Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 8:42 PM GMT+4
June 30th, 2005
Atlanta to Start Evicting Unemployed Public Housing Tenants
Hoping This ‘Iraq Thing’ Blows Over
To wrap your head around the logic behind the Bush administration’s spin campaign concerning the war in Iraq, a good trick would be to somehow channel a ten year old explaining to their father why they did something they weren’t supposed to. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 7:09 AM GMT+4
June 29th, 2005
Bush Addresses the Nation
President Bush approaches the podium to a standing ovation from the room full of soldiers, with a box wrapped in paper and tied around it a piece of twine. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 1:54 AM GMT+4
June 28th, 2005
Live Free Or Die! Oops…
Weare, New Hampshire (PRWEB) Could a hotel be built on the land owned by Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter? A new ruling by the Supreme Court which was supported by Justice Souter himself itself might allow it. A private developer is seeking to use this very law to build a hotel on Souter’s land. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 11:28 PM GMT+4
The Speech the President Should Give
By JOHN F. KERRY – Published: June 28, 2005 – New York Times
TONIGHT President Bush will discuss the situation in Iraq. It’s long past time to get it right in Iraq. The Bush administration is courting disaster with its current course – a course with no realistic strategy for reducing the risks to our soldiers and increasing the odds for success. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 8:17 AM GMT+4
June 27th, 2005
China’s Kung-Fu Grip on America
A couple weeks ago the Bolton nomination was being debated on the Senate floor when Alaska Republican Ted Stevens interrupted to announce that everything had to stop for the sake of some Chinese businessmen who were out in the hall. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 4:12 AM GMT+4
June 26th, 2005
Getting Karl Rove on the Phone
June 25th, 2005
Born Under Punches
So let’s get something straight right now. To point out that our military has been overextended, taken for granted and neglected, that’s no criticism of the military. That is criticism of a president and vice president and their record of neglect. – Candidate George Dubya Bush in 2000
With the billions this administration throws around without a second thought, Bush being the animated rubber stamp that he is, why are veterans’ benefits the one matter in which they suddenly decide to become stingy? I’ve been convinced for a while now that the message is, ‘thank you for your service, now the President would be grateful if you would do the country another favor by dying as soon as possible’. He thinks nothing of wasting billions annually on a missile defense system Reagan remembered from a movie he was once in, but when Democrats insisted early in the session that the VA was underfunded for 2005, there suddenly wasn’t enough money to avoid taking that risk. Low and behold, the White House now informs us on a Friday that the VA budget is a billion short of what’s needed.
If that wasn’t enough, another one of Bush’s ideas is to classify veterans earning over $25,000 a year as ‘wealthy’, then using that classification to charge them $250 a year to use the VA health program, while increasing their co-payments. This would force the veteran to pay $11 for a prescription that costs the VA only $4, hence arranging it so the veteran him or herself is funding the program rather than the taxpayers. Why? Obviously he doesn’t adequately value the sacrifices that were made by Americans to become ‘veterans’ in the first place.
Neither do Republicans in Congress, who refused to support an amendment to the $82 billion emergency funding bill for the Iraq war earlier in the session that would have adequately funded the VA, meanwhile pushing forward legislation to limit the death benefit to only cover soldiers who were killed at war. So the soldier who dies in a helicopter accident while training to deploy to Iraq doesn’t deserve the benefit according to them, and in the spirit of classifying some as ‘wealthy veterans’ to squirm out of any kind of responsibility they can, if a loophole is available, Republicans will apparently jump on it, while at the same time consistently claiming the patriotic high ground. As if the very decision to send troops to war alone defines one’s patriotism, rather than following through by ensuring all who volunteer to serve are provided the benefits they were promised.
What is it they have against these people who volunteered to serve? Is it some deep seeded resentment over never having had the courage to enlist themselves? Does it curl up the stomach of President Bush, Cheney or Karl Rove to think that a veteran might live long enough to march in one of those parades that for years had only managed to remind them of how cowardly they all were when it was their time? What’s the logic behind sending these people off to war only to maneuver in such ways that lay the cost of their health care where it doesn’t belong? For a group of people who never came close to a battlefield themselves, they sure seem to have a distorted view of who’s deserving of benefits and who is not.
The government makes distinctions based on whether an injury or death suffered on the job was in a specific geographical area, as well as leveling the amount of compensation in a way that punishes success once the veteran enters the job market with the ‘wealthy veteran’ threshold. Talk on the floors of Congress concerning who deserves what places a purely opportunistic value structure on military service that denigrates the fact that whether or not one suffered an injury in Fallujah or Fort Benning, everyone volunteered to serve. The message they’re sending is, ‘if you volunteered and did not happen to be wounded in battle, you need to help pay for the care of those who were.’ That’s the taxpayers’ burden to bear, not the veterans’.
Do they honestly think that the recruitment numbers are going to go back up as more people become aware of what might happen to them if they foolishly sign their life away for the sake of these selfish frauds? There are two wars being fought on the other side of the world right now, and nothing is guaranteed in terms of either Iraq or Afghanistan being stable twenty years down the road. The success or failure of both missions rely heavily on the military being able to sustain troop strength over an extended period of time, yet the troubles facing the military are dealt with passively, with the bulk of legislation aimed at figuring out how to squeeze every dollar they can from the troops themselves.
While the father of a marine is told by his son that the command ‘urged’ him to purchase $600 dollars worth of gear prior to deployment for the sake of his coming home alive, recruiters will soon be fed the names, social security numbers, grades and phone numbers of students as young as 16 years old. This data will be managed by BeNow Inc. of Wakefield, Mass, a marketing firm hired by the Pentagon to analyze student data and identify targets for recruiters based on their personal profiles and habits. Will the recruiters then instruct these kids to purchase body armor, a poncho liner and camelback on their own, before reporting to basic training?
I’m sure they won’t, nor will they make it known that while last year all a recruiter had was a product and a nameless potential customer going to high school, now they know who’s got the low grades and God-willing, the low self esteem as well. Equipped with this information, recruiters can focus their energy on the most vulnerable, the most apt to buy what they’re attempting to sell. Targeting the underachievers, sending them off to war with less than what they need to survive, then shorting them on their promised medical care once out – this is the business model for the present and future of our nation’s military. This is our government doing everything it can to stock the military with bodies without having to pay anything close to top dollar.
Because as the Republicans in charge see it, the real money needs to be spent on pie in the sky technology out of Star Wars, overpriced Halliburton chili-mac and bribes to piece of shit dictators who jail their people for merely questioning authority. The real money has been earmarked for years, and pork cannot be sacrificed for the sake of a D student who can’t sleep because of night terrors due to post traumatic stress. No, it’s simply a matter of ’some guys are lucky and some aren’t’. Give this business model a good decade or two and perhaps we’ll all luck out with a generation of veterans who are already familiar in their teenage years with huffing gasoline or downing a glass or two of Wild Turkey to relieve stress.
If it’s not that when they come back, the five dollar a pop heroin or backwoods meth will finish the job the war started. Maybe the President will decide to allow veterans to trade in their GI bill for half priced Jack Daniels and Budweiser. Better yet, a nifty ‘vaccine’ can be created along the way that kills off a good percentage of them twenty years down the road, like the depleted uranium managed to do in the first Gulf War. The 1200 already sick from the anthrax vaccine might have some ideas concerning this, but like Gulf War Syndrome, don’t hold your breath for any truthful insights from the government. While they insist that soldiers were never exposed to depleted uranium and those who describe symptoms are merely suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, 67% of babies born to the 400K veterans who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome have birth defects. As more step forward, the government’s position becomes more indefensible with each year that passes.
It’s clear that the government never ‘has’ to admit to anything if they don’t want to, and if we’re mostly talking about D students ten years from now, they probably won’t know the first thing about writing to Congress or how to get their story out there. That’s the beauty of scraping the bottom of the barrel for bodies, you’re not likely to get someone with the background or awareness necessary to defend themselves once they’re not being shot at. With the Abu Gharib scandal in mind, does the government really want an upper middle class child who might be the son or daughter of a talented lawyer? Hell no. That’s the kind of kid who could end up being more trouble than they’re worth. That’s the kind of kid who could someday start his own website and point out their bullshit as it actually unfolds.
I think about how I came about the idea of joining the military myself, and what I experienced personally quite often. In an infantry battalion I saw the results of this particular strategy all around. How they tucked us away with the weapons ranges on a base in Germany out in the sticks, while the Air Force, Navy and higher skilled Army units were situated closer to the cities. We were paid just enough to get out once in a while, while keeping ourselves drunk on cheap booze for as long as the money would last. Slot machines starting popping up all over the post, as did the salesmen pushing compounded interest retirement plans not likely to be worth anything to a corpse. The isolation clearly had a purpose as after having served in some aforementioned ‘higher skilled’ Army units before the assignment in Germany, the combat arms units were definitely full of soldiers who were much more likely to raise hell.
The living quarters in comparison were just as reflective of who was occupying them. While non-combat arms units generally had a higher rate of single rooms, in the sticks there were four heroes sharing a single camode and shower, in two man units barely the size of a low-end motel room. I can still hear the chow hall cooks proclaiming ‘you can’t have two starches’, as well as the day and night constant rat-a-rat-rat of machine gun fire and random kabooms from the range just next door. A year or two of that convinces many to marry the wrong woman just to get out of the barracks, some of whom happened to be on a combat arms Army base in the middle of nowhere for the specific purpose of finding such a schmuck. A friend of mine who married the wrong woman to get out of the barracks was drinking himself to death last I knew, when he came home from Bosnia to find his wife pregnant with a kid that wasn’t his.
This was just one way that a deployment could manage to tear a soldiers’ life apart. Deployments being the stuff of promotions for career officers, when one rolled down the pike, everything else went on hold. In order to deploy during the years I was in, the unit had to maintain a minimum level of readiness, most importantly when it came to the number of deployable personell. During a pre-deployment alert for Kosovo that was eventually put on hold, I suffered four broken ribs during a training exercise on riot control. Because our level of readiness was on the edge already, the battalion doctor was given an order to prevent anyone from becoming non-deployable. As result, I was denied access to an x-ray and was told for a month that my ribs were bruised, given some Ibuprofen and told to ‘drive on’. If it happened to me, it’s safe to assume that similar examples exist throughout the military when an officer’s career path is at stake.
Dangers a plenty in the world of fatigues. Lots of pitfalls and voices that manage to convince one after another that to get out and lose their modest salary would amount to imminent doom. Of course, the war all too often makes that decision for them now, whether by stop-loss or death. Considering the job market for a former D student with no legs, maybe President Bush is right in considering a veteran making over $25,000 a year ‘wealthy’. Perhaps we’re witnessing one of the most brilliant schemes in history to euthanize the weakest within a modern society, while making sure the American death industry has customers to sell their weapons to that don’t exclusively wear turbans.
When there was no war to filter these products into the right hands, they ended up going to Iraqis, Iranians and guys like Osama Bin Laden. War or no war, the guns, missiles and ammunition were going to be sold one way or the other. Perhaps every one that ends up in the hands of an American soldier is one less that has to ‘fall off the truck’ and into the hands of a drug dealer in Baltimore. Wishful thinking at best, as there are plenty to go around. With that in mind, President Bush is unloading missiles to Pakistan at this very moment without so much as a peep from the media who failed to alert us when Reagan was doing the same thing twenty years ago. That the attacks on September 11th were cultivated in part by such unethical arms deals should, but unfortunately won’t, prompt a higher level of criticism this time around.
And so it goes this seemingly endless cycle of production and consumption our current thread of leadership shamelessly engages in decade after decade without much attention at all to the effect it has on the American population. The underfunding of veterans’ health care is merely a symptom of a broader campaign to condition American society to expect less and feel lucky to have even that. They bastardize intellectual thought, replace it with theology, go to war with our ‘enemies’, while constantly arming our future ‘enemies’.
While the Chinese have cultivated a generation of highly productive citizens by limiting each household to only child. Here in America we’re doing it our own way.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military, Words at 12:57 PM GMT+4
June 24th, 2005
$93 Billion Doesn’t Buy What it Used To
It was some terrific news this past week to know that three drunk teenagers were able to steal an airplane and tool around in New York’s airspace for five hours without anyone knowing. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military, Words at 10:31 PM GMT+4
Karl Rove, ‘Professor Chaos’
The Machiavellian spinmeister Karl Rove is hard at work to convince us that following 9/11, America was divided. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 7:56 PM GMT+4
June 22nd, 2005
Releasing Terrorists to Fight Again?
One of President Bush’s news conferences earlier this week concerning detainees at Guantanamo contained an extremely rare snippet of candor. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military, Words at 11:47 AM GMT+4
June 21st, 2005
Marine Units Found to Lack Equipment
June 20th, 2005
You Can’t Handle the Truth!
This hoopla over Dick Durbin’s statement comparing our handling of the war in terms of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay is in a lot of ways just the same old gripe from the right. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military, Words at 11:43 AM GMT+4
June 19th, 2005
First Father’s Day, Game Five
Halftime of game five, series tied at 2-2, game tied at 42-42, belly full following my first ever Father’s Day dinner Read the rest of this entry
Our Value of Life
The value of life and how one perceives its application in nature is subject to two distinct systems of rationale. Read the rest of this entry
Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
By JOHN C. DANFORTH, Episcopal minister and former Republican senator from Missouri. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Religion at 1:32 AM GMT+4
June 18th, 2005
Site working again
Everything seems to be intact for now, sorry about that.
Posted by site admin as Words at 11:22 AM GMT+4
SITE MALFUNCTIONING
I’m trying to get this fixed ASAP. I’m aware of the issues. I’ll post when it’s fixed. Thanks for your patience.
Posted by site admin as Words at 4:21 AM GMT+4
Ruling called rebuke to Texas
Supreme Court again overturns death sentence
By Jeff Franks, Reuters | June 17, 2005
HOUSTON — The US Supreme Court’s rejection of another Texas death-penalty case this week has been called the latest rebuke to the state’s legal system. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by site admin as Words at 1:31 AM GMT+4
June 17th, 2005
As Toyota Goes …
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN – Published: June 17, 2005
So I have a question: If I am rooting for General Motors to go bankrupt and be bought out by Toyota, does that make me a bad person?
It is not that I want any autoworker to lose his or her job, but I certainly would not put on a black tie if the entire management team at G.M. got sacked and was replaced by executives from Toyota. Indeed, I think the only hope for G.M.’s autoworkers, and maybe even our country, is with Toyota. Because let’s face it, as Toyota goes, so goes America. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 5:35 PM GMT+4
What’s the Matter With Ohio?
By PAUL KRUGMAN – Published: June 17, 2005
The Toledo Blade’s reports on Coingate – the unfolding tale of how Ohio’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation misused funds – deserve much more national attention than they have received so far. For one thing, it’s an entertaining story that seems to get weirder by the week. More important, it’s an object lesson in what happens when you have one-party rule untrammeled by any quaint notions of independent oversight. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 4:26 PM GMT+4
Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out
By NEAL STEPHENSON – Published: June 17, 2005 – Seattle
IN the spring of 1977, some friends and I made a 40-mile pilgrimage to the biggest and fanciest movie theater in Iowa so we could watch a new science fiction movie called “Star Wars.” Expecting long lines, we got there early, and found the place deserted. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 4:13 PM GMT+4
U.S. Campaign Produces Few Convictions on Terrorism Charges
Statistics Often Count Lesser Crimes
On Thursday, President Bush stepped to a lectern at the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy in Columbus to urge renewal of the USA Patriot Act and to boast of the government’s success in prosecuting terrorists. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 2:08 AM GMT+4
June 16th, 2005
The Frail White Hype
On the day that Terri Schiavo’s autopsy is released, Fox News’s 8-10 PM lineup of Bill O’Reiley and Hannity and Colmes spent under a total of ten minutes on the subject, while the disappearance of Natalee Holloway was covered for an hour. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 2:22 AM GMT+4
June 15th, 2005
Let’s Talk About Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 7:22 PM GMT+4
An Autopsy’s Impact on America’s Lust for Forced Martyrdom
Now that a doctor has confirmed that Michael’s contention concerning Terri being in a vegetative state was in fact correct, and that her condition was irreversible, what’s next for the Schindlers and their palls over at Fox News? Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 2:51 PM GMT+4
Take My Privacy, Please!
By TED KOPPEL Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 12:59 AM GMT+4
June 14th, 2005
Howard Dean: Party Crasher
Unfortunately, the only party he’s crashing is his own. This is the Dean conservatives know and love, the guy who’ll get up on stage and call the GOP, “pretty much a white, Christian party.” I’m pretty sure that was news to GOP Party Chairman Ken Mehlman who is Jewish or great people such as Powell, Rice, Owens and a major portion of the Hispanic and Cuban community. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Right Thinker as Words at 6:26 PM GMT+4
June 13th, 2005
Born Again Christianity’s Jihad on America
Throughout my teenage years I was a born-again Christian. Now in my twenties, I’m not. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Religion, Words at 11:06 AM GMT+4
June 12th, 2005
Europe’s Oldest Civilization Unearthed
LONDON (AFP) – Europe’s oldest civilisation has reportedly been discovered by archaelogists across the continent. More than 150 large temples, constructed between 4800 BC and 4600 BC, have been unearthed in fields and cities in Germany, Austria and Slovakia, predating the pyramids in Egypt by some 2,000 years, The Independent newspaper revealed. Read the rest of this entry
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 1:20 AM GMT+4