Good Time Charlie
Did they visit Madame Tussaud's?My professional life has been a constant record of disillusion,
and many things that seem wonderful to most men
are the every-day commonplaces of my business
--Harry Houdini
To see what is in front of one's one's nose
requires a constant struggle
--George Orwell
_____________
Last night was a cold, hard rain on the steel roof, and Ranger awoke to thoughts like grenade fragments hot and jagged and ripping randomly.
It is hard to figure out what pulls my pin. It is everything and nothing. The memory of cold rain dripping down one's back and legs, boots squishing wet and rough as sandpaper. This is in itself is nothing; all who have carried a rifle have the same memories. But what do they signify?
In the military, service means sacrifice, suffering and discomfort. A Ranger's glance at our elected leaders sees them as our forward defenses. They should be a covering force whose job is to delay, deny and destroy all threats to the main body (= the nation.) They are delinquent at their stations, and the delinquencies are legion.
In Florida, recently-wed Governor Charlie Crist suffered a cost overrun when his $255,000 12-day European Summer trade mission, paid for by Florida businesses and taxpayers, ballooned to $430,000 (Crist defends Pricey Trade Mission Tab.) Costs included $1,300 in room-service charges and $320 for portable electric fans to keep Crist cool.
That is roughly $35,000 per day, with $1,370 per bodyguard. Meanwhile, Florida is sucking like a chest wound. Not for lack of ego, Crist says his jaunt will bring industry to the state.
Charlie does not understand this soldier's memories.
Leadership is sacrifice, yet our elected leaders are as guilty as any executive at AIG, City, GM, Goldman, et. al. of skimming off the cream. Congressmen, like the suck-ass executives with their begging bowls out, never cut their perks. Budget cuts are always borne on the taxpayer side of the equation. Democracy means tough break, baby, if yours wasn't a silver spoon.
Ranger wonders who will bail out Congress when their time comes. It will be budget cuts all 'round in veterans' programs and those for the needy and poor. Of the latter group, most don't have cars anyway and so won't ever face the other side of a ballot. What entree have they to the ears of their congressmen?
We the People are wilting on the vine, while our leaders in $600 neckties consider how many billions they shall toss to others, also wearing $600 ties. Like Illinois Governor Rod Blogojevich pointedly said in his grand scam, "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden." It is power and influence, and we hand it to these scumbags.
We don't even get cake.
It is hard to figure out what pulls my pin. It is everything and nothing. The memory of cold rain dripping down one's back and legs, boots squishing wet and rough as sandpaper. This is in itself is nothing; all who have carried a rifle have the same memories. But what do they signify?
In the military, service means sacrifice, suffering and discomfort. A Ranger's glance at our elected leaders sees them as our forward defenses. They should be a covering force whose job is to delay, deny and destroy all threats to the main body (= the nation.) They are delinquent at their stations, and the delinquencies are legion.
In Florida, recently-wed Governor Charlie Crist suffered a cost overrun when his $255,000 12-day European Summer trade mission, paid for by Florida businesses and taxpayers, ballooned to $430,000 (Crist defends Pricey Trade Mission Tab.) Costs included $1,300 in room-service charges and $320 for portable electric fans to keep Crist cool.
That is roughly $35,000 per day, with $1,370 per bodyguard. Meanwhile, Florida is sucking like a chest wound. Not for lack of ego, Crist says his jaunt will bring industry to the state.
Charlie does not understand this soldier's memories.
Leadership is sacrifice, yet our elected leaders are as guilty as any executive at AIG, City, GM, Goldman, et. al. of skimming off the cream. Congressmen, like the suck-ass executives with their begging bowls out, never cut their perks. Budget cuts are always borne on the taxpayer side of the equation. Democracy means tough break, baby, if yours wasn't a silver spoon.
Ranger wonders who will bail out Congress when their time comes. It will be budget cuts all 'round in veterans' programs and those for the needy and poor. Of the latter group, most don't have cars anyway and so won't ever face the other side of a ballot. What entree have they to the ears of their congressmen?
We the People are wilting on the vine, while our leaders in $600 neckties consider how many billions they shall toss to others, also wearing $600 ties. Like Illinois Governor Rod Blogojevich pointedly said in his grand scam, "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden." It is power and influence, and we hand it to these scumbags.
We don't even get cake.
Labels: charlie crist european junket, congressional failure, depressed economy, illinois governor blogojevich influence peddling, let them eat cake
posted by rangeragainstwar at 2:32 PM
3 Comments:
Sorry but I see this as a giant step backward to the times when being a soldier meant getting paid with pillage. Only now the political leaders get the pillage (and sometimes the rape).
Only a revolution will change how things are done. Either by fiat or violence.
As the saying goes; "We won the War on Poverty - the poor lost."
I'm afraid, Ranger, that the politico's have become the new "nobility."
Or at least they like to see themselves that way.
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