This Time The Last Man....May Be A Woman

Does anyone but the immediate families and friends know the names or even care about the seven American soldiers who were senselessly allowed to die May 4, in our lost war in Afghanistan simply to save face? But more on them later.

Back on April 22, 1971, a young, decorated Vietnam War veteran  give among the most riveting testimony ever before a Congressional committee. Speaking on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), that shaggy dark haired vet said this which should be taught in every US history class in America:

"Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam someone has to give up his life so the United States doesn't have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can't say we have made a mistake. Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be, and these are his words, 'the first President to lose a war'. We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?  How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?  

History has a tendency to inflict extreme irony on its actors. That eloquent patriot and hero, John Kerry, parlayed his instant fame speaking truth about our criminal and failed Vietnam War into a 28 year run as US Senator, 2004 Presidential candidate and now Secretary of State. His current role includes letting soldiers needlessly die in Afghanistan by pretending we have a valid purpose in continuing to fight that war till it is mercifully concluded on December 31, 2014. Neither John Kerry, nor his boss, President Obama, started the Afghan war, and unlike many of the unrepentant Congressional warmongers like John McCain (Rep. AZ), Lindsay Graham (Rep. SC) and Mark Kirk (Rep. IL), they have the good sense and decency to put a cork, albeit 600 days out, on the bottle of endless blood we've allowed to bleed out for the past eleven and a half years.

We know that so far 2,216 US soldiers have died in Afghanistan for a mistake. We will never know how many thousands of innocent Afghan men, women and children we've needlessly slaughtered because we dare not put a number on it, just like we refuse to acknowledge the two million Vietnamese we slaughtered when John Kerry was playing "shootemup", in the jungle. And quite frankly, our government does not care. If we did we wouldn't be mistakenly bombing Afghan wedding parties to this day simply because a large gathering of Afghan humans in an open area could be imagined bad guys.

The extreme irony for John Kerry, is that a Congressman could haul him before a Congressional committee, look him in the eye and ask, "Secretary Kerry, how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Afghanistan? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake"?

Four years and 24 days after the idealistic John Kerry asked those questions to Sen. William Fulbright's Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kelton Rena Turner, an 18 year old Marine, became the last man to die for the Vietnam War mistake. While we won't know till the end of next year who will be the last man (or woman) to die for the Afghan war mistake, we know for sure it will not be one of the seven who died last Saturday.

 

 

 

 

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Gidwitz Not Giddy Over HOP Circular Firing Squad

It's sure tough being a reasonable, decent human being in today's Illinois HOP (Homophobe Only Party, a.k.a. GOP). Consider the reasonable and decent Ron Gidwitz, onetime HOP gubernatorial candidate, splendid fundraiser and major player in national and statewide politics. He is so distraught over the morphing of the GOP into the HOP, he blasted the homophobic dinosaurs who have split the party in two, telling the media they were "destroying"  the party's chances in the 2014 statewide elections. The recent thrice failed effort of the Illinois HOP Central Committee to oust their honorable state chairman Pat Brady because he believes all Illinoisans are full fledged Americans deserving marriage equality, caused an exasperated Gidwitz to publically exclaim, "I mean, how stupid is this!"

Alas, HOP major domo homophobes, led by state senator Jim Oberweis (HOP 25th), Jerry Clarke, former chief of staff to U.S. Congressman Randy Hultgren, and the irrepressible homophobe state representative Jeanne Ives (HOP 42nd), are high fiving themselves over Brady's finally resigning after surviving the third ouster attempt which brought in the Keystone Kops to restore order.

If the HOP has any chance of regaining their former moniker GOP (Grand Old Party), then moderates like my state rep Sandy Pihos (HOP, 48th) and my state senator and gubernatorial wannabee Kirk Dillard (HOP, 24th) need to tell the homophobic bigots, pounding on their door demanding the Land of Lincoln never sanctify a gay marriage, to find a land that will protect their disgusting bigotry. If they need some help with their search here are two: North Korea and Iran.

An Army Motto To Fit The Times

News of the sexual assault epidemic in the military gets worser and worser. In 2012, an estimated 26,000 female soldiers experienced sexual assault, a little over 70 per day. This week we viewed the mug shot of Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, an officer in charge of a military sexual assault and response office, who was arrested for sexually assaulting a stranger in a parking lot. In response to this epidemic, the Army has changed its marketing campaign to young, impressionable males from "BE ALL THAT YOU CAN BE"  to "GET ALL THAT YOU CAN GET".  For young, impressionable females its: "THE CHALLENGE OF A LIFETIME".

Call Off The Cops: Brady Throws In Towel To HOP Homophobes‏

 

The Daily Herald article chronicling IL HOP (Homophobe Only Party, a.k.a. GOP) Chairman Pat Brady's resignation was pretty mundane till paragraph 17 which is too precious not to share:

The last of three ouster attempts was a raucous meeting April 13 in Tinley Park. About 75 people attended to call for Brady's removal over his support for same-sex marriage and erupted in anger when they learned Brady would keep his job. Local police had been called to keep the peace and at one point locked people out of the hallway adjacent to the meeting room, where they'd begun yelling and chanting, "Throw him out."

Not once, not twice, but three times the IL HOP led by State Senator Jim Oberweis and Jerry Clarke, former chief of staff to U.S. Congressman Randy Hultgren, disgraced themselves and their party by publically staging an ouster move of the gallant Mr. Brady, whose support of gay marriage in Illinois was the 800 lb impediment to his staying in charge of the HOP and trying to drag it (no pun intended) into the 21st century of inclusiveness and full humanitarianism. If you're  going to make complete fools of yourselves, the least you can do is finish the job in one embarrassing effort.  Three times the HOP well to well of divisiveness and three times they came up dry. HOP stalwarts were quick to point out that Brady's gay marriage stance had little to do with their ferocious ouster campaign. To believe them, it focused on his inability to make the HOP competitive in elections. Considering this is the same self destructive mindset that gave us possibly the worst major office candidate in Illinois history, Alan Keyes in 2004, who lost to Barack Obama by over 2,200,000 votes, the current HOP leaders need only look in the mirror to figure out what ails the HOP. By the way, what ever happened to that guy who overwhelmed Keyes?

Brady's removal exposes the real problem the HOP faces as the 2014 election season approaches. A virulent homophobe has little chance to ascend to the chairmanship and the dwindling moderates left, like state Sen. Matt Murphy of Palatine, have already bowed out, reading the homophobia writing on the wall.

While these Illinois HOP shenanigans were playing out, both Rhode Island and Delaware legalized gay marriage, pushing Illinois to only a possible 12th best finish in the statewide full civil rights sweepstakes. And over at Lincoln's Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, if you're real quiet, you might hear mutterings like this:

"In 1860 I put the GOP on the map. If I could come back for one day I'd rip the HOP right off that map."

© 2013 Microsoft Terms Privacy Developers English (United States)

DuPage GOP Should Rescind Sen. Cruz Speaking Invite

 DuPage GOP Chairman Dr. Darlene Ruscitti should rescind her invitation to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to be Keynote Speaker at their Lincoln Day Dinner this Friday.

Sen. Cruz has engaged in incendiary, non-productive, false and destructive speech unbecoming of any public official, much less a sitting US Senator.

A previous post on Sen. Cruz detailed how he promoted his political rise amongst the Tea Party faithful by once telling a Texas Fourth of July political rally that there were more Commie professors at Harvard than Republican professors. He then said his predecessor at Harvard Law, Barack Obama, would have made a great Harvard Law School President, since he's the most radical president in US history, making him right at home amongst those Reds who believed in Communist overthrow of the US.  Such talk is not only false and hateful, its dangerous. When a prominent politician makes such incendiary charges and characterizations against a sitting President, one can only ponder the disturbed individuals who will lap up those words of hate speech and consider them a call to action. No wonder the President has received an unprecedented level of threats.

It would be bad enough if Cruz actually believed such outrageous talk, but he's simply making it all up to excite the Tea Party extremists who formed his base for gaining a Senate seat. Are we to believe that Cruz uncovered this Commie Conspiracy at Harvard Law, a plot no one else was privy to, and then stayed in spite of that for three years simply to punch his ticket to fame and fortune via the best law degree available? Guess what law school Cruz will tell his kids to strive for if they want to follow daddy in the high stakes arena of law and politics. There won't be a single mention of Commie Profs when Junior fills out his Harvard Law application. Cruz is simply an opportunistic cynic who knows what red meat to throw the gullible crowd pining for a movie star handsome, silver tongued messenger of hate and divisiveness. 

DuPage GOP Party Chairman Dr. Ruscitti, the Regional Superintendent of Schools in DuPage County, should know better than to give a public forum to a demagogic figure who will malign the sacred profession of education for unseemly political gain. Least she view this merely as a partisan attack, she should consider the editorial words of the far right New York Daily News, demanding New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox cancel his invitation to Sen. Cruz to address the May 29 NY state GOP $1,000 a plate dinner:

"Two choices are offered to New York Republican Chairman Ed Cox: Cancel plans to have Texas Sen. Ted Cruz headline the party’s annual dinner or speed the GOP’s long demise in the state. In featuring Cruz as the prime speaker at the May 29 affair, Cox has entered a death embrace with New York’s political Public Enemy No. 1 of the moment. Cruz represents the unthinking, doctrinaire strain of conservatism that doomed Mitt Romney’s electoral chances, such as they were, and threatened to alienate Republicans from key voting blocs, including Cruz’s fellow Hispanics."

Nor is this a matter of denying free speech. Sen. Cruz has every right to walk outside his door or stand on the Capitol steps and howl at the moon for hours about Commie Profs at Harvard and the most radical President in US history if he chooses. But every one of us, whether officeholder or concerned citizen, who deeply cares about solving the serious problems we face, should not give a platform to a charlatan who uses the grand opportunity of public service to infest our body politic with cynical, extremist talk.

This is one time when the confluence of politics and education weighs heavy on the crown of Dr. Ruscitti. Let's hope she gets this one right.