The recent attacks by J.D. Vance on Tim Walz’ military record is straight out of the GOP playbook on discrediting by deceit the service of Democratic veterans to a gullible public. Rewind back to 2004 and the Bush-Cheney swiftboat denouncement of Democratic challenger John Kerry. The comparisons are disturbing.
Lt. Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for his Navy service in Vietnam. During the 2004 campaign, a group of disgruntled swiftboat vets organized opposition to his awards. Strange that only one had actually served under Kerry.
Those who did organized to back their Commander, calling the bogus charges “garbage,” “a pack of lies” and politically motivated. Many campaigned for him. So did Tim Walz, then a Minnesota teacher and National Guard Sergeant Major who would later resign/retire from both positions to successfully run for Congress in 2006.
Neither Bush nor Cheney had active military service. Bush was suspended from the Texas Air National Guard for missing annual physicals. Cheney never got that far. He was classified 4F for old high school football injuries. Both of these failed neocons made the horrendous decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, a trillion-dollar boondoggle that cost thousands of American lives. A decorated Vietnam vet might have known better.
At least Bush #43 served, albeit in a limited capacity. The same cannot be said for convicted felon Donald Trump. Both were born in 1946, the earliest Baby Boomers. Both had influential fathers. With the Bushes, Papa POTUS #41 helped steer son POTUS #43 into the Guard and away from possible deployment to Vietnam. Millions back then chose a similar path.
With the Trumps, a totally different dodge. Papa Fred found a Queens podiatrist who got The Donald a 4F deferment for nonexistent bone spurs. Seems the doctor’s office was in a building owned by Papa Trump. Think there was a quid pro quo on the rent? This on the heels (sic) of paying off smarter students to take his son’s SATs and write his college term papers.
If J.D. Vance was sincere about 24-year vet Walz’ military record, then why did he enthusiastically agree to be running mate to a lying, pampered draft dodger? He had it right when he castigated Trump as “America’s Hitler.” A political opportunist, Vance sold his soul to gain national notoriety for his own future Presidential run. Deplorable.
ED ENGLER, Sebring, Fla.
An ancient Greek philosopher suggested that humans were like marionettes, jerked around on strings by gods and goddesses. But he further suggested that the divinities were kind enough to allow humans to tug back on one string — the string of reason.
Long before the fall of war-prone Nineveh, the folly of armed conflicts should have been understood through sanity and reason. But even now, in the 21st century, as we measure millennia, we absurdly study the self-defeating destruction of ourselves and others — millions seeking to kill or cripple fellow human beings!
Must we, in truth, “modernize” our enormous nuclear arsenal, as though it weren’t already sufficiently deadly for life on our smallish sphere? If the Olympians proffered reason to us, we had better indulge and employ that holy virtue, ere we self-destruct as moths into candle flame.
WILLIAM DAUENHAUER, Willowick, Ohio
The buying and poisoning of our secular republic democracy has been an ongoing deceptive, lying “societal stupidifiers” realm from our founding forward to 2024. Having just read my daily newspaper and the article pertaining to J.D. Vance and the “self-avowed opponent of democracy” and its substantiation of my long-held beliefs regarding our more realistic “plutocracy” we actually live in needs a cleansing and reconstruction in order for “We the People” to actually have any credence.
This article and every “societal Despicable Deplorables” cited Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk and Alex Jones are deserved of a more explicit depiction, such as SCUM — ergo, scurrilous, seditious, sexist, conniving, corrupted, con-man, unaware, uncaring,unabashed, malicious, malfeasants, misogynists, SCUM.
As I approach my nonagenarian status this fall, having served my country during the Korean War (1952-1955) and my community for 28 years as a firefighter, my absolute disgust and concern for our democracy’s future is waning, seeing as how we are being vigorously targeted with autocratic dictatorial intentions via our Alt-Right Project 2025. In my approaching nine decades of a fairly eclectic led life involved in several professions and within the community as well am I convinced of the reality that our nation/world needs an urgent and expeditious replication of our 1800s Era of Enlightenment, where centuries of prior lies (ex. Flat Earth) and propaganda supported by feudalistic dictates controlling human behaviors and mindsets were exposed and democracies began to flourish. Coupled with this long overdue roll in our very salvation is the defiance of our anthropocentric, misogynistic mindsets with the Mandated, Demanded Parity (50% male, 50% female) throughout our entire governance, local, state and federal within a mandated time frame from inception to fruition of four years time (2025 to 2029).
When this nation finally negates the 144 years of oppressive denigration of women and members of the Black community and has representative decision making, we shall begin to finally give credence to our nation’s motto, “We the People,” having rid ourselves of the corrupted powers of the aforementioned “societal despicable deplorables.”
FRANK C. ROHRIG, Milford, Conn.
A security blanket, as used by Linus, the cartoon character in Peanuts, a comic strip in a newspaper. At this time, a lot of folks are feeling it, malaise. It is defined as a vague awareness of moral or social decline. Jimmy Carter spoke of such a malaise affecting the American people. He was our president in the late ‘70s. We are now in the mid 2020s. Once again, we go through the process of selecting a president. An election is coming up. Are you going to participate? I hope so. Go to the polls in early November knowing you have voted for the candidate of your choice.
LELAND ALPER, Barnet, Vt.
If the Iraq “war” starters in Washington, D.C., can gift themselves a “war” mulligan for the Iraq “war,” why can’t the Hamas “war” starters do the same thing?
Bush, Cheney, Biden and the rest of them who voted for the Iraq “war” gave themselves a “war mulligan” for starting a “bad idea war.” They got to walk away free and clear. But the Hamas “war” starters got no mulligans. They are held responsible for starting “bad idea wars,” and they got executed.
We obviously need to work at getting racism out of “war.”
FRANK ERICKSON, Minneapolis, Minn.
From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024
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