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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Oct 19, 2017 13:02:12 GMT -5
And maybe Trump shouldn't be president. Mike Well maybe somebody else can try winning an election. My bad Peter. I was replying to something John said, about maybe we shouldn't be accepting 18 yr olds in the service, and I thought his comment was at the end of the thread. But there was another page of comments, so it didn't make sense contextually. I do have my doubts about Trump finishing his term of office, one way or another. Mike
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Post by Doug on Oct 19, 2017 13:05:37 GMT -5
Seems hard to attack his policies so attack the man. Unemployment claims lowest in 40 yrs Economy booming
Edit: Not saying his policies had anything to do with that but perception is reality. Personally I don't believe government can do anything to help the economy but it can hurt the economy.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 19, 2017 13:10:01 GMT -5
I got a lot of insight into military service from conversations here years ago (during the Bush years) with Dharmabum. He was quite uncomfortable with people thanking him for his service. To him it was a job like any other, and in many respects a damn good one. He pointed out that much of the military never sees combat. In addition insurance actuaries tend to rate an 18 year old in the service safer than your average 18 year old male. And there's travel, training, education, health coverage, and job preference benefits that aren't available to non-military.
And the heroics are certainly there, but probably not in excess of any number of other occupations.
I've been around many military (wife's civilian DOD) and I don't think there are many of them that would mind me saying c'mon over and have a beer on the deck and we'll tell lies about how great we are, but I'll pass on the mushy maudlin stuff.
Huzzah!
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Oct 19, 2017 13:22:51 GMT -5
Seems hard to attack his policies so attack the man. Unemployment claims lowest in 40 yrs Economy booming Edit: Not saying his policies had anything to do with that but perception is reality. Personally I don't believe government can do anything to help the economy but it can hurt the economy. Uh huh. And more homelessness than I've ever seen in my life. Mike On edit: I don't blame Trump for the explosion of homeless, the past few years. Both sides of the isle own that, along with their corporate masters.
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Post by Doug on Oct 19, 2017 13:41:45 GMT -5
I got a lot of insight into military service from conversations here years ago (during the Bush years) with Dharmabum. He was quite uncomfortable with people thanking him for his service. To him it was a job like any other, and in many respects a damn good one. He pointed out that much of the military never sees combat. In addition insurance actuaries tend to rate an 18 year old in the service safer than your average 18 year old male. And there's travel, training, education, health coverage, and job preference benefits that aren't available to non-military. And the heroics are certainly there, but probably not in excess of any number of other occupations. I've been around many military (wife's civilian DOD) and I don't think there are many of them that would mind me saying c'mon over and have a beer on the deck and we'll tell lies about how great we are, but I'll pass on the mushy maudlin stuff. Huzzah! True. Even in VN if I'd stayed on top of my mountain I'd have never seen any combat. And every trip I made to VN I volunteered for because it was a good gig money wise. TDY Per diem, combat pay, flight pay. Not as big a racket as $500 hammers but a racket all the same.
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Post by Chesapeake on Oct 19, 2017 13:57:13 GMT -5
Epaul - sympathies for having to sit through so many Greenwood spots. Too much breast-beating for my taste. When I filed into a room at Ft. Jackson for my first basic-training infantry tactics class, the second-lieutenant in charge had hooked up a little 45 rpm record changer and was playing Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans." It was quite a moment for me - the first time I really got the idea that I had taken my place in a line of American soldiers stretching back to the early days of the country.
Here's another song I like. Maybe there's a seat in this band waiting for Gus.
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 19, 2017 14:13:22 GMT -5
I long ago located exactly what bothers me about "I'm Proud to be an American,"* (aside from the kind of virtue signalling that's a near-inevitable part of such songs): it's in the situation implied by the bolded passages: If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life, And I had to start again with just my children and my wife, I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today, 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away.
And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. Now, it's trivially easy to construct a back-story in which the things-gone are the result of natural disaster, economic distress, or catastrophic illness, with the speaker able to rebuild his life thanks to America's socio-economic environment, which in turn is the result of the sacrifices made by our military across a couple centuries (the song is from 1984). But that "at least," coupled with "they can't take that away from me" strikes a note of paranoia. Who might "they" be? From the way the song has been used for the last three decades, I suspect that one answer is "guys like me." (And yeah, I know that Beyoncé has done it, but she, like Ray Charles with "America the Beautiful," did a bit of reworking.) The fetishizing of the flag is a tell, so when I hear "I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me," I don't think what we're meant to also picture union organizers and strikers killed by Pinkertons and company goons, or miners dying of black lung, or freedom riders murdered by the Klan. There's more than one way to be a decent, respectful, grateful citizen, and more than one way to express attachment to the nation. "i sing of olaf" indeed. *The actual title seems to be "God Bless the U.S.A." and I'm not going there.
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Post by brucemacneill on Oct 19, 2017 14:20:34 GMT -5
"I suspect that one answer is "guys like me."
Congratulations you got it right.
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 19, 2017 14:21:32 GMT -5
Kiss kiss, Bruce.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Oct 19, 2017 14:22:42 GMT -5
I long ago located exactly what bothers me about "I'm Proud to be an American,"* (aside from the kind of virtue signalling that's a near-inevitable part of such songs): it's in the situation implied by the bolded passages: If tomorrow all the things were gone I'd worked for all my life, And I had to start again with just my children and my wife, I'd thank my lucky stars to be living here today, 'Cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away.
And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. Now, it's trivially easy to construct a back-story in which the things-gone are the result of natural disaster, economic distress, or catastrophic illness, with the speaker able to rebuild his life thanks to America's socio-economic environment, which in turn is the result of the sacrifices made by our military across a couple centuries (the song is from 1984). But that "at least," coupled with "they can't take that away from me" strikes a note of paranoia. Who might "they" be? From the way the song has been used for the last three decades, I suspect that one answer is "guys like me." (And yeah, I know that Beyoncé has done it, but she, like Ray Charles with "America the Beautiful," did a bit of reworking.) The fetishizing of the flag is a tell, so when I hear "I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me," I don't think what we're meant to also picture union organizers and strikers killed by Pinkertons and company goons, or miners dying of black lung, or freedom riders murdered by the Klan. There's more than one way to be a decent, respectful, grateful citizen, and more than one way to express attachment to the nation. "i sing of olaf" indeed. *The actual title seems to be "God Bless the U.S.A." and I'm not going there. That is one godawful song. You have nicely summed up why.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Oct 19, 2017 14:24:07 GMT -5
No matter your politics, this seems like one of the more indisputable conclusions one can come to after observing Trump for any length of time. And what exactly qualifies you to determine that I would be so stupid as to see things that way? Not sure what your point is here.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 19, 2017 14:33:23 GMT -5
And what exactly qualifies you to determine that I would be so stupid as to see things that way? Not sure what your point is here. You're pretty certain that your viewpoint is universal truth. Just wondering who died and left you as the sole arbiter of truth.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 19, 2017 14:38:00 GMT -5
But that "at least," coupled with "they can't take that away from me" strikes a note of paranoia. Who might "they" be? Doesn't take much more than a cursory breeze through the Federal Register to discover who "they" are.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2017 14:55:39 GMT -5
I'm chuckling here, as I realize the main difference between me at 18 and me at 51 is the absence of one letter - a "t". Tail and ail? Immortal and Immoral.
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Post by casualplayerpaul on Oct 19, 2017 15:00:24 GMT -5
Not sure what your point is here. You're pretty certain that your viewpoint is universal truth. Just wondering who died and left you as the sole arbiter of truth. You don't seem especially plagued by insecurity regarding the accuracy of your own personal views. My observation is that Trump reveals himself, on a daily basis, to be precisely the type of person Chesepeake described in an earlier post (that he 'lacks some vital element of basic humanity, including concern for people other than himself"), and I agree with him. If you see humanity where I see none, I'd be curious how you come to that conclusion.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2017 15:01:13 GMT -5
I will be, voluntarily, taking a 30 day suspension from this forum. Anyone who has trouble seeing that this thread began in a spirit of incivility and downright trollery is welcome to applaud.
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Post by james on Oct 19, 2017 15:19:48 GMT -5
Immortal and Immoral. I thought it was maybe Mister and miser. You have never really seemed like the sort of bloke who would fail to get the beers in. Not surprised I was wrong
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 19, 2017 15:32:01 GMT -5
You're pretty certain that your viewpoint is universal truth. Just wondering who died and left you as the sole arbiter of truth. You don't seem especially plagued by insecurity regarding the accuracy of your own personal views. My observation is that Trump reveals himself, on a daily basis, to be precisely the type of person Chesepeake described in an earlier post (that he 'lacks some vital element of basic humanity, including concern for people other than himself"), and I agree with him. If you see humanity where I see none, I'd be curious how you come to that conclusion. I watch him and largely ignore the media and leftist bullshit. Most everything they think is evil (like this topic) can be interpreted differently if you allow yourself to.
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Post by millring on Oct 19, 2017 15:45:47 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 19, 2017 15:47:35 GMT -5
Doesn't take much more than a cursory breeze through the Federal Register to discover who "they" are. The song was released in 1984, toward the end of the first half of the Reagan administration, and Greenwood has written that he composed it after the shooting down of KAL Flight 007 and that he thought that the nation "just need to be more united." But the song's implied situation doesn't sound like a the aftermath of a war with Russia--there's still a free America, where the speaker can rebuild because "at least . . . I'm free." Of course, in the thirty-plus years since it was played at the 1984 GOP national convention, it has been adopted by conservative politicians and the military. Nevertheless, Greenwood didn't and still doesn't think of the song as political: www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-lee-greenwood-anthem-gop-inauguration-20170119-story.htmlBut then, artists don't get to control how their work is viewed and used, and sometimes even they are not entirely aware of what they're actually saying. I suspect that the "at least" might just be sloppy lyric-crafting--Greenwood has said that the song poured out of him, and I wonder whether a second or third pass through might have resulted in a line that scanned but didn't sound so whiny. Or maybe that's exactly how Greenwood felt: beseiged, put-upon, left with nothing but his grit and determination in a political environment where "at least" he was free. (Though by this time the writer himself was well into a successful music career. So who is he representing in the song?)
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