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dreams
A warm welcome to the naturally curious, the politically engaged and constant learners. I am a retired newspaper editor with a fickle foe, retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. While my sense of sight is waning, my "vision" is not, and, by God, I can still see my dreams!
simply ...
- B.J.
- South Carolina, United States
- constant learner
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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of current issues. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
5 comments:
I've compared this war to the Vietnam War many times in my thoughts. People became insensitive to the loss because of it's enormity and because they had absolutely no hope of changing it.
In this case, pardon the generality, no one cares. Frodo now knows and admits to the fact that he was totally wrong in the opinion he has held for 38 years. Compulsory National Service should be re-instated immediately.
We have been a great nation when we have been a nation of "citizen soldiers." Today, we are King George with a bunch of Hessians.
If Mitt Romney had all five of his sons serving in the United States Military, as opposed to the fact that none do, wouldn't his perspective be a tad different?
Wouldn't all of us look at this differently?
Frodo apologizes for being wrong for so long. Frodo has not been alone, however.
I'm at a loss to respond to Frodo's comment.
My first thought was that in the Vietnam war people who were the age we are now didn't really care. They would have made that comment.
People who were in the front line to go, and their relatives, and people of moral fiber cared.
If that huge number came home in body bags, there was a long long time that Frodo's comment was relevent then. We're not at 150,000 dead yet--or whatever the cost was--but aren't we there, where the comment is different than no one cares? Compulsory service should be reinstated?
What do you think? then dolts would go? What are dolts? Half my high school class and a good portion of my Bucknell University class went under the ground there in compulsory service.
I know I've misunderstood here, but I can't figure out where.
Eowyn, there was a time when Frodo could recite exactly how many Americans died in a single week in Vietnam. Walter Cronkite gave us the count on the "CBS Evening News." Does anybody doubt that much of the civilian resistance to that War came from the impact it was having on families who had sons or brothers subject to the draft? Today in Iraq, all of those 4003 (as of this moment) went, on their own. Can you name one? How many from your county in Oregon?
Frodo is not demeaning your concern. Frodo is merely saying that, not unlike past empires, we have taken the terrible cost of War and tried to pass it on to someone else. War is properly placed in society when it is so damn expensive, for everyone, that it becomes the last possible choice. Mitt Romney, for example, should not be able to frivolously state that his sons' may not be in the military, but they were doing their "duty" by helping him get elected.
4003 have died because poor leadership could not find a better way. The only way to stop morons with power, is to make sure they pay the same costs as those whom they govern. That means everybody goes.
Ok, I see what Frodo is saying, I thought he took a walk in space there.
So, the reason people who don't want to go to war should go is that it will enlist so so many people to stop the war. As opposed to the tons of poor devils that go for a wage or educational opportunity, but don't have the press of unfairness or the support of a nation to stop the war. I agree, and hadn't thought of that.
But I respectfully want to mention that Mitt's sons probably never would have gone, no matter what the system: They would have moved to the head of the list of Coast Guard. Didn't you see that when you were that age? I sure did. Anyone with any political or business/political influence got their kids out of the war. Of course, there is a limit to that.
How did GW serve? He is really an atrocity.
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