What Memorial Day means to NY Times readers
Cortillaen sends us a link to an article in the New York Times which highlights the saddest images it can as their Memorial Day weekend remembrance, One image is probably one you’re familiar with – Katherine Cathey, camped out overnight by the remains of her husband LT James Cathey on the night before his burial. Cortillaen warned me in his eamil to not read the comments, but, I couldn’t help it;
At the end of the article you ask an incredibly important question: What can I do?
What can we do? We can push our state and federal representatives to more heavily subsidize higher education so that we can have a much larger percent of the population with fully developed intellects.
[…]
Is there any doubt that with a more educated, more discerning, more deliberative voting population that George W. Bush would have ever been elected? A man that lacked the most essential quality that is necessary in United States President, i.e., intellectual curiosity.
An educated people would have more broadly pinpointed his lack of intellectual curiosity and therefore would have concluded that he cannot handle the nuance of critical decisions because he lacks the self-derived onus to investigate these nuances. The Iraq war would never have happened and future wars can likewise be avoided. That is what we can do.
Did you resist paying your taxes to fund these wars? Did you demonstrate, speak out, write to your political leaders, write letters to the editor? Did you, and do you, do everything you can to prevent needless wars? If the answer is yes, I salute you.
The Iraq war is especially tragic, started by a bunch of psychopaths who do what psychopaths do: lie, self-serve, and enjoy the spectacle of the death and destruction they cause.
Read Robert Hare’s book on psychopaths, Without Conscience, to understand how the Iraq war happened, how Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld came to power, how Little George was so manipulated; how dangerous Romney is.
Nowadays, is the decision to enter the military merely and solely an economic one? If so, one will surely never see the top 1% submit to military service and go in harm’s way.
What “American values” are worthy of this sacrifice? Do those values include “maximization of shareholder value”?
Is it to be regretted that “corporate persons” are unable to go in harm’s way on behalf of their (financial) interests like flesh-and-blood human “resources” and “capital”?
I remember the old anti-war phrase from the 60’s: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” It’s a good question, isn’t it? Bush and Blair got America involved in a senseless war based on lies. There wasn’t even a draft in place. Why do men so willingly march off to kill on command in behalf of the Anglo-American oil cartel? Very sad indeed.
He was sent to his death (by men who evaded military service themselves everyone of them) on the otherside of the world to kill poor people and farmers.
Ask his widow what she thinks of the war
Every solider, in every war, who is not sent because s/he is a literal slave, goes because s/he chose to go. If the soldiers would refuse to fight, we would have no war. War happens because people think war is exciting and noble, or necessary, or inevitable.
The USA had no business going to war in Iraq and shouldn’t be in Afghanistan. The POTUS at the time lied, straight forwardly and stupidly, lied. I knew it then and so did many of my friends. Nonetheless, many people, men and women, chose to go to these places and fight.
And then they wonder why there’s a gap between the military and the people they’re defending in this country.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Dumbass Bullshit
Thanks, Jonn, for making my head explode this morning.
We should apply their logic . . . and simply announce that, henceforth, the military will refuse to defend “blue state” interests.
The next 9/11 will hit a “blue” area simply because big cities are the targets, and they are overwhelmingly “blue.”
So, if they want to protect themselves from the bad guys out there . . . they can throw their organic granola bars at them.
And that’s why I tend to avoid reading the comments at the Fish Wrap (also because of their 10 article limit).
Sadly, this doesn’t shock me. I’m too used to Lefties holding these types of bat guano crazy beliefs.
And that same electorate put the empty suit that is BO into the White House! The stupidity that comes out of the NYT is breath taking
All you have to do is understand the fundamentals of the worldview that drives the left (soft Marxism and counter-tribalism) and you can pretty accurately predict what they will say on any issue, so William is absolutely correct, this is sadly predictable.
Anyway, the old media can’t die too quickly for me. The Times loses money hand over fist, but the Post seems to be doing fine.
[…] This ain’t Hell… discusses what Memorial Day means to the NY Times readers […]
Surely the comments quoted above are embarrassing to the “left,” as well. Ranging from a man with a newly discovered thesaurus to a man eager to brag about and recommend the only book he’s read in his life; these pseudo intellectuals are not representative of any group other than idiots.
Comments in sites like these are entertaining but unsurprising. The short bus crowd on the right has places like Fox Nation and FR……..while their counterparts on the left have DU, Kos and the NYT.
The comments on this NYT article merely remind is of the disconnect some have with our military, and the distinct lack of intellectual curiosity we see daily from coast to coast. Unfortunately these particular comments inject politics and mar the real meaning of Memorial Day.
Well I’m glad to see someone equate the New York Times (the “Old Gray Lady” and the “Paper of Record”) to Kos and DU. It’s perfectly true, of course, but it shows how far they have fallen.
@7 Embarrassing, yes, but largely because they’re saying inexpertly and loudly what many people think.
The freedom of speech most of us here spent years defending includes the freedom to spout truly inane nonsense in public. That’s regrettable, but is also unavoidable.
IMO the NYT (and other left-oriented papers) tend to attract as both writers and commenters those who’ve grasped the first part of the concept (free speech) without being able to discern the fact that they’re usually guilty of the second. It would be entertaining if it weren’t so sad.
“God must love fools, for he made so many of them.”
As far as I’m concerned, that article is hate speech.
Anti-war doesn’t mean anti-military.
You all know me. You know my affiliations. You know what I think of the Iraq War.
Today I’m in DC. I just got back from the Korean War Memorial and the World War II War Memorial, and I’m on my way to Arlington now.
I may post about it later, it’s been a really intense experience.
However, I will say that it’s not just the left who uses Memorial Day for their purposes. I just got into a heated discussion with some folks who thought the Korean War Memorial was an appropriate place to recruit for their church.
…Mother. Of. Freaking. Gawd….
There just aren’t any more words to describe the utter foolishness of these people.
And thus the reason I have implemented a “don’t look at the comments” policy when reading any article.
For those shit comments and their freedom of speech, the only thing that I can say about the fools God made is that the gift of ignorance is bliss for them. They gave no clue and they never will.
Army Sergeant, foolish people doing foolish things. Much like many of the commenters on the NYT article.
If the new york times’ “writers” had NOT attended college, they may have HAD A CHANCE to think straight — as it is, they are brain-poisoned (“washed”), brain-dead zombies who are incapable of identifying Man, but can see only another robot-critter such as they are .
Yesterday I stopped at a restaurant and had to park next to one of those stupid front engined Beetles. This piece of crap had anti war, anti this, anti that, bullshit stickers all over the rear end of the car.Out of about 6 customers, still early, I zoomed in on one sitting at the counter near me, but she didn’t fit the bill. You know, covered in beads, frumpy dress kinda like an Amish dress, long hair down to her whatsit, but she didn’t have any of that. So, I started homing in on another one. In the meantime, miss prim and pretty, got up and left in said VW. I got my order and hit the road vowing if I ever saw that piece of crap again, no the car not her, I’d puke all over it.
@ #13- Get pic’s too, AS.
When I see crap like this I’m reminded of John Stewart Mills’ quote, “War isn’t the ugliest of things…” If these people can look themselves in the mirror and justify themselves and their points of view, I don’t feel anger or spite for them, I feel pity.
Adds clicked,to help fund an awesome website.Keep up the good work.
A couple of weeks back you had a thread in which the majority of posters were advocating ending social security and medicare. I’m pretty sure those comments would be far more shocking to 90% of the people then anything you quoted above.
Here’s a quote from a commie pinko you all can seethe over!
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
What’s worse, he made the speech to a group of newspaper editors! That military-hating bastard!
Ike gave that speech in 1953, shortly after Stalin died, and then he went on to maintain high levels of Defense spending throughout his administration. It would seem that he offered up a trial balloon with that speech in the hopes that the Soviets would respond and, when they didn’t, he acted as he thought best.
That’s not exactly the same as saying that those of us who served in one of the recent conflicts were sent to “…the otherside of the world to kill poor people and farmers.” Which, a reasonable person can easily understand, we might find just the least bit offensive.
I can only shake my head be know that good men and women will go in harms way to protect our freedoms.
I, like many of you have worn the uniform. I have seen and felt fear. I have seen act of courage from very ordinary people.
Just a few years ago I was at a send off for some national Guardsmen who were being deployed. The Mayor of the small town was holding his 2 year old grand daughter, asleep on his shoulder as he gave a short talk. He said that there were people in this world who would not hesitate to take that little girls life simply because of the color of her skin or her place of birth. He then gave a simple thanks to then deploying group for standing between those that would cause her harm and her.
I feel sorry for those that cannot understand that simple point.
Those comments in the NYT are just dumb comments made by dumb people.
What you said about the division between those who served in Iraq & Afghanistan and those who have not served really hit home to me.
Between 2002 and 2005 I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. When I got out after I got injured in Dec 05 I made the mistake to go to college right away. I dropped out after 2 semesters because of ignorant professors and moronic students. I remember once that an English Lit prof went from teaching us about Charles Dickens to going into a inane rant about how evil the troops are “killing innocent people” and all that nonsense.
I took this fool down point by point with facts along with the fact that I spent almost 2 years in Iraq and the best he could come up with was that I was just lying to protect war criminals.
I ended up taking a long break from college and ended up finding another where I graduated from. Even today though there is something about me that I do fine around any veterans and I seem to respect them more than any civilians.
War changes people and it has changed me a lot. For me it has changed me for the better. That division though between those who never served in the military and those that have 7 years after getting out is still very fresh and on the forefront of my life.
@ 25 68W58, thank you. You said it more gooder than I could have. I guess my education is lacking because of the need for guns, ships and rockets so we were ready to meet the threat of the Soviet Union. Oh, Instupid…we won.
@28, yeah, we won, and instupid can’t and won’t forgive the U.S. for winning.
Instupid just happened to leave something out of Ike’s speech, “In the world of its(Russia’s) design, security was to be found, not in mutual trust and mutual aid but in force: huge armies, subversion, rule of neighbor nations. The goal was power superiority at all costs. Security was to be sought by denying it to all others.
The result has been tragic for the world and, for the Soviet Union, it has also been ironic.
The amassing of the Soviet power alerted free nations to a new danger of aggression. It compelled them in self-defense to spend unprecedented money and energy for armaments. It forced them to develop weapons of war now capable of inflicting instant and terrible punishment upon any aggressor.
It instilled in the free nations-and let none doubt this-the unshakable conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war.”
Eisenhower also had a lot to say about the military industrial complex at the end of his Presidency. The point is that it is entirely possible to be against having the military take up 20% of our budget be against a dumb-ass war like Iraq and still support the troops.
Einsamkeit, I’m in a similar predicament right now. I’m at Auburn so it’s not that I’m dealing with frothing liberal professors (then again I’m a science major so maybe I just haven’t run across them yet), but a campus full of people who are largely indifferent to anything that doesn’t actually outright effect them or their ability to watch Dancing With The Stars. Class global affairs discussions almost always result in comments related to ‘we’re still over there?’, ‘it’s all over oil’, and ‘the American military are pawns and/or war criminals.’
There are some surprisingly liberal groups of students who regularly infuriate me. I often help out with awareness events set up by the campus LGBT group I’m a part of so I regularly run into the hyper leftists who consider it one of their token issues to support. I came VERY close to throttling one spoiled brat who was going on and on about how Bradley Manning is a hero, we shouldn’t have secrets, and we couldn’t say for sure that any of it had gotten Iraqi civilians murdered without any proof (but the same standards apparently didn’t apply to his outrageously high Iraqi death count.) When I asked him how he knew anything about what was going on over there he said his Dad had been to Iraq as if that gave him any insight on the matter. At that point I had to walk away.
The liberals aren’t the only ones that piss me off. I’ve talked to several members of the College Republicans and College Libertarians. For as much as they claim to love America, support the troops, and feel it’s disgraceful that more people aren’t willing to serve their country not a one had even the slightest inclination to serve in the military. Or even worse they try to say working for some think tank or becoming a politician somehow equates to it.
@ 32 Ann, unfortunately Sis this crap has been going on since I went back to school in the early ’80s. Until there is some mandatory national service requirement there will always be this division. Even more unfortunately as fewer young people serve this rift is only going to get wider. I’m glad I won’t be around when it reaches it’s final out come.
Let’s extend the logic of the NYT readers. If we get rid of all police, there will be no more crime. Get rid of all doctors, and all diseases and medical ailments will end.I remember while reading Stolen Valor that the author had a quote from the lead singer of Counrty Joe And The Fish, years after his anti-Vietnam song, had a change of perspective and said something along the line of “Blaming soldiers for war is like blaming firemen for fires.”
@33 Yat Yas: Robert A. Heinlein said it best in “Starship Troopers”: young people with no moral values or character get nothing from forces national service.
This whole anger over the Iraq war, troop hate and Bush derangement syndrome is just spoiled children acting out. They are lazy and spoiled and need some excuse so that they can feel good about not caring. Not caring about real heroes, a real war and real threats to their way of life.
The anti-war crowd is full of idiots who think that “armies are evil because war is evil.” It’s lazy thinking.
@Chock I love when they harangue the government into sending the military to wars they consider justified such as Darfur, Libya, and tracking down Joseph Kony (because they never want to actually do any of the work that requires more effort than posting an angry call to action on Facebook.) Of course nobody is perfect, and life isn’t fair. So when an accident happens and a civilian is hurt or killed then we’re all back to being evil agents of imperialism whose day isn’t complete until we kill a baby and oppress a minority.
Ann-I will never forget back when things started to go pear-shaped in Somalia in late 1992 they were interviewing one of the aid workers there on one of the nightly news shows and her exact words about military intervention were: “I wish they weren’t coming, but since they are, they need to hurry up.”
Cognitive dissonance should hurt.
#35 ChockBlock,
I’m glad you brought up RAH & “Starship Troopers”. If/when America’s gubbment collapse comes, the remaining vets need to impliment the society espoused in the book — if you’re not that concerned about society and life outside of yourself enough to volunteer for an honorable term in the military services, then you don’t get to vote or hold elected office, and therefore don’t get to decide the fate of other people outside of yourself.
It wouldn’t get rid of assholes like Murtha & Heinz-Kerry, but it would definitely reduce their impact on the people they were/are supposed to be serving.
Insipid…please break out a copy of the Constitution. Go to Article I, Section 8. See Army and Navy funding in there? You betcha. See welfare and gimmies for half of American households? Nope. Yet we spend less than 4% of GDP on our military while we spend almost four times that on “human resources.”
Now GDIAF.
Insipid: do you have any idea just how much, percentage wise, of the Federal budget your beloved FDR spent on defense during his last 4 years in office? Or how about JFK, or LBJ? Clue for ya, sunshine – it was substantially more than 20%.
And don’t trot out that tired “but they were fighting a war” BS. So are we.
Even though FDR started us down the socialist path to the “nanny state”, during their days in office FDR/JFK/LBJ spent more of the federal budget to defend this country than to do things for people that the people should do for themselves (e.g., plan for retirement, pay for healthcare, feed and house themselves, etc . . . ). We should try to get back to that state of affairs.
Freedom includes the freedom to end up a penniless bum if you’re stupid enough not to plan ahead or spend beyond your means.
@30: 700 billion dollars out of a 3.7 trillion dollar budget leaves 3 trillion dollars for other things. Whether you like it, or not, providing for the national defense (military) is one of the only enumerated powers of the federal government in the Constitution. You may have no idea what everyday products got their start from the eeeevil “military industrial complex”, so it’s best if you just stay inside your momma’s basement and not go anywhere, since we don’t want your self righteousness to take a whooping. Oh, and don’t heat up your lunch in the microwave, cuz that, too, got its start in the military. In fact, you had better not use a GPS system to find your way to the next occutard meetup, either. Oh, and this internet thingy? Yeah, spun off a military system (even its inventor, Algore, admits that part, of course he didn’t take credit for inventing the military). Satellites and manned space flight? That’s right, Redstone, Atlas, Titan…..all ICBMs; all designed by the military industrial complex starting under Ike and Kennedy and modified for manned space flight and launching satellites. Ike knew that as well as anyone but his warning was for us not to become what he saw happening in the Soviet Union, where the people were going without as they were building up their military (part of that great central planning thing under communism). Less than 20% of the budget doesn’t make us the Soviet Union, but you knew that; it just doesn’t fit your narrative.
Yes I do see a general Welfare Clause in Article 1 Section 8, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;” And before you start yammering how general welfare doesn’t mean what I think it means, i caution you to read the works of Alexander Hamilton before you make a bigger ass of yourself. You also may want to look at the myriad court cases on the subject, much of which passed by a much larger majority then the 5-4 decision gun enthusiasts love. That same article clearly gives the power to Congress to arm and regulate and discipline the militia and yet you still whine like piggies whenever a single gun law is even suggested. Plus the same article also mentions postal service and the Conservatives can’t wait to defund that. I’m also getting sick and tired of this repulsive rhetoric that many of you have been applying to Social Security and Medicare. Implying, if not outright stating that my mother- who paid into the system for 50 years- is somehow a welfare cheat for collecting Social Security and calling Social Security and Medicare a ponzi Scheme- even stating that we should end those programs. The fact is that the true “gimmies” has been defense not the safety net. Right now Social Security and Medicare is running at a surplus. Since their inception Medicare and Social security have been running at a surplus. It’s been the safety net that has been supplementing defense, not the other way around. So it is not true that my mother has been leaching off the taxpayers, nor is it necessary that I pony up to take care of my mother (though i do). If anything, using George Bush’s logic that all surplusses are bad and should be paid back, you owe my mother a substantial amount of money. Furthermore the maligned safety net has achieved its goals. The backbraking poverty among the elderly has largely ended thanks to these programs.… Read more »
Insipid, you are omitting the important point that many of us do not believe [based on the Constitution and other founding documents] that the Federal Government has a mandate to impose involuntarily financial ‘safety nets’ upon the citizenry…with the force of law.
Until you come to terms with that aspect, you’re generally pissing up a rope here.
Instupid, living proof that liberals do, indeed, inhabit a parallel universe.
And, you can rave all you want about SS and Medicare surpluses, but raving don’t make it so, cupcake. Any more than crying that “general welfare” means bridge cards, Cadillacs and lobster.
Instupid, take Sparky’s advice, GDIAF.
I don’t think it is an “important point” i think it is, what John Kenneth Gallbraith called the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. I can make the same argument about my involuntarily paying for wars that were not authorized by Congress. And last i looked they collected THOSE taxes with the force of law too. And yet i still had to pay because i lost at the box office.
Look, if you want to put ending medicare and SS up for a vote, i welcome that. Until that time you have to pay just as i have to pay for the wars. And yes, i am one of the 52% that does pay Federal taxes, though i’m sure my statement to that effect won’t prevent any of you from proclaiming that I don’t.
I meant to say ballot box above. Serves me right for writing a reply after looking at rottentomatoes.com.
It’s not “raving” it’s stating a fact. SS and Medicare DO operate at a surplus. But I know you Conservatives hate those facts.
And why don’t you take the advice of your favorite Vice President and go fuck yourself?
Just so much stupid in one post. I certainly don’t think Insipid’s mom is a “welfare cheat”, but I do take exception to a program that stuck a gun in her back to pay for someone else’s retirement and continues to stick that same gun in the back of today’s workers to pay for today’s retirees. There are other ways to do have some sort of old age “safety net” and yet give those who pay into it actual control over their investment (see, for example Chile’s system), which is more than we’ve got now.
Of course, I’d have to actually ignore the 10th amendment for Insipid’s interpretation of the powers of the Federal government to make any sense, but I get the feeling that he ignores the document in question as he sees fit (his moronic reading of the 2nd amendment proves that, every other part of the BOR has to do with the rights of the people, but not that one?).
A Source, for that claim in #42? A reputable, reliable source?
68W, he can’t wrap his head around the concept of individual rights.
Well, obviously our “friend” insipid missed the fact that the DoD budget has included a category called “Overseas Contingency” since FY2002.
The purpose of that category, insipid, was/is to fund operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. So your charge that “Bush funded his wars differently” rings a bit hollow. If anything, doing it explicitly as an add-on to the DoD budget rather than attempting to hide war-related expenses (as did McNamara and Johnson until approx 1967) seems somewhat more honest.
Next time, maybe you should actually do your homework before posting. For you, that’s obviously optional.