[PAA-Discuss] Veterans Day or Rulers Day?

[Ron and Kris Graham]

http://www.truthout.org/1111091

 


 <http://www.truthout.org/1111091> Veterans Day or Rulers Day?


Wednesday 11 November 2009 <http://www.truthout.org/1111091?print> 

by: Bob Richards, <http://www.truthout.org/1111091?print>  t r u t h o u t |
Op-Ed

How is it that Veterans Day gets turned around into US Military Hegemony
Day? The airwaves were buried under an avalanche of lip service about
veterans, but the moving lips were all about the myth that the warfare
decisions this country's rulers make have something to do with anyone's
freedom. Just as soldiers and sailors are doing around the world today, I
did in my time. I was there as a teenager, ignorant of the forces moving me,
believing whatever line I was being fed.

I grew up on the hundreds of war/propaganda movies that came out of WWI,
WWII and Korea. Today we are deluged with more nationalistic propaganda than
ever before in my lifetime. It can't be avoided. The TV spews the images
nearly nonstop. Recruiters are in our schools, along with the pop machines.
The words Army, Navy and National Guard are on race cars at the drags and
the ovals. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has been replaced with "America
the Beautiful" with cordons placed at Yankee Stadium to keep fans from going
to the bathroom while the dose of nationalism is served up.

Once a year the veterans are rolled out, but without a real veterans' voice.
The physical support for veterans comes nowhere near what is needed.
Suicides of veterans always wind up taking more lives than the wars that set
them up.

It is important to some vets to keep believing the myth they fought for,
that going into that foreign country had a bearing on anyone's freedom here.
These are the vets who get a voice, as this is the only voice acceptable to
the ruling powers. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War may have had some
bearing on someone's freedoms, but even then, not everyone's. The former
held only for white male property holders, and the latter for humans who
were property themselves. In both of these cases, those native to these
lands could not be included, as they were busy at the time being relieved of
their homelands and freedom.

If you want to thank anyone for your rights and freedoms, thank an activist.
No soldier ended segregation in the 1960's. No sailor got women the vote. No
National Guardsman got you the 40-hour week or took children off the shop
floors or out of the mines. No, they were called out by the states to kill
the very people who were fighting for the rights they eventually won for
you.

Mostly what the vets have done is to be tricked into serving the forces that
have used them, and in many cases, used them up. The vets deserve your
support mostly because they believed, and gave what was asked, and were
promised something in exchange. When promise-keeping time comes up, they
find they have to get in a line and wait and then they must fight to receive
what was promised. In many cases, what they get is enough for a little cheap
wine and a bed at a shelter. These aren't the vets that get dragged out
before the game or race, or at half-time. Nope, those vets are the
believers. The "presentable" ones.

So, here we are at war to get Unocal's dream pipeline route across
Afghanistan secured and prop up that ex-Unocal employee's stolen election.
Then there's still that war we don't talk about so much anymore. The one
that the lie to get us in there changed nearly every day, when the truth may
have been as simple as the Decider told us himself, that Saddam tried to
kill his daddy, and that he would use that war for his own ends.

These two wars send home more corpses and vets every day. These vets are
more often acute cases needing the highest levels of attention, overloading
the system and triaging the old farts back down the waiting lines. The
government will front load the wars with the drones, missiles, guns, mines,
ships, planes and trained bodies as its priority. It will use up more than
it gets from its taxpayers and hand the debts to the future, and vets will
fight for crumbs. This is the record from every war the country has ever
done. Still, its propaganda works, and it won't have any trouble finding
believers to march in the parades. It can parlay that percentage into a
rock-solid myth and keep the guns-and-butter gravy train rolling along.

 

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