Warrior Nation
I ain't no rough guy, ain't no tough guy
Don't get out much, and don't dress up fly
A pawn in the game that's all I am
Givin' all my duckets to Uncle Sam, fuck it
--Wasting My Time, Kid Rock
_____________
Don't get out much, and don't dress up fly
A pawn in the game that's all I am
Givin' all my duckets to Uncle Sam, fuck it
--Wasting My Time, Kid Rock
_____________
Well, Kid -- now you'll get some of those duckets [sic] back.
The Army National Guard has hired scumbag Kid Rock to serenade one of their hi-tech advertisements, along with the group Three Doors Down which offers a free downloadable version of their song, "Citizen Soldier."
In the advert, we see uniformed N.G. members rocking to Kid Rock's tune, "Warrior" (So Don't Tell Me Who's Wrong And Right / When Liberty Starts Slipping Away /And If You Ain't Gonna Fight Get Out Of The Away." Really sickening coming out of this putz's mouth. He should go back to "Eatin' shrooms, drinkin' Boone's" and looking for his "bag of weed."
But y'know, everyone's hopping on this gravy train called warrior, and Kid's a businessman, too. Everyone's looking for the angle, except the Guard members themselves. Ranger saw this ad leading in to the film "W", which he had hoped would provide fodder for commentary. Sadly, it was Stone on a flight of fancy. Should have been expected, as his raw subject matter was not that exalted. But the ad was almost worth the price of admission.
Just when you think you have hit the height of absurdity and gross materialism, the screen flashes to the National Guard-sponsored NASCAR, which drives victoriously through several crash scenes, the new redneck cavalry. We can guess where the N.G. is mining for new bodies.
The victory rounds on the NASCAR track are then interwoven with combat glory scenes AND stateside humanitarian missions. Now we know why the Guard has funnelled $30 million to NASCAR this year.
When did the N.G. become a "warrior society"? What does this say about the U.S. ethos, and should any country trust a nation of "warriors"? Soldiers are not warriors; warriors are not soldiers. Warriors take glee at the chance for combat. This is not Ranger's conception of democracy. In a democracy, soldiers are reluctant to fight except as a last resort.
The U.S. was founded upon the fear and distrust of large standing armies. All of our wars up to and including Korea were fought with conscription-based Armies, and militia, N.G and Reserves expansion of the regular Army. The regular Army was always a small cadre of professionals that would enable the expansion to war-time requirements.
How did we get here to Warrior Time, and how do we find our way back? Jesus H. Christ in a Corvair, as our friend Spiider might say.
posted by rangeragainstwar at 11:48 AM
16 Comments:
I used to go round and round about this "warrior" thing on Intel Dump. Having retired from the Guard in 2001 I missed dealing with it firsthand, and feel damn lucky because vomiting in disgust doesn't look good in a leader. We need soldiers, let the "warriors" fight it out in New Guinea. That commercial you mention almost drove me insane.... another of the many media onslaughts in the past 7 years that have Goebbels spinning in hell from sheer jealousy.
Jesus freaking wept. It is going to take a complete rebuilding of the army to be rid of this nonsense.
Ranger,
Allow me to pass on the sad news that Col. Bob Nett died Sunday evening in Columbus, Ga. Col. Nett was the epitome of what a soldieer should be. We are the poorer for his passing.
I saw that Kid Rock ad in a theatre and was rolling on the ground laughing (which sucked because I then had to pick all the popcorn and gummi bears off me)
I can't believe any kid, other then the worst kind of mouth-breathing, glue-sniffing backwoods meth-head would fall for this blatant sellout, not that Kid Suck was some high-minded artist to begin with.
Rick and Kevin,
How can this expenditure be justified?
BillD,
Thanks for the report. It's many a mile i've walked down Lett Hiwy commonly called 27 thru Benning.The number of MOH awardees is getting mighty slim.
jim
Christ on a hobbled pony! Socialize the banks, commercialize the Pentagon, the White House goes to the highest bidder...why am I not surprised?
oh yeah.... then there's that.... warrior indeed..... protofascist....... jackson mississippi
link
ghost dansing,
Proudly not a huge fan of Kid's, I'm sure I'd be thoroughly underwhelmed with his oeuvre, and would find many more examples of the Big Boy talking trash.
But I'm also sure his partners at the N.G. subscribe to the concept of situational ethics, as do so many people today. By any means necessary. . .
Mad Celt,
Because. . . you are a realist?
Let's take the long view for a minute, gang...
Remember, we're talkng about recruiting here.
Recruiting.
Where only the most veteran and upright soldiers are to be found; gravely counseling the young husband and father, girding the loins of the high-hearted young man, sternly culling the too-young, the foolish and the naive from the ranks to preserve the honor and dignity of the noble profession of arms.
"Twa recruiting sergeants came frae the Black Watch,
Through markets and fairs, some recruits for to catch.
But all they enlisted was forty and twa
Sae, 'list my bonnie laddie and come awa with me
Chorus:
And it's over the mountain and over the Main,
Through Gibralter, to France and Spain.
Pit a feather tae your bonnet, and a kilt aboon your knee,
Enlist my bonnie laddie and come awa with me.
Oh laddie ye dinna ken the danger that yer in.
If yer horses was to gleg, or yer owsen was to rin,
That greedy ole farmer, he wouldna pay yer fee.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa with me.
And its into the barn and out o' the byre,
That greedy ole farmer thinks ye never will tire.
It's a slavery job of low degree.
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa with me...
Yeah well laddie, do you have a sweetheart at home?
Ye'll easily get rid of that ill-spun yarn.
Twa rattles on the drum, and that'll set ye'free
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa'"
Didn't the old-time recruiters say that the best recruiter was "Sergeant Winter"?
There's nothing new under the sun, other than Kid Rock bites HARD. Damn, this guy sucks like Vanila Ice on crack!
Thanks for this post. I've seen the heinous thing at two different movies, now (the second time, I walked out of the theater for a few minutes). Leni Reifenstahl must be neon green with envy.
While I could almost make some sense of the Kid Rock angle (militaries don't exactly turn young dumb males away, right?), the NASCAR bit didn't add up at all. Some really well paid guy makes fat bucks in a muscle car with 'National Guard' painted on the hood -- and this somehow makes him a 'warrior'? Jay-zus H. Key-rist, by that standard, I must be a doctor, because I've prescribed aspirin to myself on several occasions.
-- sglover
billd, pls excuse my typo'Nett not Lett, so sorry. jim
chief,
Right champion lyrics, those of the Two Recruiting Agents. Says everything the chap would want --
Ye'll easily get rid of that ill-spun yarn -- who could not go?
Why "warriors"? Well, because Vietnam showed that waging an unpopular war with a draftee army caused a lot of social unrest. Duh.
But even at the time of VIetnam, the pre-WWII model had pretty much broken down. The problem is that modern weapons systems and modern maneuver warfare are just too darned complex. They take years of training to master. So your small core of soldiers has to be large enough to hold off any potential attacker while a larger group of soldiers is drafted and trained. Like, say, around 420,000 soldiers rather than 42,000 soldiers. Or roughly what we had at the start of all this mess.
Of course, once you've finally subdued your enemy, what you need then is boots on the ground -- lots of them -- with rifles. And the training for that is a lot simpler and draftees do just fine there. But then we get back to point A (that bit about unpopular wars and draftee armies not mixing) again...
Still. As long as the U.S. Army is trained and equipped to fight large-scale maneuver warfare (which is the only type of warfare that has actually been effective in the post-WWI era), it will have to be bigger than the small core of soldiers that typified it in peacetime prior to WWII. The weapons and tactics of modern warfare dictate that. Alas.
The warrior nation rules at National Review. Here's a story about a soldier giving John McCain his purple heart in return for bringing the US to Final Victory in Iraq. What a sad waste of idealism.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MzYxMWRkMzcwZTI1YTlhOTNkNjA2Y2MyNWMyY2JkYmE=
Rick98,
Thank you for the link, but what a sad waste of idealism, yes.
Chief,
Per your recruiting song, now the Black Watch is a plaid I can get behind. Not like a "Victorian confection," eh?! (Only teasing.)
Oops--that was me on the last post :)
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