Happy Memorial Day

I found this image (and the essay attached to it) by following a blog link from the comments section of a Newsweek story on the Monica Goodling Testimony. The points made in the essay are not exactly new, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of consideration--particularly on a day like today. A more concise cautionnary note is struck in today's NYT column by Paul Krugman (reprinted at http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052807D.shtml).

There's a thin line between genuine respect for those who have given their lives in military service and manipulating that respect into a public-relations tool on behalf of those institutions that just keep creating more 'honored dead'. In times of war, that line is frequently blurred beyond recognition.

By all means, let us honor those who have sacrificed their lives for what they believed to be the common good. But let us also not fail to hold accountable those responsible for the occasion of that sacrifice.

....and Tinkerbell Dies......

Once again, Bill Maher manages to channel Bill Hicks and come up with a screed that pretty much perfectly sums up the The Right's lack of brains and The Left's corresponding lack of balls. His recent piece in Salon.com contains this choice paragraph:

"...As usual, we've been sucked into a phony controversy about who said what and how it hurt George W. Bush's feelings. Because when you hurt George W. Bush you hurt America's feelings, and when you hurt America's feelings, you hurt the troops. And when that happens, Tinkerbell's light goes out and she dies..."

Last week's congressional democratic capitulation to George Bush was essentially foreordained the moment Democratic Leadership sipped the "Support The Troops" kool-aid. Much like the 9/11 Kool-aid, this beverage is a powerful psycho-active toxic that leaves one bereft of will power and inclined to believe just about anything.

It is time to get past the notion that "the troops" are some sort of sacred victim and that the scoundrels of this administration have continued Carte Blanche to hide behind their sacrifice. The only meaningful way to "support the troops" is to bring them home.

Depending on how you look at it, the war in Iraq is either an obscene and meaningless war of choice, a naked resource grab by a brutal and materialistic empire, or a crusade to save western civilization. Those who believe the latter should spend this Memorial Day contemplating the wonders of The Creationist Museum. It is far past time they were permitted to continue shaping public policy.