The US Hamster Wheel

[Jetex Jim]

We all know that Big Donald managed to avoid going to Vietnam as did many middle-class boys who managed to coop a friendly doctor to write a deferment.

Widespread draft avoidance had consequences. This moving video speaks of the men who had to replace those fortunate middle-class guys who managed to avoid the draft.



https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/11/0 ... be-damned/

[Slasher]

Poor bastards. They were simply Cong fodder.

Thing is Mr Jim, you have to ask yourself...in 1966 wouldn't you've tried dodging Vietnam if you could? I know I would. No one wants to risk his life being drafted into a war that is no threat to one's home or home land.

The practice of drafting anyway is truly impractical. One soldier fighting for his loved ones (be they his home, country, or mates on the battlefield) is worth more than 10 draftees.

I would've gone down the 3 pizzas a night for 6 months route.

[BenThere]

In the US, every American male is required to register for the draft on his 18th birthday. Why aren't women, who are equally capable of providing value to the military, so we are told, not subject to the same requirement?

I agree wholeheartedly that a volunteer is likely to be a much better soldier than a draftee. But I accord gratitude to every soldier who served in Viet Nam. Those guys reported for duty, toiled in a brutal theatre, and came home to the disrespect and demonization Hollywood and the Democrats served them. The general treatment they received in the US after noble service is a national disgrace. In fact, that was what turned me from being a Democrat to a Republican. To this day I just can't stomach Jane Fonda.

Nowadays I spend a few days a month volunteering at the Detroit airport's Freedom Center, a reception center and lounge that serves any Vet, US or allied, active, retired, or who just served a hitch. We get quite a few Viet Nam vets. I can tell by how grey their hair is. When they come to the desk to sign in, I stand in respect, shake their hands, and give them the best welcome I can. Often we sit down together and swap stories about those times.

[Magnus]

Ben, I used to perform John Denver's "Readjustment Blues" which says it better than I ever could. Ran into a few vets, particularly in Hawai`i, and they always got a beer, as do ex-squaddies I meet in Edinburgh.

[BenThere]

Yep. Every chance you get, buy a beer for anyone who has sweated in the desert, gone on multiple deployments at low wages, trying to support a family at home, and borne the burden of Freedom.

I bought a hundred one ounce silver coins that I carry to the Freedom Center. I reserve them to give to soldiers who show up, sometimes in wheelchairs, to use our lounge. Anyone who has lost a limb or needs a wheelchair gets my ounce of pure silver. They're only worth about $20 each, but when I hand them over and say thank you those coins express that I really mean it. And I do really mean it.

The US soldiers of the last ten years have born duty and demands not seen since WWII. They have been deployed time after time, and too often. When they got home, wounded, they were medically discharged and left to the mercies of an ineffective and bureaucratic VA unresponsive to their needs. President Trump, to his credit, is trying to address this injustice. Not only that, when they were out in the desert or outposts in Afghanistan, their pay was inadequate to support their families at home, while an overweight, indifferent bureaucrat at home in Washington was making three times as much doing nothing of anything worthwhile.

When the US lotteries run into the hundreds of millions, or even billions of payoffs in USD, my daydream is how I would use that money to help the worthy GIs and their families to cope. That's why I buy tickets when the pool gets into the hundreds of millions. All I need is $10 million to get by forever.

[AtomKraft]

I sympathise with our soldiers, sent overseas to protect the interests of our government, and with little choice to obey orders, however implausible the cause. I also have sympathy with the folk they killed in pursuit of these frequently highly suspect objectives, which inevitably go unachieved.

[John Hill]

I also have sympathy with the folk they killed...........

There is probably a law against you doing that..

[Seenenough]

At least El-Barack acnowleges that the US economy is doing quite well when he claims it is all because of him.

Other Dems are telling us the economy is a disaster.

[Jetex Jim]

Hammering on that Obama was born in Kenya turned out to be brilliant market research by the team who got Trump elected.

The claim was provably false yet it caught on with many white Republicans. This demonstrated to the Trump team that there was a section of the population they could be led to believe almost anything simply because they wanted to. While other politicians were afraid to be caught in a lie Trump made lies his product discriminator.

The further Trump gets from the truth the more his fan base sees him as the only brave and honest voice in politics.

[AtomKraft]

Politicians can often gain advantage from a docile, dim witted electorate.
In this respect, Trump is very well positioned.

[Boac]

Yes, Atom. I feel fairly sure he will retain both houses this week.

[nomorecatering]

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true... The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

“To understand this kind of political untruth, I think we have to look to theorists of truth and language in politics; Frankfurt’s essay was only tangentially that. But the great analysts of truth and speech under totalitarianism—George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel—can help us recognize this kind of lie for what it is. Sometimes—often—a leader with authoritarian tendencies will lie in order to make others repeat his lie both as a way to demonstrate and strengthen his power over them.

Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them.”

[Boac]

Basically what AtomKraft believes.

[Stoneboat]

Politicians can often gain advantage from a docile, dim witted electorate.

Yep, there's a lot of it about.

[Seenenough]

Tonight,Lee Carter indicates that the "yellow line" is favoring the GOP

Time will tell

[Cacophonix]

We all know that Big Donald managed to avoid going to Vietnam as did many middle-class boys who managed to coop a friendly doctor to write a deferment.

Widespread draft avoidance had consequences. This moving video speaks of the men who had to replace those fortunate middle-class guys who managed to avoid the draft.



https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/11/0 ... be-damned/

Sad and reminiscent of Forest Gump in some ways. Cannnon fodder have always been part of the equation in fighting unpopular wars in most countries throughout history, although it may be argued that it was the annihilation of a large part of the British brightest and the best in the First World war that foreshadowed the inexorable decline of Empire and Britain itself that continues to this day.

Caco

[Jetex Jim]

We all know that Big Donald managed to avoid going to Vietnam as did many middle-class boys who managed to coop a friendly doctor to write a deferment.

Widespread draft avoidance had consequences. This moving video speaks of the men who had to replace those fortunate middle-class guys who managed to avoid the draft.



https://www.veteranstoday.com/2018/11/0 ... be-damned/

Sad and reminiscent of Forest Gump in some ways. Cannnon fodder have always been part of the equation in fighting unpopular wars in most countries throughout history, although it may be argued that it was the annihilation of a large part of the British brightest and the best in the First World war that foreshadowed the inexorable decline of Empire and Britain itself that continues to this day.

Caco

Somehow it's reminded me of the Drill Instructor at Swinderby who urged us all to do better than the class average.

[Boac]

It has now been assessed that the Trumpet has uttered over 6400 'falsehoods' since taking office and is stroking right now at around 10 per day.

BUT to those loyal Republican voters, the truth is NOT important 'cos he has boosted the economy.

[Magnus]

The man who comes to clean out our sewerage pipes is an ugly foul-mouthed chap. However, he gets the job done, so I will continue to call on him.

[Boac]

I've never seen the Trumpet described in that way.