Put Up or Shut Up
I read an article today that gives new meaning to the term class warfare. While I’ve always asserted that the poor are disproportionately represented in the military, this article points out a disturbing statistic.
All this talk of supporting the troops and fighting the war on terror, and the bulk of those doing the fighting and dying, in a country we have no business in, come from the lower levels of the economic spectrum.
In World War II, a war we believed in, virtually every able-bodied male at least tried to enlist to fight. Nowadays, there’s a lot of patriotic rhetoric, but no one’s willing to enlist. Instead, upper and middle class folks put magnetic ribbons on their SUVs and label anyone who criticizes the war as a “terrorist enabler”.
How many of our high-level CEOs and elected officials have children fighting in Iraq? Very few compared to previous wars. In Vietnam, parents wanted their kids to fight for their country, while the kids could see through the smoke and mirrors to see that war was unjustified. Now, those kids have kids of their own, and the parents aren’t pushing them to enlist, while today’s kids see that we don’t belong in Iraq and aren’t willing to give their lives for an illegal war.
If this war is so just, why aren’t the Bush twins on the front line? If our president feels so strongly about the need to neutralize the threat in Iraq, why isn’t he insisting that his own flesh and blood join the fight? Instead, his offspring are partying it up in South America; some even suggest that they’re paving the way for an administration exile once the American public wises up and decides to call Bush on his policies.
Interestingly, the Bush twins are being asked to leave Argentina, either because they’re a security risk (apparently the Secret Service has abandoned them), or because twinmania is upstaging the arrival of the newly appointed ambassador. Either way, Jenna and Barbara are persona non grata by the American embassy in Argentina.
But I digress. The point is, the wealthy no longer support the war effort through the blood of their loins – only through rhetoric. It’s time for the hypocricy to stop, and for the elite of America to either send their sons and daughters to fight this fight, or support the cause of peace.
In 1956, half the graduating class of Princeton served in the military. Now less than one third of one percent of the Ivy League serves.
All this talk of supporting the troops and fighting the war on terror, and the bulk of those doing the fighting and dying, in a country we have no business in, come from the lower levels of the economic spectrum.
In World War II, a war we believed in, virtually every able-bodied male at least tried to enlist to fight. Nowadays, there’s a lot of patriotic rhetoric, but no one’s willing to enlist. Instead, upper and middle class folks put magnetic ribbons on their SUVs and label anyone who criticizes the war as a “terrorist enabler”.
How many of our high-level CEOs and elected officials have children fighting in Iraq? Very few compared to previous wars. In Vietnam, parents wanted their kids to fight for their country, while the kids could see through the smoke and mirrors to see that war was unjustified. Now, those kids have kids of their own, and the parents aren’t pushing them to enlist, while today’s kids see that we don’t belong in Iraq and aren’t willing to give their lives for an illegal war.
If this war is so just, why aren’t the Bush twins on the front line? If our president feels so strongly about the need to neutralize the threat in Iraq, why isn’t he insisting that his own flesh and blood join the fight? Instead, his offspring are partying it up in South America; some even suggest that they’re paving the way for an administration exile once the American public wises up and decides to call Bush on his policies.
Interestingly, the Bush twins are being asked to leave Argentina, either because they’re a security risk (apparently the Secret Service has abandoned them), or because twinmania is upstaging the arrival of the newly appointed ambassador. Either way, Jenna and Barbara are persona non grata by the American embassy in Argentina.
But I digress. The point is, the wealthy no longer support the war effort through the blood of their loins – only through rhetoric. It’s time for the hypocricy to stop, and for the elite of America to either send their sons and daughters to fight this fight, or support the cause of peace.
posted by Wyld Card at
9:20 PM
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