NUTS

The Wild Blue

I am reading a book called "The Wild Blue" by Stephen Ambrose. The book is about the pilots of the American Air Force during World War II. The history centers around George McGovern, who pilots a B-24 during the war, his crew and the culture of war.

I am struck constantly by the self-sacrifice and patriotism of the "Greatest Generation" that is brought out by the book.

World War II was a world calamity. It was the most destructive war in human history by many times over. Moreover, there were forces of evil (Germany's genocide, Japan's atrocities) that made resistance to tyranny necessary even for pacifists.

George McGovern was just that kind of pacifist. He was a very religious young man when the war broke out he almost filed as a conscientious objector, his father was a minister, and held strong anti-war sentiments (later demonstrated when he fought against the Vietnam War as a U.S. Senator and presidential candidate).

But he enlisted for very hazardous duty and did it. He also did not make a big thing about it. He quietly did his duty for his country.

Millions of Americans did the same thing. They also paid huge taxes, bought war bonds, and many made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our way of life.

The contrast with present American behavior is startling.

Recently we saw the Republicans in the Congress basically extort the government to get their way.

There was a real threat of not cooperating and plunging the country into debt default, with catastrophic consequences.

This was all done, in an act of ultimate political theater, to discredit the President of the United States; with no regard whatsoever for economic consequences.

The main "rallying cry" of the Tea Party is to cut taxes, and glorify the individual. If the rich are only getting richer it is "their right". What's mine is mine and what is your is yours; if you have less it is YOUR FAULT.

There is no place for "we" in the conservative "T-E-A-M". We are told to read Aynd Rand to understand what should be the "true American value". What we read is greed is good, screw your brother, government is bad, sacrifice for common good is for losers; etc.

The conservative movement attacks anything that hints of common good, or what is good for the many is good for me; etc. They call these ideas "socialist", evil, and even "fascist".

In short, if the United States would have had the values of the current conservative movement during World War II we would have lost big time! The Nazis, real fascists by the way, did NOT cooperate, did not work together, manipulate their power for private wealth, and ultimately lost. American and Allied TEAMWORK won the war, fascist greed and evil lost.

Look at the United States today. There is no draft, yet we are embroiled in two and one half wars. These wars are being fought by a volunteer military, whose members have made multiple tours of duty. Many have been wounded or killed, fighting for our security and freedom; while we voted ourselves tax cuts, lived the high life, created the "housing bubble" and drove the economy into the ditch!

And how do we show our support for our servicemen and women? By cutting taxes, cutting veteran benefits, and putting the nation into debt while we are fighting a war with little shared sacrifice, letting our "professional soldiers" do the work.

Today I saw a news report about motorcycle riders who are traveling the country with American flags on their bikes to "honor our veterans". Wow, what sacrifice!

I suppose this is a "noble" venture, but on closer look, what we see are wealthy citizens (Harley Davidson's cost a lot of money) who are basically vacationing across the country to "honor veterans". Nice excuse for a vacation!

I will bet that the majority of those riders who are "sacrificing" agree that taxes need to be cut even more and the government needs to be shrunk to nothing. They would never acknowledge that of course, citing their "honoring of the veterans" as enough. Enough indeed!

Taking a vacation across the United States, driving incredibly expensive motorcycles, staying in expensive hotels is sacrifice? Excuse me but this is bull shit!

Remember, the United States fought two wars in the last ten years, and still are engaged in combat, and our citizens were asked to sacrifice NOTHING: No taxes, no draft, no inconvenience....nothing.

Compare that with World War II and the brave pilots and airmen, soldiers, sailors; etc., who were maimed, killed and certainly inconvenienced for years by the war.

What real sacrifice for our "war effort" have YOU made lately? You haven't paid for the wars, your taxes were cut, you haven't served (no draft), you probably don't even watch the news reports anymore; too depressing.

America is waging a "sanitary war" that its citizens are not really experiencing.

I served during, but not in, the Vietnam conflict. I can guarantee you my generation experienced that war. We saw our friends, brothers, fathers and sons come home in body bags. We read lists of dead and wounded. We sweated the draft, made hard decisions to serve, resist, or run; most served.

We were certainly "inconvenienced" by the damn war!

And we complained, and we hated it. But we lived it, we sacrificed; some died, some had their lives changed forever; we lived the war.

The World War II citizens did not have an unpopular war to fight. But they did have vastly larger casualty lists. The did have a war to win.

And they did it without complaint. They did their duty, paid their taxes, bought their war bonds, missed their wives and husbands and it all for their country.

Today, the Tea Party professes a patriotism that frankly I don't recognize; self-serving, selfish, and above all disdainful of the weak, the poor, the dispossessed.

The United States fought World War II FOR the dispossessed. We could have stopped at Germany's borders, and signed an armistice, allowing Hitler to continue exterminating the Jews, but we did not. We demanded unconditional surrender. We could have simply quarantined Japan, and not demanded accounting for the atrocities that Japan had visited on China, the Philippines and Southeast Asia, we did not, we forced unconditional surrender, freed the captives and slaves. And then, we organized the United Nations, demanded an end to colonialism, and led the free world for justice and freedom. We even delineated this in the "Four Freedoms" a dream for a peaceful and just world.

This is all "big government" to the tea party and must be all eliminated. They hate the U.N., hate government aid, hate public education, hate anything that helps those who cannot help themselves.

And this week, we are getting a little preview of what their economic extortion wrought: world markets have crashed, wiping out billions of investments. This is exactly what was warned, that world markets would lose faith in the United States as an economic leader if we could not begin to address our economic problems realistically.

The "deal" that averted default did not do this; obviously from the crash of the stock market in the past days the world was not fooled.

The markets are reacting to the greed and lack of sacrifice the tea party and the Republicans have demonstrated during the "debt crisis" in steadfastly refusing to consider that revenues must be increased to pay for the two wars we are still pouring money into.

Patriotism is sadly lacking in America today. Those who profess to be "Tea Party Patriots" are blocking any attempt to pay for United States wars with more revenue, instead trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and dispossessed.

The world is not fooled, and the airmen of the Wild Blue would not have been fooled either.

The hypocrisy fairly drips off them, as they wave their flags, and shout "Support Our Troops" while buying another condo in Aspen, and revving up their hundred thousand dollars bikes!

In the words of the commander of Bastogne during the battle of the Bulge; NUTS.