Here is a great Washington Post photo of Bush strutting at the White House as he receives visitors from the Rolling Thunder veterans motorcycle group.
It is obscene how the same politicians who send Americans to die in unnecessary wars are treated like heroes on Memorial Day.
One would hope that this day, above all others, would be a time for condemning those whose lies and failures resulted in thousands of their fellow citizens being killed.
I am puzzled how Vietnam Veterans could have anything but utter disdain for politicians, considering how they were sacrificed for the convenience of LBJ and Nixon.
Instead, the Rolling Thunder crew proudly presented Bush with one of their leather jackets. Bush told them: “I want to thank you and all your comrades for being so patriotic and loving our country as much as you do.”
The Post article on the Rolling Thunder riders has evoked a tidal wave of comments, including comments from veterans furious to see Bush being treated like a hero by their fellow soldiers.
Dear Jim:
Yes, the sight of a kicked dog slinking back to lick the hand of its abuser always triggers that gag reflex in those of us with some vestige of humanity and the ability to experience embarrassment through empathy. One can only wait for the poor creature to roll over on its back and pee on itself while emitting that pitiful high-pitched whine. But it’s important to remember something about motorcycle gangs and every other kind of gang, including those who enlist in the “armed services” (sic) to do the dirty deeds of our regional organized crime syndicate, the U.S. government. Gang members always seek to hide behind a crowd–sinking into the woodwork of more than one drooling face. Have you ever noticed that they are interchangeable, one for another, in the vapid look that crawls over their skull bones? Ultimately they are exposed as cowards. This is evidenced by their behavior when they are able to vastly outnumber their victims versus their behavior when they are alone and confronted by something they cannot explain and don’t understand. At such times, they are frightened horribly by what is different, and consequently, they must destroy it to eradicate the source of their fear and insecurity. No, these gang members truly recognize one of their own. All of them–down to a half-man–follow a pecking order of dominance and submission. Just watch the dynamics of any gang. One of them is the boss, and the rest are the butt-lickers queuing up for their chance to . Here in the photo we can see the curs following after their pack leader, happily wagging their tails and waiting for their chance to…umm…faire la nez brun. I can almost smell it.
All the best.
Excellent description, fr. lawrence above, of the interactions of a group of gang members. Yes!
Pardon. I believe it is faire le nez brun. Mea culpa.
L
It’s amazing how our wars co-opt the support of the very citizens they most harm.
Here’s how it works:
No one wants to think he wasted the best years of his life. So if you steal a man’s youth and send him off to misspend it in a war of aggression, chances are that when he comes back, he will hate the people who opposed that war, because the implications of accepting the truth about the war are too painful for his self-regard. It means he’s damaged goods, a dupe, a victim, a “loser” in some sense, in a society where being a “winner” is all that counts — especially for macho young men.
It’s beautiful! All the anger that logically should be directed at the people who sent him to war will be directed at the very people who tried to prevent or end the war.
Not to mention that it becomes the cheap rationalization for the next war. That’s what happened to the Vietnam veterans. Some of them were able to admit their mistake (as Senator Kerry did before he recanted to run a losing campaign against the bigger loser Bush), and as a result, these people were able to move on with their lives and try to avoid the mistake in the future. That’s a healthy response. But the others are a different story. Instead of going through the self-examination process as you described, they denied that they were duped and are still denying it. Then as in post-September 2001, when there was an opportunity to once again reaffirm and validate that they were not duped (a suspicion that they cannot shake no matter how hard they try because at the deepest level, they know that they are lying to themselves and were in fact duped), they jumped on board the next war for the state because repetition of the same mistake, to them, means they were correct. And they are now preparing to re-re-justify their original dupe-dom now with Iran waiting for their bombs and false bravery. These people spend all of their psychological energy in denial and repetition of the same mistake to “prove” they did not waste their lives (and even worse, the lives of their hapless victims abroad). They then spend their lives “hunting” for more validation. It’s also quite frequently the reason that parents whose children suffer a terrible mishap must sue a manufacturer or someone with deep pockets who was breathing in the area. They cannot face up to the fact that life holds random perils and possibly carelessness on their part. But by using the legal system to find a culprit, they expiate (validate) themselves.
This is very insightful of you. It’s easier to believe a lie then the truth.
Bush took a pass on the Vietnam war. He has given his country a modern version of Vietnam in Iraq. He thinks fighting in Afghanistan is “romantic”. The man is appalling.
Yes, Andy, exactly. And like his wart-on-humanity’s-face-and-Satanic-friend, Dick Cheney (with the emphasis on “ick”), he “had other priorities” at the time of the war in Vietnam (to quote that cold bastard in the Michael Moore clip–in Dubya’s case, like snortin’ crack with his frat bros so that his brain could be adequately fried to lead those who need leadin’.
Bush’s Memorial Day speech was also quite obscene. It was an amazingly absurdist and projection-laden pile of dog crap.
“The truth was, in 1914, Germany doesn’t want war. Yeah, there’s an arms race, but it’s Britain who’s leading it. So, why does no one admit this?
[approaching a war memorial]
That’s why. The dead. The body count. We don’t like to admit the war was even partly our fault ’cause so many of our people died. And all the mourning’s veiled the truth. It’s not “lest we forget”, it’s “lest we remember”. That’s what all this is about – the memorials, the Cenotaph, the two minutes’ silence. Because there is no better way if forgetting something than by commemorating it.”
[The History Boys]
I understand that the website is ANTI-war. I also understand that many people on here hate Bush more than Bin Laden. I get that part of it. But for heaven’s sake, its Memorial Day. Can’t we just pay our respects to the people who fought and died for this country? Maybe they died in the jungles of Vietnam in war that probably should not have been fought but should we not still honor their sacrifice? Or maybe they died at Gettysburg, or in some trench on the western front, or at Lexington and Concord, or at the beaches of Normandy. Don’t we owe them our respect? Let’s not have politics for just one day.
And somehow you think that the Rolling Dunderheads, by licking Bush’s boots, are respecting the unfortunates pushed through the meatgrinder by generations of stupid, evil old men in power? I honor those men who fought because they truly thought, however ignorantly, that they were defending their country, not those who fight “to spread democracy” or “earn my way through college”. At least their hearts were right, even if their brains weren’t.
I find it impossible to “honor” people who go to a faraway place to commit mass murder against poor people who never harmed or planned to harm us–2,000,000 in Vietnam; 567,000 Iraqi babies by 1996 from the sanctions and 1,000,000 since 2003 (and how many in between from the non-stop bombing by McCain imitators?). Let’s not forget the Philippines, hmmm. What kind of person would honor killers of innocent moms and dads and kids. I think of that little girl with the napalm burns –flash-fried by our heros. Do we honor Al Capone’s gang, which was much smaller and less dangerous by far?
Yeah Lawrence, thats what all our soldiers do. They sign up and say ” I want to go and committ mass murder.” Is that really what you think of everyone who has ever served in our nation’s military? Shame on you. Your a disgrace.
Always the claim of good intentions. Judge them by their deeds. How many apologies are ready in the wings for the bogus claim that “they really meant to do good by XXX”?
Yes lets all be docile follow the propaganda and worship the state together for one day. Submit to the moral authority, it is good to sacrifice lives so that Lockheed Martin and JP Morgan can make more money.
God Bless Henry Kissinger.
I’m with you, Gabe. I also wonder…what would a monument to unthinking, cruel, servile minions of the state look like? An empty heart cavity in a Frankenstein doll? A skull without a brain? A hammer driving a nail into the corpse of a 3rd-world victim? Oh, the possibilities.
Tim:
Why does Bush get a free pass to push his politics on Memorial Day but everyone else has to refrain from their opinions? You are defining what is respect. I don’t have much respect for a man going to “pay tribute” to the men he ordered to their deaths to advance his political career.
PS: Please tell me who on the site hates Bush more than bin Laden.
Eric Garris asks:
“PS: Please tell me who on the site hates Bush more than bin Laden”
That would be me – I KNOW that Bush is guilty of all of thise deaths, but after all this time, I still have my doubts as to what part bin Laden played in 9-11. I can see the jackass, Bush, strutting around, I have no idea if bin Laden is alive or dead. I must shoulder my share of this country’s shame of its invasion/occupation of an innocent, weaker country, I had nothing to do with bin Laden’s actions (whatever the hell they were).
So, yes, Eric I hate Bush more because he is real and unfortuneately he represents me. Bin Laden is just some phantom to me.
A reminder from Bill Quigley:
“The 1950 Joint Resolution of Congress which created Memorial Day says: ‘Requesting the President to issue a proclamation designating May 30, Memorial Day, as a day for a Nation-wide prayer for peace.’ (64 Stat.158).”
Memorial Day should be a day to remember the Millions of Victims of the US Military Industrial Complex.