For those of you not old enough to remember, the title of this piece is taken from a song sang loudly and angrily during the Vietnam War. It refers to young men whose fathers were lawmakers themselves, which spared the sons the opportunity to get killed in the muck of Vietnam. The rest of us had no such protection, though some, like the coward Dick Cheney, managed to get, I think, 5 student deferrals. He said he had other priorities. I'm sure the 50,000 plus listed on the Vietnam Wall had other priorities, too. Not one of the architects (which falsely implies an actual structure) of this senseless war in Iraq served his or her country.
Republicans are good about that, about asking someone else to do the fighting and dying. George W. Bush hid behind an Air National Guard commission, which his influential father had arranged. Cheney, of course, simply hid, as he continues to do. Karl Rove avoided military service, as did Paul Wolfowitz. This is nothing new, I know. But when are the American people going to stop allowing their sons and daughters to be sent to slaughter without demanding the same sacrifices of our leaders and their children? It isn't patriotism to swallow the propaganda of selfish, short-sighted, power-hungry, moral dwarfs. In fact, it's patriotism to question constantly, to challenge the official pronouncements of such men, if they can be called such, as Bush, Cheney, Rove and Wolfowitz.
And it would be nice if our fellow citizens who work in the Fourth Estate gave us a little help for a change instead of parroting the latest White House press release. The media helped get us into the quicksand; they should help get us out.
1 comment:
It's scary how unacceptable it became after 9/11 to express dissent against the administration. I remember, right after 9/11, a lawyer going on Fox news saying that he'd have no problems defending Bin Laden in a court of law. The "journalist" interviewing him said--with a very McCarthy-esque tone--"you'd go against AMERICA??" Erm... isn't the right to a fair trial one of the things that sets our country apart from those "other" countries, where human rights are non-existent? Isn't that part of the whole "freedom" thing we're supposed to be so proud of?
But yeah... I wonder what would happen if the Bush twins ever tried to sign up for service. If anything happened to them, would he say it was "worth it" as he has said (literally) to the parents of those who HAVE lost children in this war?
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