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"Usual Liberal Disdain?"
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wrote: wrote: Not much is known about Jim, except the usual liberal disdain for the US military and military members. "usual liberal disdain"? Let's see....some well known "liberals".... There's president Jimmy Carter, who graduated from the US Naval Academy and served in the Navy on submarines. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize, for being instrumental in the only long-term peace agreement in the modern Middle East (the Camp David accords). I recall no Middle East Peace in modern times. Peace *agreement*. Since those accords were signed more than 25 years ago, former enemies Israel and Egypt have had peace between them. Or president John F. Kennedy, who served in the Navy in WW2. He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps medal for his leadership on the last patrol of PT 109. Indeed he was. George McGovern was in the USAAF (15th Air Force) in WW2, flying 35 missions in B-24 bombers over North Africa and Italy. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. A little before my time. McGovern ran for President in 1972, but lost to Richard Nixon. Nixon later resigned because of the Watergate scandal, in which people operating for the Committee to REElect the President (known by the acronym CREEP) burglarized the DNC Hq to get information about the campaign. McGovern's platform included a strong anti-Vietnam-war plank. Vice president Al Gore enlisted in the Army and served in Vietnam during that conflict, refusing a place in the Tennessee National Guard. Odd. Do most people get to "refuse a place" in their state's National Guard? I don't recall having that "opportunity." Ditto my brother. The Current Occupant had that opportunity - and took it. Most of the time he even showed up. John Kerry served in the US Navy, volunteering for Vietnam duty. He was awarded three Purple Heart medals, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. After his discharge from the military, he opposed the Vietnam War, having actually been there. Now there's a perfect example of disdain for his fellow military members. How do Kerry's actions show disdain for his fellow military personnel? He went to Vietnam, and fought in that war. He formed the conviction that the war was simply wrong, and that the USA should not be fighting it. When he returned to civilian life, he opposed that war - specifically, the policies of the politicians who gave the orders. How was that "disdain for his fellow military members"? Should he have not said or done anything, even though he had formed the first-hand conviction that the war was wrong? President Franklin Delano Roosevelt never served in any military, Correct. He had polio and was unfit for military service. though he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Our military is civilian led. Sometimes led well, sometimes not. See above about John Kerry and Vietnam. He led the USA out of the Depression and through almost all of WW2. He had a priori knowledge of Pearl Harbor and did nothing. Conspiracy theory nonsense. Where's the proof? That just might be considered disdain for the military and military members. The Japanese were able to pull off the Pearl Harbor attack because: 1) The US thought it was impossible for a sizable task force to form up and cross the Pacific without being detected. 2) Radar would spot any incoming attack. And it did - but those in charge ignored the warning from the radar station. 3) It was believed that the water of Pearl Harbor was too shallow for airplane-dropped torpedoes to be used. The Japanese developed torpedoes and attack methods that would work in the relatvely-shallow water. They also used dive bombing. His "New Deal" was considered rather liberal in its time.... Extremely liberal. Yet now most of it is considered a basic social safety net. It was his handling of the Bonus Marchers, veterans of WW 1, that needed their promised pensions that might also be considered disdain for the military and military members. How? The "Bonus Marchers" had been promised military pensions that would be paid in *1945*, but they wanted the pensions 13 years early. (Can I have my retirement benefits 13 years early, please?) Let's see what Wikipedia has to say, in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_march "The Bonus Army or Bonus March or Bonus Expeditionary Force was an assemblage of about 20,000 World War I veterans, their families, and other affiliated groups, who demonstrated in Washington, D.C. during the spring and summer of 1932 seeking immediate payment of a "bonus" granted by the Adjusted Service Certificate Law of 1924 for payment in 1945." "The Bonus Army massed at the United States Capitol on June 17 as the U.S. Senate voted on the Patman Bonus Bill, which would have moved forward the date when World War I veterans received a cash bonus. Most of the Bonus Army camped in a Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats, then a swampy, muddy area across the Anacostia River from the federal core of Washington. The protesters had hoped that they could convince Congress to make payments that had been granted to veterans immediately, which would have provided relief for the marchers who were unemployed due to the Great Depression. The bill had passed the House of Representatives on June 15 but was blocked in the Senate." Herbert Hoover was president in June 1932. FDR wasn't even elected until November 1932, and did not take office until 1933. "After the defeat of the bill, Congress appropriated funds to pay for the marchers' return home, which some marchers accepted. On July 28, Washington police attempted to remove some remaining Bonus Army protesters from a federal construction site. After police fatally shot two veterans, the protesters assaulted the police with blunt weapons, wounding several of them. After the police retreated, the District of Columbia commissioners informed President Herbert Hoover that they could no longer maintain the peace, whereupon Hoover ordered federal troops to remove the marchers from the general area." "The marchers were cleared and their camps were destroyed by the 12th Infantry Regiment from Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment under the command of MAJ. George S. Patton from Fort Myer, Virginia, under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur. The Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the U.S. military from being used for general law enforcement purposes in most instances, did not apply to Washington, D.C. because it is one of several pieces of federal property under the direct governance of the U.S. Congress (United States Constitution, Article I. Section 8). Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a member of MacArthur's staff, had strong reservations about the operation. Troops carried rifles with unsheathed bayonets and tear gas were sent into the Bonus Army's camps. President Hoover did not want the army to march across the Anacostia River into the protesters' largest encampment, but Douglas MacArthur felt this was a communist attempt to overthrow the government." " Hundreds of veterans were injured, several were killed, including William Hushka and Eric Carlson, a wife of a veteran miscarried, and other casualties were inflicted. The visual image of US armed soldiers confronting poor veterans of the recent great war set the stage for Veteran relief and eventually the Veterans Administration." Neither of which existed at the time - but not due to alleged "liberal disdain for the military". "By the end of the rout: Two veterans had been shot and killed. An 11 week old baby was in critical condition resulting from shock from gas exposure. Two infants had died from gas asphyxiation. An 11 year old boy was partially blinded by tear gas. One bystander was shot in the shoulder. One veteran's ear was severed by a Cavalry saber. One veteran was stabbed in the hip with a bayonet. At least twelve police were injured by the veterans. Over 1,000 men, women, and children were exposed to the tear gas, including police, reporters, residents of Washington D.C., and ambulance drivers." "The army burned down the Bonus Army's tents and shacks, although some reports claim that to spite the government, which had provided much of the shelter in the camp, some veterans torched their own camp dwellings before the troops could set upon the camp. Reports of U.S. soldiers marching against their peers did not help Hoover's re-election efforts; neither did his open opposition to the Bonus Bill due to financial concerns." Were Hoover's actions towards the Bonus Marchers a sign of respect? Herbert Hoover was president in the summer of 1932. Hoover opposed giving the veterans their bonus 13 years early. FDR wasn't even elected until November 1932, and did not take office until 1933. "After the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, some of the Bonus Army regrouped in Washington to restate its claims to the new President." "Roosevelt did not want to pay the bonus early, either, but handled the veterans with more skill when they marched on Washington again the next year. He sent his wife Eleanor to chat with the vets and pour coffee for them, and he persuaded many of them to sign up for jobs making a roadway to the Florida Keys, which was to become the Overseas Highway, the southernmost portion of U.S. Route 1." Instead of sending in the police, tear gas, and federal troops, like conservative Herbert Hoover, FDR sent Eleanor with coffee, and helped the vets find jobs. Is that an example of "disdain"? "A disastrous hurricane swept many of them and their flimsy barracks away in 1935." Did FDR have 2 year advance notice of the hurricane, too? "After seeing more newsreels of veterans giving their lives for a government that had taken them for granted, public sentiment built up so much that Congress could no longer afford to ignore it in an election year (1936). Roosevelt's veto was overridden, making the bonus a reality." Is that 1936 veto the disdain you meant? How does that compare to the non-liberal method of sending in troops with guns, bayonets and fire..... "It can be argued, however, that the Bonus Army's greatest accomplishment was actually the piece of legislation known as the G. I. Bill of Rights. Passed in 1944, it immensely helped veterans from the Second World War to secure needed assistance from the federal government to help them fit back into civilian life, something the World War I veterans of the Bonus Army had received very little of." FDR *was* president in 1944. "usual liberal disdain"? Yup. Lessee....John Kerry acts on his convictions wrt Vietnam, and that's somehow disdain. FDR sends in his wife rather than troops to deal with protesters, and that's disdain. He helps them get scarce CCC jobs, and that's disdain, too. But when Hoover had them attacked by police and federal troops, that *wasn't* disdain. Is it disdain to send US military personnel to fight in a country because of weapons-of-mass-destruction that do not exist in that country? |
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