Apparently Rachel Maddow now works the Pentagon channel.

This is not an essay. Sometimes I get to ramble.

Happened to watch the totally lefty-liberal Rachel Maddow Show the last two nights.

Very good coverage of the BP situation. And much else besides.

But mainly, what have I learned?

The military is really cool. Everyone involved in it is totally competent and so well organized. Fleet Week is cool. New Yorkers all love Fleet Week, we look forward to it. Let's go do cool things!

Okay! Here we are on an aircraft carrier. The Iwo Jima. They have such interesting jobs on this ship. Here they are describing their excellent jobs. Some of them fuel, some are mechanics, others do ordnance. A translation is provided for that. Ordnance would be bombs and missiles, things that blow up. Laughs all around. Ha ha.

Both nights have also had DADT coverage, which was fine as far as the undeniable issue of human rights and fairness goes. But otherwise, again, no critical distance to the military at all. It is so good to serve, serve, serve "your country" by signing up!

Last night she had a guy on in favor of ending DADT, he had fine logical arguments. Then he concluded the interview by saying, forcefully, that a fellow soldier should never care about your sexual orientation, but only care about how good a soldier you are:

"I want to know how good you are at kicking down doors!"

I'm serious, that was how the interview ended, with this guy suddenly yelling, "I want to know how good you are at kicking down doors!"

It's so cool to serve your country. Kick down some doors. It's liberal. Just doing our best.

Or as Gen. McChrystal said about incidents at US checkpoints in Afghanistan:

"WE HAVE SHOT AN AMAZING NUMBER OF PEOPLE, BUT TO MY KNOWLEDGE NONE HAS EVER PROVEN TO BE A THREAT."

Oooh, now Rachel's posting photos of her exciting visit to the USS Iwo Jima. Go to her site to see. The liberal press.

And then they pretend to have stories about the banksters, and the financial crisis, and money bleeding everywhere. Funny how in all the talk of the budget, taxes, spending, whether to cut or stimulate, scarce resources, hard times, in all that talk...

the liberal media, Maddow, Olbermann, Stewart, Colbert, they never seem to mention the 700 billion dollars and the endless resources and energies pulverized each year to maintain what is increasingly a vanity empire that the rest of the world is leaving behind.

Record sums still spent for "defense," and all these shows have guests from the military basically doing recruitment, and all of them run recruitment ads from the military services.

(And never mind yesterday's fluff piece on how the CIA once used magic tricks. It was noted that the program had a peripheral relation to MKULTRA, the mind control and torture program under Dulles, but never mind that. Let's look at some of the wacky ways the CIA wanted to use magicians. Those funny guys.)

Anyway, God forbid we should cut the Pentagon budget. Or even mention its existence on these liberal programs. God forbid we should see military recruitment as anything other than "service" doing totally cool things on big exciting ships.

"WE HAVE SHOT AN AMAZING NUMBER OF PEOPLE, BUT TO MY KNOWLEDGE NONE HAS EVER PROVEN TO BE A THREAT."

You have to be kind in life to make sure you do not hurt anyone.

And why I don't think of the military the same way other people do. When I think of the military it has nothing to do with the posts or comments I make, I think of that army as an army of kindness, not any military of any country.

Funny though, I would guess some would want people to think that.

Never been in a military unit in that perspective. Just try to be nice to people, it is a better way.

However there is overlap, since much of the military can do construction and protection, so it is not a exclusionary overlap. The military has many issues also, but who doesn't.

towards the military?

who believes in a strong defense. Not a wasteful Pentagon.
I am not a proponent of Preemptive war. I believe if you
have information you are on the verge being attacked you
can defend yourself by an early strike if necessary.
War should be the last resort. Last Resort is the
operative word.

Personally I think Rachel did a good thing, showing
Democrats respect the Military. This is a cloud we
always seem to be under.

Rachel figuratively has been awed by beautiful jingoistic bullshit, i.e., the Pentagon Channel gives a damn about the average military member's welfare above their vested interests in the MIC.

Even Rachel Maddow can be deceived. :(

She can call herself whatever she wants. Every term is contested. I contest that "liberal" should include uncritical pimping for military recruitment. More than this, I contest that fluff pieces for military recruitment qualify as "good" or "right." You obviously feel otherwise.

which leaves you versus her. Her liberal bonafides have been proven many times over. I don't know anything about yours.

Facts, logic, these are irrelevant. Your "bonafides" make you right or wrong. Rachel good. Good people always good. Anyone saying bad things about Rachel must be bad. Gotcha. Thanks.

The Pentagon serves the interests of the MIC and is chock full of military whose only function is to enrich the multi-million dollar contracting companies.

No, please don't confuse these two entities as one and the same?

In fairness, I've seen Stewart skewer Empire and military spending. Not super often, but some. Empire is America's bi-partisan indulgence. And it's mostly off limits on network TeeeVeee.

talking positively about the fine points of counterinsurgency and all the good work we do in Iraq and Afghanistan? And he gives them love, and then the recruitment ads follow.

wars our civilian Presidents and Congress put us in, but who also has some empathy for the ordinary military grunt?

for the ordinary military grunt, and at the same time be disappointed with the way American militarism is glorified by our media, often left and right alike.

WE HAVE SHOT AN AMAZING NUMBER OF PEOPLE, BUT TO OUR KNOWLEDGE NONE HAVE EVER PROVEN TO BE A THREAT.

we have always looked up for recruitment into the armed forces, why EMPIRE.

But to be quite brutally honest, you can hate the wars, but not the Warrior. Just Ask Rhandi Rhodes, or those of us who served, or are married to people who did.

Oh and the military is a tool of the CIVILIAN leaders who use and abuse them... not of themselves. We still live in a system where the military has not taken control. Mind you, there is this essay from a US Army Colonel, out of the Staff College, who wrote about a Coup in the US... as a piece of both fiction and exploration, And I personally hope it remains as fiction.

Oh these days he serves as a Major General in case you wonder.

I agree with everything you say here.

Of course the military-industrial complex and the needs of empire have been in control during the entire postwar era. It's been one permanent nuclear, later "terrorist" emergency. All about feeding money into the bottomless maw of the Pentagon and its 700 overseas bases and its contractors who basically write the policy and the budgets.

The point is not to "hate the warrior," but also not to pretend there's anything liberal and la la and wonderful about "service." I don't hate them, I just don't want to see young people encouraged to sign up for this mess and go serve as tools of murder around the world.

and should be required as a right of passage, that don't mean necessarily in the armed forces...

No, that will not fly in the ME culture of the US.

Service would have done me some good as a young man, I very much feel. But certainly not military "service" for a superpower waging imperialist resource wars around the world and maintaining this laughable, enormous empire of bases and poking its way into everyone's business and pretending it's a democracy. That's not service.

Go volunteer for a hospital. Join a monastery.

and I did stand up to an actual army officer when the time came... but I will tell you, service should be mandatory, as I said not necessarily in the army... something like the California Conservation Corps works for me... too.

But in the US, currently, that will not happen.

And I admit, at 18 I was a snot nosed kid who had no clue and was a damn know it all, and not disciplined at all. At 20 I was a different person. When I left at 28... it was a lifetime.

But that service in my view would have stopped the current messes. I mean you think my snot nosed nieces would be so much for the theory of these messes, if ... perish the thought, they had to JOIN?

service and story! I completely agree!

use, and abuse it. When the only thing you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

The military makes propaganda for its indispensability and good works every day. Everyone must announce their allegiance to the military and its patriotic rituals or they don't get anywhere in politics. When politicians screw with the military, they get screwed back. Back in 1993 the Bush-appointed Powell got to overrule the supposed President Clinton on DADT. The military (not just the contractors) is its own lobby with politicians in its pocket. The difference isn't always clear. Plenty of these war-hungry politicians are not chickenhawks, but went through the service and came out believing in the bullshit all the more fanatically. The military takes advantage of people who really want to give of themselves and are ready to sacrifice even their lives, and uses them as tools for wrongful ends. The military is busy making and selling the threats and the plans that the politicians then take up.

"I just don't want to see young people encouraged to sign up for this mess and go serve as tools of murder around the world."

On my father's side of the family tree, we've had a long proud history of Military Service. I recently traced further "branches" to discover that my ancestors fought for BOTH sides of our Civil War. That was a profound discovery as well as more than a little depressing. :(

Today, I want my active duty service to break the Army Service chain that has marked the past four generations. My daughter knows that her dad and I will do everything we possibly can to help her attain a good college education. We've conveyed to her our regret that the military, albeit an honorable career, is being controlled by people who truly do not care about "the soldier."

I'm depressed that I can't, in good conscious, encourage her to serve in the military. But at this point in history, I wouldn't promote any young person to enlist and/or enroll in college R.O.T.C. That's such a shame. It was my earned educational benefits that enabled me to finish my thesis and earn a masters degree.

IMO, since the invasion of IRAQ, the benefits earned via active duty military service are NOT worth the risk of being deployed and consistently mistreated/abused in order to enhance the MIC's *endless war* agenda.

But during Fleet Week in San Francisco, I go to up the Marin headlands to watch the Blue Angels scream over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I can't help myself! :shrug:

the pageantry of military Empire has become in our culture. It's all around us. I'm a sucker for the Blue Angels myself. We all absorb it to one degree or another. This is the frustration I hear in the OP. Et tu Rachel? Of course. All of us.

Fuck Fleet Week and the military industrial complex it rode in on.

They are some bad-ass mofos though!

Believe me, I hate the Military industrial complex, but I love flying, and aircraft, and spacecraft, and '63 split window Corvettes, and fireworks, and HK assault rifles. Maybe its a guy thing. :smoke:

I hate to think of the destruction those planes can cause, but I love to watch them fly their formations.

It would be easier if everything was black and white for me, but it isn't. :shrug:

Sleep tight knowing that the military complex you find so evil is protecting your ass.

I don't agree with these wars that are going on. But I'm also under no illusion that the military isn't needed...big time. I know too many soldiers to think otherwise.

Name a major target of US military actions in recent decades that wasn't originally pumped up into a "threat" by US military support. Noriega, Saddam, Osama, Hekmatyar - all originally clients. We bomb people, we invade countries, then we wonder why they "hate us" and force us to keep such a large military. Please.

I feel very secure knowing the US has thousands of nuclear warheads and refuses to negotiate their abolition and refuses to renounce first-use and supports a rogue state that itself has 200 or more nuclear weapons that it does not acknowledge. Thank you, Pentagon!

I'm also aware of the many benefits we have derived in civilian life as a result of research done for and by the military.

The very inter tubes you are posting on now were originally developed as a result of Pentagon funded research.

And as far as Rachel being impressed by a big giant aircraft carrier, I can only say, if you've ever been on one of those things and AREN'T impressed, you are far too jaded to be impressed by anything, and I feel sorry for you. One of the things I love about her is the ability to be impressed by technological razzle dazzle. She's just a big kid at heart and it's endearing.

I didn't necessarily want to serve my country, unfortunately I had no choice in the matter. Looking back on it almost 50 years later, I'm glad I spent that time in the army because it paid for my college education and enabled me to buy a home with no money down.

go ahead and support that. I mean, really, you can credit every war with some technological advancement or other, that doesn't justify the war. Please.

Other countries find ways to fund science and industrial research as something other than an adjunct to a military machine.

And what would have happened if we did not yet have the Internet, which we've only had in this form since the mid-90s, but Vietnam and Iraq had not been turned into killing fields and poisoned with Agent Orange and depleted uranium? Are you saying we would have known that we were missing Facebook pages? Anyway, sooner or later the technology would have developed, with or without the military as its subsidizing agent.

I would be very much impressed on aircraft carrier! I'm always impressed in such places -- automated factories, giant cathedrals, Aswan Dam, it's all very thrilling. That's obviously not the point. I wouldn't tape myself being impressed and pass that on as a wonderful little fluff piece. I wouldn't disguise what the aircraft carrier's function is.

Finally, there should have been a way other than the military for you to pay your college education and buy a home. Again, not the point.

You're confusing the side benefits with the main function of the machine, which has nothing to do with you. The Pentagon is not there to get you a college education or build the Internet. It's there to wage wars and project force.

If it had killed you in the process, as it has so many, you wouldn't be here telling us how great it was to get your college paid.

Yeah, it's just been us fighting wars the last 200 years. Not like the whole world hasn't been involved in a few of them. Other countries have done their science through war just like us. Some of the top line german cars are built by companies that were building tanks in WWII. Rolls Royce engines haven't been used just in cars.

Some wars are necessary, some are questionable, and some are downright immoral. There have been a lot of periods where we weren't in the immoral camp, WWII, Korea, Desert Storm, Afghanistan in my mind count as not immoral. Now Iraq and Vietnam? In my mind, at best stupid, at worst immoral.

The US military is there for a plethora of reasons, again some necessary, some questionable and some bad. But at the end of the day, it is only a tool. A tool that has to be used by someone else for good or ill. So when, for example, the pentagon says no we don't need money for another sub, or more planes, but the politicians say no, you are going to buy it anyways, who's fault is that?

When the military is used improperly by civilian leadership, who's fault is that?

If you have the proper civilian leadership, the military is a fine organization, because it its core, it is about following orders and doing what you are told, not setting policy and starting your own wars.

Care to justify this, in 2010? What do you think it's for?

with tacit endorsement of our imperial foreign policy and war machine.

She thinks an aircraft carrier is cool therefore she is a warmongering xenophobe. Doesn't work for me.

And I have to take exception at your statement that there should have been another way for me to finance a college education than the GI bill. You don't know jack shit about me. I did not volunteer for military service, I was drafted. And I wasn't particularly happy about it. It was a big disruption of my irresponsible adolescent lifestyle of drinking, chasing girls and getting into fights. A couple of years later, after I was discharged, I was a university student, married, child on the way, working two jobs, wife working. More or less, a productive member of society. From my standpoint, it did me a lot of good. By the way, it was peacetime, so I didn't even have to risk getting my ass shot at.

My point is, it's actually possible to say something positive about the military without being a militarist.

I didn't call her a "warmongering xenophobe," and your false representation of what I said indicates you're not interested in an argument on facts. How dare you? These are dirty rhetorical tactics.

I did say she was a tool of military recruitment, which is what the piece indisputably was.

I didn't speculate about whether you were drafted or what your experience was like. I said there should have been another way for you to have your college paid, and I'll happily stand by that. I'll add there should have been a different form of service available for all of us than one where at any time we may be ordered to go to countries that pose no threat to us and possibly forced to kill or be killed.

About all you are illustrating is how sensitive you are to critiques of the military, and how you immediately think they're being applied to you and you're being made into a bad guy. Well, you're not a militarist. More a patsy for the rhetoric.

But I tried to make the best of it and in retrospect, it was not a horrendous experience for me.

What was I when I refused to sign the papers to let my kid join the Marines?

Or the many times I argued with my WWII vet dad about Vietnam?

You seem to know a hell of a lot about me for someone I've never met.

I didn't say you were a patsy before you got drafted. I wrote that you ARE a patsy right now for the rhetoric that justifies a militarized government that poses the single greatest threat to world peace.

Because Rachel Maddow was enthused about visiting an aircraft carrier, and I think her enthusiasm is charming, you have deduced all this about me.

I'm actually flabbergasted. Amused, but stunned.

for your service! :)

:(

Rhodes scholar. Read the will of Cecil Rhodes and you'll get the idea.

who have suffered from combat injuries? Physical or Mental? Short or Long term?

Being super-intelligent does not necessarily make one "aware" of all the concomitant emotional and physical effects and potential future devastations of serving in war zones.

When I was first enrolled in ROTC at the tender age of 18 y.o. I was thrilled to be part of a group. I joined a little league military Adventure Club where we'd fly with the National Guard on their Huey Helicopters on Saturdays. It was so damn cool to fly "nap of the earth" and PRETEND that we were charging an objective when we landed. Our supply sergeant was so talented and creative, we'd often have several Artillery and Grenade simulators to set off at unassuming times during our reconnaissance patrols. I remember all those "outings" with a smile.

It's not, IMO, shameful to enjoy the hell out of training for war. Training is good and can bring out all kinds of good feelings of team cohesiveness because, simply, it's PRACTICE. Now when I think back to planing and conducting raid patrols, it's not as alluring as when I was a teenager. As you grow older, it's easier to see these type of training exercises in a more morose, less light hearted manner.

I don't fault Rachel for being impressed and even giddy with the impressive weapons and armaments at the military's disposal. It's very tempting to let go of connecting these awesome tools with the death and destruction they create. She's still a young woman (30 something) and I don't believe that she's been exposed to those who have suffered physical and emotional disorders as a consequence of being in a war zone.

....actually A) Not that liberal and B) Act as sort-of gatekeepers for the left.

The whole concept of anyone, specifically in the mainstream media, as a hardcore liberal could bear a great deal more scrutiny, and each of us should do the scrutinizing for ourselves.

I remember the first time I heard Chris Matthews described as "Liberal". Case in point!

PB

For $ reasons, certainly NOT moral/ideological

little if any attention. 'We've shot an amazing number of people ... ' I recall other Generals' statements, such this, from General Miller: 'treat the Iraqis like dogs'.

I suppose Americans can indulge in glorifying the military, they not being victims of what they are so in awe of. I wonder how the 'beneficiaries' of our awesome military feel about it though. What does the average Iraqi, Afghan, Vietnamese victim of our military feel when they see a U.S. war ship? It would be great if they could see the same planes and ships that give Americans such a thrill without being terrified. That would mean we actually were using the military to do some good wherever we could.

I remember the 2004 Bush inauguration which was described by Frank Rich fairly accurately, imo:

In this same vein, television's ceremonial coverage of the Inauguration, much of which resembled the martial pageantry broadcast by state-owned networks in banana republics, made a dutiful show out of the White House's claim that the four-day bacchanal was a salute to the troops.

I'm not sure what this display of military might was supposed to convey to the world. But the headlines that same day across the world demonstrated the terror that that same military was reigning down on innocent Iraqis and photo of one Iraqi girl was what people across the globe probably remember most ....



An Iraqi girl screams




What the Rest of the World Watched on Inauguration Day

Dublin, on U.S. Inauguration Day, didn't seem to notice. Oh, they played a few clips that night of the American president saying, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."

But that was not their lead story.

The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl.

She sat knees up, cowering, screaming madly into the dark night. Her white clothes and spread hands and small tight face were blood-spattered. The blood was the blood of her father and mother, shot through the car window in Tal Afar by American soldiers while she sat beside her parents in the car, her four brothers and sisters in the back seat.

>

I watched, while Inauguration Day dawned across the Atlantic, as the Irish up and down the aisle on the train from Killarney to Dublin, narrowed their eyes at the picture, shook their heads silently and slowly over it, and then sat back heavily in their seats, too stunned into reality to go back to business as usual — the real estate section, the sports section, the life-style section of the paper.

Here was the other side of the inauguration story.

No military bands played for this one.

No bulletproof viewing stands could stop the impact of this insight into the glory of force.
Here was an America they could no longer understand.
The contrast rang cruelly everywhere.

I wonder if that little girl and her orphaned brothers and sisters will ever view the military Americans are so proud of with anything but terror, no matter how awesome the instruments of war may be.

those people do not appear on commercial tv
except as caricatures of ridicule

the hard way.

The U.S. never has anything to learn from anybody.

P.S. Not a fan of Maddow. Sorry. I paid attention to Air America during its early days. Maddow continuously used ABC News as her go-to source on a daily basis -- even when ABC-TV was airing the hit piece "Road to 9/11" Neocon fantasy inventing scenes inside the Clinton Administration, etc. And STILL Maddow kept shilling for ABC.

That's just one little nugget of why I don't trust Maddow. Sure, she was good on Jeff Sharlet's exposure of The Family, etc. But she's a willing pawn buying into Right-Wing talking points like the wholesome goodness of the military (which is pretext for how only the competent Pentagon can save us from the incompetent civilians soon).

I heard Olbermann the other day parroting Right-Wing talking points about Hugo Chavez -- using the term "dictator" etc. despite the Carter Center's validation of the last few Venezuelan elections, including the ones Chavez won, and the last referendum Chavez lost but respected, not a sign of a dictator. Thanks Keith.

And remember the 1980s, when NBC was the target of criticism for their pro-war reporting, strangely dovetailing with GE's defense contract interests?

Most Empires suffered from this, so long as their own citizens didn't suffer the fate of their worldwide victims.

I don't find the military to be anything other than a necessary evil, which if used properly would only very rarely be involved in wars.

in America. It's not a good gig, it's the bestest gig ever and nobody wants to lose it. So yep, she's gonna love her some government issue when they tell her to.

that. She could actually feel the way it looks it does - that she doesn't hate the military and sees nothing wrong with recruitment. I feel the same way - for some, it's a way to get out of poverty and get an education, learn a trade - for others, it's a family legacy. I don't like the politicians who make stupid decisons on what to do with our military but have no beef with the people who serve unless they do something without honor.

And New Yorkers do love Fleet Week. It's great seeing these guys wandering around the city, seeing the sights, talking to the people and partying as much as they want. They deserve it and New York makes sure they have a good time.

Critique of something is not "hate." Acknowledgement of problems is not "hate." But you seem stuck on emotional descriptions.

This New Yorker doesn't love Fleet Week, and knows lots of other New Yorkers who think it's a load of bollocks PR for the military.

In fact, I've never heard anyone complain about Fleet Week ever and I'm almost 50 years old. Your complete and utter disdain (like that word better?) for the military is noted.

If you don't know about them, it indicates either that you're not interested or else, what a shock, the media aren't reporting it.

"Disdain" is another emotionalizing term. After consideration of the facts, I reject the military.

I reject its culture, the arguments for its deployment around the globe and even at home, and the devotion of more than half of the US federal discretionary budget to military ends. I reject its overkill doctrines and its acceptance of "collateral damage," its constant search for new threats to locate and pump up and new wars to plan, its maintenance of weapons of mass destruction, and its often criminal activities. Such as the illegal invasion of Iraq on false pretexts, resulting in genocide. (That "politicians" ordered this does not mask the military's role in the crime.)

You prefer to separate all that, assuming any of it even concerns you, from the exciting show and cool technology and friendly parades of "Fleet Week." I submit that these rituals, for many enjoyable in themselves, are PR for a criminal organization.

is why I can't take you seriously. You're not rejecting the military, you're rejecting the (mostly) civilians who use our miliatary like they're toy soldiers. And to use the word genocide is hyperbole that I wont even bother to address. I'm done with you.

genocide.

While they argued over it at the U.N., the killing of approximately 800,000 Rwandans was finally declared a 'genocide'.

How many innocent people who have done nothing to you, who have never even threatened you, do you have to kill before it is called Genocide? How many maimed, tortured, imprisoned in their own country will there be before Americans face the fact that what they have done to Iraq IS genocide? 'Muslims' are the ENEMY! We killed them with cheering from the 'Homeland' because they were Muslims. That is Genocide.



If it had been the Russian Army we here would be screaming 'Genocide'! Of course the 'civilian leadership' didn't much care what religion they were, they were after the OIL. But the American people who cheered them on, did so because of the propaganda against Muslims for the most part.

And yes I did notice you were I think the only one who didn't avoid it. But of course, it's the ones who defend the "military," the Pentagon machine, who cannot deal with its reality.



"I want a soldier who can break down a door!"

"We have shot an amazing number of people..."

and found it sad that no one seemed repulsed by that statement.
It sums up how those in charge of our military view the Iraqi people.
They probably feel the same about all civilians.

And yes I did notice you were I think the only one who didn't avoid it. But of course, it's the ones who defend the "military," the Pentagon machine, who cannot deal with its reality.



"I want a soldier who can break down a door!"

"We have shot an amazing number of people..."

they like, just like you're doing. They'd also be wrong. Genocide is with the intention of wiping out a group of people (which is what happened in Rwanda). While it makes me sick that we diverted our attention to Iraq when they had nothing to do with 9/11, what happened there is not a genocide.

yes racism, because if Iraq were full of white Europeans that invasion would have never happened --

is that the intent was not to wipe them all out, but merely to rob them of sovereignty over their country and their destiny.

See, if you kill five people because you're crazy and they're of a group you hate and would like to eliminate, that's genocide.

If you kill a million people incidentally in the course of pursuing your illegal, aggressive grab for geostrategic position and profit, that's collateral damage.

All you are doing is pointing out the problem with certain definitions of "genocide" that I reject.

In individual crimes, we consider the bank robber who accidentally massacres all of the customers who were incidentally in the bank to be an even worse criminal, or at least as bad, as the mass murderer who kills for pleasure or because he is insane.

Apparently, in international politics the fact that you were robbing the bank is a mitigating factor!

The Nuremberg tribunals began with the premise that aggressive war is the worst crime of all. If we returned to that, we might see an end to genocide, including the ones you are unwilling to acknowledge.

a racist? You think he's trying to wipe out the Iraqis? or the Afghanis?

Why can't you just open yourself to what your country has really done to the Iraqi nation, among others? It won't do them much good, but it might help your own healing.

Where you pulled Obama out of what I said, I don't know. I missed the part where he launched an aggressive war on Iraq for the purpose of seizing geostrategic advantage and resource control.

But I guess you think he now "owns" the war, which I suppose he does. So suddenly the bad thing has become a good thing, because you're for him, and he's good, and we can't allow contradictory ideas, and thus the original act, which he didn't do, could not have been racist. Sure. Thank you.

think we should invade every country that has a few terrorists living in it. That would be an awful lot of invasions. And if that was the reason, we should have invaded Germany and Saudi Arabia, NOT Afghanistan. That war, just like Iraq, and Iran if they manage it, is an Oil War and was planned way before 9/11 ever happened.

As far as what we should call the mass killings in both those countries, as Shakespeare said 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'.

The U.S. under Clinton, did not push to declare the slaughter in Rwanda as Genocide. Nor did the U.N. because had they done so they would have had to act on it. It was way too late by the time that label was applied to it.

The U.S. government is waging wars on mostly Muslim nations, Arab will do also, to take their resources or as in Afghanistan, to build a pipeline as a way to get to the world's last known major oil fields.

But the American who support both wars and now the expansion into Pakistan, having believed the propaganda about 'Ragheads and Camel Jockeys' and whatever other racial epithets they have come up with, pushed by our media just like Rwanda, have participated in the genocide of over one million human beings. Intent is a very important factor in the law. Enough Americans and military personel wanted to kill 'ragheads' which the government was quite happy with as it gave support to their criminal wars, that it really can be referred to, and is outside of this country, as genocide.

I'd be surprised if they were.

My every post concerning the subject of US military aggression around the world is a great crisis to you. You act like it's a fire, and you rush in to hose it down with ridicule, platitudes and nonsense. The reader is there to judge.

so you can go protest...Or happy sitting in your comfy chair preaching Truthy to Power on a random message board?

When you're down to posting complaints on the Internet about the losers who post on the Internet, you're out of ammo.

Now get out, go find a protest yourself, and yell at them about how they are lazy, preachy hippies getting nothing done.

PS - I stand when I type!

that. She could actually feel the way it looks it does - that she doesn't hate the military and sees nothing wrong with recruitment. I feel the same way - for some, it's a way to get out of poverty and get an education, learn a trade - for others, it's a family legacy. I don't like the politicians who make stupid decisons on what to do with our military but have no beef with the people who serve unless they do something without honor.

And New Yorkers do love Fleet Week. It's great seeing these guys wandering around the city, seeing the sights, talking to the people and partying as much as they want. They deserve it and New York makes sure they have a good time.

I've been to "Fleet Week" in NYC, San Diego, and Portland as well as being born into an eminent Navy family, so there is nothing you can tell me about it that I haven't heard a hundred times for my whole life. It is also the single most successful recruitment tool the Navy _{and Marines} have, enlistment skyrockets.

I also worked in media for several years in LA and do know the business. She is literally a genius and she knows damn well what a lighting strike of fortune she was hit with, and she is not going to screw that up over something as trivial as this, no matter how she feels.

that way the disinformation and propaganda spewed by the PsyOps boys in the basement will also be considered VALID information. :thumbsup:

Newsflash Rachel: You are being tasked to help provide legitimacy to the very people who wish to keep the populace AFRAID and COMPLIANT. Don't be too proud of "serving your country." Being broadcasted by The Pentagon, mainly serves the MIC as part of a larger plan.

This is a fine response to Ms. Maddow's show and deserves to be taken seriously as a political critique of media funded by corporations with interests in direct competition to their proclaimed message.

You face a vehement but ultimately empty response: "Ms. Maddow has her own opinions and is not influenced by her corporate paymasters".

This is a powerful one because Ms. Maddow certainly does project the ethos of a strong, educated commentator. She presents finely-crafted opinions (as you mentioned) about everything from the environment to DADT, all well researched and validated.

This is not the point, however. All media, all corporations, have but one single purpose: the creation of value. The only way corporations can effectively hegemonize their power and communication is to insure that ALL the "bases" of the political spectrum are covered and being used to create advertising and marketing revenue. Need to sell the middle-class conservatives? Get Joe Scar. Middle class hetero "liberals" ? Countdown, with Hardball catching the mix between the two. "Progressives" who are strong pro-green and pro-gay rights? Get us Rachel Maddow pronto.

Rachel Maddow is not an exception to the corporate media rules: SHE IS A PART OF THEIR MARKETING STRATEGY. Even if you like her reporting, appreciate her opinions and believe her to be a fine human being (all of which are true for me) you must acknowledge these contradictions if you wish to remain fully awake while viewing.

This is not to blame Ms. Maddow at all. Indeed, I think many sympathize with her plight, which is fairly analogous to the experience of those of us trying to remodel our lives without corporate influence: we are drowning people searching desperately for an island in the middle of the ocean.

I know it is hard to understand, but many liberals actually have served in the military or have relatives in the military.

"I want to know how good you are at kicking down doors."

"We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge none of them have ever proven to be a threat."

Make sure you keep ignoring statements like these! Thanks.

Many times our 'liberal' media tells us the truth, but never the whole truth and whenever we really need them, like when the elections were stolen, the downing street memo, the truth about 9/11, Bush using an earpiece and cheating during the debate....all of these issues, if discussed, would have made a second Bush term impossible. They put these people into place so that when something comes up, well if Rachel isn't saying it it must not be important. John Steward always seems to go on vacation when something important comes up. Bill Maher tells everyone to STFU about 9/11.

We all know who owns the media, would they really give us someone that will expose what is truly going on? Or would they give us someone who sounds real good but will enable all the same shit?

And I'll take an Amy Goodman over a Rachel Maddow who, despite many fine reports, sneaks military recruitment spots into her program and ignores certain key issues like the dominance of the military in American society almost as completely as the rest of the corporate media.

Also, "All I care about is how good you are at knocking doors down." She lends her cool and smarts and gay pride to these kinds of barbaric statements.

I'm surprised to hear she's addressing the subject. I don't think she has in the past, and it strikes me as an uncharacteristic departure for her. What is she saying about it now?

Here's a really cool, smart, young woman of pride. Her show does all the heavy stories of the day and purports to be highly critical of the system from a left-liberal perspective. Then she goes on an aircraft carrier to show how cool it is, and what a great time all the great people are having, and what interesting and highly qualified jobs they have, and how much all New Yorkers love the Fleet, all the while making light jokes about ordnance and the like. This is in the middle of two invasions and a continuing state of emergency, a global terror war. Any hint of the actual function of the aircraft carrier and its deployment to project force and teror around the world (not on behalf of US "defense" but for a policy of imperialism), or its potential for horror and bloodshed, is completely absent. This is de facto a military propaganda film. It doesn't matter if she thinks she's just doing a light piece for "geeks."

They'll still protect and die for you.

Maddow is impressed by the skills and experience needed to run an aircraft carrier, god forbid!

There are liberal, progressives and Democrats who don't hate the military and the people who serve in it, god forbid!

And...(get ready to retire to your swooning couch)...there are liberals, progressives and Democrats who serve in the military and are proud of it!

You can keep your selfrighteous violence; I have never asked you or any other halfwit to pick up a gun and "defend' me against Afghanis, Iraqis, Panamanians, Vietnamese, Koreans or even Nazis.

Here's a clue for you, genius; I DON'T NEED PROTECTING. You use this nonsense as a way to feel better about the poor choices you have made and the fact that you're nothing but a hired killer.

did you really need to throw in the Nazis?

I mean, just once in this sorry history, it was actually true that the US was attacked by powerful, evil nations. The US imperialists and apologists have been using it to justify every single one of their atrocities and aggressions ever since. I'm willing to let prior eras of history be.

We live in the post-World War II world, still to this day, and during these 65 years the United States' military actions have almost all been acts of aggression that make Americans less safe. If proteus wants to "protect us" the best thing he could do would be to leave the military and encourage everyone he knows to do the same.

You're not going to protect yourself after all.

But go ahead, keep spitting on people. Calling U.S. service members "Halfwits and hired killers" makes everyone realize you have an intelligent point to make.

are the various governments, left and right, who use them to fight their wars for profit, then abuse them when they are no longer useful to them.

If there was respect for the military among the wealthy oligarchs who use them, half the homeless population would not be made up of veterans.

I wonder how many veterans they have taken into their homes after finding out their circumstances, these warriors they use in their War PR? Big ships are nice to look at, but I would rather be looking at the VA hospitals which when you visit them, show how inglorious and ignoble war really is.

We have given a home to two veterans who certainly weren't being treated very well by any one of those who are awed by the military. So, in my view, I am not impressed at all, having paid attention to the number of dead human beings they are responsible for, and on the other hand, the sad reality for the men and women in uniform often so traumatized by what they were forced to see and do, can no longer function in a society that gives lip service to 'honor and duty' and 'respect for the military'.

I view veterans as human beings in the same way I view Iraq citizens. People who have been destroyed by the U.S. military machine, and who should be taken care of now as best as possible. But we are busy spending money on even more WMDs and we will be looking to use them to justify that spending. Who will the next victims be? Follow the Oil ....

That there are Iraq Veterans and Afghan Vets on our streets without homes, makes these military shows of force all the more disgusting to me, to be honest.

Not impressed, I'm impressed by the Geneva Conventions which was the best that human beings can produce when they really want to adhere to principles of honor and glory.

You can stuff your ignorant condescension. I noticed that there are self-designated liberals and progressives who glorify the military about 30 years ago, and even then there was no swooning couch.

I DO NOT "HATE" THE MILITARY. This is your red herring response because you have nothing credible to present in defense of this wasteful institution.

I AM IMPRESSED BY THE SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE NEEDED TO RUN AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

It is a red herring for you to imply otherwise.

Being impressed is need not contradict being honest about what the aircraft carrier IS and what it DOES. It does not defend "us," or anyone else. Its function is not to help skilled and experienced people self-actualize.

The aircraft carrier, a US monopoly, is an instrument for projecting force on behalf of business interests and unreal geostrategic policies cooked up by demented power-drunk old fools like Kissinger and Brzezinski, Obama's adviser.

It is a weapon for raining death on people who have nothing to do with me.

Rachel Maddow knows this as well as anyone. When she pays a visit to an aircraft carrier to say "ooh" and "ah!" during "Fleet" Week (Navy Recruitment Week), she is helping Navy recruitment.

The Pentagon-centered military-industrial corporate complex that arose in the wake of World War II does not protect Americans. Protect us from what? The Canadian hordes? The Mexican Red Army? The next time Japan bombs Pearl Harbor?

What they're really defending against is the threat that this country's vast resources will be spent on something productive. They protecting oil and resource interests, not me. They're protecting military contractor profits.

And you're doing the same, with your inability to see past the recruits, who decide nothing, and to acknowledge the core mission of these institutions. Every time you spout the blinding patriotic bullshit.

The Pentagon makes more angry people in distant countries by bombing them in the name of defense. Maybe we should just stop bombing them?

The US government effectively terrorized its own people for decades by engaging in the nuclear arms race that it could have ended. The US always introduced new nuclear terror technologies in advance of the Soviet Union.

What you mean to say is, they will still follow whatever orders they're given. The military will continue to train soldiers who will say yes to being sent to the next manufactured threat, whose good impulses to serve their country will be abused as they are dispatched to kill foreigners who never threatened us.

There is no significant foreign state threat to the United States. Everyone wants peace with the US, if only the US were willing. If there is a terrorist threat, law enforcement is the only possible way of dealing with it.

The empire thanks you for your ideological service as you throw out one ancient, illogical, irrelevant bullshit platitude after the next.

You don't even get what people are objecting to in this thread, do you?

It must be nice to live in such a simple, black and white world.

It's too bad you're not looking for discussion or opinions. But I guess you refusal to take-off the blinders is a self-protecting measure.

Platitudes, ideological service? Oh my, self-projection, how fun.

while thinking up a cure for cancer.

You're certainly not wasting time posting here at DU.

Or maybe "you" are actually a posting program invented by the active Proteus, who would never waste time on a couch or as a keybord warrior.

Based on your repetitive patterns, I'll guess it's that.

These vile USA occupations are well outlasting both World Wars.

Nuclear war would have been devastating and short.

Afterwards, the "winners" might have explained why it was "just."

What do you expect?

Plus, Americans like Dems who are 1) social liberal 2) foreign policy hawks. Worked for FDR and Clinton. Obama bets that it will work for him.

Pretty much what I saw.

But as I dream of better, I reserve the right to disappointment.

And sometimes it's better to write about it than not to write about it.

to believe as such.

I don't believe any of the, IMO, *cooked* M$M polls.

Most human beings don't want war. We are constantly DUPED into them.