“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; alliances with none.”
Thomas Jefferson
(Keep in mind as you read this post that I am not opposed to or critical of any veteran or active duty military who served in a truly defensive capacity and to whom the bullet points below do not apply. I am all for a strong defense of the borders of THIS country and it’s citizens who dwell within it’s borders.)
Well, I’ve been blasted all weekend long with ads telling me I should thank a veteran for their service.
We’re told that we should thank them but we’re never really told why we should thank them or for what we should be thanking them for other than the benign idea of “their service”. So I’m going to be a little more specific and make a list of everything that I want to thank the Veterans for and not only them but the military in general.
I was going to make a numbered list but then I thought NO Wait! I should use bullet points! That would be more appropriate right? 🙂
So without further Ado, I want to Thank Veterans and Active Duty (this applies to Veterans generally and not to All Veterans and Active Duty)
- for traveling halfway around the world and killing people in other countries who have never threatened me or my family and clearly have no capability to ever mount an attack on America.
- for not keeping your oath to defend the Constitution from ALL enemies both foreign AND Domestic.
- for supporting the US government’s immoral policy of preemptive War attacking people that they think MIGHT attack us – Someday – Over the Rainbow.
- for your misguided sense of duty that causes you to follow orders without question not taking into consideration the legality or constitutionality of the orders being given.
- for your continued faith in your government and your military leadership in spite of the fact that they now have you fighting on both sides at the same time in Syria and in spite of the fact that none of the stated goals of these wars, since the very beginning, have been achieved. (this would actually apply to EVERY war since WWII)
- for being blind to the fact that you’re not fighting to protect the freedoms and rights of Americans but really so that productive Americans can continue to feed trillions of dollars into the military industrial complex making hard-working Americans poorer and the military-industrial complex and other multinational corporations, i.e. American Interests, filthy rich.
- for helping your government make Americans even less safe creating even more enemies by killing non-combatant civilians including children.
- for not knowing and understanding the Constitution that you’ve sworn an oath to defend so that your government can use you like pawns to fight illegal and unconstitutional wars.
I know this will anger a lot of veterans who think they are serving their country but in reality are serving their country’s government and not their country. My purpose is to provoke people to think and ask themselves serious questions and to question their government’s motives and not just blindly trust that they have their or the American citizen’s best interest at heart.
There are many polls that show that a large percentage of Americans do not trust their government but when it comes to the military and foreign policy they suddenly become True Believers!
There is simply no logic to this except that people have been, to a large degree, brainwashed over a long period of time through the government’s educational systems and media propaganda.
That the u.s. government’s interventionist policies, Military adventurism and Undeclared Wars are unconstitutional is incontrovertible and yet people, generally, don’t question any of it and don’t even recognize that the government is using Madison Avenue techniques by associating the ideals of liberty and freedom, (and the NFL) not with the military itself but with the individual men and women who serve, in order to gain support for their illegal wars or at least to break down any possible resistance.
And of course, if you don’t support them you’re UnAmerican and Unpatriotic and have no right to an opinion and will be told, especially by folks in the military or with family in the military that, “if you hate this county so much then why don’t you just leave?”
All I can say is that regardless of how many facts are presented or whatever appeals to reason are made, changing the thinking of people with this mindset seems to be nearly impossible. I think the system will have to completely fail before they will finally get it but I hope that’s not true. Time will tell.