I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:48 am Post subject: Re: Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain
jbrovont wrote:
I strongly suspect it has to do with having killed people, and seen people dying on a personal level. Humans have a natural aversion to killing, and on top of that, our society places a value on life. A soldier is programmed to overcome this, but outside of the military strucutre and stress situation, they become free to reflect on their actions. Add to that the doubt cast on whether the US should even have troops there, or if we should have gone there, and that's a huge emotional burdon - to have killed for reasons that are not clear or understood.
So imagine then the scenario where these boys and girls are asked not to turn fire on faceless Iraquis, but on their own brothers and sisters here in America? For how long would military discipline hold before there is a fracture?
No way the military holds together as a single unit controlled by TPTB seeking a New World Order. The discipline will break, it will break at the highest ranks just as you have some bankers trying to control Wells Fargo and others trying to control Citibank fighting over who gets the "prize" of Wachovia.
Before that happens though, I suspect in some smaller "Peacekeeping" operation with some Lieutenant who orders the Troops to turn fire on a bunch of Protesting ex-middle class McMansion owners, some Sargeant will turn around and blow said Lieutenant to Kingdom Come.
Army units in battles like these change sides all the time. While it was bad history, think of the Irish in the Mel Gibson film "Braveheart". When this thing goes military, all the rules you thought held true go out the window.
You don't know who they are right now, but sure as shootin, once this thing goes military on the home soil, it is Civil War. You will have to choose sides. Unless you happen to live very far away from the battlefield protected by Mountains. Really BIG mountains. The Great Wall that God Built.
Decades of profligate, deficit military spending will be remembered as one of the key factors that DESTROYED our freedom. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Decades of profligate, deficit military spending will be remembered as one of the key factors that DESTROYED our freedom.
Unquestionably. When the US chapter is added to The Big Book of Failed Empires, the autopsy is going to lay the undermining of the US squarely at the feet of the Military-Industrial Complex. Ike called the shot but the Congressional gravy was just too creamy, I guess. But industry was allowed to offshore everything else that wasn't of a nature sensitive to security, so really, what was left? _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1461 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:34 am Post subject: Re: Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain
Plantagenet wrote:
It has to be hard to be a vet in a society where half the people are going to vote for a man who won't even admit acknowledge the great progress in Iraq won by sacrifices of the US military during the surge
That's because the "surge" didn't accomplish anything. US operations have been curtailed largely to safe areas, limiting the exposure of the troops; and Sunni militia have control of the regions they aspire to control. US casualties have dropped in large part because of a strategic US withdrawal that has left large swaths of Iraq in the hands of people with close ties to Tehran. The biggest change the US has accomplished in the Iraq War is to promote Iran to a regional power without their ever having to fire a shot. _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Last edited by Nickel on Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:36 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6543 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:35 am Post subject: Re: Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain
OTOH, Nickel, it's so much easier to get all ditzy and drunk about "the troops," isn't it! Rah rah rah! Go Troops! (Oops, sorry if we've put 25,000 of you in wheelchairs, but gosh darn it, you struck a blow for "FREEDOM.")
Every time I hear a Bush-like person mouthing the word "freedom," I think "slavery."
Like fans at a football game. That's the mentality level operating here.
Another phenomenon Orwell figured out ages ago. Or Ancient Rome for that matter. _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1461 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:41 am Post subject: Re: Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain
Heineken wrote:
OTOH, Nickel, it's so much easier to get all ditzy and drunk about "the troops," isn't it! Rah rah rah! Go Troops!
Yeah, it happens here, too. The part of the 401 between Trenton (where dead Canadian troops are landed) and the Don Valley Parkway (down which they're taken for autopsy, as required by law) has been redubbed "The Highway of Heroes".
As well, I routinely see "Support Our Troops" (which to me is euphemistic for "EXPORT Our Troops") on the biggest gas-guzzlers North American industry can legally pump onto our roads. And not long ago I actually saw one that said something like 'if you won't get behind our troops we'll gladly put you in front of them'... in other words, if you object to wasting our resources and the lives of our soldiers on foreign wars, you should be put against the wall and shot. This... this is the freedom for which our troops are supposedly fighting? _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:20 am Post subject: Re: Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain
Nickel wrote:
That's because the "surge" didn't accomplish anything. US operations have been curtailed largely to safe areas, limiting the exposure of the troops; and Sunni militia have control of the regions they aspire to control. US casualties have dropped in large part because of a strategic US withdrawal that has left large swaths of Iraq in the hands of people with close ties to Tehran. The biggest change the US has accomplished in the Iraq War is to promote Iran to a regional power without their ever having to fire a shot.
Sunni militias in the southern Tigris-Euphrates, Persian-friendly Shia in the middle, Kurds in the north, a variety of minorities throughout, and all fighting each other. Exactly how it was 100 years ago before some know-it-all at the Foreign Office in London drew some arbitrary lines on a map of the mideast and declared "Iraq".
The fact that we're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in danegeld to various warlords has indeed helped security. Hope we can keep doing that, and that they still want dollars in a year or two. _________________ At 1% annual growth, human bodies will incorporate every gram in the observable universe in approximately 10,170 years.
Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 3030 Location: The Urban Village
Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:36 am Post subject: Re: Military Times poll: Troops backing McCain
lawnchair wrote:
The fact that we're paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in danegeld to various warlords has indeed helped security. Hope we can keep doing that, and that they still want dollars in a year or two.
Money talks...as long as it's still money. Thanks for the danegeld reference, I hadn't heard that term before.
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