In World War I, members of the military were given a vague promise of a cash bonus that would be distributed in the future. When the Depression came along, many of the cash strapped vets thought that would be a good time to collect their money. They flocked to Washington D. C. to present their idea that the time had arrived to collect the I.O.U. They set up camp but were soon run off at gunpoint by troops led by a distinguished West Point graduate who was slated for greatness. Douglas McArthur, who was known by the nickname “dugout Dug,” seemed to show more valor when facing unarmed Americans than he did in France during WWI or later in his bunker in Australia during WWII.
According to local lore, soldiers from the North camped out in San Francisco after the Civil War. These days tourists flock to shop in the neighborhood and most remain blissfully unaware of how Union Square got its name.
In the late seventies, American Vets injured in Vietnam, congregated at the Westwood Military Hospital in Los Angeles and occupied the lobby for some time. Early one morning, they were hustled out by the police. There were numerous TV crews on hand, but only two still photographers. They were both working for the Santa Monica Independent Journal Newspapers and their story might be the subject for a future column, but for now this event provided a career boost for one college photojournalism student and a confirmation of a cynical point of view for the other.
Except for a small number of curmudgeonly skeptics, most Americans will believe the promises American politicians repeatedly make to the members of the military and remain unquestioning when the politicians explain their shoddy performances regarding their delivery on those solemn promises.
How many times would your disreputable brother-in-law sell you a decrepit automobile before you start to doubt his sales pitches?
America trusted George W. Bush and only a few ultra Liberal pundits question his judgment in retrospect.
Why haven’t American troops been sent to Libya, Yemen, and/or Syria?
American politicians seem to be having a difficult time selling the voters on the idea that social and medical services for America’s veterans are being forced to be reduced because of austerity budgets while simultaneously building them up for new military adventures in faraway countries.
Buying a shot and a beer at the local tavern for a young Marine who will soon be aboard an LCP approaching Tarawa is one thing, but cheating him out of the medical care he requires when he comes home without his legs, is something very different.
Recently when San Francisco mayor Ed Lee announced that he planned to have all local homeless military veterans in housing by the end of the year, local political activist Mike Zint, who posts political information on the “first they came for the homeless” page on Facebook, responded by saying that it was probably a gambit to provide cover for a program that would sweep the homeless out of sight before the tourists arrive in the Bay Area for Superbowl Fifty.
In an age when the numbers for wounded and homeless women warriors are becoming a major factor in the continuing effort to live up to the promises made to the members of the military, we have noticed one (potential) flaw in the political logic being expressed.
It seems that every effort to provide mass housing for young men are based on the concept of providing each and every one of the cases with a living space that includes space for a TV set, a refrigerator, and room to do some cooking.
If the World’s Laziest Journalist can offer up an opinion that might offend some puritsts: most young men don’t need or want that much space.
Since many young men are used to a military dorm, a ccllege dorm, and in some cases a hostel bunk, perhaps Mayor Ed Lee should consider the idea that one very large facility with a bunk and communal cooking and entertainment facilities would be an austerity budget era way to approach the problem.
What percentage of male homeless veterans require more than a bunk? What percent could exist on the basis of a hostel environment with a dormitory bunk and communal entertainment, bathroom, and cooking facilities?
Isn’t it obvious that a fellow who is sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag in a hobo jungle environment and scrounging meals on the run would have a great improvement in his comfort level rating if he had access to a bunk and locker each night?
What percentage of homeless veterans are men and what percent are women?
Isn’t a small percent of the homeless claustrophobic people who prefer to sleep “under the stars”? If you provided them with a palatial mansion, they would remain uncomfortable.
During the week that this column was being written, the Huffington Post carried a story indicating that the politicians in Washington D. C., are hesitating on taking action which would protect members of the military from predatory conduct by financial institutions.
What percentage of the politician who vote for such ridiculous nonsense are veterans and how many are fat cats who have never served in the military?
Medical care for vets is a perpetual topic for politicians.
Are veterans being treated poorly?
This Saturday is Armed Forces Day but the weekend editions of the nation’s newspapers and the Sunday gabfests will be rife with calls for railroad safety, tributes to B. B. King, and snide remarks about JEB Bush’s family loyalty. It seems quite likely that there will be damn few pundits using the occasion of Armed Forces Day to call for improving the treatment of homeless veterans.
What’s not to love about corporate shills tricking young men with some all American bait and switch salesmanship chicanery to lure them into a lifetime of misery and pain?
What percentage of “our boys” who were killed in action during WWII, died before they were old enough to cast a vote to re-elect the politicians who had sent them off to the war?
There was a popular axiom during the Vietnam era that said; “Old soldiers never die . . . young ones do.”
The disk jockey will play the Pogues song “The band played ‘Waltzing Matida,” Johnny Cash’s version of “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” and the song “Smile for me, my Dianne.” We have to go and re-watch “Coming Home.” Have a “Seventh Heaven” type week.
Koch $ + Fox News + Stepford voters = JEB as 45
When the Bush administration made the preposterous suggestion that plastic sheeting and duct tape should be used to construct air-tight safe rooms in the homes across America, we eagerly anticipated a tsunami of ridicule to appear in the mainstream media but nothing was said. A few days later when a story appeared in the New York Times reporting a sudden spike in the sales of plastic sheeting and duct tape, we fired off a letter to the editor and sent it off via e-mail to their east coast main office.
The next day, Valentine’s Day 2003, there were about a dozen letters to the editor commenting on the feature story in the previous day’s issue. My effort was one of the ones selected. We had mentioned the fact that the absurd suggestion was the recipe for a tragedy involving asphyxiation and the drawing that accompanied the letters on the topic depicted an anthropomorphized house struggling to catch a breath because it was wrapped in plastic.
About noon, later in the day, SecDef (aka Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference and stressed that the suggestion was meant to be metaphoric because if the safe room was air-tight the occupants would die of asphyxiation. To our way of thinking this was the best Valentine’s Day gift we have ever received because it validated our perception that the World’s Laziest Journalist was capable of producing unique and insightful political commentary.
Subsequently, we acquired a collection of books on the esoteric subject of the inadequacies of America’s Free Press. The Preface to “Manufacturing Consent,” by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, says: “If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear, and think about, and to ‘manage’ public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality.”
We had wondered why the media seemed quite lax about a long list of questions. Who did profit from selling airline stocks short right before 9-11? Why was the story about the Bin Laden family being hustled out of the USA quashed? Where did the WMD’s go? Etc.
Was the Stepford press fooling the Stepford voters as part of a mass example of irrational thinking or was there some kind of effort to manufacture consent? If so, could the bottom line be that after years of grumbling and criticizing, the people could be bamboozled into complete unquestioning obedience if the Christian majority in the United States Supreme Court legislated from the bench and declared gay marriages unconstitutional? We’ll soon find out if the conservatives can get away with such outrageous politicizing of the judicial branch of American government.
Could the liberals be coerced by the Free Press into believing that another theft of the Presidency and a restoration of the Bush Dynasty was a valid example of Democracy in action?
The Koch brothers blatantly admitted that they intended to donate $889 million to the Presidential Campaign for the 2016 Presidential Election and it is obvious that not one goddamn cent of that will be used to subsidize the liberal point of view in an effort to bolster the illusion that a national debate will precede the charade that will accompany the election of JEB Bush as the 45th President of the United States.
The media is constantly running new scare stories about how new and elaborate computer hacks are compromising security and ruining lives but the idea that the hackers could work their magic on the electronic voting machines which leave no way to verify the results is universally denounced as a conspiracy theory.
If the electronic voting machines, which have a security Des Key number that is available online, are that good, why isn’t their security program being used to guard the personal data that is being lost everyday online? If it isn’t that good, why do the media persist in promulgating the myth that it is?
When George W. Bush suggested that it might be a good idea for the United States to insert itself into the military situation in the Middle East, some snarky liberals suggested that since the situation was a perpetual series of vicious reprisals in response to barbaric outrages, it might not be such a wise move.
Recently, Jordon announced that it would bolster its efforts to bomb ISIS as a result of the barbaric execution of one of their pilots. The recent Jordanian validation of the Bush decision to become an integral part of what he called “the forever war,” gives the Stepford voters an indication of just how futile dissent has become.
The World’s Laziest Journalist has produced many columns skeptical of the Bush war crimes and policies. Now that President Obama has asked for a renewal of the War Powers Act, we will drop our criticism of the Bush Forever War and assume that America’s Democrats will have a Prodigal Son moment when Obama sends additional troops to fight the bad guys in the Middle East. [Note: Since the name of the bad guys is constantly changing this columnist will just use the generic term “Viet Cong” to designate the enemy in the Middle East.]
If, as some of the Orthodox members of the staff of the Amalgamated Conspiracy Theory Factory assert, some nefarious strategists on the good guy team alerted the Viet Cong about the itinerary that Bob Woodruff would be taking, then the conservatives have scored a trifecta by successfully removing the anchor at all three liberal media TV networks. Dan Rather and Brian Williams might be prone to also suspect that a conspiracy explanation for the downfall of Don Imus might be well founded and not be an example of a paranoid imagination at work. (For extensive coverage of the Brian Williams story check out the media news site done by Jim Romenesko (Google hint: jimromenesko dot com)
When George W. Bush stated that there were WMD’s in Iraq, it led to a war and caused the deaths of many American troops and left many more wounded, crippled and damaged for life, but that was OK with conservatives because the President didn’t know that there were no WMD’s to be found. Brian Williams, has told lies, caused NBC to lose credibility, and stolen valor and therefore, according to the Conservative code of ethics, the liberal media star’s life must be ruined and his career must be destroyed.
Conservatives give complete amnesty to Republican politicians who commit crimes if they ask for God’s forgiveness but liberal media anchors must be held to a much higher standard.
The stigma attached to the Bush Dynasty has just been completely expunged by the President’s request for renewed authorization of the War Powers Act and that clears the way for the election of JEB Bush and removes the need for a Judas goat to lead the Democratic Party.
Is it true that President Obama plans to hold a pro War Powers renewal rally for a limited number of high level members of the Democratic Party and that the exclusive event will be held in Nuremburg Pennsylvania?
Now that the liberals will be retroactively endorsing the Bush war agenda, our columns will focus on other more innocuous topics.
John Stewart is calling it quits. Good liberal punditry is rapidly becoming as old fashioned as linoleum flooring. If Karl Rove’s plan for a thousand year Republican Reich is about to be realized, then, perhaps, the World’s Laziest Journalist can revise the Bucket List and attack certain items with renewed vigor.
Willie Nelson has collaborated with an impressive number of other musicians and rather than criticizing Obama’s endorsement of the Bush war strategy, we will now start a grass roots campaign to encourage fans to demand a collaboration album featuring duets done by Nelson and Mick Jagger.
[Note from the photo editor: We selected an enigmatic snapshot to illustrate this column related to a newsman’s story that mocks the concept of fact-checking. It can’t be a photo of a couple who died on May 23, 1934, if it shows people standing on a 1937 Plymouth.]
Brian Williams is quoted online as saying: “Your are only as good s the coach thinks you are.”
Now the disk jockey will play Kitty Wells’ “I don’t claim to be an angel,” CCR’s “Run through the Jungle,” and Bob Hope’s theme song “Thanks for the memories.” We have to go see if we can buy a WMCA Good Guy t-shirt. Have a “six months vacation without pay” type week.