Yesterday my boss and I had a rare conversation that didn't involve work, and we got to talking about the immigration demonstrations taking place. I can't say that I was completely surprised by her attitude because she did vote for Bush-Cheney twice and for Arnold, but still...
Her position on illegal immigration was that life could be hard and that was a shame, but that Mexican economic issues were Vicente Fox' problem and not ours. I pointed out that there did seem to be some degree of bias in the emphasis on the southern border, and she said she didn't really have a problem with that. I asked her if she had any thoughts on the proposal to make illegal immigration a felony and she just dismissed that out of hand saying, "It'll never pass." Then it got a little surreal...
I asked how she could maintain such unsympathetic views given that her first language was Spanish. She responded that these migrants were different, not like her grandparents when they came across in 1940. These migrants, in her view, weren't committed to the U.S., but to providing for their families in Mexico and returning to Mexico at the earliest opportunity. Why, they don't even have established businesses and phone numbers. They only have cell phones, and can't be found from one year to the next if she wants them to do more work around her home.
She also mentioned that migrant families received more services for her tax dollars than she did, especially because she had to pay all those taxes for schools and her daughter goes to a private school. She acknowledged that this was generally true of all poor people though and not just migrant families. You've got to feel for those Republicans.
Okay, I admit that I have issues with the flags. Display the American flag right side up, and don't display the flags of other countries at all. I'm a huge fan of the freedom of speech, but I get this visceral response to disrespect of our flag.
Other than that I personally think we're overdue for recognition that the migrants are here, they've always been here, and we don't really and truly want them to go away. Deal with it.
Showing posts with label Patriotism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patriotism. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Thoughts on Support... and Beer
This has been bugging me for a ltttle while now, and then there was the Super Bowl.
People... I generalize... talk about Support the Troops like they were talking about an object or something... something that meant the same thing to everyone who heard it.
People say that if you don't support whatever war the politicians have us involved in at the moment that you don't support the troops. Hello? Can we get real for a moment? Is this administration in its current budget proposal to Congress not calling for a reduced real-dollar budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs? It's good that, having sent these men and women into harm's way, they are finally seeing fit to provide better support to those in the field; but is that where support for the troops ought to end? In a values-driven society such as ours, what does it say when those troops who do get home come home to long waits for limited services at VA treatment facilities waiting for the budget ax?
Then I hear that some folks are giving Anheuser-Busch crap about their homecoming commercial...
I may be wrong, but I've been under the impression that there are a bunch of people making a decent living from the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't think the kevlar or the ceramic plates or any of the equipment and munitions are being donated. I don't think the messes are being operated by volunteers serving donated food.
Anheuser-Busch donated a bunch of beer to the troops for the game, and flashed their logo at the end of a spot recognizing men and women coming home. Right back at you, Bud... and thank you.
People... I generalize... talk about Support the Troops like they were talking about an object or something... something that meant the same thing to everyone who heard it.
People say that if you don't support whatever war the politicians have us involved in at the moment that you don't support the troops. Hello? Can we get real for a moment? Is this administration in its current budget proposal to Congress not calling for a reduced real-dollar budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs? It's good that, having sent these men and women into harm's way, they are finally seeing fit to provide better support to those in the field; but is that where support for the troops ought to end? In a values-driven society such as ours, what does it say when those troops who do get home come home to long waits for limited services at VA treatment facilities waiting for the budget ax?
Then I hear that some folks are giving Anheuser-Busch crap about their homecoming commercial...
I may be wrong, but I've been under the impression that there are a bunch of people making a decent living from the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I don't think the kevlar or the ceramic plates or any of the equipment and munitions are being donated. I don't think the messes are being operated by volunteers serving donated food.
Anheuser-Busch donated a bunch of beer to the troops for the game, and flashed their logo at the end of a spot recognizing men and women coming home. Right back at you, Bud... and thank you.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Priorities
This post has taken me awhile to write... I've started it a few times over a few days, but I go off on tangents.
It bugs me that people who have never served challenge the patriotism of veterans who oppose this war. By not supporting the war I'm not supporting the troops? I can't support one without the other? I would argue that the Administration is supporting the war but not the troops.
Troops aren't stupid! Do you think it's a secret and that Joe will never guess that this whole thing is a crock? Being sent halfway around the world to fight wars that may or may not need to be fought is nothing new. It wasn't even new when I went! Joe's concern is doing the 13 months... a year now?... and getting back home in one piece.
I said earlier that the troops don't pick the wars; you and I do that. I believe that, having committed those souls to combat, we incur an obligation to them... perhaps particularly where our purposes are questionable in the first place.
If Joe can't get home in one piece then he's got to worry about what happens to him and his family now that he's damaged goods... a $12,000 death benefit?... and when the nominee for Secretary of Veteran Affairs is candid about sustaining even the current benefit levels then Joe's got a reason to worry! I don't support the troops? A "success" story like this one gets reported because it's a "man bites dog" story, and Mr. Armour still has to worry about getting rehab and putting food on the table for him and his family. We're closing VA Hospitals? Good grief.
America... or a good part of it... weeps for the 1350+ troops killed in this war. If we abandon the 12,000+ who have been wounded then we should weep for ourselves because we are soulless.
I just want to mention Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House, 28, of Ventura, Calif., died Jan. 26, in a helicopter crash near Ar Rutbah, Iraq. House was assigned to Naval Medical Clinic Hawaii, Marine Corps Units Detachment, Pearl Harbor.
Rest in peace, Doc.
Semper Fi
It bugs me that people who have never served challenge the patriotism of veterans who oppose this war. By not supporting the war I'm not supporting the troops? I can't support one without the other? I would argue that the Administration is supporting the war but not the troops.
Troops aren't stupid! Do you think it's a secret and that Joe will never guess that this whole thing is a crock? Being sent halfway around the world to fight wars that may or may not need to be fought is nothing new. It wasn't even new when I went! Joe's concern is doing the 13 months... a year now?... and getting back home in one piece.
I said earlier that the troops don't pick the wars; you and I do that. I believe that, having committed those souls to combat, we incur an obligation to them... perhaps particularly where our purposes are questionable in the first place.
If Joe can't get home in one piece then he's got to worry about what happens to him and his family now that he's damaged goods... a $12,000 death benefit?... and when the nominee for Secretary of Veteran Affairs is candid about sustaining even the current benefit levels then Joe's got a reason to worry! I don't support the troops? A "success" story like this one gets reported because it's a "man bites dog" story, and Mr. Armour still has to worry about getting rehab and putting food on the table for him and his family. We're closing VA Hospitals? Good grief.
America... or a good part of it... weeps for the 1350+ troops killed in this war. If we abandon the 12,000+ who have been wounded then we should weep for ourselves because we are soulless.
I just want to mention Petty Officer 3rd Class John D. House, 28, of Ventura, Calif., died Jan. 26, in a helicopter crash near Ar Rutbah, Iraq. House was assigned to Naval Medical Clinic Hawaii, Marine Corps Units Detachment, Pearl Harbor.
Rest in peace, Doc.
Semper Fi
Friday, January 14, 2005
Is This an Iraq War Blog?
There were a couple of things that caught my eye this morning...
Sure enough, the President voiced his regrets last night for language that hurt diplomacy. Let's see... he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" and then committed us to the war in Iraq... and in the face of Iraqi resistance (which he personally doesn't have to face) said "bring it on." He thinks his choice of words might have suggested to Muslims of the world that the U.S. is not their friend. You think?
Okay, personally I have an issue with someone who has never served more than two weeks a year active duty saying things like "bring it on." No, that isn't true... I have great respect for people who have honorably fulfilled their entire National Guard/Reserve commitments. My visceral response to people who let their mouths write checks that my ass has to cover is, "Get yourself to a recruiting station or shut the f*** up!" That's just me.
The bigger issue is that as a direct result of our bone-headed conduct of international affairs we've created how many more actual and potential terrorists? I could be wrong but Dana Priest writes about it in the Washington Post.
Mr. Bush expressed some optimism that disaster relief efforts might leave Islamic countries feeling the love, but... it's disaster relief... it's not diplomacy. His problem... our problem... is that if you ask yourself the question: If Iraq is a Christian caucasian country do we go to war with them in 2003... well, you see our international diplomacy problem. "Ye shall know them by their fruits."
Sure enough, the President voiced his regrets last night for language that hurt diplomacy. Let's see... he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive" and then committed us to the war in Iraq... and in the face of Iraqi resistance (which he personally doesn't have to face) said "bring it on." He thinks his choice of words might have suggested to Muslims of the world that the U.S. is not their friend. You think?
Okay, personally I have an issue with someone who has never served more than two weeks a year active duty saying things like "bring it on." No, that isn't true... I have great respect for people who have honorably fulfilled their entire National Guard/Reserve commitments. My visceral response to people who let their mouths write checks that my ass has to cover is, "Get yourself to a recruiting station or shut the f*** up!" That's just me.
The bigger issue is that as a direct result of our bone-headed conduct of international affairs we've created how many more actual and potential terrorists? I could be wrong but Dana Priest writes about it in the Washington Post.
Mr. Bush expressed some optimism that disaster relief efforts might leave Islamic countries feeling the love, but... it's disaster relief... it's not diplomacy. His problem... our problem... is that if you ask yourself the question: If Iraq is a Christian caucasian country do we go to war with them in 2003... well, you see our international diplomacy problem. "Ye shall know them by their fruits."
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Thoughts on Identity and Mutability
I've knocked this post around for a couple of days now... I have an idea of what bugs me, but I'm not sure exactly how to post it.
I saw this post in the blog of a troop in Iraq now (Dec. 30) musing on the frustrations of identifying one's enemy in such an environment. What caught my attention was her note that we bring in "enemy" wounded although they don't. Putting aside for the moment that they don't have a medical support system such as we have... it came to me that we don't bring someone to a CSH because of who they are but because of who we are. It's what we do.
I don't think Osama bin Laden staged 9/11 so he could one day dine in the White House. I think he did it to make an impact... and I think he succeeded and that his success continues every hour of every day since then. We gave him that when we started to change who we were and what we were about.
Putting aside the Patriot Act... speaking of a misuse of words... and the entire fact of the Iraq War... none of which would have happened without 9/11... I read this piece where we are making plans to incarcerate "suspected" terrorists for the rest of their lives without due process... these include people we could not try because of insufficient evidence. In the meantime the U.S. House of Representatives is advancing a plan to weaken its ethics rules in order to protect the Majority Leader, the Honorable Tom DeLay.
Yesterday I saw a newsbrief on CNN Headline News that I can't find the cite for... a judge in West Virginia blocked the divorce of a battered woman from her abusive husband because... according to the report... the child she is carrying would then be illegitimate.
None of this stuff is going to be happening... none of it... except that 9/11 knocked us off course and we haven't yet regained our balance. Personally, I believe that suits the ambitions of the Bush Administration, but that could be mean-spirited.
I advised the blogger in Iraq to try to find a moral rock... an immutable truth... and to hold onto that. I think we all need to do that... because it's really getting hard to put my finger on who we are anymore.
(P.S. on 1/3: This is a reference for the story on the woman denied a divorce because she's pregnant. It turns out that it's in Washington and not West Virginia... and the abusive husband who was jailed for beating her in 2002 and from whom the woman is separated is not the father. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this case is an exception to my assertion that "none of this" would have happened but for 9/11.)
I saw this post in the blog of a troop in Iraq now (Dec. 30) musing on the frustrations of identifying one's enemy in such an environment. What caught my attention was her note that we bring in "enemy" wounded although they don't. Putting aside for the moment that they don't have a medical support system such as we have... it came to me that we don't bring someone to a CSH because of who they are but because of who we are. It's what we do.
I don't think Osama bin Laden staged 9/11 so he could one day dine in the White House. I think he did it to make an impact... and I think he succeeded and that his success continues every hour of every day since then. We gave him that when we started to change who we were and what we were about.
Putting aside the Patriot Act... speaking of a misuse of words... and the entire fact of the Iraq War... none of which would have happened without 9/11... I read this piece where we are making plans to incarcerate "suspected" terrorists for the rest of their lives without due process... these include people we could not try because of insufficient evidence. In the meantime the U.S. House of Representatives is advancing a plan to weaken its ethics rules in order to protect the Majority Leader, the Honorable Tom DeLay.
Yesterday I saw a newsbrief on CNN Headline News that I can't find the cite for... a judge in West Virginia blocked the divorce of a battered woman from her abusive husband because... according to the report... the child she is carrying would then be illegitimate.
None of this stuff is going to be happening... none of it... except that 9/11 knocked us off course and we haven't yet regained our balance. Personally, I believe that suits the ambitions of the Bush Administration, but that could be mean-spirited.
I advised the blogger in Iraq to try to find a moral rock... an immutable truth... and to hold onto that. I think we all need to do that... because it's really getting hard to put my finger on who we are anymore.
(P.S. on 1/3: This is a reference for the story on the woman denied a divorce because she's pregnant. It turns out that it's in Washington and not West Virginia... and the abusive husband who was jailed for beating her in 2002 and from whom the woman is separated is not the father. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this case is an exception to my assertion that "none of this" would have happened but for 9/11.)
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