Big congratulations to Sherman Alexie, who won the prestigious National Book Award last night for his children’s book The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian. Alexie, a Seattle resident, is (in addition to being an amazingly talented artist) a good guy who lends himself to innumerable worthy causes. It’s nice to see him get the recognition. (This is the second year in a row that a Seattle resident has won the National Book Award; former New York Times correspondent Timothy Egan won it last year.)
As for serious hype, the Dalai Lama will visit Seattle next April. Let the human interest stories begin.
I highlighted it yesterday when they lost, so fair’s fair: last night your their Oklahoma City Sonics (0-8) clashed with the Miami Heat (1-6) in an alleged NBA game: the resistable object meeting the movable force. (When these two teams meet, you can throw out the records…and everything else…) Someone had to win (I guess), and it was your their Sonics, 104-95, breaking a 13-game losing streak and ensuring at least one win for the month of November. Next up: the underwhelming Atlanta Hawks, Friday. Oh, and UW beat Utah Wednesday night, 83-77, sending the 2-0 Huskies to New York for the final round of the preseason NIT next week.
One last election tidbit: the school levy simple majority measure (EJHR 4204) is now up by 11,000 votes and certain to win. But you knew that.
Elsewhere in the news, 50 or so more people were arrested at the Port of Olympia yesterday trying to block shipments of military gear coming in to a Stryker brigade at Fort Lewis. This has been going on for a week now, and why both the P-I and our state’s supposed newspaper of record (the Seattle Times) have been relying on wire reports for what is by any reckoning a major local story escapes me. The Iraq war is something a lot of people are interested in, and so, whether you agree with or loathe the Olympia folks, it’s hard to read the essential ignoring of this story as anything other than a political choice by our allegedly objective local media.
(Personally, I sympathize with both the aims of the Olympia protesters and their apparent frustration at their seeming powerlessness, but their tactics mystify me. When they were trying to block shipments of gear going out to Iraq earlier this year — in advance of the troops themselves, so it wasn’t endangering anyone — there was a certain logic to their protest. But this comes off more like a tantrum.)
This tidbit, meanwhile, concerning an actual national security threat, should piss anyone off: a new GAO report reveals that while you were getting cavity-searched for rogue toothpaste tubes at the airport, and three-year-olds were being kept off flights by the no-fly list,
Undercover investigators carried all the bomb components needed to cause “severe damage” to airliners and passengers through U.S. airport screening checkpoints several times this year, despite security measures adopted in August 2006 to stop such explosive devices…Agents were able to smuggle aboard a detonator, liquid explosives and liquid incendiary components costing less than $150, even though screening officers in most cases appeared to follow proper procedures and use appropriate screening technology…
Your tax dollars at work. At least the Saudis are getting a bunch of nice new jet fighters from us, right?
Oh, and even though he hasn’t been charged with anything (yet), a new defense fund has been set up for former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Send your sacks full of small, unmarked bills to…
More evidence of the Left NOT supporting the troops: Heard a young woman on the radio this AM who’s in the military and has returned from Iraq. She says she tries not to wear her uniform on errands anymore because of the dirty looks she receives from the Left (oh come on–you thought it was the Young Republicans giving her a hard time??), or the snide comments they’ve made to her about having been to Iraq. People, this is disgusting. No one is buying the “we support the troops” BS coming from the Left. This is proof that there are obviously a lot of lefties who still harbor knee-jerk hatred of the military (we know it exists; ex-lefties have discussed it in books they’ve written–and Bill Clinton “loathes the military” etc) and “support” the troops by giving them dirty looks and saying unkind things to them. Just stop it, leftists! If you say you support the troops at least stop giving them dirty looks and snarking off at them.
odyssey @1;
What is disgusting, is the distruction of our society’s youth down that Middle East rat hole for the sake of oil. I haven’t met any lefties yet who hated their relatives in the armed forces. That is reserved for the commander in chief.
#1: The Oddyssey is fiction as are the stories of returning veterans from Vietnam being derided and spat upon by lefist peers.
There is not ONE recorded instance of that really happening. It’s just a right wing myth. How do you think that the movement got so many returning veterans to join the anti-war movement? By spitting on them?
Now WingNutz, Inc.™ is trying to create the same BS story regarding Iraq war Vets. The Story is in this weeks Nation magazine.
Members of WingNutz, Inc.™ really hate the troops. They believe that Halliburton making money is more important than the soldiers well-being.
If this were not true, they would be demanding that this administration stop no bid contracts now. Because the BEST and cheapest solution is the free market.
Republicans won’t let the free market work. They are letting our troops down.
No-bid contracts is evidence of Republican dishonesty to themselves and America.
“SPITTING ON THE TROOPS: OLD MYTH, NEW RUMORS”
Here’s what Vietnam Vets have to say about it.
http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=350
#1 — Nipped your lie in the bud, didn’t I?
@6…HL…
You are a liar and a coward. And my guess is a young punk not old enough to remember the Vietnam Era first hand.
Well…I do…and I saw what you claim never happened and more. Contempt, name-calling, spitting (a brother-in-law was spat upon), accusations of “baby killer” and “murderer” and more.
The left in the 60’s and 70’s was so virulently anti-military and epitomized by Jane Fonda admiringly sitting in a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun seat that you won’t be able to sluff off the truth.
You are a present day embodiment of the Weather Underground, SDS, and the Yippie movement, and you will eventually either be co-opted into the mainstream, since you are, at heart, a vain, greedy, self-centered person interested only in your creature comforts and what you think is due your person, or marginalized like a lot of unreconstructed hippies who still yearn for the Haight-Ashbury of 1967.
You neither respect nor support the troops. Under a variety of aliases, you’ve shown them contempt, deridded their efforts, and sought to compromise the performance of their duty.
Trust me…they fight and die so that you can behave like the skunk you are. Mock me all you wish, and smear my sons, but they tell me that people like you turn their stomachs.
The Piper
#1 — Who in their right mind would spit on a highly trained combat veteran? A Republican would. And then blame it on the Left.
Piper: Since you can’t find any corroborating source, you will be your own source!
Don’t try to kid me.
“I know and old lady in North Kakilacky who said……”
That kind of crap, eh Piper? Except you are the old lady from North Kakilacky.
re 7 — You maudlin, disgusting, lying creep! Go away!
@9…HL…
I was there, I saw it…Where were you? Or are you still trying to pass the 4th grade?
The new and quite phony support for “our troops” that comes from people like you has no legitimacy nor is it being swallowed by the very soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines you claim to “support.”
You’re a fake, a phony, and you make false claims as you hide behind false names.
The Piper
Re: protest coverage
It seems the only media outlet doing a good job of covering the Olympia protests is The Daily Olympian. They had a recent editorial which I mostly agree with.
Re: Oppose the war, support the troops
I can’t really figure out why some would insist that those of us who think the time has come for the US to end it’s military involvement in Iraq must hate the members of our armed services as well. Given that the war isn’t exactly popular with the American public they are painting a large number of us with a very broad brush.
Will there be people who will give a soldier in uniform dirty looks, call them names, or even assault them? Unfortunately, yes. But every point of view has its extremists and crazies can be found among any large group of people holding similar opinions.
I applaud the protesters for any non-violent action that interferes with the implementation of the war, and that includes obstructing incoming shipments of equipment that will be sent out again. I’m even OK with using concrete to block the tracks so long as they do it openly so that it can be fixed before anyone is hurt by the sabotage. Delay and obstruction: OK. Hurting (or endangering) anyone or breaking property: not OK. I’m also OK with the police arresting them for civil disobedience (the protesters are breaking the law), though they should lay off the pepper spray. Pepper spray should be used only as an alternative to lethal force.
I will say that they have a problem with their no leaders all consensus model. The guy on the Dave Ross show this morning, Peter Cooper, was not an articulate spokesperson for their cause. He also didn’t have the courage to stay on and talk to the mayor of Olympia on the air.
Maybe Clay Bennett can line up some high school teams willing to play his kids in the hope his first season as an NBA owner won’t be as totally washed out as the roads in Mt. Rainier National Park.
I can’t support protest efforts aimed at blocking shipment of equipment to troops in the field. These folks are simply giving ammunition to the rightwing haters and doing a disservice to all who oppose Bush’s folly in Iraq, not to mention the disservice they’re doing to the troops.
Piper: You are no patriot and defender of the troops. You are just waving the bloody flag.
How cynical of you to USE our veterans for your crass political advantage. Especially the way you -cons underfund and mistreat the wounded.
Shame on you, “Piper” (not your real name).
I posted a link to a SOURCE (Vietnam War Veterans) who deny they were spat upon. Where’s your source that says they were?
Besides you. You are not a reliable source.
OK Piper, I was there. I read the newspaper every day in 1968-73, and read Time every week. I never heard or saw anything like what you are describing.
We all support your sons. We are committed to their success in all legally initiated wars, and their safety and good treatment in all circumstances, even when (like now) they have been wrongfully ordered into an unjust occupation and unwinnable civil war, which will go down in American history as one of the most idiotic strategic blunders and most corrupt (remember the C-17s with the pallets of cash totalling $8 BILLION that has disappeared) episodes ever.
It is actually you who dishonor their service, because you believe that anyone who tries to make sure that they are utilized well, in winnable, justifiable engagements, is a traitor. Worse, you make that accusation in this public forum.
Beyond that, I suspect (please prove me wrong) that you support our Administration’s position on torture, which means that you consent to your sons being tortured if they are captured. (yes, that is what the State Dept’s chief lawyer said in a public forum last week). We feel that your sons should not be tortured under any circumstances and we feel that if they are tortured, then those who tortured them should be tried and convicted as war criminals. Your president doesn’t think so.
So who supports the troops? You, who advocate that they be sent into unwinnable situations and who thinks they can be tortured if captured, or we who believe in the Geneva Convention and the Powell Doctrine?
There’s nothing new about the incompetence and ineffectiveness of TSA screening, although it’s always news.
But I’ve always felt the real news story here is how badly they treat their employees. Bush, as you will recall, blocked Democratic efforts to create the Homeland Security Department for over a year over union issues. And the Democrats, as per usual, caved in and let Bush have his union-free agency.
What ensued, of course, is no one on the face of the earth is more in need of union representation than TSA screeners. And one of the primary reasons why TSA does such a rotten job of protecting commercial air travelers from would-be bombers is because it’s hard to keep trained workers on the job when your turnover exceeds 100% per year.
Put it this way: It takes a lot of deliberate, focused, effort to treat your employees so badly that how you treat your employees itself becomes a major news story:
“On any given day, federal workers who screen passengers and luggage at the nation’s airports stand a good chance of being berated by bosses, harassed on the job, injured while lugging heavy bags, ordered to work extra hours or cheated on their pay.
“In Seattle, a screener received a letter of admonishment for this offense: ‘Hands in uniform pants pockets.’ A Denver screener says a supervisor repeatedly called him ‘boy’ — and explained it away by saying that where he is from, that’s what blacks are called. A Los Angeles screener injured his arm lifting a passenger’s bag that held … a small engine block.
“Some screeners struggle to stay awake while trying to spot weapons in grainy X-ray images. Some get distracted by managers prowling for petty infractions. Some have been fired by mistake, victims of bureaucratic bungling.
“Morale has suffered, and with it, security. …
“Fatigue, fear and confusion undermine the work of federal screeners, creating a daily risk of another major breakdown. ‘We’ve got bad morale and got the seniority thing and vacation thing and rotation thing and promotion thing and this rumor, that rumor. Before you know, your head’s swimming in everything but what you’re hired to do …,’ a Minneapolis screener said.
“An internal TSA memo, obtained by The Seattle Times, chronicles the agency’s management failures — and, coming from management itself, helps validate the complaints of screeners …. The Feb. 20 memo was sent to TSA’s acting administrator … from an advisory council of TSA directors in charge of security at individual airports. It warns that TSA has subjected screeners … to a litany of abuses.
“TSA forces screeners to sacrifice vacation time ‘for the good of the agency’ but turns around and fires screeners with little explanation, the memo says. …
“TSA has subjected screeners to ‘extreme stress,’ the memo says. It places impossible obstacles before them. It whipsaws them with shifting directives on how to do their job. ‘We expect consistency but provide none ourselves,’ says the memo, written by council Chairwoman Marcia Florian, who oversees security at the Phoenix airport.
“‘Our screeners have endured false promises from hiring contractors, weeks or months with no (or incorrect) pay or benefits, competency testing, right-sizing, mandatory conversion to part time, forced overtime, and now a recertification process that shows no regard for screener morale, effectiveness, or livelihood,’ the memo says. …
“In stories striking for their similarity … employees described a workplace defined by intimidation, pettiness and marching orders that fluctuate by supervisor, shift and airport … many employees worry more about losing their job than doing it well, … watch their backs as much as the X-ray images before them … screeners say it doesn’t take much to run afoul of the rules and of certain supervisors.
“Socks must be black (supervisors can conduct sock checks, ordering screeners to lift their pant legs), and ink must be blue …. Some managers dictate posture, ordering screeners to keep their hands out of their pockets or to stand at parade rest — hands clasped behind back, feet a foot apart — as though in the military.
“In Portland, Ore., screeners could not take breaks in the concourse areas unless they wore coats over their uniforms and were there to buy a meal. (A cup of coffee, they were told, would not suffice.) …
“Many screeners interviewed by The Times complained of inexperienced supervisors, leadership by intimidation, and promotions based on favoritism …. Most screeners requested anonymity for fear of being fired. But with few exceptions, The Times was able to obtain corroboration from documents or other screeners.
“One screener provided The Times with love letters from his supervisor — letters with sappy expressions of unrequited affection, with entreaties to pay less attention to co-workers and more attention to him. But the screener hasn’t complained. He won’t. He’s convinced it won’t do any good — and, he said, he needs the job.
“Mismanagement hobbled TSA from the very beginning. … To handle recruitment, TSA hired NCS Pearson, a data-processing company that billed the government $740 million, more than seven times its original contract. TSA failed to keep proper tabs on Pearson and other human-resources contractors, creating a host of problems, according to a government audit. At least 18,000 screeners were hired without timely background checks. TSA wrongly hired felons … and wrongly fired at least 169 people with clean records.
“Some screeners say TSA used bait-and-switch tactics. A former Boston screener provided The Times with his hiring letter, which promised pay of $31,200 …. But TSA paid him only $26,800, according to pay records. He complained, he said, only to be told his hiring letter wasn’t an official contract. …
[M]any screeners say distrust divides management and front-line workers. Some managers document screener missteps in such detail that personnel files become hundreds of pages thick. (A Portland screener’s is 493 pages — and that covers only 10 months.) One screener told The Times he secretly tape-recorded conversations with managers. One supervisor said he refused to use a work locker, afraid a manager might plant something incriminating inside. Sometimes the animosity has become downright ugly. …
“Across the country, many screeners have reached out to unions, members of Congress and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although TSA forbids screeners to bargain collectively, about 700 employees have joined the American Federation of Government Employees, seeking help with lawsuits, discrimination complaints and better working conditions.
“‘There is no effective safety valve at TSA,’ said Peter Winch, a national organizer for the union. ‘There is no good way to raise concerns about the way you’re being treated.’ …
For decades, government reports have blamed insufficient training for airport screeners missing weapons. … TSA’s training program … doesn’t achieve its promise. TSA requires, for example, that screeners get three hours of refresher training a week, emphasizing such screening techniques as interpreting X-ray images. But some screeners in Houston say their training consists mostly of a supervisor reading from a document, with little give and take. And security directors at the nation’s five largest airports have told congressional investigators that they don’t comply. Diverting so many screeners to training would leave checkpoints understaffed, the directors said. Instead of three hours a week, their screeners get about three hours of training a month. A former screening supervisor in one Midwestern city told The Times that managers directed her to submit false training reports. She complained at first, but then went along, she said. … “In Seattle, a building devoted to training — rented by the TSA for $7,500 a month — lacks phone lines ….
“The TSA hired contractors to help train and certify about 30,000 baggage screeners on the use of explosives-detection equipment. But a government audit denounced the certification process. Instructors used practice questions identical to those on the final exam. And some questions offered little challenge anyway. One asked what a detonator does. It detonates, the correct answer said. Another asked what an explosives-detection system detects. Explosive devices, the correct answer said. …
To keep their jobs, federal screeners must pass annual recertification tests. But that process has come under fire, too. … TSA keeps changing the procedures screeners must follow — even … during the recertification process. Screeners who flunk receive only 30 minutes of remedial training and are retested within 24 hours. ‘We are not aware of any other non-probationary federal employee that is subjected to this type of treatment,’ Florian wrote.
“In Seattle, managers were asked by TSA headquarters to speed up the termination process for employees who failed the recertification test. But in e-mails, Seattle managers reminded headquarters that screeners had a right to appeal. The managers also said some screeners had received less than the allotted half-hour of remedial training.
“TSA employees get hurt or sick more than any other federal employees, suffering back, shoulder and knee injuries, pulled muscles, tendinitis, and cuts and puncture wounds from sharp objects tucked in luggage. In the fiscal year that ended last September, … 4.2 percent of federal workers suffered work-related injuries or illness. TSA’s percentage was 19.4 …. Even worse numbers loom. This fiscal year, one in four TSA workers will get sick or injured, according to an OSHA projection using first-quarter statistics. Those numbers also create a cycle: the more workers out sick or hurt, the greater the strain on those who remain, causing fatigue and more injuries. …
[M]any screeners attribute TSA’s injury rate to insufficient training and inadequate safety equipment. They want, for example, more training on lifting heavy objects, and gloves that resist punctures. Screeners say they regularly lift bags weighing 70 pounds or more. TSA tells screeners to get help with bags heavier than 40 pounds and warns that not doing so could jeopardize workers’ compensation claims. But because of staffing shortages, screeners say, help is hard to come by.
“In Los Angeles, screener Obed Quintero said he hurt his back lifting heavy bags and went on workers’ compensation for seven months. When his compensation stopped, Quintero said, he asked for light duty. But the TSA couldn’t find him a position, Quintero said, and let him go. …
“Too often, screeners say, their claims for workers’ compensation meet with delay or denial. Jonathan David, a Portland, Ore., screener who injured his back, said he was nearly evicted from his apartment as he waited for his claim to be approved. Some screeners say such frustrations even dissuaded them from pursuing compensation — suggesting the agency’s injury rate may be higher than reported.
“Sometimes, long hours compound the stress. Screeners can go weeks without a day off. In Boston, some have worked so many double shifts ‘they are ready to drop,’ says Michael Jasilewicz, a former screener. Breaks can be six hours apart. After two hungry and tired screeners were denied breaks, they actually passed out, Jasilewicz said.
“In Los Angeles, a screener who works 10-hour shifts said the last two hours are the hardest. ‘I keep saying, “I can do this, I can do this,”‘ she says. When working the X-ray machines, she sometimes has to catch herself. ‘If I feel like I’m falling asleep and dozing off, I’ll look up to see if anybody can relieve me. And nobody’s out there. Everybody is doing two to three things at a time. And I don’t want to interrupt anybody, because they’re busy.’
“TSA officials acknowledge that they rely heavily on overtime, especially during the busy summer months. In 2003, TSA employees worked more than 7 million hours of overtime — an average of three weeks per employee … some screeners at busier airports clock 20 hours of overtime a week.
“For screeners, mandatory overtime and rigid scheduling create stress, dashing planned vacations or requiring personal affairs to be rearranged on a moment’s notice. In Seattle, a screener ordered to work overtime reluctantly left her children, ages 12 and under, at home for three hours, unsupervised. She said her supervisors told her: Work, or lose your job.
“One Boston screener was to be best man at his nephew’s January 2003 wedding in Florida. In October, he requested the time, only to have supervisors say he was asking too early. So he asked again in November, only to be told in late December — mere days before the wedding — that his request was denied. Ordered to work, he quit. He went to the wedding. More than a year later, TSA sent him a letter. Because of a payroll error, it said, he owed TSA about $1,000.
“Work conditions that include forced overtime, a high injury rate and flagging morale typically lead to high turnover. And at TSA, examples abound of workers calling it quits. When a Seattle screener resigned in December, she wrote: ‘The stress of this job is far too much for me to endure.’ … TSA’s turnover may be higher than reported, because of the agency’s struggle to track its workers. In fiscal year 2003, the government reported that 131 of TSA’s Seattle employees left. But internal pay records, obtained by The Times, show the actual number was at least 193 ….
“TSA employees in Seattle told The Times that the airport has had multiple staffing lists with inconsistent employee counts. Instead of tracking each screener’s hours electronically — an early goal of the agency — TSA records pay manually, then sends the information to personnel contractors that have been widely criticized for losing or mishandling paperwork.
“In some cases, TSA has ended up with what one internal document calls ‘ghosts’ — hires who didn’t show up for work but are still listed as employees. In Seattle, screener Tenya Manny quit Jan. 6. TSA stopped paying her, but for five months it still listed her as an employee — a mix-up that kept her from collecting nearly $2,000 in outstanding compensation. Manny said it took the intervention of a congressman’s staff to clean up the mess.”
Quoted under fair use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....tsa12.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The pathetic story of TSA echoes the pathetic stories of Katrina, the California wildfires, Iraq contractor corruption, and everything else: Republicans can’t manage a fucking thing. And TSA’s story has all the classical ingredients of how Republicans like to treat workers: Low pay, abusive working conditions, incompetent management, lack of concern for safety and high injury rates, little or no training, high turnover, and of course, massive waste and crooked and incompetent private contractors who overbill the government for hundreds of millions of dollars.
This is the kind of Republican mismanagement that posters like Mark the Lying Welsher, Crackpiper, Puddywipe, Flakey Klake, and Balogh’s Mutt vote for and shill for.
These idiots salve their consciences by fooling themselves into believing they’re patriotics — and we’re not. They’re full of shit. There as anti-American as it is possible to be without actually bearing arms against this country and its citizens — which, by the way, is something that rightwing haters never miss an opportunity to say they would like to do (i.e., kill their fellow citizens).
All their lies, spin, and bleating goes for naught, because the ugly facts of Republican corruption and incompetence are hanging out there for the whole world to see. Eighty percent of the American people now reject the Bushevik regime. Most of them emphatically.
Make no mistake, the voters are going to respond to this in the ’08 election by delivering a crushing defeat to the Republican Party. In fact, it’s doubtful the GOP will even survive. If Bloomberg runs for president as an independent, it’s reasonable to expect the GOP nominee to finish in a distant third place. As for Congress, in January of 2009 it will be a sea of Blue.
The “spitting on the troops” myth is just that — a wingnut myth.
@18 Crackpiper, like all wingnuts, is a liar.
@1 “More evidence of the Left NOT supporting the troops: Heard a young woman on the radio this AM who’s in the military and has returned from Iraq. She says she tries not to wear her uniform on errands anymore because of the dirty looks she receives from the Left”
Uh-huh … how would she know what a stranger’s political views are, unless she asks him, and he tells her? You’re as full of shit as a commode that hasn’t been flushed for two weeks.
@6 “You are a liar and a coward.”
No, Piper, you are the liar. As for being a coward, no, you seem to possess a certain stoic willingness to keep coming onto HA to spew your lies despite being constantly exposed as the liar and charlatan you actually are, which makes me wonder if you’re getting paid by the GOP propagandameisters to do it. In any case, you were born too late to achieve your potential for glory; the French could have used an ox like you at Verdun.
@6 So, Piper, you enjoy the experience of being a Vietnam Veteran vicariously through your brother-in-law? Born at the wrong time to serve in a real war, were you? Well, don’t worry, Bush’s military minions are so desperate for men they’ve revised the age, intelligence, and character standards so even YOU can get in, Piper. This is your big chance — see an Army recruiter today!
@8 “Who in their right mind would spit on a highly trained combat veteran? A Republican would.”
Yes, exactly. Only a Republican is stupid enough to spit on someone who would respond by kicking his ass.
@11 “I was there, I saw it…”
Why don’t I believe you? Maybe because you’ve told too many lies on this blog to be believed anymore …
What the hell do YOU know about being a Vietnam Veteran, pipsqueak. YOU weren’t there.
Listen up, Crackpiper (and everyone else). I’m a Vietnam Veteran, so I know what I’m talking about. Yes, there were problems when we came home. Especially in employment, or I should say, non-employment because the people who ran America’s business back in the 70s refused to hire Vietnam Veterans. I went without work — any kind of work — for the first four years I was back. So did a lot of other returning veterans. I learned very quickly to NOT tell employers I had been in the military, because it was a huge negative, so far as getting hiring.
And who were these employers who turned their backs on the fighting men of my generation? They were, for the most part, the World War 2 veterans. Back then, these guys were in their 50s and 60s — the age group that owns most of the businesses, hold the management and supervisor positions, and make most of the hiring decisions. The American Legion and VFW types. The flag-waving, drum-beating, Nixon-voting, rightwing Dubya-Dubya-Too vets.
They’re the ones who, figuratively speaking, spit on Vietnam Veterans.
Crackpiper, have you ever wondered by Vietnam Veterans have their own veterans organizations (VVA and VVAW), and didn’t join the “traditional” veterans groups like American Legion and VFW until the Dubya-Dubya-Too vets got old and dropped out or died off?
That’s why.
why not by
It’s Republicans, not Democrats, who crap on veterans. Always have, always will.
@18…Dollared…
I saw it, I was there in demonstrations in Bellingham and Seattle…I’ve talked with those who were subject to it and had it done to them.
For a good summary of the left-lies revisionsim of history on this read http://www.nysun.com/article/48084
Even Slate acknowledges spitting on soldiers – including in SEATTLE – could have taken place http://www.slate.com/id/2159099
That the treatment accorded Vietnam vets by those on the left, including the anti-war movement, was shameful is attested to by the false testimony John Kerry gave before the U.S. Senate in the 70’s where he alleged, much as you do now, massacre and war crimes at the hands of U.S. troops. He was a liar then, and he remains one today.
Don’t lecture me with your prissy notions of the nobility of our enemies and that we would be at fault for them failing to observe protocals that they do not now observe.
I don’t recall beheadings or sending mentally handicapped children into crowded markets with explosives strapped to their bodies, tactics currently employed in Iraq, as falling within the Geneva Protocals, do you?
Your facile and cliched rhetoric with empty claims, assertions, and accusations is so much baloney! Illegal war? How so? Prove it; show me a court of competent jurisdiction to have so held.
Unjust occupation? Prove it. Are you contending that the regime of Saddam Hussein was more just?
Unwinnable? Prove it. October casualties, both civilian and military, are declinning as more and more Iraqi forces are stepping up to handle things on their own.
Read http://ap.google.com/article/A.....4urd0EpCYQ and http://www.abcnews.go.com/Inte.....id=3765936
Of course, these news reports don’t square with your knee-jerk, “hate America first, blame America for everything, deride all things American” POV…
Could things have been handled better all along? Yes. Is there a hard struggle ahead? Yes. Are things satisfactory now? No. Should we then throw in the towel and walk away?
But name a war in U.S. History where the answers were any different.
Don’t forget how all your “pull out now” Democratic Party friends were talking different tunes in 2003 and before. Read http://www.reasons-for-war-with-iraq.info/
Don’t tell me I dishonor my sons! Who are you to tell me that? You don’t know my sons, you don’t have any idea what it means to be a father with children at risk of death, nor do you know what their thoughts of honor and duty are.
You, who risk nothing, sacrifice nothing, offer no solutions save abandonment, defeat, and appeasement – you don’t support my sons. Have you asked them if what you do equates to support? Or do you self-define what they should think, which is a typical leftist position?
With your uncanny gift for criticizing every American effort while giving a complete pass to anything done by our enemies, one wonders whether you don’t secretely harbor a desire for a complete American defeat.
Delighted are you, Dollared, at every American death?
Torture? A red herring. Your phony outrage conveniently masks the fact that when violations of the law have occurred, those responsible have been tried and, if found guilty, punished. Yet all you can do is scream, “TORTURE,” as if every soldier or Marine is engaging in it and it’s the wholesale policy of the United States. Oh? How many? Where?
You put yourself as the ultimate arbiter of what should and should not be, what is and is not legal, moral, right, or just; you set yourself above as judge, jury, and, if you had the chance, executioner.
Until you can quote my sons’ words on honor, duty, country, service, sacrifice, etc., you are not fit to comment upon them nor claim support for them. Until you can tell me their names, describe them to me, and have them tell me that they actually talked with you, then you have no right to tell me anything!
If you wish to oppose the war, debate its merits, even take to the streets in demonstrations, that is your right as an American. But to claim you support my sons? Go suck an egg!
The Piper
Well said, Roger! And a belated ‘Welcome Home!’ Glad you came back in one piece.
I know exactly what you mean about the Greatest (not) Generation. They were the generation of Bull Connor and snipered Democratic politicians and civil rights heroes.
What makes you think I came back in one piece? I’ve had health problems ever since, and I’m probably going to die before my time.
That “Greatest Generation” phrase has always stuck in my craw. Yes, some of them endured the unendurable. Yes, a great many of them were heroes on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. But some of them sure were bastards for the rest of their lives.
Same thing happened with Vietnam Veterans. I have incredible respect for what they did in Vietnam. But some of them turned into total assholes back home.
We all know the neo-cons are destoying not only the country, but the planet with their global warming.
Who is this piper guy, a stooge for bush?
@35…RL…
At least I’m not a Cindy Lauper wannabe like you.
The Piper
#27 Roger Rabbit says:
The way john kerry spoke about you and your fellow soldiers, why would anyone ever want to hire you.
#27 Roger Rabbit says:
The way john kerry spoke about you and your fellow soldiers, why would anyone ever want to hire you.
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I’m speaking truth to power and the people are scared. I just posted this same message and it didn’t show. Changed my name/email and it appeared instantly.
@32…RR…
You are an interesting and challenging guy, and I like you.
Don’t think I’m trying to suck up to you; I have no desire to take warm showers into the wee hours with you. All I’m saying is that you forcefully advocate positions, stick to your guns, are tanacious in debate, and, very often, go into great detail to analyze issues and justify your position on them with argument and, good lawyer that you are, reasoning.
Doesn’t make you right, only makes you several cuts above most of the drivel that’s posted here.
That you served earns you my respect. I didn’t, and, frankly – opening myself up here – many of my generation didn’t who should have, yet many still saw Vietnam as LBJ’s mess and did what they could – people on both sides of the fence.
In every generation there are jerks, hypocrites, and bums…Neither the Greatest Generation – the generation of Ike, JFK, Sen. Bob Dole, Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Band of Brothers, the Boys of Pointe Du Hoc, and hundreds of thousands more – our Boomer generation, Gen’s X and Y, and now the Millenial Gen, are devoid of them.
But to say that Bull Conner, James Earl Ray, Lee Harvey Oswald, or Sirhan B. Sirhan typifiy the generation of our parents – the generation that survived the Great Depression, that defeated facism and communism, and that sacrificed for their Boomer children – is despicable!
I am sorry that your service was neither accorded the honor to which it was entitled nor you, personally, were treated with dignity upon your return. All Americans owe you a debt of gratitude for what you did, and even though you and I fight like cats and dogs on 99.9% of the issues, I have no qualms nor trouble acknowledging what you did as honorable and patriotic and thanking you for it.
The Piper
Obviously I’m being censored. The cowards want me silenced.
The board administrators are doing exactly what they whine that bush is doing. How downright conservative of them.
re 27: You are a suck-up. And a ‘naif’, as well. Even a cursory examination of these people will reveal that they either did not do the crimes they were accused of, or they were far more than the disgruntled stumble bums they were purported to be.
And don’t give me that ‘conspiracy theorist’ BS. You seemed rather well versed on the conspiracy theories of the McCarthy era.
Thanks for setting us all straight, headless. Looks like you’d better call up that woman who called the radio station and inform her that the dirty stares and nasty comments she has received while in uniform are mere figments of her imagination.
Wow, Piper, get a job.
@31, you must have had to watch 20 or 30 O’Reilly shows to get all those talking points.
So…..let’s be a bit more efficient. Three yes or no questions:
1. Are you suggesting that not a single US Soldier committed a single war crime in Vietnam? That’s your basis for calling John Kerry a liar.
2. Do you believe that your fictional sons may be tortured without consequences? Because if you believe that the US may torture without accountability, you must believe that US soldiers may be tortured without accountability. Even John McCain gets that simple equation. That’s why he thinks you’re a traitor to our soldiers.
3. Do you really believe I rejoice in US soldier deaths? Ask yourself that question, slowly, twice, because your answer says a great deal about whether you are a reasonable person, or just a hater.
Do you think that rather than spewing talking points, you can answer those three questions?
Now get back to your decorating your frat house for football weekend.