JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:11 AM
Original message
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."
TwilightGardener (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:18 AM
Response to Original message
2. So she can't have liberal creds without obvious disgust and disapproval
towards the military?
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:39 AM
Response to Reply #2
16. Guess what, there is no accrediting agency that certifies "liberals"
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.
neverforget (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:24 AM
Response to Original message
5. I've learned that you can't please everyone.
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:40 AM
Response to Reply #5
17. Yeah yeah ponies boilerplate blah blah...
Edited on Thu May-27-10 12:41 AM by JackRiddler
WE HAVE SHOT AN AMAZING NUMBER OF PEOPLE, BUT TO OUR KNOWLEDGE NONE HAVE EVER PROVEN TO BE A THREAT.
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:43 AM
Response to Reply #15
18. Well we could agree...
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.
neverforget (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 02:00 AM
Response to Reply #13
25. The problem isn't the military, it's the politicians that continuously feed
use, and abuse it. When the only thing you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 10:16 AM
Response to Reply #25
45. This is too fine a distinction for me, I guess.
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.
Truth2Tell (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:37 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. Just shows how embedded
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.
Luminous Animal (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #9
30. The sound of them frighten me, anger me, and make me a nervous wreck.
**** Fleet Week and the military industrial complex it rode in on.
tallahasseedem (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 09:14 AM
Response to Reply #30
40. Screw this...
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.
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 10:33 AM
Response to Reply #40
51. Bullshit. The military complex is creating the dangers against which it defends.
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!
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 10:33 AM
Response to Reply #40
51.
...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!
Luminous Animal (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 03:12 AM:ohnoes: :overreaction:
Response to Reply #9
30. The sound of them frighten me, anger me, and make me a nervous wreck.
:ohnoes: :overreaction:
That's funny. The sound of anything military, including bands, fill me with patriotic pride and admiration for those who serve.
I like the war porn videos on weazelzippers. This one is from yesterday, with a bonus flying jihadi after the explosion.
http://weaselzippers.us/2010/05/26/wednesday-afternoon-war-porn-14/
Me Likey. Me Likey mui mui... :II:
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 10:33 AM
Response to Reply #40
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!
Me Likey. Me Likey mui mui... :II:
I'm going out on a limb here and surmise that DUmmie JackoffRambler is implying Israel with the 200+ nukes....Do they even have room for that many in Israel?
Do they even have room for that many in Israel?
JackRiddler (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 12:11 AM
Original message
Okay! Here we are on an aircraft carrier. The Iwo Jima.
It's not nor ever was a aircraft carrier. It was first an LPH and the new one is a LHD
dude it carries aircraft don't it?
(http://www.ussiwojimaclassassociation.org/lhd7/history/images/lhd7-ship-at-sea.jpg)
*changed image, first was HUGE
Actually it does, AV-8B Harries and MV-22's, but I believe they're more helicopterish like all the Uh-1, AH-1, MH-53, CH-46 and SH-60's onboard.Not quite flat bottomed.
But I guess LHD-7 (Landing Helicopter Dock) resembles a carrier, yet it's a damn flat bottom gator
I'd like jack to **** himself with a bayonet.
Cindie
I'd like jack to **** himself with a bayonet.Tell us how you really feel. :rotf:
Cindie
Tell us how you really feel. :rotf:
It's the mama bear in me...if you think Marines are tough, you should meet their mothers, lol.I was raised by a Marine and am married to a FMF Corpsman and was one myself. I know where you are coming from. ;)
Cindie
Luminous Animal (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #9
30. The sound of them frighten me, anger me, and make me a nervous wreck.
Luminous Animal (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #9
30. The sound of them frighten me, anger me, and make me a nervous wreck.
Luminous Animal (1000+ posts) Thu May-27-10 03:12 AM
Response to Reply #9
30. The sound of them frighten me, anger me, and make me a nervous wreck.