Life in an echo chamber
So I found Anna through my brother’s blog and visited her site. I found this poem...
"It's the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us the freedom of the press
It's the Soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us the freedom of speech
It's the Soldier, not the politicians
That ensures our right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
It's the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag."
So I wanted to try and put a different perspective into play and said:
I thought that it was the Creator who had imbued into each of us an inalienable right to these things. It is the soldier who has over time and age been the one to allow death and killing to be excused as virtue and duty. It is the soldier who has been the victim and the crime. I think we should support the troops by not making them do any more killing. Ever.
I was then subjected to the rather expected attack on my patriotism, factieness and lack of appreciation for the job the soldiers are doing for we the 'Mericans.
Anna asked me to never post again, I was told I had "fetid breath" and called a "troll" and my post was described a "hate filled" by commentators, which doesn't surprise me at all. So I apologized for making these people feel uncomfortable and made that my last comment. I did check back and here is what Anna said:
Scot,
This is my objection: It is the soldier who has over time and age been the one to allow death and killing to be excused as virtue and duty.
I have stated several times that I have no problem with the dissenting views and honest debate. But if you want to believe it’s over your differing viewpoint, you just go right ahead. You believe a lot of things that have no factual basis and I have asked to to show me where you are getting your facts and you have yet to do so. If you would like to spout your talking points without backing it up, please do so on your own blog.
Once again, I asked you to no longer post here because of the above statement not because of your differing viewpoint. Is that clear?
So my viewpoint is that soldiers through time have allowed the will of the politicians to be carried out through the force of killing. They justify it by calling it "duty" and "honor" and excuse the actions which with the veil pulled back amount to slaughter, plain and simple. It is the taking of human life.
Some of the actions of troops are heroic and noteworthy. Not all kill civilians. Being a part of a war machine is kinda like being part of a criminal gang. Even if you just drop a package into a car window, you are allowing the crime to take place.
Soldiers who follow their leader’s orders without conscience are automatons. They are the clout that otherwise ineffectual leaders need in order to execute their will. Some leaders call it the will of the people. Some call it defending the Nation. Clearly leaders through history from Genghis Kahn to Mubuto Sese Seko depend on troops being loyal and following orders.
I submit that troops, soldiers, humans, can lay down their arms, stop getting on the bus to go to war and cease killing their fellow man. That would be a good way to stop the madness. But no. I am a freak and a libtard or whatever you like to call me. The fact that this war was fought to enrich corporate power and not to defend anything is more of a dis-honor to the troops than anything I have said. Call the troops "heroes" and say that you support them all you like but until they are not killing others there is no honor.
posted by Mistake Master @ 2:11 PM
14 Comments:
"I submit that troops, soldiers, humans, can lay down their arms, stop getting on the bus to go to war and cease killing their fellow man. That would be a good way to stop the madness."
If in the above statement, you were talking about the terrorists...,
I'd agree with you.
well of course this applies to the terrorists. I have never said that the acts of violence by Hamas or Al Quaida or PFLP were justified or heroic. I think they are desperate misguided and contrary to accomplishing the desired effect.
No my point is more that when we stop spending more than 10 times the ammount the REST of the world spends on "defense" we will never be able to say that we love peace or want to live with our fellow man. It is hard to convince people of your good intentions while pointing nuclear missles at them. (That also applies to Korea)
But see, you don't specify that anything applies to the terrorists. Neither does any of the other leftist organizations.
That's what pisses me off. Because I know you and I know that you don't think that way it's one thing and it makes it easier for me to defend you. But other people don't know you. And you parrot the talking points of the left.
And the reason that France, Russia, etc didn't support our efforts in Iraq/Afghanistan/etc is because they had lucrative deals with the leaders of those countries. It boggles the mind that the left accuses Bush of only being interested in the oil in Iraq when every action he has done is related to building a free country.
You're not a conservative. You are drinking the koolaid of the far left. But that's okay because you have that right guaranteed to you by the Constitution and backed up by the people that you and the left mock for being war mongers.
this is really not the correct framework for discussion of the abdication of war.
When I proposed that my support for the troops was to not send them into a war for profit Anna acted as if there were no evidence that he has gained anything. Bush too for that matter stands to gain by setting up this culture of death. As for proof of war profiterring it is all out there. I mean the Justice department has filed charges against KBR (read: Halliburton)
WASHINGTON, August 18, 2004 — The oil services company Halliburton, largely through its subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, has received more revenue from government contracts in the last year than from 1998 through 2002. In 2003, when the company had record revenue of $16.3 billion, Halliburton received contracts from the Department of Defense worth $4.3 billion, while in the previous five years it obtained less than $2.5 billion from the military, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.
Although figures are not yet available for 2004, government revenue is bound to increase as a result of the contracts the company has won for work in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq, which so far potentially totals $11.4 billion. Some of that work was actually awarded earlier; many of the company's contracts extend for multiple years.
In 1998, Halliburton's total revenue was $14.5 billion; that year, the company got contracts from the Pentagon worth $284 million. Two years later, revenue had dropped to just under $12 billion while work under DoD contracts more than doubled. In 2002, DoD awarded Halliburton tasks worth $485 million while the company's revenue was $12.6 billion.
Of the more than 150 American companies that together have received U.S. government contracts potentially worth more than $51 billion for postwar work in Afghanistan and Iraq, Halliburton is by far the largest recipient of contracts awarded in the two countries.
It is all there. She just doesn't want to see it (nor do you for that matter) because then it really is a lie and your chips are on the wrong dog even if he did win the race we all lose.
Look, the fact that it takes infrastructure to wage war or even to wage peace shouldn't be a surprise.
Someone has to build that infrastructure. The reason that Halliburton profits have gone up is a direct correlation to the fact that we were attacked by terrorists and decided to fight back.
Complain all you want but that is the way it is. You do not advocate government ownership of industry and production do you? Or let me ask that a simpler way (a way that even a liberal can understand), should we dispense with private corporations and let the goverment handle everything?
I await your response.
Oh and you're a fathead!
Stew,
Let's not confuse a free market system with war profitering. I think it is ignorant to say that Halliburton was just minding it's own business, had NO connections to the Bush administration and is simply trying to fill a role in the "reconstruction" of Iraq.
No, these folks are stealing from the government. Well maybe not stealing, they are being allowed to empty the treasury by a corrupt administration.
There is a big difference between what is going on with no-bid contracts and a free market economy. Why don't they have to bid? WHY do they just get to sign up and get billions? Could it be any connections to the Vice-President?
Bro, following that logic, you'd evenly say that ANY no bid contract is due to government corruption.
No bid contracts are created to fill an immediate need. Or if there isn't another competing company that CAN fulfill the requirement.
I think it would be more smelly if they had bid on every single project and won.
But to ignore the irony of the classical hysterical left pitching a coronary bitch over Bush/Cheney/Halliburton/Iraq when Clinton's administration gleefully contracted THE EXACT SAME NO BID CONTRACTS is simply ludicrous.
To put it another way, I'm right and you're wrong.
Thank you Sean for your eloquent rant of idiocy! Journalists are the scum of the earth? I thought it was the trail lawyers that were the SOTE. I will take that bong hit but I will not shut TFU ;b
Stew,
For you to compare the Clinton administration to what is going on in this administration is astonishing. Even though Clinton did award contracts to Halliburton after Kosovo etc... it pales in comparison to the level of graft that the President (and Mr. Bush) are engaged in.
For example:
The Army gave KBR a secret $7 billion contract to restore Iraq’s oil fields just before Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
There is a clear reason the Clinton administration overhauled our procurement process.
(1) Too often the government was giving out no-bid contracts to large companies, where smaller companies could have completed the contract for a lower price. (2) To many large procurements were being awarded to non-minority owned companies, at a rate that was out of line with the percentage of minority owned companies in the United States.
Bush and his administration, is doing everything in their power it would seem, to return to the days where the largest companies with the most political contributions, are winning no-bid, non-competitive contracts worth billions.
So go ahead and try desperately to deflect the charges of corruption, graft, greed and blatant abuse of taxpayer trust by blaming Clinton.
Obfuscate, deflect, blame Clinton. That is all you have.
Deflect? How exactly am I deflecting. I'm pointing out flaws in your logic.
I guess that's where the obfuscate comes in; you don't want to admit that larger companies are better positioned to deliver the (in this case) required infrastructure improvements.
Just once, I'd love it if you'd grow big enough balls to admit that what you REALLY want is centralized government control over production.
But you won't because you're in denial.
Pah! I am not a Socialist at all. I fail to see how my position on no-bid contracts makes me a Socialist. I want to have sanity in the procurement process. I want to have a government that is able to find value and quality from those agencies or businesses that it contracts with. I think the connections between the President (read Cheney) and Halliburton and the no-bid contracts are suspicious at least and should be criminal. That is what I am saying. How do you get Socialism from that?
IF the government controlled the means of production this wouldn't happen.
Do you agree?
In soviet russia, means of production control YOU
NO!!!!!!!!!
If the government took even the slightest interest in awarding the contracts and actually allowed to have them bid on it would control this. Look at it this way, why should the president and W try making this administration efficient or even functional when they have actively tried to destroy the very government they are in charge of? They want this federal government to be corrupt and worthless so that the Grover Norquist's can point out the corruption and say "see this is why we need less government." It would be like making a MAD mother the bartender. Do you think she is going to serve the masses who want to drink till they fall down? NO. She is going to do everything she can to not pour a drink.
That is why I think Bush and the president are so evil. They are using their position to destroy our government.
I am not calling for a Socialist government. You are missing the point and putting words in my mouth.
Stew Magoo is living proof that evolution does indeed exist. Let me guess - dropped out of third grade, sports a mullet, drives a shitty American truck with truck nuts and a bumper sticker that says, "Mine hang this low," and beats up gay people on Saturday nights after drinking an 18 pack of Bud. He is clearly getting all of his information from Fox News. Liberals support the troops , not conservatives, because we do not send them to war so we can profit from it - both in the stealing of oil while gas prices go through the roof and oil companies have record profits, and the "no-bid" contracts handed out to Bush and Cheney's buddies.
It's always an "evil enemy" we must combat with these unAmerican neo-cons. First it was the communists that represented the greatest threat to our freedom, and now it's the "terrorists." What they don't realize is that we create these enemies through our actions around the world. Do you think the families of the hundreds of civilians killed by Israel (and our weapons - don't even say it, I'm a Jew) are going to forget?
Actions speak louder than words Stew. During the eight years Bill Clinton was President, we saw the strongest economy ever, good will between nations all over the world, and a country that was not bitterly divided, and believe me, I could go on about his success, but I'll stop there. Lets' see now, under Bush/Cheney - most spending and largest defecit ever, illegal war of aggression that has killed over 40,00 civilians and has pissed off pretty much the whole rest of the world, illegal wiretapping of millions of American's phones and email, and not one qualified appointed official.
Just to show you that I understand what you are trying to say about the difference between conservatives and neo-cons: John McCain is a conservative, George Bush is a neo-con. However, was McCain hugging and playing friends with when he was running for re-election in 2004? That's right, George Bush. That's what all the republicans do, neo-con or conservative doesn't matter, they are all the same - a cancer on our culture, our country, and our way of life.
I'm sorry Stew is your brother. Stop calling yourself a conservative, liberaltreehugger, you are not. At the very worst, you are a moderate. Conservative and free thought go together like oil and water.
Sorry I can't read your blog anymore, it pisses me off too much.
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