagrees, and Fuck the Troops. The first is taking the idea of low approval ratings and pairing it with what it calls "feel-good politics" from the Senate, which passed a resolution to see things through to the bitter end, thinking that America Must Prevail. (Eventually.) It's another round of If You're Not With Us, You're With the Terrorists, and may quite rightly be a smokescreen to hide not dealing with actual security issues as well as domestic policies that a significant amount of Americans feel are important, moreso than a quagmire in a foreign country that shows no signs of finishing anytime soon. (Although, that may be a knock on the public's attention span, that they're getting restless. Still, they were sold a quick conflict, being welcomed as liberators, a quick reconstruction and installation of government, and democracy in the Middle East, huzzah! They got none of that, so I suppose the fact that they're only antsy may be a knock on their apathy, instead.) Remarks made about people being safer here because of the soldiers there neglect the crime rate that happens here domestically, and also doesn't do squat about another potential McVeigh or someone else who decides to take up the mantle of striking at the government by killing its innocents.
The author strikes at all politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, as having started the conflict that nobody wants. A rather pointed demarcation is leveled, stating that those who support the war should stand by and assist those who fight it, while those who do not should be under no obligation to provide any aid or support, moral or otherwise, to the people fighting, or the politicians who insist that the fighting continue.
This leads into the second article, Fuck The Troops, which was apparently posted and then deleted from its original source. The article addresses a quandary (perhaps even a paradox) about the War - namely the position of being against the war, but still "supporting the troops" that are there. Perhaps this position arises out of a sympathy for the necessity of following orders to go to Iraq, but believing that the soldiers who are there don't want to be there and are against the war itself. Perhaps in a roundabout way, by being against the callousness of how their lives and funding is being handled, and so against the war because of the need for self-preservation. The article suggests that there is no such position among those who fight using the weapons of war. Soldiers have thinly-veiled self-interest at heart, according to the article, and are drawn from the very dregs of the American populace. Persons too stupid to make something of themselves at university, college, or a trade and who have to find some way of funding their lives and moving up from their socioeconomic state. Persons so far down that they believe the propaganda about being "An Army of One" in an organization designed to strip someone of their identity. Persons who, without the assistance of the brainpower of others that created the mechanized force that powers our army, would be utterly useless in any combat for anything other than the simplest of tasks. (I may be exaggerating the author's intent, but I find this a fair extrapolation. You're welcome to tell me if I'm reading too far in, or that I'm not getting it.) The final remark is that soldiers don't hold the principles of things like freedom and democracy at heart, but merely use them to clothe their own selfish goals for advancement, and playing the odds that they'll manage to collect on the things that the military promised them, rather than coming home in a body bag. At least 2500 of those soldiers have lost that gamble. There's likely to be a lot more before all is said and done.
Perhaps oddly, and much to the chagrin of the hawks, I think that his position is reasonable. There's no sin nor crime in being ashamed of the armed forces, the work they do, and the machinations of those who direct them. (Despite what some think.) There's also no real dishonour in refusing to participate in such a system, whether it recruits by volunteer, by law, or by force. His statement about the intelligence and desperation of the soliders, I have no clue about, but I know that there is an enticement to consider the military as a funding source for an otherwise unavailable university degree, and with stories circulating (true or not) of the military offering shinies to young men to get them to enlist, perhaps they are pandering to the lowest common denominator, playing up beliefs that they don't hold, and appealing to self-interest and greed. A hypocrisy of that sort is shameful, if it is true.
I don't know. I realize this is one of the ways that representative government can go horribly awry or do significant good by ignoring the will of the people and the poll ratings. Personally, I thought the idea of going into Iraq was misguided from the beginning, and so the idea of leaving before there is more needless bloodshed appeals. History, I suppose, will vindicate the correct decision, whatever it may be. If things do pull through to the end and work out, then it will be up to the future to decide whether it was worth the cost. I don't think it will be, but that's my limited and temporally-bound perspective.
This week,
annaonthemoon comes to visit again, in preparations for her cross-state move next month. Hopefully, she'll get everything squared away with housing and jobs so that she can dive right in when she arrives. We hope she likes it here well enough to stay, even after we remove our charming presence from this town when we graduate next year and go seek our fortunes elsewhere.I note that my spam, when it comes to dating, used to read "Christian Singles". Apparently, that's either passe or the spammers have figured out that that doesn't interest me. What they've replaced it with, however, is "Meet black singles". Either they think that I am racially black or extraordinarily interested in them. I wonder where this will go next. (For the record, to me, attractive people are attractive people, regardless of their race. I have no particular fetish for one over another that I am aware of.)
A pair of related materials, from Republicans for Satan: Americans want an end to Iraq war, Senate disagrees, and Fuck the Troops. The first is taking the idea of low approval ratings and pairing it with what it calls "feel-good politics" from the Senate, which passed a resolution to see things through to the bitter end, thinking that America Must Prevail. (Eventually.) It's another round of If You're Not With Us, You're With the Terrorists, and may quite rightly be a smokescreen to hide not dealing with actual security issues as well as domestic policies that a significant amount of Americans feel are important, moreso than a quagmire in a foreign country that shows no signs of finishing anytime soon. (Although, that may be a knock on the public's attention span, that they're getting restless. Still, they were sold a quick conflict, being welcomed as liberators, a quick reconstruction and installation of government, and democracy in the Middle East, huzzah! They got none of that, so I suppose the fact that they're only antsy may be a knock on their apathy, instead.) Remarks made about people being safer here because of the soldiers there neglect the crime rate that happens here domestically, and also doesn't do squat about another potential McVeigh or someone else who decides to take up the mantle of striking at the government by killing its innocents.
The author strikes at all politicians, regardless of their political affiliation, as having started the conflict that nobody wants. A rather pointed demarcation is leveled, stating that those who support the war should stand by and assist those who fight it, while those who do not should be under no obligation to provide any aid or support, moral or otherwise, to the people fighting, or the politicians who insist that the fighting continue.
This leads into the second article, Fuck The Troops, which was apparently posted and then deleted from its original source. The article addresses a quandary (perhaps even a paradox) about the War - namely the position of being against the war, but still "supporting the troops" that are there. Perhaps this position arises out of a sympathy for the necessity of following orders to go to Iraq, but believing that the soldiers who are there don't want to be there and are against the war itself. Perhaps in a roundabout way, by being against the callousness of how their lives and funding is being handled, and so against the war because of the need for self-preservation. The article suggests that there is no such position among those who fight using the weapons of war. Soldiers have thinly-veiled self-interest at heart, according to the article, and are drawn from the very dregs of the American populace. Persons too stupid to make something of themselves at university, college, or a trade and who have to find some way of funding their lives and moving up from their socioeconomic state. Persons so far down that they believe the propaganda about being "An Army of One" in an organization designed to strip someone of their identity. Persons who, without the assistance of the brainpower of others that created the mechanized force that powers our army, would be utterly useless in any combat for anything other than the simplest of tasks. (I may be exaggerating the author's intent, but I find this a fair extrapolation. You're welcome to tell me if I'm reading too far in, or that I'm not getting it.) The final remark is that soldiers don't hold the principles of things like freedom and democracy at heart, but merely use them to clothe their own selfish goals for advancement, and playing the odds that they'll manage to collect on the things that the military promised them, rather than coming home in a body bag. At least 2500 of those soldiers have lost that gamble. There's likely to be a lot more before all is said and done.
Perhaps oddly, and much to the chagrin of the hawks, I think that his position is reasonable. There's no sin nor crime in being ashamed of the armed forces, the work they do, and the machinations of those who direct them. (Despite what some think.) There's also no real dishonour in refusing to participate in such a system, whether it recruits by volunteer, by law, or by force. His statement about the intelligence and desperation of the soliders, I have no clue about, but I know that there is an enticement to consider the military as a funding source for an otherwise unavailable university degree, and with stories circulating (true or not) of the military offering shinies to young men to get them to enlist, perhaps they are pandering to the lowest common denominator, playing up beliefs that they don't hold, and appealing to self-interest and greed. A hypocrisy of that sort is shameful, if it is true.
I don't know. I realize this is one of the ways that representative government can go horribly awry or do significant good by ignoring the will of the people and the poll ratings. Personally, I thought the idea of going into Iraq was misguided from the beginning, and so the idea of leaving before there is more needless bloodshed appeals. History, I suppose, will vindicate the correct decision, whatever it may be. If things do pull through to the end and work out, then it will be up to the future to decide whether it was worth the cost. I don't think it will be, but that's my limited and temporally-bound perspective.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 04:38 am (UTC)But at least the idea of what feasiblie is works."
I felt this was in relative agreement with the point I made; I was thanking you for respecting my opinion, especially with the "incessant babble" part. =D
no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 11:25 am (UTC)