Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Warriors

Conservatives love to pick at spending legislation, uncovering fiscally irrelevant pork and casting it as a typical example of liberal profligacy. Well, there's an expenditure of taxpayer dollars that not only wastes money, it's offensive. And conservatives love it. I'm talking about the "Warrior" video forced on moviegoers before every film:



According to this piece of arrant propaganda, joining the National Guard means that you are
  • a rock star
  • a NASCAR racer
  • a social worker winning the hearts and minds of grateful street arabs
  • a fireman (will the right wing never stop exploiting the 9/11 dead?)
  • a star in your very own war movie in which no one is killed or maimed by an IED
You are definitely not
  • killed or maimed by an IED
  • hated as an occupier by the local population
  • shooting civilians
  • inadequately trained for police work
  • poorly armored
  • losing a civilian job to serve as a cats-paw for discredited neocon ideologues
BTW, Kid Rock -- you're 37 and the maximum for enlisting in the Army or Army Reserves is 42. If this is so heroic and such a great thing, why don't you sign up?...

GOP congressman may not like the recovery package, but their governors sure do...

Buckle up: Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says that the economy is in for a long, hard ride...

The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology has canceled its scheduled convention in New Orleans because of the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act, which permits public schools to teach alternatives to evolution:
The SCIB leadership could not support New Orleans as our meeting venue because of the official position of the state in weakening science education and specifically attacking evolution in science curriculum...


R.I.P., Luigi Paulino Alfredo Francesco Antonio Balassoni, a.k.a Louie Bellson. Here's to the man Duke Ellington called "the world's greatest drummer":


13 comments:

Roy said...

Remember when Rock 'n' Roll was the music of protest? When it was about pride in being different, traveling against the current? So sad! Kid Rock needs to go back to school and learn how to stop being a kid.

Sad to hear that Louie's gone. I know two people, at least, who will probably be heading out to LA for the memorial service. I think I remember him best as Pearl Bailey's husband and music director. Oh yeah, and as the composer of "The Hawk Talks." Farewell Louie.

Patricia said...

Who exactly listens to Kid Rock. I know a fair amount of younger people with various musical tastes. None of them include Kid Rock.

K. said...

Kid Rock is a piece of work: He endorsed Bush in 2004 and campaigned for McCain.

Anonymous said...

See Kid Rock's character in Joe Dirt and you'll understand that he was playing himself. Don't laugh Christopher Walken drops a few memorable lines in the movie that redeemed it in my eyes. What cornball flag waving pablum for the broke and hopeless kids he'd talk into getting their asses blown off over there. I agree with Zen above too none of the younger people I know from my 20-30ish nephews to my daughters' teen friends listen to him and definitely none of the urban minority kids I teach even seem to know who he is. He is a true republican whore and that commercial is sickening.

K. said...

"Remember when Rock 'n' Roll was the music of protest?"

Speaking of which, we're going to see Richie Havens this Friday. His most recent CD has a terrific cover of -- believe it or not -- "Won't Get Fooled Again."

Frank Partisan said...

The Democrats haven't been bold in practice, against Pentagon spending.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

thank goodness I've been spared being subjected to the warrior vid - i guess the art house where I go to see movies doesn't engage in promoting the warrior mindset....but curious, I did go see the curious case of bb at a nearby megaplex and they didn't have any recruitment vids either....that theater advertised all sorts of things, tv shows, and non-profit causes before the reruns...

K. said...

Ren: I've become convinced that the best thing we can do for the military and for the country is to reduce the military to such as size that we can't go to war without a draft.

Mouse: You're lucky. We've been hit with enlistment ads at our megaplexes ever since I can remember. The videos are a new tactic, one I find particularly odious.

For the record, I don't think that anyone who chooses a career in the military after careful and honest consideration has made a dishonorable choice. But these videos are blatant appeals to kids who are social misfits or unsure of what they want to do with their lives after high school. And we're paying for them.

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen the Kid Rock video -- we get (or got) "Citizen Soldier" by 3 Doors Down.
The whole commercials before the movie thing pisses me off.

K. said...

Paying to watch commercials is bad enough. Paying to watch military propaganda is galling.

I call "Citizen Soldier" the "playing Army video." Can you imagine what a horrific experience a major bullet wound during the Revolutionary War must been? No Medevac teams, no anesthetic, doctors who were doctors only because they knew slightly more about anatomy than anyone else. I missed all that in the video.

Anonymous said...

You and I both know from visiting Revolutionary War and Civil War battlefields that if you got hurt, you were in trouble. The surgeon's kits are simply scary.
My wife's great-grandfather was a doctor/surgeon for the Confederate Army. I cannot even imagine what that was like.

Kathy said...

Lucky for me I very seldom go to movie theaters. I would haven't the stomach for popcorn after watching that propaganda.

Kid Rock is like Ted Nugent, and I don't think that loud mouth ever served our country either. How can someone who never put their own life in danger encourage someone else to?

? said...

Something tells me the conservatives must be loving this. But I guess, and like President Clinton said sometime this week, that they may slow down or even turn around all together 'should' the public be seen to be giving the much needed support. Thanks for sharing the links