Send in the Marines

I just started watching “The Pacific”, an excellent mini-series on HBO. It follows “The Band of Brothers” genre, which won awards, has been used often to teach the history of World War II; etc.

I was struck by the historical facts and images of the miniseries.

First, the Marines’ equipment. The young and untested men waded ashore on Guadalcanal with the shirts on their backs, a helmet, their weapon and lots of ammunition. Unlike their peers in Iraq and Afghanistan, these men probably had about $10.00 worth of equipment on, not counting their weaponry.

A soldier in Afghanistan costs one million dollars a year to support! In 1942 the Marines, all volunteers at that point, cost fractions of that headed into very heavy combat.

Now, I am not suggesting we should not equip our modern soldiers as they are equipped. I am suggesting we all pay for them to be so equipped, not charge our grandchildren.

What I am pointing out is that in 1942, we were “all in”. That is, the American people were taxed, bought war bonds, volunteered for civil air patrol, led metal drives; etc. We paid as much as we could for the war effort. The American people of 2010 have done NOTHING to pay for United States effort. Nothing, zero, nada!!!!

Again, the conservative con game, cut taxes and raise spending (by charging it!).

President Bush and the Republicans jammed through two huge tax cuts, passed a prescription benefit for Medicare, and added zero to the revenue to “pay for” the conflicts.

America is going to lose. We won World War II because we supported TOGETHER our national effort. This time, nobody has paid other than the brave volunteers who have been sent into battle two, three, even four times!

At the end of World War II the national deficit was almost 80% of the GNP. That’s right, 80%! This was on top of high taxes, war bonds; etc...

This led to almost thirty years of high taxes to pay down the debt. Add to this the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War and is no wonder taxes were relatively high.

Along came Ronald Reagan, and the tax revolt. He never explained that we were essentially still paying for the most destructive war on the planet. Oh no, he blamed excessive government spending! The facts are we had a huge national debt, that the “cold war’ only exacerbated.

Also, along came the me-first generation, the end of national service through the draft, and the end of cooperation to solve national problems.

So now, it is cut government, cut taxes, privatize, privatize. We have gone so far that private corporations do over 50% of the heavy lifting in Iraq! Private security firms, accountable to nobody, run around shooting people with impunity. Meanwhile, the American people are told we can do all this and not ultimately suffer for it.

And along came 2007-2008! The reckoning hit us all between the eyes. We woke up to a huge deficit BEFORE the Great Recession. Then, to mitigate the suffering, we had to add to the deficit. Social Security has been raided over thirty years (started by Mr. Reagan), to shore up some of the debt, and now being again attacked by conservatives for spending more for the first time in history than it takes in. The Congress and the President over thirty years have been taking from the Social Security Trust Fund surplus to pay down debt. That is not a failure of Social Security, it is a failure of our collective responsibility.

And the gall of the cons to blithely claim that this is Social Security’s fault, after they have raided the trust fund for years to make up for their endless tax cuts.

Those marines who somehow fought Japan’s finest at Guadalcanal, when any military expert would say it was impossible, are who we should be thinking of now. They waded into hell, with the shirts on their back and each other, with the nation behind them. What they did was exceptional, what the nation did was amazing.

And we did it with cooperation, not senseless me first competition. Selfishness, foolishness, and the unbelievable idea that the nation will prosper if each person pursues his or her selfish self interest has become a religion of the right wing fanatics who are shoving it down our throats, and who are killing our country.

This competition, free enterprise radicalism is failing. It has killed the middle class. It has killed our economy. It is killing our people, who wake up poorer, without heath care, without hope.

Those proud marines, who did the impossible, must be looking down on all of us and shaking their heads in disgust. We dishoner their memory.