Thursday, December 30, 2004

Christmas Message for dKos from a Leftie with a Yellow Ribbon
by jsmckay This one got 84 comments and was a Recommended Diary on http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/24/83343/342

Fri Dec 24th, 2004 at 05:33:43 PSTAs the casualties in Iraq crash into the holiday season, I've been surprised to find myself getting very aggressive in defending the guys that are fighting in the worst war in American history. I've even taken it so far as to defend the guys who voted for Bush, and I think it's the right thing for liberals to do.
Now before you jump on the troll ratings, you should know that I've spent my 22 year legal career as a public defender defending death penalty cases, including 7 years with the top capital defense unit in the country. And my blogs are as tough on the war as anything on dKos(see my latest
Attack Ad of the Day -Writer's Cramp). I'll put my credentials as a liberal up against anyone's, and I hope you'll hear me out.
Here's why I have a yellow ribbon on my car, and why I believe other liberals should do the same:

It started the other day when I placed myself in the midst of a brawl in the comments to Armando's diary,
A U.S. Soldier's Life: Perpetual War . I wound up taking strong exception to the many comments to the effect that the soldiers "deserve" what they get because about 70% of them voted for Bush. This really got under my skin, and as I fired off replies I began to feel there was a bigger point at stake about how we have lost our way as the "Party of the People."

Most of the soldiers are like my secretary's son who's being shipped back for a second tour in January. He signed up right after high school (and before 911) as a way up and out of the kind of tough corner of our society that liberals like those of us who blog on dKos purport to care about but seldom ever see. The kind of places where dodging bullets in the ghetto or living in a dying community on a dustbowl farm is the norm. The kind of places that are so dead-end hopeless that joining the military seems like a respectable step up, and, in fact, it has been for generations of their forefathers.

It's no accident that these kids get bamboozled out of their youth by slicksters who promise them they can play the coolest video game ever made. It seems a lot better than staying in the cornfields and ghettos from whence they came, and makes them feel like they just might be doing something positive for their country at the same time.

Then they get caught in a hellhole where they're getting shot at and can get blown up just sitting in a mess tent on their own base. They scrounge for protection and find nothing but old refrigerator doors. Then they get sent back out on patrol.

Some of these kids and their families can see through the flag-waving and stand up against the chickenhawk fools who blindly sent them into this mess, and a few of them even spoke out and voted for Kerry, often only after it was too late and their son or daughter had come home in a box. For them, we clearly owe our highest thanks because their words (like those of the young John Kerry) will have far more credibility than a million diaries on dKos.

But I take the position that the other guys and their families, the ones who, yes, voted for Bush, also deserve not only our respect and compassion, but our active support.

These guys didn't chose to fight a stupid quagmire of a war, but now that they're in it, the number one goal on their mind is to make it home alive. They and their families PRAY that they will return, and (usually silently because the concept is simply too horrific to utter aloud), they pray that if they don't they won't have been killed for nothing. And prayer is about all they have. The rest of the time they can take orders, or go to jail.

I believe that for many of these soldiers and their families, voting for Bush is the civic manifestation of these prayers, and that the ones who do so deserve to be judged by a different standard than anyone else. Their votes for Bush are acts of faith on behalf of the people they love, and they send them Bush's way even if deep in some of their hearts they know that things are going terribly wrong.
No, it's not logical. It's human.


The Democratic Party must return to it's roots as the party of the people. We won and felt best about ourselves when we championed the cause of the common man, the one who needed things like social security, medicare, and rural electrification. We lose ourselves and our support from millions of Americans when we stray from this concept, and we open ourselves up for attack as a party of elitists when it looks like we care more about saving the whales than about saving the soldiers.

The solders and their families, yes, even those who voted for Bush, are precisely the kind of people we should embrace. In my humble opinion, the smartest thing we could do is become the "Party of the Soldier." The one that cares more about the grunts on the ground than the oil in the ground.

We should be specific in this, making a splashy introduction of legislation to create a "GI/Guardsman Bill of Rights" that pledges to do things like:

  1. Provide adequate equipment to protect them when they are in harm's way.
  2. Not go to war prematurely and without adequate cause, resources, or planning.
  3. Provide quality physical and mental healthcare for them and their families for life.
  4. Not deploy the same soldiers and guardsmen over and over again.

Let the Republicans vote it down. It'll show which party really stands on their side. (They won't of course, they will try to coopt it. That's why we need to do it as a major campaign so people know who's responsible).


We missed these lessons in Vietnam when too many of us spit in the faces of the troops and treated them shamefully on their return. I know, we were pissed, just like we are now. But the neocons seized on it, iconicised "Hanoi Jane," and it became part of their foundation for selling the cockamammie notion that Vietnam was actually a good war that was handled badly by the politicians. It gave them a toe-hold with average Americans who resented our treatment of the veterans, and helped start the pendulum swinging back their way, hence we find ourselves where we are were we are today. This issue has an important history that we overlook at our own peril.


These reasons are why I believe liberals ought to support all of the guys fighting in Iraq. We're the party of the people, and there's few we should care about more than a kid who's hiding behind a refrigerator door because some idiot Republican who spent Vietnam drunk in a frathouse basement sent him there. THAT'S who we should be going after. The bosses, not the grunts. And we must go after THEM as hard as we possibly can. see Attack Ad of the Day - Rumsfeld
This is who we have been, and ought to be as Democrats. And right next to my yellow ribbon, I've got a peace sign.


Happy Holidays everybody.


1 Comments:

At December 24, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

There may be several types of questions that may form part of quantitative aptitude test. [url=http://www.mulberryhandbagssale.co.uk]Mulberry ooutlet online[/url] The lower part of her dress and shoes appear. [url=http://www.goosecoatsale.ca]canada goose[/url] Zudkcgyxb
[url=http://www.pandorajewelryvip.co.uk]pandora bracelets sale[/url] Iqknxygtb [url=http://www.officialcanadagooseparkae.com]canada goose jacket sale[/url] gmgajcgou

 

Post a Comment

<< Home