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Cut and Run
.
Is it just me or is there something creepy, slimy, extremely Bush-like, in the abundance of cash offers the Defense Department is offering in order to get young Americans to sign up to become part of an occupying military force stationed in a foreign country. You know the offers I'm referring to: $10,000 if you join this branch of the service; $20,000 if you sign up for that one; $50,000 if you roll the dice and re-up and re-deploy to one of Bush's murderous hot zones. And, even extra cash if you agree to ineffective, dangerous, short-term basic training and immediate posting to the perimeter of Dick Cheney's hoped-for killing field, Iran. And now, there's an additional $2,000 being offered by Army leaders, struggling to meet recruitment goals, that would go to any National Guard soldier who brings somebody into the active duty Army.
WTF??
Is that how serving your country works in the age of Bush, in the age of Republican leadership? Sell yourself or your friend into the active Army and you get a pocket full of chump change, Judas money, in return? Agree to go kill Iraqis or Afghans and get enough dough to buy a new Hummer when you get back? If you get back? (Of course, the young, who are the targets of these sick Republican-run, military ad campaigns, are immortal, surrounded by a magic shield, safe in the warm embrace of Jesus. So, there's no question they'll serve their time and come home, uninjured, all their limbs still attached to the proper sockets, and, most important, not dead.)
Patriotism? A desire to"defend" the US against an invader? Answering the call to military service - as generations of Americans have done - as a way of asserting one's dedication to liberty? What? Are you kidding? Are you crazy? You want me to join the Army or the Marines for that?? Right. Show me the money. Then we'll talk.
It's all just a further example of the depth and degree to which Bush and the Republican Party have cheapened and denigrated every thing they touch, every institution with which they come into contact, every corner of society that at one time had a legitimate claim to honor, commitment, dedication, ethics.
Those higher attributes are diminished, now, washed away in the arrogant behavior of cowards like Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Ari Fleisher, Condoleeza Rice (our nation's first invisible Secretary of State) and countless other faceless, corporate-owned, mid-level, bureaucrats who have slimed their way into positions of power in this possibly soon-to-collapse republic.
One final question: How many sons and daughters of the rich, the upper classes, the country's so-called elites, are signing up for the blood money? How many offspring of the privileged are foregoing a chance to train as a hedge fund manager in order to wander, ankle-deep, in Iraqi blood and gore in some godforsaken village a few clicks outside Baghdad?
Ten? One? Any?
- MDM
Link
Cut and Run
.
Is it just me or is there something creepy, slimy, extremely Bush-like, in the abundance of cash offers the Defense Department is offering in order to get young Americans to sign up to become part of an occupying military force stationed in a foreign country. You know the offers I'm referring to: $10,000 if you join this branch of the service; $20,000 if you sign up for that one; $50,000 if you roll the dice and re-up and re-deploy to one of Bush's murderous hot zones. And, even extra cash if you agree to ineffective, dangerous, short-term basic training and immediate posting to the perimeter of Dick Cheney's hoped-for killing field, Iran. And now, there's an additional $2,000 being offered by Army leaders, struggling to meet recruitment goals, that would go to any National Guard soldier who brings somebody into the active duty Army.
WTF??
Is that how serving your country works in the age of Bush, in the age of Republican leadership? Sell yourself or your friend into the active Army and you get a pocket full of chump change, Judas money, in return? Agree to go kill Iraqis or Afghans and get enough dough to buy a new Hummer when you get back? If you get back? (Of course, the young, who are the targets of these sick Republican-run, military ad campaigns, are immortal, surrounded by a magic shield, safe in the warm embrace of Jesus. So, there's no question they'll serve their time and come home, uninjured, all their limbs still attached to the proper sockets, and, most important, not dead.)
Patriotism? A desire to"defend" the US against an invader? Answering the call to military service - as generations of Americans have done - as a way of asserting one's dedication to liberty? What? Are you kidding? Are you crazy? You want me to join the Army or the Marines for that?? Right. Show me the money. Then we'll talk.
It's all just a further example of the depth and degree to which Bush and the Republican Party have cheapened and denigrated every thing they touch, every institution with which they come into contact, every corner of society that at one time had a legitimate claim to honor, commitment, dedication, ethics.
Those higher attributes are diminished, now, washed away in the arrogant behavior of cowards like Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, Ari Fleisher, Condoleeza Rice (our nation's first invisible Secretary of State) and countless other faceless, corporate-owned, mid-level, bureaucrats who have slimed their way into positions of power in this possibly soon-to-collapse republic.
One final question: How many sons and daughters of the rich, the upper classes, the country's so-called elites, are signing up for the blood money? How many offspring of the privileged are foregoing a chance to train as a hedge fund manager in order to wander, ankle-deep, in Iraqi blood and gore in some godforsaken village a few clicks outside Baghdad?
Ten? One? Any?
- MDM
Link