0 SteveMule: May 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day

I was going to write about something else but... I can do that later, if at all. Memorial Day. It is and has become a lot of different things to different people. For some it's the 'official' start of summer. For others a reason to go to the lake, swim, boat, fish, BBQ, an excuse to drink beer or whatever. Sometimes there are even parades and what-not. Here's the Wikipedia entry for Memorial Day: Memorial Day. The day has quite a history. It goes back to the days just after the Civil War.
One of the things that has always bothered me ('bothered' is understating it a bit) about my military service since 9-11 (my period of service ended long before 9-11, by the way) is that people, upon finding out I served will thank me for serving.
"You were in the Army!?"
"Yes."
"Wow, thank you for serving!"
When I hear this I know with absolute certainty that the person asking and thanking has never served. I just do.
"You were in the Army?"
"Yes, you?"
"Navy [or what-ever], what'cha do?"
"I was [what-ever], you?"
"Oh, I was [what-ever]"
After a while we chit-chat a bit about what we did, when we did it, and where we did it and then we move on. Sometimes, more often than you'd think, in fact, it never goes past the third line and without the question.
What 'bothers' me about the first scenario is that their reply leaves out, let's go unspoken, a very significant portion of their thanks. It's the part of serving that gives the serving its true worth. Their reply should be "Wow, thank you for serving, so I didn't have to."
They never say that part.
{During my period of service I never served in combat, nothing happened. Well, actually the Grenada operation occurred during that time. However, I was stationed in Germany at the time and was not involved in it in any way.}
So this Memorial Day let me say something to those that stood, and fell, defending this nation against all enemies foreign or domestic, something that is almost never said: Thank you for serving as you did, so I and those I love didn't have to.
Keep it in mind when you crack a cold one today.

posted by Steve Mule at 3:07 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 17, 2010

Smelly Brown People

I have thought long and hard about writing this post. I really don't have much to back it up (I suppose I could if I looked hard enough but I didn't want to do that) so I'll just flap my lips so to speak and say what I want. Hey, Fox News does it, so why can't I!
Recent events and issues have caused me to wonder how much of our troubles, controversies and what-not are the result of BIGOTRY. Now I don't mean the virulent, cross burnin' bigotry that we see from the KKK or Neo-Nazis and crap groups like that, I mean the soft bigotry that allows us to denounce cross burnings, police beatings caught on film, discriminatory business practices, civic group membership policies, and so on, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME causes us to get 'apprehensive' when we accidentally wind up in the 'wrong' part of town, view others wish suspicion , laugh at jokes like this one:
Q.) What do bricks and fat white women have in common?
A.) They both get laid by Mexicans!! (Rim shot! Cue laugh track)
and so on.
This country (U.S.A.) has a long and ugly history with respect to bigotry and while we've come a long way I think the hardest part is still ahead of us. Many, I believe, think the path is linear we improve, slide back a little now and then but basically, we keep going and... eventually we'll get 'there.' Whatever and whenever 'there' is. I don't believe that. I believe that the path to 'there' is a curvy line that is basically linear until you get close to 'there' at which point it starts to curve away from 'there.' The hard KKK type bigotry can be legislated away, outlawed but the soft bigotry well... that's where the difficulty is, it's where the line starts curve away from 'there.'
This soft bigotry is not just focused domestically, but also in our country's international relationships and affairs. For example: Israel has nuclear weapons. That's not a problem (to us) because Israel is a [fill in the blank; democracy, freedom loving... no, they look like us] but a country like Iran [they don't look like us, even tho most actually do]even developing the potential for nukes!?! Why, it's the end!! The end of the world!! The end of... whatever it is you're worried about coming to an end of.
The fact that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ALLOWS the Islamic Republic of Iran to develop nuclear power (including enriching uranium to fuel levels) is unimportant. What is important (what we're told is important anyway) is that we can't trust Iran, why they could... do bad stuff (whatever that is) if we allow this to go on. No, Iran is populated by smelly brown people that hate our freedoms and hate Israel, and the stereotypes go on and on and on.
Mexican Immigration is another issue that is full of smelly brown people. It's one reason why this issue is so contentious. The average Mexican immigrant doesn't look like us, they don't talk like us, they don't [fill in the blank] like us, they...
No one (in positions of power) seems to be able to objectively look at these issues and resolve them. The people involved and affected fall into two camps; us and them ("them" being the smelly brown people). There's no respect, us for them or them for us) and so the bullshit just keeps rolling along and rollin' along.

posted by Steve Mule at 4:27 AM 1 comments

Friday, May 14, 2010

Been away awhile

Yes, I've away from the blog for a awhile and I can tell that everyone has been 'distraught' over that but ...
Hey, I'm still here and I still tell myself that I need to post something -- I do that everyday, and today I decided to post something even it was only some idle ramblings.
I'm getting discouraged thinking about the upcoming mid-term elections this November. All the big pundits and political analysts on TV, the radio, the Internet, bloggers and so on all predict that the Republicans will do fantastic and perhaps even gain a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, while that may turn out to be true I have to wonder: HOW, WHY, IN THE NAME OF GOD COULD AMERICANS BE THAT FUCKING STUPID????
After all the BS we, as a country, went through during the Bush years, WHY would we want those asshats back anywhere close to the levers of power????
All they have are sound bites, slogans (often misspelled) and idiotic talking points. They have no policies other than 'Tax Cuts', more deregulation (check the Gulf of Mexico to see how that works out in REAL LIFE), more war in the Middle East, and beating up on smelly brown people. It's as if their only method(s) is to jerk off the lowest common denominator of the American voting public.
I haven't trusted Republicans being in power since the early summer of 2003. Iraq was a danger; WMD's, mushroom clouds and so on. When US troops toppled the statue in downtown Baghdad and no WMD's had been found and there was no related material found (manuals, inventory reports, deployment orders and so on) and then the Dahlfer Report... well, I knew we had been lied to. If, IF, there had ever been anything we would have tripped over it. You simply can't make a mistake that big! The evidence would have been to sketchy, the intelligence to thin for any sane person to say "It's good enough for war." No, we went because someone in a position of power WANTED to. Everything else was just red, white & blue BS to wrap it all up in and get the American people behind it.
People that had no personal stake in the war (i.e.: no one was going to be shooting at them) made a lot of money. Now, seven years later (nine if you include Afghanistan) we're still there and they're still making money.

posted by Steve Mule at 8:32 AM 0 comments