Army Missed it's Recruitment Goals - Again.

From what I read in the paper, The army has lowered it's recruiting goals, and then missed 'em. They've been missing their goals for months. It looks like they'll miss the whole-year goal as well as the monthly goals. They are having trouble talking young men and women into joining the army.

Well, duh.

Let's see if I've got the 'deal' the army offers right. The army will train, clothe, feed, and house you for the duration of your enlistment. They will also pay you, but the salary is so low that some soldiers go on food stamp. That hardly counts. In return all they want is to fly you half way around the world, where random people will try to kill you.

Yes, I can hear the strains of "Over There" in the background. I know that 'the tree of liberty must, from time to time, be watered with the blood of patriots'. I've read all the books and seen all the John Wayne movies I can stand. This war isn't about freedom. It isn't about 'doing the right thing' or 'liberating Iran' or 'liberating Afghanistan. It's about liberating hundreds of billions of tax dollars and funneling them into private hands. Our Brave Boys in Blue(tm) aren't fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way this time. They're fighting for cheap gasoline. And it's not working. We're still paying 2 bucks a gallon for it.

I'm sorry folks, I'm so mad about this one, I'm almost incoherent.

It's not bad enough that they want to waste lives in pursuit of oil and/or money. It's not bad enough that they rob the treasury and tell us it's patriotism. No, they want us to VOLUNTEER to go get killed for their profits. AND THEY ARE SURPRISED WHEN WE DON'T VOLUNTEER.

I've been offended by this war from day one. Now I'm insulted, too.

So, how long before the draft is reinstated? If I were an 18-22-year-old-male, I'd be checking out job prospects in Canada.

Good Luck, boys. See you when the war is over.

The word is 'Honor'

You don't hear that word much anymore. It seems to be out-of-date, old-fashioned, even archaic. If someone does the 'right thing' and says 'honor demanded it' we'd think he was some kind of nut.

Ask around: do young people today think honor is an outmoded idea only fit for late movies and knights-in-shining-armor, or is honor an inner strength? From what I read in the papers, it seems honor has been superceeded by profit or expedience. We no longer do the right thing, we do the easier, profitable thing.

OK, show of hands: how many of you are now surprised when it turns out some CEO was robbing the stockholders/employees of his company? How many are surprised when they find out he stole a hundred million dollars but now will have to pay a five million dollar fine. AND spend six months in jail(*).

Yep, that's what I thought. We don't expect our leaders to be honorable. We don't expect them to do the right thing, because it's the right thing.

If politicians and CEOs are assumed to be self-serving slime, how do you look a kid in the eye and tell him 'honesty is the best policy'?

Good night, and thanks for listening.

(*) Jail for multi-millionairs looks more like a country club with bars than the steel cages you see in the movies. I'm sure it's still not fun, but it isn't bread-and-water-and-solitary-confinment. It may even be a higher standard of living than the people they stole from.

The Expectation of Truth

Do we even expect our leaders to tell the truth anymore?

A few years ago, maybe a generation ago, the assumption that we made was that the boss wouldn't lie to us. If he did, he was a rotten guy. The good guys NEVER lie. They might not talk, but they would not lie.

Think about it: in those old movies, if the hero was being tortured, did he ever LIE to the bad guys? or did he just suffer in silence? He suffered. And when the Captain turned to the rest of the crew, did he say something like "Gentlemen, there is some kind of trouble in the engines, but we expect the Chief to get them back online shortly. In the meantime, I'll be continuing with my personal examination of the lifeboats" or did he say "Gentlemen, we've been hit below the waterline, we're taking on water and will surely sink. Prepare to abandon ship and my God have mercy on our souls."

The second sounds like an old movie, doesn't it? We expected our Scoutmaster, Priest, and Doctor to give it to us straight. If there was any 'bending of the truth' it would be in our best interests. Remember lines like, "Give it to me strainght, Doc, I can take it."

We don't expect that anymore, do we? We expect our Doctors to proscribe drugs that give the best sales incentives. We expect the Banker to lie to us about profits. We don't believe a word from our Goverment officials. I begin to understand why so many people are still willing to vote for George Bush. He lied to us over and over on many. many subjects (Iraq & WMD, Top Ten List of Lies, and whole lists of lies) and people still intend to vote for him.

Bluntly, He lied to us about why we are going to war. He sent almost one thousand young men and women to their deaths for no good reason. He lied to us about our taxes, about his drug use, his drinking and driving. At this point, if it turned up he was actually a woman named 'Georgette' I wouldn't be surprised.

And that's my point. We don't expect him to tell us the truth. We don't expect Kerry to tell the truth. Even if he is. We don't believe him. We don't believe the goverment when it tells us ANYTHING.

Or the banker, the scoutmaster, etc, etc, etc.

I'm sorry folks, I can't even joke about this one. It seems that the bad guy finally won one.

Good night, and thanks for listening.

Elections

Am I the only one who is already tired of the presidential election? I know, I know I should be paying attention, but the media has already made up their minds. We have the Approved Images(TM):

Bush: well-meaning, stumbles over his words, but a real cowboy. He'll get the job done. He may lie to us from time to time, but all in a good cause. And he's more sinned against that sinning. That rotten CIA is always telling him lies...

Kerry: effete, well-meaning but lacking in charisma. He would never have gotten us into the war, but that's a bad thing because he couldn't run a War on terrorism(TM). He flip-flops on the issues too much to be a good leader.

Both of those images are over-simplified to the point of being wrong. Neither man is (by any stretch of the imagination) a fool. You don't get into THAT level of politics and stay a fool. There are too many sharks in that water.

But we'll hear more sound bites, and fewer insightful articles that really compare the two men and there style. More chances to hear what kind of undies they wear and fewer chances to hear what they would do about job creation.

You know, when the net began to get important, I really thought that this would be the medium that let us get some stories with meat. Maybe we don't want meat. Maybe I should just sit down, shut up, and eat my network pablum.

Nah, probably not.

-Dave Reed

Vacation

I read in the paper today that Americans take fewer, shorter vacations than anyone else in the world. Frankly, I haven't decided whether I'm outraged or proud. On the one hand, there's that "wow, what manly men we are! We never take breaks, we just work until we drop" thing. Sort of a work-ethic gone mad. You know you've been there. You've bragged to your friends about how busy/overworked you are. You've probably even tried to one-up your spouse with how hard you had to work this week. You know you have. We're Americans and we're proud of how hard we work.

But... There's also the slightly whiny voice that says "Howcum he gets a month off work, and I only get two weeks?" And now I find that the "corporate culture" is to work too many hours and never take a day off. Are we that scared of the next round of layoffs? Or are we trying to get ahead. Is it fear or ambition. Heck, I can't even answer honestly for myself. Can you?

The upshot of the article I read was that overwork is killing productivity. We are becomming a nation of overworked, underpaid, snarling, snapping grouches who never get anything done.

Hmmm.. I'll fit right in.

-Dave Reed

First Post

I suppose everyone starts a blog with no real idea what's going to end up in it. I certainly couldn't give you details but I have a general idea. I'm going to comment on our world. I hope this will help me make sense of things. I certainly hope that someone will read this and keep me honest. Not let me get away with sloppy thinking. Not let an unvoiced assumption go by.

At least, that's my plan. We'll see how it works.

Don't expect real regular publication. About once a week I should get something up here. It depends on just how aggravated the mayor/governor/president make me.

-Dave Reed