Category Archives: Politics

Loving the troops is PC and it makes it sound like everything is just fine

Americana, Politics

reflection 2-

When it comes to supporting the troops, Politicians always say the right thing. But how they vote is often a different matter.

World War II, generals did not talk about loving their soldiers, but I they usually took care of them better than today. One reason for that was the Army Chief of Staff’s, George Marshall,  insistence that in a war for democracy, our military had to act in a manner consistent with democratic values, which meant firing officers who didn’t perform. But I think an even more important reason was that almost everybody in the Military had been drafted. They were not separate from the general society like the Volunteer Military is today.

Not only does the volunteer part of the Volunteer Military make for a military that doesn’t reflect our country, it makes for an ex-military that is easier to ignore. After WWII, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 which was better known as the G.I. Bill of Rights. It was major legislation that provided a wide range of benefits for returning World War II veterans that included low-cost mortgages, low-interest loans to start a business, cash payments of tuition and living expenses to attend college, high school or vocational education, as well as one year of unemployment compensation.

The Volunteer Military came in during the Nixon administration but it is hard to blame him as Congress was controlled by the Democrats. Either way, it was brilliant or stupid depending on your point of view. Brilliant if you want the United States to be involved in more wars – and spend more money on equipment like the F-35, that we don’t need – and stupid if you don’t want the United States to be involved in lots of wars (spending the money on, say, better schools).

When is torture, torture?

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, Psychological Musings

There are times when I read the The New York Times – or, atleast, look at the front page – when I think that newspapers, and especially the New York Times, are all that is standing between us and politicians running wild. That a free press is critical to democracy. Then there are times when I think the papers will do anything, print anything, the politicians want.

For as long as I can remember, waterboarding has been torture.  Everybody called it torture. When we learned about the Spanish Inquisition _ and it is interesting that, in a burst of PC religious tolerance, it was called the Spanish Inquisition not the Catholic Inquisition – waterboarding and burning at the stake were highlights. It was defined as torture by the Geneva Convention that we signed. I was taught we didn’t do stuff like that – Nazis did stuff like that, North Koreans – it was one of the main reason we were better than them.

Then we start torturing and the New York Times – as well as the Los Angeles Times – started referring to waterboarding as enhanced interrogation. The NYT defend the new terminology by saying it is somewhat misleading and tendentious to focus on whether we have embraced the politically correct term in our news stories. There seemed and still seems to be no recognition that what the paper called torture for fifty or sixty or seventy years – and has now been changed – is more than just a politically correct nicety.

Waterboarding-comic

When the wars started and the military said that it would embed journalists, there was a short dust-up about whether they could still be objective. But journalists are already embedded: they are embedded with the Washington establishment and they are not objective. Hell, they are part of the Washington establishment. Actually and even worse, they may be objective but are afraid to say anything negative.

As an aside, for some strange reason – unknown to me – the only thing that seems to break loose from the black hole of sympathetic and sycophantic news coverage of Washington elites by other Washington elites, are sex scandals or racist remarks. A politician – especially a powerful politician like the president – lies about, say, WMD’s; the papers go along. End aside.

When, Stephen Colbert, speaking at the White House Correspondents Dinner, attacked the stupid things George Bush was doing, the assembled journalists were shocked. It was rude. As if unnecessarily going to war isn’t rude. No wonder torture has become enhanced interrogation.

Sometimes I don’t even understand the NRA

Americana, Politics

Jesus_with_gun

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune by way of Gawker: Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed into law one of the more controversial
bills from the recent legislative session, one allowing guns to be
carried into houses of worship.

It's not so much that bringing a gun into church pisses me off, it's just that I don't even understand it. How did anyone even think of that? Who wakes up in the morning and says America world would be a better place if we could just bring our guns into church.?

I can sort of understand Bobby Jindal – I think – he didn't initiate the bill, he just signed it so he can be seen as pro-gun. But what about the guy that thought this up? Was it a joke? Does he really think this will make America a better place? It beats me.

 

The reconstruction of General and President U.S. Grant

Americana, General U.S. Grant, Politics, War

Grant_sitting

A couple of days ago, maybe a week, Siena Collage ran – did? – a poll of 238 presidential scholars on the ranking of our presidents. This is a poll they run periodically and it is interesting to see how the ratings of different presidents have changed over time. In this poll, FDR is always on the top and Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Washington always round out the top four.

Former – former, that has a nice ring to it – president George W. Bush was ranked 39th with poor ratings in handling of the economy, communication, ability to compromise, and foreign policy and current president Barrack Obama was ranked 15th. For years, Grant – a personal hero of mine – has always been near the bottom.

In the1982, 1990, and 1994 polls, he was in the bottom five.In 2002, he moved up the 35th (of 42).  Now, he’s 26th, escaping the ranks of the failed presidents. No, he isn’t in the top ten, and he probably shouldn’t be, but he is no longer the drunken clown; as he was painted.

It makes me happy.

Fast-Roping 101

Current Affairs, Politics, War

We got back from the Smoke Creek late Tuesday only to see “Israel attacks flotilla”. Having had no news for three days, I don’t have a good picture of what happened except even India is pissed.1 It is as if Israel has been taken over by the Tea Bag Party. Andrew Sullivan, in a blog post entitled The Capitan Speaks,  quotes and comments on an article in Haaretz.Com.

An interesting account:

“I was the second to be lowered in by rope,” said Captain R. “My comrade who had already been dropped in was surrounded by a bunch of people. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us. I had to fight against quite a few terrorists who
were armed with knives and batons.”

I note two things. It began with a one-on-one fight. This was not a lynch mob primed to kill. It was a reaction that spread as more soldiers arrived. The second thing I note is that the captain describes the passengers as “terrorists.”

This picture, from the Center for a New American Security from where I blatantly ripped it off, is labeled Too Soon? and filed under Israel. 

 

Helos

1. We were in India at the camel festival at Pushkar when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. The Indian government shut everything down and declared a national couple of days of morning. They were that pro-Israel.