Latest on twitter:
Dear Robot Heart Politics
Just so you know the movie, Brothers, is coming out this weekend. Since you’re so big on stereotyping (I believe my favorite part of your rant was when you implied that most soldiers go into service because of lack of education and/or for financial gain), I wanted to make sure you knew that Brothers is just a movie. Most soldiers’ brothers don’t go sleeping with the wife of their presumed dead sibling.
I wonder if your sibling - who you said isn’t deployed to a current war-torn country (if I recall) - knows you feel that way about people who have chosen to serve their country? My brother is actually of above average intelligence, a college graduate and joined because he felt it was his calling after 9/11. You remember 9/11, right, Robot Heart Politics? I believe a lot of men and women enlisted after 9/11. I mean I don’t have your fancy statistics, but I know one example: my brother. I didn’t read about him off some website or Wikipedia article.
I especially enjoyed your taking me to task about saying the asshole who posted that horrific caption has the right to say what he wants. He does. As do I. Apparently, that went straight over your head. I also enjoyed you saying that I romanticize war because I said freedom isn’t free. It’s not. Our rights have not come without a price. War is not the only price. How many people have been killed on our own soil, fighting for their own civil liberties? Further, I can’t believe you would say I’m romanticizing the war, merely because I believe in and support the soldiers. If you had read and actually understood what I was saying, you would have seen that I said I myself am not in favor of the war.
You’re actually no better than the blind patriots who you assumed I was one of merely because I believe in my brother and all of the other men and women putting their lives on hold to do something they believe in. Both sides want to believe in their view of the war so badly, neither takes into consideration the actual people involved. It’s all statistics and headlines and stereotypes. Your stereotype of soldiers is no different than a redneck’s stereotype of Iraqis.
You broke down my blog entry and made suggestions as to how I could’ve made a better argument. Again, you missed the point. Mine was not an argument. Mine was standing up for family. Mine was believing in people who are doing more for what they believe in then I’ve ever had the guts to do.
You can’t read about that in your precious statistics.
I hope - especially for your sibling’s sake- you get your head out of your ass.
Sincerely, Lacey
Incredibly proud big sister of a US Army Lieutenant, who, has not killed any children.
I haven’t seen, or even heard of, Brothers. So I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.
My brother knows exactly how I feel about the wars and about the military in general. He has known me his whole life, after all, and it’s not as if my outspokenness is limited to the internet or only started since he enlisted. He’s never had any problems with my opinions…at least, not on this topic.
And, yes, as a matter of fact. I do remember 9/11. Your point?
I also have something other than statistics. MY brother. Half my freaking hometown. What? You think you’re the only one who personally knows someone in the military?
My “stereotype” of soldiers is not much of a stereotype. I happily acknowledge that there are plenty of soldiers who think they are doing the right thing and who are very proud of what they do. And I don’t mean to insinuate that even the soldiers who disagree with the war aren’t to some degree proud of their service. Many are. My brother is. Certainly not all soldiers are child killers, and very few of them are that way intentionally. My point is, not all are the way you make them out to be. And I get tired of people projecting their ideas about these wars in specific or war in general onto the people fighting. You have no idea what their opinions on the war are or why they are fighting.
You are more than welcome to defend your brother. Just don’t throw my brother or someone else’s brother or sister in with your argument, because you have no fucking idea what they think or why they fight.
I’m glad you are proud of your brother. I am very proud of mine, too. I’m sorry you seem to think there is something lacking in my love and concern for my brother simply because my thoughts on the war, or his thoughts on the war for that matter, don’t mirror your own. You’re more than welcome to continue making baseless assumptions about me and my family, though, I guess. It’s not as if they have any bearing on reality.
I’m sorry that the reality of war, and of many soldiers, is not in keeping with your idealistic views about the virtues of dropping bombs on people. I’ll try to keep that in mind, though, the next time I hear about soldiers who do not want to fight (but are deployed anyhow), who think this war is wrong, who have become seriously screwed up because of the things they have witnessed, or who have attacked and killed Iraqi civilians. These people CAN’T exist because Lacey thinks war is all about heroes and bravery and courage. And if Lacey thinks it, then by god, anyone else who wants to disagree must have their head wedged firmly between their ass cheeks…nevermind those pesky statistics.
"As much as I hate abortions and love babies, I know that if I was ever faced in a difficult situation then I will do what I feel is best for me, the child, and any other parties involved. A woman’s body is personal, what she decides to do with it is personal, whatever the reason or circumstance, a woman’s decision is personal. To put it simple, if you don’t like abortions then don’t have one, but you have no right to take that choice from someone else."
Still Thinking It's Awesome That Yahoo Syndicates My Stories
Yahoo users leave the best talkbacks/article comments in town.
Also, worried about the future of mankind a little based on some of these?
That’s terrifying.
“The International Children’s Peace Prize by KidsRights has gone this year to 16-year-old Baruani from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He received his award on Thursday for his radio show ‘Children for Children’.
“Buruani lives in Tanzania and stands up for fellow child refugees. By means of his radio programme, he provides a platform for children to speak out about the problems they experience as refugees.”
"I wish Hollywood would recognize that, in the real world, women who aren’t white, thin and conventionally beautiful do, in fact, live interesting lives. Lives worth making movies about, in fact - lives in which they aren’t relegated to being friends or side characters, lives which are about other things than their race, weight, or looks."
Commenter susanstohelit (via sarahmc) (via gauntlet)
One look at the stories Hollywood considers interesting, and it’s pretty clear that their definition of interesting and ours are probably two very different things.
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The last three decades especially have seen the relentless acceleration of this systemic evolution. The quality of life for ordinary Americans, those outside the golden circle of the elite and their retainers, has decayed immeasurably – and measurably. Stagnant wages. Degraded infrastructure. A poisoned food chain. Whole communities — with all their social, political, cultural and family networks — gutted by the heedless flight of capital to cheap labor (and slave labor) markets abroad, and by the dissolution of an embodied economic life into the shadow-play of high finance, the ghostly manipulation of numbers that produces nothing of value except gargantuan profits for a very few. A bonfire of public amenities, making daily life harder, harsher, constricted, diminished. Ever-growing social and economic disparity, shrinking the circle of opportunity. Two million citizens behind bars, in prisons overflowing with non-violent drug cases – nightmarish institutions given over to gangs, neglect, punitive regimens and private profit.
Yet this long, grinding process of diminishment and degradation has been accompanied by a never-ending expansion of the war machine into a dominant position over almost every aspect of American life. Not even the ending of the Cold War slowed this excrescence; defense budgets grew, new enemies were found, there were new missions, new commands, new wars. The ruling elite of American society were – and are – obviously willing to let the welfare, prosperity, opportunities and liberties of the common people sink deeper and deeper into the mire, in order to finance a system structured around war, with all the attendant corruption, brutalization and accrual of authoritarian power that war brings.
This is the system we have. It’s right out in the open. There is a deep-rooted expectation – and not, alas, just among the elite — that the world should jump to America’s tune, by force if necessary. And when, for whatever reason, some part of the world does not jump – or bump and grind – to the Potomac beat, then it becomes a “problem” that must be “solved,” by one means or another, with, of course, “all options on the table,” all the time. And whether these “problems” are approached with blunt, bullying talk or a degree of cajolery and pious rhetoric, the chosen stance is always backed up with the ever-present threat of military action, up to and including the last of those “options” that always decorate the table: utter annihilation.
This is not even questioned, must less debated or challenged. America’s right to intervene in the affairs other nations by violent force (along with a constant series of illegal covert activities) – and to impose an empire of military plantations across the length and breadth of the entire planet – is the basic assumption, the underlying principle, the fervently held faith shared by both national parties, and the entire elite Establishment. And if you want to have the necessary instruments to maintain such a state of hegemony, then you must indeed structure your society and economy around war.
"Chris Floyd (via jhnbrssndn) (via unburyingthelead)
"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch ‘The Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ and our muslim president is there, what a load…..try to convince me that wasn’t done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it….w…hen the answer should simply be ‘yes’…."
The Mayor of Arlington, Tennessee
He then went on to say: “…you obama people need to move to a muslim country…oh wait, that’s America….pitiful.”
And then went on to say: “you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different……..”
And then went on to say: “It’s ridiculous for someone to send my Facebook post. You guys are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.”
(via chuckmore)
There are so many things wrong with this…and a lot of the comments that are cheerleading this gross ignorance.
"One night after a long day of campaigning, when the haters had made my spirits reach a nadir, I looked into Todd’s eyes, which were as blue as the stripes on Old Glory, and too representing truth and loyalty, and he looked back at me with a twinkle of determination which I hadn’t seen since I told him my goal of having another baby in my fifties and naming it Tron, then did I know for sure that I could carry on, like he, and we, have done together all of these years on this long, Iron Dog race of a marriage that is at once grueling and celestial, onerous and majestic."
Ann Sensenbrenner, 1st place in Slate’s “write like Sarah Palin” contest (via harharhar) (via bthny)
"During the worst campus shooting spree in American history, Virginia Tech officials locked down some administrative buildings and told their own families more than an hour and a half before the rest of the campus was alerted, according to revisions made in the state’s official report on the tragedy."
Report on Virginia Tech Shooting Finds Notification Delays - NYTimes.com
"I don’t imagine that 1970s feminists envisaged the rejection of educational opportunities, the refusal of family planning options, and the graft of bringing up children alone and on the breadline, as brave-new-world female choices for a post-liberation era, any more than they envisaged the advent of boob-jobs, pole-dancing supermodels and store-card bankruptcy. Actually, it is a big fat irony that feminists are now obliged to defend the right of lone mothers to stay at home with their young children, when the initial idea was to liberate women from the obligation to, well, stay at home with their young children."
Is feminism really killing the family? (via gauntlet)
The Guardian writes some variation on this exact same article every other week, and the treatment of the topic is never any less tired.
