FTW: One sensible attitude
Friend Rob Rosenberger in Iraq near Ur sometime after GWB's victory prance.
The above photo came from Iraq to your host sometime in 2003, along with an American flag that had been flown on an A-10 bombing mission. It came in response to mail I'd sent to the warzone. After five years, I found I could no longer even faintly recall what I'd sent or written. The photo had been at the bottom of a pile for most of the duration, undisturbed by the passage of time and shielded from the dust.
Like businesses which supply pizza, soap and toilet paper, however, the Iraq War and the US military are world disaster and recession-proof. Unlike pizza, soap and toilet paper, there's no benefit and quite severe liabilities despite occasional claims that someone like this writer is being defended just so that he or she has the freedom to write annoying stuff.
"Still mountains of taxpayer dollars have been paid to US citizens or businesses in salaries, contracts, supplies, weapons systems, healthcare and services," mused the Los Angeles newspaper a couple of months ago, reasoning that perhaps economist John Maynard Keynes had it wrong in the 1930's. Money spent on guns no longer stimulates the general economy.
From observation, the war has had some trickle-down effect on cable channels where there's been stimulus to a couple of small networks which tapped into minor profits from furnishing entertainments to that part of the male populace which gets an erection over sales brochures for the newest instruments of destruction and how special forces men might insert a trench knife into someone else, preferably smaller and of different color.
However, in every other way the war has been sinking steadily toward a general shunning. Big mainstream dramatic movies on it from Hollywood tank on arrival. Book bestseller lists are remarkably free of exciting combat stories from the eastern fronts.
Way back in mid-January, the National Priorities Project issued a report entitled "Military Recruiting 2007: Army Misses Benchmarks by Greater Margin." It tabulated and analyzed what everyone knows in their guts. Generally speaking, only stupid people or those with sharply inhibited options volunteer to fight.
Calling recruits and servicemen downwardly mobile in relation to the rest of us because they're stuck with the Iraq war as a career is taboo. It's interpreted as cowardly disrespect of the military. To Americans the military is a monument toward which one prays in tones filled with great hypocrisy, espousing vocal support for said shibboleth while behaving in ways that indicate that down deep they really think the exact opposite.
Polling on the war greatly confuses DD. While some show it's still a major cause for concern, there is also now an indifference to it.
"In 2007, upper-middle and high-income neighborhoods - those with median household incomes of $60,000 and greater - remained under-represented [in the army]," stated the National Priorities Project. "The representation of these neighborhoods declined compared to 2004. Low- and middle-income neighborhoods - those with median household incomes of between $30,000 and $54,999 - became more over-represented compared to 2004. As the Iraq War continues ... the burden continues to be borne by low-and middle-income neighborhoods."
Los Angeles County was among the top three counties in the US for volunteers, contributing 917, according to the project. It's a trivial figure in view of the fact the county is more populous than most of the other fifty states.
By another matter of stark contrast, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, seats about 92,000 on Saturdays during football season. This is two entire orders of magnitude greater than Los Angeles county's puny tally of volunteers. The war simply does not exist at home except for the unfortunate, the cornered and the Marine Corps.
Friend Rob Rosenberger in Iraq near Ur sometime after GWB's victory prance.
The above photo came from Iraq to your host sometime in 2003, along with an American flag that had been flown on an A-10 bombing mission. It came in response to mail I'd sent to the warzone. After five years, I found I could no longer even faintly recall what I'd sent or written. The photo had been at the bottom of a pile for most of the duration, undisturbed by the passage of time and shielded from the dust.
Like businesses which supply pizza, soap and toilet paper, however, the Iraq War and the US military are world disaster and recession-proof. Unlike pizza, soap and toilet paper, there's no benefit and quite severe liabilities despite occasional claims that someone like this writer is being defended just so that he or she has the freedom to write annoying stuff.
"Still mountains of taxpayer dollars have been paid to US citizens or businesses in salaries, contracts, supplies, weapons systems, healthcare and services," mused the Los Angeles newspaper a couple of months ago, reasoning that perhaps economist John Maynard Keynes had it wrong in the 1930's. Money spent on guns no longer stimulates the general economy.
From observation, the war has had some trickle-down effect on cable channels where there's been stimulus to a couple of small networks which tapped into minor profits from furnishing entertainments to that part of the male populace which gets an erection over sales brochures for the newest instruments of destruction and how special forces men might insert a trench knife into someone else, preferably smaller and of different color.
However, in every other way the war has been sinking steadily toward a general shunning. Big mainstream dramatic movies on it from Hollywood tank on arrival. Book bestseller lists are remarkably free of exciting combat stories from the eastern fronts.
Way back in mid-January, the National Priorities Project issued a report entitled "Military Recruiting 2007: Army Misses Benchmarks by Greater Margin." It tabulated and analyzed what everyone knows in their guts. Generally speaking, only stupid people or those with sharply inhibited options volunteer to fight.
Calling recruits and servicemen downwardly mobile in relation to the rest of us because they're stuck with the Iraq war as a career is taboo. It's interpreted as cowardly disrespect of the military. To Americans the military is a monument toward which one prays in tones filled with great hypocrisy, espousing vocal support for said shibboleth while behaving in ways that indicate that down deep they really think the exact opposite.
Polling on the war greatly confuses DD. While some show it's still a major cause for concern, there is also now an indifference to it.
"In 2007, upper-middle and high-income neighborhoods - those with median household incomes of $60,000 and greater - remained under-represented [in the army]," stated the National Priorities Project. "The representation of these neighborhoods declined compared to 2004. Low- and middle-income neighborhoods - those with median household incomes of between $30,000 and $54,999 - became more over-represented compared to 2004. As the Iraq War continues ... the burden continues to be borne by low-and middle-income neighborhoods."
Los Angeles County was among the top three counties in the US for volunteers, contributing 917, according to the project. It's a trivial figure in view of the fact the county is more populous than most of the other fifty states.
By another matter of stark contrast, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA, seats about 92,000 on Saturdays during football season. This is two entire orders of magnitude greater than Los Angeles county's puny tally of volunteers. The war simply does not exist at home except for the unfortunate, the cornered and the Marine Corps.
posted by George Smith at 4:11 PM
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