Comments on: The Home of the Brave

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 29 May 2006 07:17:07 +0000

Christy Hardin Smith @ 88, as well: “a nation where other people shed their blood protecting your right to” — complete the sentence depending on how you want to shame the person into subservience to the government’s appetite for endless war. How long have we gone since the turn of the last century without a major conflict? How many of these have been essential to protecting our liberties? –please attempt to answer without the using the same tenor of speculation that I might use to argue that I will one day pitch a perfect game in the World Series or beat Garry Kasparov at chess.

I would be very interested to hear your response to my questions in post 78. I tried to state it as gently as I could but it would appear that you only respond to those who you can safely scold for being beyond the pale. By attacking the explicitly unpopular view, you can avoid having to offer any substance to back up your religious belief in the magical power of martial obedience to bestow the blessings of liberty.

How is participation in the current conflict in Iraq protecting our freedom here exactly? We have no choice but to conclude you believe that it is because you put no qualifier on your privilege of participating in aggresive war fighting as a mechanism to protect and expand freedom.

It would seem fair for me to assert, with more reason than you have bothered to demonstrate, that Christy Hardin Smith believes that the soldiers fighting in Iraq right now are fighting and dying to protect our liberty in the US. Yet what is actually happening to our liberty here in the US? And in the name of what? So how does that whole bloodshed-for-freedom thing work again exactly?

BTW, your inclusion of WWI as a war which we should conclude with a flush of civic pride as necessary for the sake of our freedom is horrifying and displays a staggering ignorance of the history of that conflict and America’s role in it. For a start, take a look at what happened to the people that vocally opposed that particular war. Ever hear of the Palmer Raids? Ah, the libertarian dividends of obedient soldiering. Also, check out how much freedom and security German Americans enjoyed during that time. I guess it’s a good thing though. Jeez, if the Kaiser had won, we’d all be speaking German. Right? Is that how it works?

When, finally, is a soldier allowed to resist the careless abuse of his honor? How hard you must make such resistance with your self-comforting lies of nobility freed from the requirements of reason, not to mention universal justice.

By: metamorph

metamorph — Mon, 29 May 2006 04:02:10 +0000

Christy Hardin Smith @ 88:

My sincere sympathies to you over your daughter’s illnesses and I hope she recovers quickly. I also sincerely hope that you someday find the courage to remove the blinders that keep you from seeing that “…live(ing) in a nation where other people shed their blood protecting (my) right to make an ass of (my)self any time (I) want to open (my)mouth?” is just a sham.

Sure, we’re allowed to say pretty much anything we want. But try to actually do anything about anything (the war, government corruption, whatever) and you get marginalized, labeled a “wingnut” or a “moonbat” and a member of the “lunatic fringe”. Meanwhile, our “political leaders” (Republicans and Democrats) just sit back and revel in how easy it is to keep the sheeple under control, while their billionaire buddies fatten their bank accounts leeching off the blood, sweat, tears and misery of those who weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths or who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) lie, cheat, steal or shed blood to get what they wanted.

By: professor rat

professor rat — Mon, 29 May 2006 02:49:47 +0000

What shame Gore can’t be president. He knows that something has to be done to rein in the military and rollback the Amerikkkan empire. ( Gore Vidal I mean )
Tony Blair is an xtian nutcase right wing ‘ Democrat’. The exact UK counterpart of the Vichy Dems here. We need to stop being simple witness’s to war crimes and stand up tall with Murtha. Make a tactical retreat to the Murtha lin and a full review of operations a minimal demand for netrootz support.
On this memorial day I choose to remember the great soldier and writer Joseph Heller. His fictional creation, Milo Minderbinder appears to have come to life and taken over Australia but I forgive him for that.
Thanks Christy for enabling a rich diversity of opinion here as well. It’s a privilege to serve the anti-war dog community.

By: Christy Hardin Smith

Christy Hardin Smith — Mon, 29 May 2006 02:04:39 +0000

Dear metamorph at 87 — my daughter has barfed on me three times today she has an ear infection, and I’m lucky to have gotten anything posted at all. There are so many things that I could say in response to your curmudgeonly rant, but I’ll just say this: isn’t it wonderful that you get to live in a nation where other people shed their blood protecting your right to make an ass of yourself any time you want to open your mouth?

By: metamorph

metamorph — Mon, 29 May 2006 01:07:45 +0000

Christy Hardin Smith @ 66:

The Revolution was fought so that the northern colonies/states could keep their tax monies here instead of sending them back to Britain and the southern colonies/states could have a free hand in the slave trade. Ditto (pardon the expression) for the War of 1812 with a bigger prize (the Louisiana Territory) also at stake.

It’s been pointed out elsewhere that the Civil War was fought over the question of secession. Allowing it would have put a serious crimp in the U.S. government’s dreams of empire, not to mention making everything the north shipped through the Port of New Orleans that much more expensive. Most people in the north (including Lincoln) didn’t give a rat’s ass about slavery.

World Wars one and two were both attempts, by Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt respectively, to prop up the colonial empires of the British, French, Belgians and Dutch. That, and our cutting off of shipments of oil and scrap metal to Japan is what provoked the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As for “honoring veterans for their service”, screw ‘em. The average veteran is either a lemming who unquestioningly marched off to war because s/he went for the “It’s your patriotic duty!” crap hook, line and sinker, or a mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging troglodite who would have starved to death if someone hadn’t shoved an assault rifle into his/her filthy hands and showed them how to rape, maim and murder innocent people. That’s especially true of the mercenaries President Retard has sent over to Afghanistan and Iraq.

As for tejanarusa’s question “How many readers are flying the flag tomorrow?”, I would guess that most people will show the flag, under the “monkey see, monkey do” theory. But you can bet your ass that I won’t be one of them.

By: tejanarusa

tejanarusa — Mon, 29 May 2006 00:24:33 +0000

Just one comment to add - yep, the stories are mostly about Uncle Charley or Dad - but I want to mention an often-forgotten exception - my Mom. Now 87 y.o., widowed 2 years, but still going on, tough as always. She was an Army nurse in WWII, from a small Pennsylvania town, graduated high school in the depression, barely managed to afford nursing school in Philadelphia, was a head nurse at Johns Hopkins when the war broke out. She joined up, then kept pounding on doors to get permission to go overseas (her vision’s bad, and if she broke her glasses she couldn’t have worked, so they kept saying no). Trained for North Africa, then was sent to England, from there to France after D-Day, following the invasion troops.
Of course, the stories she told are the pleasant ones, like being in Paris on VEDay with a friend, both in uniform, of course, and being whisked around town in the rumble seat of a car filled w/ Frenchmen, and being honored (and bought drinks) by them all afternoon, just for being American.
I really resent the fact that Bushco has destroyed that attitude, has in fact made us feel safer overseas if we pretend to be Canadian! How did this happen? Wait, that’s for another thread. For this one, well, I’ll remember all the young men she cared for who didn’t make it.
And my brother-in-law, whom I never met because he was killed in Vietnam in 1968. Destroyed his family, especially his mother, forever. He’s remembered, of course, as the golden child…whether he really was, I can’t say. But he joined the Navy, like his dad did in WWII, believing he was defending his country’s interests. As a protester of the war, you might think I wouldn’t get along with his little brother. But he doesn’t buy the right-wing storyline on Vietnam. He does fly the flag on Memorial Day. He refuses to allow the right-wingers to take the symbolism of the flag away from him. And I’ve come to feel much the same way, after years of feeling that flying the flag identified one as “conservative.” It’s complicated.
How many readers are flying the flag tomorrow?

By: A.Citizen

A.Citizen — Sun, 28 May 2006 23:47:11 +0000

One thing stands out in this post it’s thread and all the ones like it I have read this weekend….

It’s always about Uncle Charley or cousin Bill or Dad…

Right now, right this very second, everything those folks fought, bled and died for is in danger of being destroyed.

Destroyed by calculating evil bastards who think that because they have lied, terrorized and stolen their way to political power they can strip the masks from their faces and shout from the hilltops and bellow in the valleys that Fascism is triumphant here in America. And that the rest of us must do exactly as they say or feel the wrath of their displeasure.

And we, yes we not Uncle Charley or cousin Bill or Dad are the ones who are called upon to fight now.

I really hope those who visit here and elsewhere in the ‘uncivil’ blogosphere are ready to put it on the line to defend what others died for.

I am.

By: Don S

Don S — Sun, 28 May 2006 23:21:30 +0000

I’m the one that posted about Uncle Lyle above.

This past holiday season I became the family possesor of my Uncle Lyle’s personal effects including his Purple Heart and medals. I never met him, of course, but wished to share with you memories of his life to honor a life lost.

In all the pictures I now have he’s always smiling; and you could always tell a letter from Uncle Lyle since he drew pictures on the outside of the envelope.

He was a B-17 pilot who’s bomber was shot down over Vienna by AA fire; he went down with his plane, staying at the controls while most of his crew was able to get out. I have the letters the survivors wrote my grandmother expressing their sympathy and gratitude for my uncle’s actions during those last frightening moments.

All people have and are family; war is a horror of mankind that destroys families and mankind’s future. My we all learn together a better way some day. Just dreaming…

By: Bill R.

Bill R. — Sun, 28 May 2006 22:07:13 +0000

My father died two years ago. He entered the Marine Corps at age 16(lied about his age to escape an alcoholic family). He served in the North Atlantic, North Africa, and in the worst combat of the Pacific on Pelilu and Okinawa. He was awarded the silver cross for bravery under fire in the battle of Bloody Nose Ridge on Pelilu and wounded on Okinawa. As he was returning to the US at the end of the war on a hospital ship he promised that after seeing the worst cruelty and barbarism of war he wanted to learn to become a kind human being. He spent much of his adult life helping veterans who suffered from alcoholism and PTSD. And I saw him become a kind and compassionate human being who wanted to make his life worthwhile, as a promise to his friends who had died.

Two weeks before he died of progressive kidney disease he changed his party registration to Democrat after being Republican most of his adult life. He was disgusted by the willingness of corrupt men who had never seen combat who were so willing to send young women and men to their deaths and lie about the reasons. He was disgusted at what had become a party of extremism and deceit, that was so careless about our environment and about the responsibilities of governing. He was a veteran who served his country and saw the party in power as spitting on the values so many had died for. To his last day he suffered terribly from the psychological impact of the extreme violence of war and thought every effort should be made to avoid war.

By: drouse

drouse — Sun, 28 May 2006 21:43:11 +0000

Sophist at 6

Speaking of conditioning, I have always felt that the show Cops was an attempt to get the public used to the idea of having their rights violated