The Commentariat -- May 26, 2014
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E. J. Dionne on the history of Memorial Day. "As we honor our war dead, let us pause to consider how we are discharging our obligations to their legacy."
Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "President Obama arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday for an unannounced visit to mark Memorial Day with U.S. troops, now in the final months of America's longest war, and to begin final discussions over the size of the U.S. force that will remain beyond the end of the year."
Constant Weader: On this particular Memorial Day, I specially honor two veterans who died recently:
My husband, Aldo Scaglione, who was a partisano -- an Italian citizen who fought on the side of the Allies. Since he was fighting his own government, Aldo was in danger all through the period of his service and had a least one close call. He & his fellow partisani liberated several villages near the end of the war; he said they were lucky the Germans were sick of fighting, as the partisani, armed with their crummy American rifles, were no match for German soldiers.
My uncle, Frank Waterhouse, who flew 35 missions over France in 1944, including a flight on June 5 several flights before D-Day & a bombing mission on D-Day. Frank became a SAC test pilot after WWII & was also a helicopter pilot who (for a short time) held the world speed record for helicopters, a record he set while crossing the Amazon, ca. 1946.
Please feel free to share your own remembrances.
Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker: "Christopher [Martinez] died because of craven, irresponsible politicians and the N.R.A. That's true. That the killer in question was in the grip of a mad, woman-hating ideology, or that he was also capable of stabbing someone to death with a knife, are peripheral issues to the central one of a gun culture that has struck the Martinez family and ruined their lives. (The shooter, Elliot Rodger, had three semi-automatic handguns that, according to the Los Angeles Times, he'd purchased legally.)... It would be nice if the President, who knows all this perfectly well, put aside his conciliatory manner and his search for consensus and just said it. Speak up, Mr. President! Speak plainly. Just say, 'Last night, I heard Chris's dad. He's right.'" ...
... Philip Rucker & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "... signs of Rodger's troubles, which grew increasingly frequent in recent months, failed to trigger decisive action from his mental-health providers, his roommates, his longtime friends or sheriff's deputies, who had three separate encounters with him over the past 10 months." ...
... Amanda Hess of Slate: "Rodger's language is familiar to anyone who's spent time exploring the Pick-Up Artist or Men's Rights Activist communities.... Rodger was also allegedly a member of PUAHate.com, a website for men who feel they've been tricked by the Pick-Up Artist pyramid scheme, which takes men's money and promises to teach them how to have sex with women.... It is disturbing, if not surprising, that [these groups] are using these murders to reinforce their hatred of women and 'Beta' men, and to cement their own status at the top of the pyramid." ...
... Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "A website popular with the online Pick-up Artist community responded to Elliott Rodger's murderous Santa Barbara rampage, saying it could have been avoided if Rodger had 'game,' like they profess to possess, before concluding that 'more people will die' unless society provides men with more 'sexual options.'" ...
... Katie McDonough of Salon: "... this anger -- this toxic male entitlement -- isn't contained to random comment boards or the YouTube videos of disturbed young men. It's on full view elsewhere in our culture. Earlier this week, a writer for the New York Post quoted a member of a men's rights group as the sole source in a report on Jill Abramson's ouster at the New York Times.... These views about women and violence are replicated in our criminal justice system. They filter into our media. This is what makes Rodger's misogynistic vitriol so terrifying -- the fact that in many ways it's utterly banal."
Abby Goodnough of the New York Times: "Hospital systems around the country have started scaling back financial assistance for lower- and middle-income people without health insurance, hoping to push them into signing up for coverage through the new online marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act."
Benjamin Weiser & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times: "A prominent hacker set to be sentenced in federal court this week for breaking into numerous computer systems worldwide has provided a trove of information to the authorities, allowing them to disrupt at least 300 cyberattacks on targets that included the United States military, Congress, the federal courts, NASA and private companies, according to a newly filed government court document. The hacker, Hector Xavier Monsegur, also helped the authorities dismantle a particularly aggressive cell of the hacking collective Anonymous, leading to the arrest of eight of its members in Europe and the United States.... The court document was prepared by prosecutors who are asking a judge, Loretta A. Preska, for leniency for Mr. Monsegur because of his 'extraordinary cooperation.'"
Paul Krugman: "... on the core issue of providing jobs for people who really should be working, at this point old Europe is beating us hands down despite social benefits and regulations that, according to free-market ideologues, should be hugely job-destroying.... The truth is that European-style welfare states have proved more resilient, more successful at job creation, than is allowed for in America's prevailing economic philosophy."
Joshua Schneyer, et al., of Reuters: "Efforts to stop oil trains are a new battle front for several major environmental groups that have campaigned to block the Keystone XL pipeline from bringing crude south from Canada's oil sands. With Keystone in limbo, U.S.-bound rail shipments of Canadian oil have risen 20-fold since 2011, the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimated."
South Carolina Slavery News. David Wren of the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Sun News: "Reginald Wayne Miller, the president of Cathedral Bible College, was arrested Thursday on accusations that he forces foreign students at his school to work long hours for low wages and then threatens to revoke their student visas if they complain or fail to comply with his demands." Via David of Crooks & Liars.
Greg Miller of the Washington Post: "The CIA's top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama's surprise visit with U.S. troops. The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual.... The Post is withholding the name of the CIA officer at the request of Obama administration officials...."
David Herszenhorn & Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times: "The disruption of presidential balloting by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine justifies tougher American sanctions against the Kremlin, said Senator Kelly Ayotte, who along with other Republicans has sharply criticized the Obama administration's response to Russia's actions in Ukraine."
AFP: "In swiftly punishing Thailand's military for seizing power, the United States is looking beyond short-term interests as it braces for prolonged strife in its oldest Asian ally. Within hours after the army took control of Thailand on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry condemned the coup as having "no justification" and urged the quick restoration of democracy and press freedom. The United States suspended $3.5 million in defense assistance, or about a third of its total aid to Thailand, and canceled ongoing military exercises with the kingdom -- a vital US ally for decades, including in the Vietnam War."
Senate Race
Scott Kaufman of the Raw Story: "Ben Sasse, who is widely expected to to win the seat being vacated by Sen. Mike Johanns in November..., believes that the 'government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances' [and] authored a dissertation while at Yale documenting the number of times the government did just that -- and how the unintended consequences of doing so were key to mainstreaming conservative politics."
News Ledes
Fox 40 California: "A man opened fire on three women early Saturday after the women refused to have sex with him and his friends, according to the Stockton Police."
Washington Post: "A top Nigerian military official said Monday that the government knows the whereabouts of several hundred kidnapped girls but cannot reveal their location and cannot use force to rescue them, according to the Web site of the Ogun state television service."
Guardian: "The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said that Sunday's presidential elections in Ukraine sent a 'clear message' that the country's people want to 'live in a united, democratic and peaceful Ukraine anchored in European institutions'."
Washington Post: "Ukrainian billionaire Petro Poroshenko prepared to take over as Ukraine's leader Monday, vowing to end hostilities in the east with Moscow's cooperation, as pro-Russian separatists fought gun battles with Ukrainian forces at Donetsk's international airport." ...
... Reuters Update: "Ukraine launched air strikes and a paratrooper assault against pro-Russian rebels who seized an airport on Monday, even as its newly elected leader vowed to reassert control in the east and refused to negotiate with 'terrorists'." ...
... New York Times Update: "The new Ukrainian government struck the separatists in this eastern province with a major military offensive on Monday, battling them over an important provincial airport in ground fighting that lasted for hours. The rebels were left scattered and shaken, just one day after a successful national election they had tried to disrupt."
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In Remembrance:
My cousin, Brigadier General John Hugh McGee, (we called him Maggie) was captured by the Japanese during WWII and held in a concentration camp on the island of Mindanao for almost three years and who was able to execute an escape. He wrote a book, "Rice and Salt," about his experiences including a history of the defense and occupation of Mindanao during that war.
I remember when he came to visit us after his return to a wife and new daughter he had never seen. To my young eyes it was a shock to see a man I remembered as handsome and in fine form resembling a skeleton barely resembling himself. Perhaps because of my youth and those indelible memories the Second World War has had the most impact on me.
Memorial Day: Why do we honor this day with cookouts and parades as though it's a celebration. "Happy holiday," someone said at the checkout lane––and so it goes~~~~~~~~~~~
Re; "Ain't never going back to my old school". The killings came to my town this weekend. Seems like there's a national tour out there. Nobody knows where the killings are going to play next. But rest assured the killings will continue. One big promoter; the NRA, lots of co-producers; gun manufacturers, gun shops, thousands of loyal, rabid fans and venues everywhere. Shopping malls; movie theaters, college campuses, high schools, grade schools and street corners all over the land. A national tour of death, drama, suffering, and sorrow. The pavement will be washed of the blood. The families will fade from our memories, the flowers will dry and scatter in the wind, the promises of the dead will be forgotten and life will go on. And so too, the killing tour.
It's not the first time for UCSB and I.V. suffered from a killing rage. Not too long ago a young man used his car as a weapon to kill in the streets of I.V.. He too was raging at his peers.
Forty years ago the bank had burned some ten years earlier. Empty, its shell sat on a street corner in I.V.. Man, those guys had some kind of balls I would think as I rode by. Burning a bank? What were they thinking? (was kind'a an accident, I understand now.) Nobody cared about the car you drove, the clothes you wore, your sunglasses meant nothing. Eastern philosophy was the style; life was a balance, ride the wave, yin and yang, it's all the same. Don't get caught up in the material world. Things have changed.
Charles P. Pierce on this Memorial Day:
“This is a country now at war with itself…. This is a country at war with itself for profit. This is a country at war with itself because its ruling elite is too cowed, or too well-bribed, or too cowardly to recognize that there are people who are getting rich arming both sides, because the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, so you make sure that it's easy for the bad guys to get guns in order to make millions selling the guns to the good guys. This is a dynamic not unfamiliar to the people in countries where brushfire conflicts and civil wars are kept alive because distant people are making a buck off them. In Africa, war is made over diamonds and rare earths. In South America, war is made over cocaine. Here, for any number of reasons - because Adam Lanza went crazy or because Elliot Rodger couldn't get laid - and the only constant in all those wars is the fact somebody gets rich arming both sides.”
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/memorial-day-2014-052614
Ben Sasse "believes that the 'government cannot force citizens to violate their religious beliefs under any circumstances' ". Does this mean a Quaker can withhold the proportion of his/her taxes the goes to support war, torture, etc? Or does it mean only if you are Sasse's definition of a Christian since Quakers have been losing that legal case consistently.
My father didn't serve in the Pacific for this sort of nonsense and he repeatedly said he served so people could be Quakers etc. even if he didn't agree. (But, I think he'd have taken exception if we didn't pay our taxes). He was in the Pacific for most of the war, then in Japan, and then in the Naval Security Agency until 1960 when he retired. He did not talk about the war until his late 80's and then it was about other people and classmates and what they did. He talked about a classmate who dive bombed a Japanese ship because he was so angry about his friends' deaths. My father refused to go to Hawaii and to see the Arizona since that was where a some of his classmates were buried. He was at Annapolis at the time of Pearl Harbor and he and some other Junior officers raised cane until the Navy allowed them to go into the Pacific.
I admire you all, I'm getting awfully tired of this nonsense, the NRA, guns etc. By the way how did Sasse ever get his dissertation accepted.
This is very disjointed because I'm still processing idiots like Sasse, the NRA, etc.
My two grandpas both served in WWII, one as a cartographer and the other one manned a machine gun in the turret of an airplane. They both came back alive but I only got to meet one of them unfortunately, and that for a limited time. I was far too young to actually grasp what he had been through during those years and he never talked about it at family gatherings. He was a big guy, over 6 feet tall and fit, so apparently he could hardly even fit into the turret and it was extraordinarily uncomfortable given his size and the cramped quarters he had to work in.
I can't recall the plane he flew in, but the squadrons he was involved in were softening up the enemy lines for the advancing troops in Europe. Most of his sorties were over France. Given their extremely dangerous assignments the return rate after doing the registered number of missions was around 20%. But given the huge number of planes going down, if you made it back then you were likely going back regardless if the quota had been reached. He flew numerous "extra" missions into enemy territory to bomb sensitive targets. Never questioned the orders, but stretched out the muscles and climbed back in.
Decades later, my uncle hosted a German exchange student for a year while he attending the local University. I later understood that my grandpa acted much more somber and distant during those family gatherings because of the presence of the German exchange student. I was told he felt extremely guilty in the presence of the German because he was afraid that he had strafed down members of his family flying over the skies of Europe so many years ago. Such pent up guilt over such a depressing moment of humanity. His jovial approach to life stays with me today, but it's little anecdotes like that which make the true reflections of Memorial Day.
Read Pierce's essay on today's "State of Memorial Day" is required reading. Disappointingly Wayne La Pierre and his select group of strategic advisors, recruited from the best and brightest of corporate strategy, have infiltrated American society like dirty grease in your french fries. They've navigated every nook and cranny of our society, exploited every structural weakness visible, became an everyday banality as "American" as that Heinz ketchup awaiting alongside. Their residue is omnipresent, breaks us down over time, fatigues all efforts, and worst of all it leaves its stains permanently.
And where does our national conversation go directly after the umpteenth mass murder spree? Mental health. Don't question the system that provided him with numerous pistols and mountains of ammo. It's not even a question seriously being posed.
Score another one for La Pierre. Actually, make that 7.