214,475 and counting. . .
_________214,475 is the current number of disabled veterans in Florida, alone.
Consider the expense involved in their care, and then add on the newly disabled veterans, many suffering catastrophic injuries, created each day in the futile endeavors of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And do not simply calculate the monetary costs of their lifelong care, but consider their impact upon your society, upon their families and their quality of life, for life.
Then ask yourself if it seems worth it to add to this daunting number, for a failed endeavor guaranteed only to reap further outrage and indignation among the peoples perpetrating these damages.
To the surgeons, who will gain battlefield experience and treatment innovations, it is justifiable. To the weapons contractors and the military, it allows for real-world testing of new technologies. For war profiteers, it allows profit. But what about you -- does it seem worth it?
Consider the expense involved in their care, and then add on the newly disabled veterans, many suffering catastrophic injuries, created each day in the futile endeavors of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And do not simply calculate the monetary costs of their lifelong care, but consider their impact upon your society, upon their families and their quality of life, for life.
Then ask yourself if it seems worth it to add to this daunting number, for a failed endeavor guaranteed only to reap further outrage and indignation among the peoples perpetrating these damages.
To the surgeons, who will gain battlefield experience and treatment innovations, it is justifiable. To the weapons contractors and the military, it allows for real-world testing of new technologies. For war profiteers, it allows profit. But what about you -- does it seem worth it?
Labels: DAV letter, disabled veterans in florida
posted by rangeragainstwar at 5:18 PM
10 Comments:
You both know this has not been worthwhile to me from day one. I have been living in a state of fury since.....if I believed in a pagan "heaven" and answered prayers (both highly theoretical ideas to me) I would ask to be incarnated after death into a literal Fury...into a re-incarnation of Nemesis herself, to plague the instigators of this war through all future incarnations. Revenge is what I deny myself in life...it is better served cold, I hear?
labrys,
Jim: I've decided today that I prefer the old heathen gods because they are defeated and overcome by events. I prefer a subdued god as superior to an almighty deity.
Lisa: Heaven and prayers of supplicants to a superior have always been very hard for me to swallow. Mainly, because it is so contrived. It is beggarly and unsavory to suck up to someone to get what you want.
Jim: The old gods were part of us; the new gods are separate and distinct, other than self, though the church might say otherwise.
Lisa: And of course, by extension, this abstraction from personal competency leaves us at the behest of any number of intercessionaries, from the pulpit to the bully pulpit.
Which is all to say, we're on the same page, labrys (and, you allowed Jim and I to have a bit of dialog, which would not have occurred save over an outside question, and in typed form.)
p.s.--and as editor, of course, you allowed "Jim and me" to discourse.
Ahem.
--L.
+++you allowed "Jim and me" to discourse.
Ahem.
+++
Happy to be of service. And yes, supplicant routines always left me cold. I more of a contractual sort.
My gods are accustomed to hearing me say (especially if I perceive a task) "And what have YOU done for me, that I should endevour this?"
labrys,
Your approach leaves one to be more of an honest broker, vs. a wheedler.
The modality in which most people cleaving to organized religion operate is, "I will do whatever (I perceive) you want, and if you are pleased, you will shed your grace on thee." But they also hedge their bets, and feel that by "accepting Christ as their personal savior," they can do no wrong. It is Covey's win-win.
It is a cover, for most now reject the doctrine of good-works salvation in favor of a universal election. That is like playing the lottery, and is supremely arrogant, since you presume you will be in the number, whether you do good or not.
Even though you must grovel, you win, because the meek shall inherit the earth. Of course, what that will consist of may just be a whole lotta headaches, populated as it is by other True Believers.
to answer the "is it worth it?" question with a word.
no.
to elaborate.
hell no.
jim, i gotta agree with you on the old heathen gods thing. somehow, the defeat and removal from the sphere of literal truth makes them seem more, well, godlike. i know, that coyote doesn't talk and play tricks on people, but when i see a few of them in the wash, i know they are laughing at my foolishness. i know that spider woman isn't sitting up in the sky weaving time on her loom, but guess what runs through my mind when i'm out in the desert at night and look up?
revenge? i've lost a lot of my capacity for savagry and that would be the appropriate revenge response here. there really is no price they can be made to pay that is reasonable.
i've been telling my friends who comment on the toll that playing funerals for our local soldiers is taking on me that they should do something similar. find a way to make this war touch them in a personal manner. make it personal. give the fallen soldiers a face and a name. see them in the casket with their family crying. make it personal. feel it hurt.
that's how to find the strength to make it stop.
minstrel boy,
Absolutely and profoundly eloquent and moving.
That is the sort of heroism we need if we are to ever be a just society.
Thank you for all that you have done, and all that you do.
+++That is like playing the lottery, and is supremely arrogant, since you presume you will be in the number, whether you do good or not.+++
Arrogant it is, but you should see what I do with that argument for "being a good little woman to prove your election". My reply is, well, if I am therefore among the elect, I am heavenbound and can do wtf I desire---be a whore, thief, murderess, liar---or not by MY choice alone. OR if I am among the damed, I can likewise do as I alone choose, because, you know I can't get MORE damned, now can I? It is remarkably liberating...but you know I don't think they like my version of "liberation theology" much to judge by the frustrated expressions I get when I elaborate and then take their gods name in vain for emphasis.
labrys, you provocateur-ess! In for a penny, in for a pound, I say.
And yes, you've actually got radical Christian theology down pat, I think. Motto: bad you wanna be -- harlot, addict, gambler -- you name it. The lord loves a sinner.
Just be sure you take the baby jesus as your personal savior when you hit about 95. Then you'll be sure to get a "glorified body" and have another go 'round!
What good is a flag and a parade when your "budussy" is blown off??
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