I hate Veteran's Day

[Liability]

There should be nothing short of contempt for Veteran's Day. As long as it is not a day in fierce opposition to war, what the hell is it? How can you honor veterans if not by advocating the abolishment of war? Instead it's like a superficial pat on the back, gee nice job, we really appreciate it. This is such unthinking lunacy, do you remember Vietnam? The staggering loss of life? What was that for? Iraq, Afghanistan?

Does anyone think anymore? Military personnel should ask themselves if there are legitimate reasons for the war in Afghanistan. Can you clearly state them and argue them to the opposition, can you support them with an ethical basis that would justify merciless acts of war? Does the global war on terror sound legitimate, or does it sound more like a propaganda line? There are avenues of discourse to have a critical discussion, but no, let's not even have that discussion. No let's honor the troops, support them, praise them, drown them in Old Glory. And yet and yet, who sends us to war? Politicians. Who trusts politicians? None of this makes any sense at all. If the foreign policy of America is evil, then our troops are dispatchers of evil. You can support a friend who is an addict without supporting their addiction.

"How fortunate for leaders that men do not think" - Hitler

A rancid and thoughtless OP like that doesn't deserve this attention. So, my apologies to the entire Board for violating that obvious truism. Nevertheless:

I just wanted to acknowledge the response of everyone who has so rightly shit on the idiot who posted that stupid OP. Nicely done.

And, of course, it is a good time to thank all of our veterans and all of our current servicemen and servicewomen.

How fortunate for our people that such men and women do think and act with such profound honor and courage and dignity.

 

[alexa]

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Marine Major General Smedley Butler

That is true and geauxtohell also makes a good point, that the Vietnam veterans did not deserved to be treated as they were.

I have had my fill of it this year. It seems like the reintroduction of 'Empire Day' under a different name, long gone from the original conception of remembering war and the loss it gives. It has changed to 'perpetual war' day and within that, because we feel for those who are sent to fight in wars that in general the people of the UK do not believe in, we seem to be buying in to Remembrance day more and more so that it is us, it is our new 'Empire Day'.....and people do not see that in that quietly, carefully we are glorifying war, even wars we do not believe in. Heck it even got so that the Prime Minister and Prince William had to write huffy letters to FIFA demanding that our footballers be allowed to wear poppies, tucked into black armbands when they play this weekend. No politics, that will be right. It has turned into the biggest propaganda racket I have seen.

What would loved one's want, a day of honouring for their dead or the person still alive so that they can be just the same normal sometimes irritating person they always were? Why if we honour our dead so much do we leave it to the British Legion to take care of the still alive and injured by war? Not much honouring going on there.

There are times when war is necessary. The first world war was not one of those. Remembrance came from that

DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

WILFRED OWEN - DULCE ET DECORUM EST, Text of poem and notes

That was what remembrance day began on. The second world war probably was a needed war. Again we remembered the loss and pain.

When Remembrance Day was Remembrance Day, when it was a day to remember the losses of war, it had a place...a day to celebrate perpetual war is something else and that is what we have moved into.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I don't think its Connie.

i agree....

 

[daveman]

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

Marine Major General Smedley Butler

 

[daveman]

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things, the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
― John Stuart Mill


Looks like Mill nailed you, bloodribbon.

Ya, Mill was ok for a British libo.

He got at least this one thing right. He knew a pussy when he saw one.

 

[Unkotare]

There should be nothing short of contempt for Veteran's Day. As long as it is not a day in fierce opposition to war, what the hell is it? How can you honor veterans if not by advocating the abolishment of war? Instead it's like a superficial pat on the back, gee nice job, we really appreciate it. This is such unthinking lunacy, do you remember Vietnam? The staggering loss of life? What was that for? Iraq, Afghanistan?

Does anyone think anymore? Military personnel should ask themselves if there are legitimate reasons for the war in Afghanistan. Can you clearly state them and argue them to the opposition, can you support them with an ethical basis that would justify merciless acts of war? Does the global war on terror sound legitimate, or does it sound more like a propaganda line? There are avenues of discourse to have a critical discussion, but no, let's not even have that discussion. No let's honor the troops, support them, praise them, drown them in Old Glory. And yet and yet, who sends us to war? Politicians. Who trusts politicians? None of this makes any sense at all. If the foreign policy of America is evil, then our troops are dispatchers of evil. You can support a friend who is an addict without supporting their addiction.

Fuck off, you ignorant little piece of shit. You are unworthy of what you take for granted.