American governmental culture fetishizes over the military as a concept in general, while calling out other nations that fetishize over their militaries as bad. Singing the national anthem about bombs bursting at sporting events like that’s something to be happy or proud about. The tour of “hey it’s military week, everyone dress in fatigue-adjacent colors and some random service members get paraded about” that happens every year. Rich politicians saying poignant words on solemn days thanking service members for their service, to then be whisked away by their security patrol and fleet of bulletproof vehicles to go back to their caviar swimming pools, never having had to even consider, really consider, killing a person, or losing a limb, friend’s blood spattered across your face.
America is built on advertising. Unique thoughts need not apply. You’re told what to buy, where to buy it, who to hate, who to love, where to live. You’re never given any programs to back any of that up. Abortion is bad because it kills children, yet after those children are born, they can just die homeless with no medical care. We are to love our troops while treating them like detritus. We support them with a parade after a mission, then they’re on their own. If they die on an “important” mission, well, they’re heroes. That term alone, hero. America uses the word hero when we don’t want to feel bad that someone volunteered their life for something we were too cowardly to do ourselves.
9/11 first responders, as another example, that Jon Stewart spent a good chunk of his life trying to make the government honor their own deal, and even now, the government is still trying to undo it. People who, of the ones that lived, are already going to have shorter more complicated lives. We don’t even have the decency to let this handful of humans live as comfortable (not lavish, without pain) as they can, given what they tried to do to save so many people while buildings and airplanes are crashing down around them. We currently hate the immigrants that pick our food, clean our businesses, lose limbs in meat packing plants, so we can enjoy a $5 hunk of beef at the supermarket, while their children build our cars, so much so that we are willing to violate the Constitution to “get rid” of them in the most cruel way we can think of.
If we even actually followed through on caring about soldiers. If the VA was a temple of success, and veterans actually received proper treatment, care, housing, instead of being abandoned to die in the streets. If the government did one actual thing to back up their claims, instead of market spin. That’d still be a disappointment because we’d be a military-state, but at least it would be truthful, and people would join just the military for the promise of a good life. Instead, it is just a flimsy sham from every direction, trading souls for caviar swimming pools for the few.
About the only thing we are truly consistently good at in the USA is hate, and it has been that way for a long time.
American governmental culture fetishizes over the military as a concept in general, while calling out other nations that fetishize over their militaries as bad. Singing the national anthem about bombs bursting at sporting events like that’s something to be happy or proud about. The tour of “hey it’s military week, everyone dress in fatigue-adjacent colors and some random service members get paraded about” that happens every year. Rich politicians saying poignant words on solemn days thanking service members for their service, to then be whisked away by their security patrol and fleet of bulletproof vehicles to go back to their caviar swimming pools, never having had to even consider, really consider, killing a person, or losing a limb, friend’s blood spattered across your face.
America is built on advertising. Unique thoughts need not apply. You’re told what to buy, where to buy it, who to hate, who to love, where to live. You’re never given any programs to back any of that up. Abortion is bad because it kills children, yet after those children are born, they can just die homeless with no medical care. We are to love our troops while treating them like detritus. We support them with a parade after a mission, then they’re on their own. If they die on an “important” mission, well, they’re heroes. That term alone, hero. America uses the word hero when we don’t want to feel bad that someone volunteered their life for something we were too cowardly to do ourselves.
9/11 first responders, as another example, that Jon Stewart spent a good chunk of his life trying to make the government honor their own deal, and even now, the government is still trying to undo it. People who, of the ones that lived, are already going to have shorter more complicated lives. We don’t even have the decency to let this handful of humans live as comfortable (not lavish, without pain) as they can, given what they tried to do to save so many people while buildings and airplanes are crashing down around them. We currently hate the immigrants that pick our food, clean our businesses, lose limbs in meat packing plants, so we can enjoy a $5 hunk of beef at the supermarket, while their children build our cars, so much so that we are willing to violate the Constitution to “get rid” of them in the most cruel way we can think of.
If we even actually followed through on caring about soldiers. If the VA was a temple of success, and veterans actually received proper treatment, care, housing, instead of being abandoned to die in the streets. If the government did one actual thing to back up their claims, instead of market spin. That’d still be a disappointment because we’d be a military-state, but at least it would be truthful, and people would join just the military for the promise of a good life. Instead, it is just a flimsy sham from every direction, trading souls for caviar swimming pools for the few.
About the only thing we are truly consistently good at in the USA is hate, and it has been that way for a long time.