Where Does the Time Go? or, Race to the Bottom

Okay, I'm back. What did I miss?

Seriously, I just went for a bathroom break.

What?

How many months ago?

Really?

Oh. Well...sorry. I'm here now. Oh, and by the way, you do NOT want to go in there.

Anyway, I'm attempting to re-enter this stupid blogosphere again after a major (and unannounced) sabbatical. I'll try to keep this one short, so as not to tax my little noggin or the patience of those who may have stumbled onto this item. Want to know how my brain works? Check the archive. You'll get the picture. More to come soon.

So, what I'm incensed about this week is the coverage of the Shirley Sherrod story. You know the deal. Right-wing media lies about something, Obama administration employee gets axed to avoid further recrimination from right-wing media, no one apologizes, and we talk about something completely irrelevant for a few weeks.

Now you're saying, "Hey, MAB. This is totally relevant. We should be talking about this." To which I would say, "Shut up. This is my stinking blog." But what I would really say is, "No, we aren't talking about it. The conversation is about something else entirely."

Watch last week's Sunday talk shows. Both CBS's "Face the Nation" and ABC's "This Week" had as their big fat topics "race". Great. A fine topic. And one we probably should talk about more. But this isn't what the story is. The story is, and let's gather around close here so we don't miss it, the right-wing media lied about something and got someone fired on purpose.

Really, people. Race was just the tool that was used. But the real issue here is not how we talk about race. It's that we were told something that was untrue and we were told it deliberately in order to make someone look bad. Why are we talking about anything else? Is it so commonplace for bottom-feeders like Faux News and Andrew Breitbart to propagate this sort of disgraceful bullshit that it isn't even a story anymore? If this is so, what the hell have we become as a nation?

Please please please, American media. Can the race talk for a bit and concentrate on the real story.

Oh, and thanks for waiting for me, readers. And for not knocking on the bathroom door the whole time. It only makes me nervous.

Veterans Day

I was about to write something about Veterans Day. But then I realized that I already had.

Here's a reprint from last year. I haven't changed my mind one bit and have nothing to add.


Tuesday, November 11, 2008

I'm always a bit conflicted on Veteran's Day and Memorial Day. You see, I'm basically a pacifist. I think all war is stupid and I wonder why anyone would glorify it. But I know, I know, sometimes it's necessary. Unfortunately, I think a very small percentage of wars falls into that category. With 20/20 hindsight we can usually see how things could have been headed off. Alas, foresight is not so keen. And of course, the Law of Unintended Consequences often comes into play. One never knows what is truly necessary and what isn't. Even after the fact. But I think we err on the side of war way too often. We forget that, as Jimmy Carter said, "Although war is sometimes a necessary evil, it is always evil."

Here we must make a clear differentiation between those who fight our wars (and who we honor) and those who make the decisions to send them off to do so (who we generally despise).

When I see pictures of fine men and women at Walter Reed that are missing arms, legs, eyes, large pieces of their heads and even larger pieces of their souls I get pretty pissed. These people signed up to defend us. Few actually do. More often than not, they're on the offensive, thousands of miles away from the homeland. This is an increase of tragedy. The loss is utterly unnecessary.
Our leaders should have to look at pictures of these people all day, every day. They should invent a computer program that simulates the minds of PTSD soldiers and make our leaders feel what they feel on a regular basis. Nightmares, daymares, jitteriness, moral numbness and isolation. And fear. Maybe they'd think twice about sending other people's sons and daughters off to kill and die to satisfy their geopolitical wet dreams. I'd even settle for them thinking once about it. War sucks the humanity out of people.

My own views on the necessity of their vocations aside, I have great respect for the people who don the uniform and serve. There is nothing any of us can do that compares to it. It's something I am constitutionally incapable of doing. Even when they are being sent on fool's errands, they are serving us. They are doing their job for the country they love. And it's not exactly a cushy one. Or a well-paying one.

It's almost criminal that I'm getting paid more for sitting in an office building than somebody who's getting shot at every day. Not to mention the warmongers who sent them to do so. And senators and federal executives get lovely parting gifts, including pensions and lucrative careers on the public speaking circuit. Your average soldier? Not much. Part of their college tuition and medical care. That's the very least we can do. Really. I think that anybody who goes through combat should be taken care of for life. LIFE. And their immediate families should be taken care of too. Why do we give a scumbag like Tom DeLay a bigger pension than somebody who went and got his legs blown off and wakes up screaming every night at 3AM? It makes no sense.

There will always be veterans of the military. I've got some in my family. Although they didn't fight, thankfully. But I want for there to be no veterans of war. It won't happen in my lifetime. Most of the soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are half my age. And it won't happen in our children's lifetime. It will probably never happen.

But we should at least work towards making sure that we have fewer and fewer veterans as time goes on. Can we do that, please?