Old man what the hell you gonna kill next
Old timer who you gonna kill next
Hey bartender over here
Two more shots
And two more beers
Sir turn up the TV sound
The war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs
-Roger Waters (The Bravery of Being out of Range)
Today, Memorial Day we honor our war dead. Some could care less, it's just another excuse for barbecue, beers, baseball and NASCAR. Little can they be bothered by any concept that men at one time were burned, butchered, gassed, shot, blown into so much bloody fucking hamburger so that they would be free to be mean-spirited, fat, drunk and stupid lemmings. Their silly, meaningless understanding of history is an affront to those who served with honor and paid with all so that they could be goddamned ugly, crude and indolent Americans. With the fascist police state now fully implemented and Lord Obama talking nonsense about "preventative detention" all of those war deaths, even the ones dressed up in the monstrous nonsense of the GOOD WAR have all been in vain and for nothing. The grandchildren of the men who were cut down by German artillery, mines and machine guns as they took Omaha Beach have become that which their ancestors fought against, a nation of Good Germans, willing accomplices who are no better than those who lived downwind of Auschwitz and never once questioned the smell.
Why would a respected President, set the sights so high, for his successors, and for America, as the dawn of the Television Age, blazed its path, towards an unknown Future?
"Hey Friends -- Would you give a dollar to someone who risked their life for you? We are in a big push this weekend to try to get every American to give $1.00 (or better yet $5.25 - to signify the date of Memorial Day) to help our wounded troops. This is what Memorial Day is all about.
"Yesterday by being on CNN and CNBC to talk about it-- Bob and I raised $21,000 just from people twittering and going to the website to give."............
Edward Sebesta and James Loewen would have increased the chances for a positive response to their Memorial Day request of President Barack Obama had they sent him their May 18 letter a few weeks earlier. The letter, also signed by 62 other historians, scholars and researchers, urges the President to break a 95-year-old tradition dating back to when the racist Woodrow Wilson first laid a commemorative wreathe on the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery.
Without offering Obama a reasonable alternative to sending a wreathe, and by giving him less than a week to ponder an alternative of his own, they essentially were asking him to place himself in the role of scab-yanker on a holiday many Americans across the political spectrum view as a time of healing. Breaking this tradition can and should be done. But the proper foundation must be laid first so that white nationalists, remnant Klansmen and secession-loving neo-Confederate liars cannot turn it into a propaganda coup.
That proper foundation should include honoring Confederate dead in a cemetery where their repose is not poisoned by a monument built as shrine to the goals and ideals of the Rebel cause. Whatever side issues were included, those goals and ideals were constructed upon the "peculiar institution" of slavery, a monstrous institution maintained by violence and the threat of violence, and defended by a philosophy of racism epitomized by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens in his infamous Cornerstone Speech of 1861:
Here's something you'll never hear from any pundit, news reporter, or politician this Memorial Day: an apology.
To all the soldiers who have been maimed and killed in the wars of the Bush-Cheney regime:
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I didn't do more to voice my opposition when it mattered.
I'm sorry I have kept paying for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan with my tax dollars, without doing more to ensure that you had all the equipment and training you needed to stay alive. I'm sorry I didn't do more to prevent all the money spent so far from being written in the form of blank checks to Halliburton and other war profiteers.
I'm sorry for all the pain, suffering, and death you've had to endure.
I'm sorry you were sent in without a clear mission, without an objective, and without constraints on your behavior so you could avoid being put in the position of committing war crimes on the orders of your inferiors in Washington.
I'm sorry some of you were allowed to be in the military, when your recruiters and training instructors knew you had little or no moral compass, when they knew you might gladly mistreat prisoners at places such as Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. The actions carried out by these disgraces to their uniforms have tarnished the reputation of the military as a whole.
I'm sorry many of you who were maimed -- mentally, physically, or both -- were tricked out of your health care benefits by a Pentagon so greedy for money that it decided it could get away with fraudulently listing your conditions as pre-existing.
I'm sorry I didn't make a bigger, louder, and more effective effort to call for the impeachment, prosecution, and conviction of those whose lies sent you into the hell of Iraq and Afghanistan with no way out.
To the families who have lost loved ones to these horrific wars and occupations:
I'm sorry your friends and relatives have suffered and died in vain. I'm sorry their sacrifices have been swept under the rug, their true stories and their names and faces hidden away so that the public feels little connection to what's being done in our name. I'm sorry your loved ones have been turned into instruments of propaganda and political posturing.
The picture below was taken in July of 1918 at Camp Dodge, on the north side of Des Moines, IA. Approximately 18,000 men were assembled on the parade grounds to form a "living" Statue of Liberty.
According to a July 3, 1986, story in the Fort Dodge Messenger, many men fainted-they were dressed in woolen uniforms-as the temperature neared 105 degrees Farenheit. The photo, taken from the top of a specially constructed tower by a Chicago photography studio, Mole & Thomas, was intended to help promote the sale of war bonds but was never used." (Grover 1987)
I've always had a hard time with this day. I've always had a hard time with the military, understanding my own feelings about those who, with the power of government behind them, put guns in the hands of young men and women and teach them how to kill.
Here we are in the 21st Century, and we are still doing this, putting weapons in the hands of young men and women, sending them out to kill human beings.
We hear the usual sayings, "they chose to serve," "to protect and defend," "those who died are heros," all those things.
I wonder what Americans really want when it comes to protecting and defending.
Memorial Day has become in our modern world a day to remember those who died for the sake of protecting and defending our country.
I see the names, I read the IGTNT diaries over at Daily Kos, showing the pictures of those killed in war, showing their families and friends, telling of their lives, their interests, dreams, ambitions.
Once again Veterans are living with the apathy of the country they served!
Remember Agent Orange or the many other ailments and Government using Military Personal to test the effects from Nuclear Explosions and Drugs, probably not!
Look them up, or search out the Vets, using this technology, who are still trying to Educate you too!
Remember the 1st Gulf War?
How about the Veterans from, with questions about, their rapidly deteriorating health after serving, many having died since, coming under the obscure name of 'Gulf War Syndrom', look that one up as well!
We celebrate a Monday off of work towards the end of May, well those of us that don't work in Retail, Food Services or various other industries that are open 366 days a year (at least THIS Leap Year) and the name given to this holiday is Memorial Day.
Many people see the Memorial Day three-day weekend as the true beginning of the Summer season, even though by the calendar, true summer, which is marked by the longest day of the year, is nearly one month away on June 20th.
But what is Memorial Day, and what caused there to be a reason FOR a Memorial Day? What memorial? Join me for the history of Memorial Day.
From Wikipedia:
Memorial Day is a United States Federal Holiday that is observed on the last Monday of May (observed in 2008 on May 26). It was formerly known as Decoration Day. This holiday commemorates U.S. men and women who have died in military service to their country. It began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the American Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include those who died in any war or military action.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
With Memorial Day right around the corner, check out this wonderfully moving article printed in USA TODAY entitled 
Teen PTSD researcher Ilana Rice
