A TIP O' THE KIPPAH TO O'TIM AND A QUESTION: HOW MUCH OF TURKEY DOES AUSTRALIA CONTROL TODAY?
Please listen to the song. Shane MacGowan's version of "And The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda" before you finish reading the post. Thanks.
O'tim posed Kelso the question elsewhere how he felt about Joel Stein's LA TIMES piece and the controversy that followed. Here are Kelso's remarks which inspired o'tim's question:
I'll retract my facile remark in yesterday's "rocket round" about Webb. Sure, the amendment is a half-measure but at least it's SOME measure. And would provide some relief for these poor souls thrown into this meat grinder for no reason. Didn't "we" do away with FORCED CONSCRIPTION a few times already in our history?
D-CUP's got it right. If the polls are to be believed, both the enlisted men and the officers support the Democrats, despite the Democrats having let them down so terribly at every turn. It has gotten to the point that even the mercenaries are being let down!
So, there are some crazies there. So what, in any random population of 150,000 there aren't going to be some sadists? In a war? With no goal? And no enemy? The war CRIMINALS should be brought to justice but they account for 1/100s of a percent of the active duty personnel.
And this brings up a point. When are the Republicans going to get off this whole "SUPPORT THE TROOPS" okey-doke? Let's say I hated the troops (which I don't to be sure) and wanted to NOT SUPPORT THEM, how exactly would I even go about that?
The corollary: if I WANTED to SUPPORT THE TROOPS, outside of sending some random gifts to people I don't know, HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT SUPPORTING THE TROOPS. It will be a while before I meet an Iraq or Afghanistan vet unless they take some R & R in Panama, but I don't intend to jeer and say "baby killer." Neither would anybody leaps and bounds to MY left politically. This is a Republican fantasy.
I can't say that I'd be like that asshole Al Franken and keep repeating "thank you for your service" as some meaningless mantra, but to be sure I'd say "fuck, I'm sorry you had to go through that; your country owes you a debt it can never repay."
Here's the link to the Joel Stein piece and a google search will reveal plenty of the argument which followed on. It behooves everyone to read the Stein piece and as much of the whole she-bang because it's very lively political debate of the best kind. To Kelso that means everybody is both RIGHT and WRONG. So, even the most bizarre of Wingnut remarks have some value. This is an issue of war and peace, nationalism, social class and polemic in the best sense of the word.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein24jan24,0,4137172.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
When the Republican party consistently uses the mantra of "SUPPORT THE TROOPS" as a sword and a shield, it can become very tempting to get frustrated with the National Socialist Party of the USA and its "Democratic" enablers and take Stein's point of view not only to be provocative but to take it and reason it through from a moral standpoint. It's taboo to say something like that and everyone's frustration -- the "troops" themselves included -- is understandable.
Kelso does not exactly agree with Stein because as noted above even if Kelso WANTED to NOT support the troops he has no idea how he would or could accomplish something like that. Maybe Stein has figured out how NOT to support the troops. So, Stein, go ahead and do what you must. From the imbroglio that followed this opinion piece, it became clear that Stein hadn't a clue of how NOT to support the troops nor even himself for that matter. Kelso will grant Joel Stein some credit though for putting Stein's own "limousine liberalism" right out there, not hiding behind anything.
Uncle Kelso feels the frustration but lacks Stein's moral certitude. Stein maybe Saint Francis. Kelso not so much. Look, there are rumors that Pat Tillman's atheism, bravery and political radicalism were the genesis of his murder. So, for anyone, including mercenaries, to be required to become Jesus is kind of silly. Not only are Sunni, Shia and Kurd trying to kill you but also there ARE realities to this. If you are jammed up in this, you really have few choices but to fight. If only to survive. That's tragedy not evil for any poor soul in Iraq or Afghanistan. We all know who the devils and the cowards are.
In 2002, had Bush merely said one honest thing...well, the fantasy is that he would have said THIS "look, we no longer have a manufacturing base, our agriculture could get crushed by foreign imports at any time, and there's a chance our dominant global position could fade, so the only choice is EMPIRE, therefore we have to pick off the weaker countries we can use...thank you and God Bless America." Under that scenario, Kelso would surely not have approved and would have protested like crazy but he would have UNDERSTOOD. Colin Powell holding up a vial of talcum powder at the UN was incomprehensible.
Does Kelso "support the troops"? You tell Kelso. He feels terrible that merely by accident of social class and date of birth and desire for a better life there are hundreds of thousands of young Americans in grave danger for no good reason. Or for a reason no one wants to say. Including Alan Greenspan who's a fucking clown. Kelso would like to see the VA budget quintupled and the GI Bill Of Rights funded to permit any sort of education any veteran cares to pursue. Kelso would also like to see everyone relatively safe and sound AND feels wretchedly about the 100,000s of dead Iraqis and the 1,000,000s of displaced and maimed Iraqis. Safe and sound to mean OUT OF IRAQ and a fair accord among Shia, Sunni and Kurd.
How it's going to end for the war profiteers is with pure luxury. How it's going to end for those fighting is in the song we posted. How it's going to end for Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else in the "near East" is anyone's guess.
And as far as those war profiteers are concerned. Well, enjoy your money. Kelso congratulates you. But, for all his faults Monica Lewinsky NOT being one of them, Bill Clinton at least showed that peace is not bad for business.
A tip of the derby to Kelso's mom for telling him about the cleverest and most mordant anti-war bumper sticker she had seen: "I SUPPORT THE WAR, NOT THE TROOPS."
[LATE ADDITION which kind of ties yesterday's post with some of the interesting commentary on Jonestown's recent series: Great news from Rome. Ratzinger has refused to meet with Condoleeza Rice! Wow. In Kelso's wildest imagination he couldn't have dreamt-up something like this. An extremely powerful German, Nazi sympathizer and purely retrograde in all ways refuses to grant an audience with the USA's first Black, woman Secretary Of State, and Kelso's on the side of the German! If Ratzinger -- Kelso doesn't say "pope" because Kelso already has a father, thanks -- not only sees but disapproves of Rice and Bush and all they represent, how can Joe Lieberman of all people even exist?]
Kelso's Nuts love you
5 comments:
i respect mr. stein for saying what an awful lot of people are afraid to say. but, then again, it's a really, really tough one to call kelso, as you clearly indicate.
when there was a draft, as in viet nam, there was a (theoretically) more balanced sample of the population in that group of people to whom we refered to as "the troops." and, in that sample, there were the outliers, whom i'm thinking of as the consciencous objectors, who fled to canada and elsewhere. in that case, to a certain extent, it was an easier task for one to decide whether or not to "support" the troops, because there was a movement to buck the draft, buck the country, buck the misadventure to which the draftee was being sacrificed. back then the troops who stayed on were ostrasized and came home to a cold shoulder not only from the people, but from the government as well.
at least, AT LEAST, this time these young troops are coming home to a general populace that (mostly) respects and admires them and who knows that for many of them, the psychological and physical sounds will never heal and the government is probably going to dump them in the trash the same way that they did the viet nam vets.
again ....... it's a tough, tough call.
People need to stop being afraid of saying what they think and/or feel, in all facets of life.
We are so ruled by fear both in the outside world and in our personal lives. It destroys everything.
We live in a country where some of the best selling books are about how to get along with people we love and how to have sex.
We live in a country where people are more concerned about what happens to people they don't know, and will never know, on some fucking television show than they are their own children.
We live in a country where the average person is more likely to be able to name the cast of "Survivor" than the 50 states.
We live in a country where at least 30% of the population supports a fucking Sociopath who's skipped his way through life without ever having to be accountable for anything, and the rest of the country supports a bunch of pussies who sold us out decades ago.
Fuck I could go on forever, but what's the point?
I look at Stein's opening statement for its simple shock value. Beyond that I think he makes it clear in the article that he's talking about how lame it is to feel good about putting a ribbon magnet or sticker on your car. He also states that for those against the war, blaming Bush is a cop-out (at this point Bush's "opposition," in government anyway, bears a huge chunk of blame for this mess).
I agree that Stein doesn't get into all the nuances of the horrors of war (e.g. your morals don't stop the enemy's bullets, killing him does) but it's a short column and he's primarily a humorist not a pundit.
Your points to Stein for putting it out there are well given, especially since the debate he sparked still resonates today - look at the current kerfuffle over the MoveOn.org ad.
You ask how to not support the troops. Perhaps with ignorant, uninformed jingoism for the cause they are ostensibly fighting for, which of course you, me and Stein cannot do.
ANITA: Of course, it's a tough call, that's why I like the issue. You've been a regular with me long enough to know that this isn't a blog with "answers". I try to make it an unconventional spot where all opinion is encouraged, nothing is censored and everyone can TAKE a lesson or GIVE one.
FAIRLANE: The "point" is that I don't have to deal with any what you laid out, but YOU do. I experience life on a daily basis which is the diametric opposite of everything in your comment.
Should I want to have an orgy, I could arrange one within the hour but should I want to find a book on how to have sex I'd be occupied for days in my search. This country was a monstrosity for a long time except for the short interregnum when Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos were respective presidents. In the 15 years since de facto colonization ended, it has become a first-world, international economic power, poorer than most of Western Europe but substantially less racist and nationalistic and NO LESS a fully-functional democratic republic.
You live in apartheid South Africa with nukes and pretty good movies.
So, that's my reality and yours. You have every right to "go on forever" with your lament. If you can't lament on this site, where can you?
O'TIM: I agree with you. The shock value is good and necessary because the words "I SUPPORT THE TROOPS" have no meaning but they seem to be a sine qua non. I thought it was great, for example, when my friend said "I'M SO OVER 9/11." Everyone got his meaning and it wasn't that he didn't care about the lives lost.
Furthermore, I could say plenty of really complimentary things about the U.S military. For one, I probably would not exist were it not for the U.S. Navy. I also think that it takes a hell of a lot of courage to serve even if the motivation for that service is "merely" for self-benefit. The service academies are 4 of the world's finest universities. If I were to meet every member of the U.S. armed forces, I'd probably like 20% of them, hate 20% of them and be indifferent to or bored by the rest. Those statements, however, DON'T COUNT WITHOUT A MAGNETIC YELLOW RIBBON AND THAT RIDICULOUS PHRASE. Heaven forbid I should say that the non-personnel related military budget is criminal as are these wars.
So, let the asses bray. The most hawkish Americans are the most cowardly and as long as they keep repeating "support the troops" the faster the phrase will have to power to MAKE someone behave in any way they don't care to because the phrase will have been drained of any significance. Perhaps, that's best. Perhaps, to turn the right's phraseology against them just reifies their stupid words. Better for the slogans to fade away than to burn out.
Moveon.org's Tissue Of Lies ad is just a distraction. The guts of the ad are pretty good. They are only guilty of doing the dumb liberal thing an making a bad pun. I am happy that they are not backing down desipite the absurd senate vote (same Democrats who supported Bush's wire-tap authority, btw). But it's time for them to move from unconditional support of the Democratic party to power politics. A perfect example is Senator Tester of MT, recipient of $300K from moveon.org. Despite that a blow-up Bozo The Clown doll could have beaten Burns in that election, moveon left nothing to chance. Tester owes them an apology. As does Webb and Cardin and the lot of them. Moveon ought to admit their sense of humor could use some sharpening but start kicking some Democratic ass, too.
For shock value, Joel Stein's lead was better than the Betray-us pun.
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