(S)He ain't heavy, (s)he's my brother

 

People Who Refuse to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine Are Why Our Lives Can't Return to Normal

Peace,

emaycee

The courtesy of a reach around

For  a number of years when I worked for Kmart, we were led by numerous former military service members.  They were neither more, nor less ineffective than any of the other bozos who led the company while I worked there.  The one major difference, though, was that they tended to be a bit more surprised than the non-military leaders when their directives weren't always followed to the letter.  I always thought their surprise was easily explained--many of them had spent their military careers leading men and women who had signed up for the armed forces with the express consent that they were willing to die in service to their country.  That commitment leads to a certain rigidness in discipline.

Unfortunately for their type of leadership, I'm pretty certain that no one ever signed on to die for Kmart.

I mention this because republicans seem hell bent on turning military service into an even worse abyss than is corporate service.  From calling the parents of servicemen traitors to voting to inadequately fund care, republicans are doing all they can to corporatize the military.  This week, Sen. Ron Johnson, republican from Wisconsin,  actually said that it costs too much to fund the VA.

I wonder how many prospective military members will be given pause knowing that, should the worst occur and an arm or a leg (or both) get blown off in service to their country, that republicans believe it's too expensive to take care of that arm or leg.

Peace,
emaycee

We could be heroes...

There's been a lot of hullaballo (so to speak) over some words spoken by Chris Hayes on his show "Up with Chris Hayes" concerning the use of the word "hero" with regard to those serving in our military.  Near as I can tell, Hayes was trying to make the point that we use the word hero perhaps too frequently in terms of the military, and this feeds our too frequent marches to war.  He also admits he might be mistaken.

It seems to me much of the charade of anger on the right is because of the god-awful treatment of Vietnam vets upon their return home--there's a lot of retrograde guilt on all sides for what happened, and the right, being good at exploiting, is well, exploiting this to keep the military-industrial complex humming along.  This does not mean that Hayes is wrong.  Nor does it mean that our service men should be vilified.  But in truth, one could make the case that the guy (or gal) going to work each day and paying the taxes that helps support our defense is, in his own way, a hero as well.  It also begs the question why we as a nation refuse to give equal praise to those who seek peace.

But in the end, the biggest problem is that it makes it that much harder for another type of hero, a truth teller if you will, to convince the American people that spending more on defense than the rest of the world combined is a travesty, and the good that could be accomplished with the excess of money spent on defense.  And that maybe, just maybe, we all might be a lot better off if we concentrated on peace first and more weapons second.

Peace,
emaycee