Irrelevant Importance Life, art, politics, technology and the meaninglessness that matters to me.

Support Our (like-minded) Troops

This is not in any way, shape, or form intended to be an insult to America's military men and women. I am just currently pondering the belief of the neo-conservative Right that we must support our troops, but only so long as they are neo-conservatives themselves and agree with the mindless pundits and profiteers hawking ribbon magnets and other such bullshit. Funny how those magnets never read "Support Our Troops As Long As They Agree With Us".

I was just engaging in some "friendly" debate with a few opposite-minded individuals on an electronic forum (a.k.a. arguing like a moron, with other morons, on the internet) about....well, this that and the other thing. And while looking up some information on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, I found out he is a former Marine. I didn't know that, and was somewhat surprised by this information.

And it got me thinking again about how the Republican/neocon/far-right crowd betray themselves repeatedly with their faux pro-troop stance. They are the ones who shout loudest and longest about supporting the military, yet over and over again they turn on the people who have actually served the country without hesitation.  All because these brave men and women, past and present soldiers, have the brazen audacity to not agree with them. And then they have the nerve to accuse the people they are smearing of being the betrayers. They want to support the troops so long as they shut their goddamn mouths and agree with the President^* and the second this doesn't happen they just lose their fucking minds. I like to think I am a rather compassionate, empathetic person but I cannot even begin to contort my worldview in such a way that this resembles a reasonable mindset...thank god.

So for your consideration, here is a short segment of a much longer list of people, each with more extensive military experience than Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Coulter, Hannity, Malkin and Beck combined,  all of whom have been brutally trashed and smeared by the "pro-troop" right-wingers because they are too anti-war or too pro-Obama or some other asinine reason that you and I cannot comprehend because we aren't really really dumb. If you know of any I am missing (and I know there are many) please let me know.

• Brigadier General Larry Gillespie
• Major General Scott Gration
• Admiral Don Guter
• Lieutenant John Kerry
• Brigadier General David McGinnis
• General Merrill McPeak
• Captain John Murtha
• Admiral John B. Nathman
• General Colin Powell
• Major General Hugh Robinson
• General Eric Shinsecki
• Admiral Robert Williamson
• Major General Ralph Wooten
• Private First Class Jeremiah Wright

^*Republican only, because disobeying a Democratic President is, of course, a sign of true Patriotism™ and deserves our utmost respect.