Disappeared News

I think about the old white men who send young men off to kill and die.

You mean our elected leaders? Because you, know in this country WE are the ones who choose the guys who make the decisions. WE are the ones who send young off to kill and die.
 

We seem to have made some strange decisions then, if we are the deciders, because we don't agree with ourselves.

Think, though, whether having voted, and only having voted, do we then have any influence over what those folks do in Washington? Notice if they act in line with what the country overwhelmingly wants as expressed by polls, for example. No, they do not.

We elect the actors to deliver their speeches before the Senate or the House, but we don't write their lines.
 

"WE are the ones who send young off to kill and die."

Yes and no. Because there are some democratic remnants in out political system, the government has to win the acquiescence, if not the support, of a majority of the citizens. The Bush administration was quite open in some of their language that they were mounting a "marketing" campaign to sell the war on Iraq to the American people. And they LIED, again and again. And almost all the major media suppressed views skeptical of their claims, preferring to flood the airwaves with pro-war jingoists, retired generals and "terrorism experts," many of whom were on the government payroll to serve exactly this disinformation or "propaganda" function.

When the corporate control of the media is so concentrated into the hands of a few transnational companies, whose directorships interlock with the largest financial institutions and military contractors, how much free speech can be said to exist? How is the public to arrive at a position to give "informed consent"? And when complete A-holes like Perry and Price, locally, encourage passionate abuse upon those who refuse to go along with the war fervor, I refuse to say "WE send the young off to kill and die."

George Bush and Dick Cheney coerced intelligence professionals to re-work the data until they provided snippets which could be stretch to justify the war. That crime should enrage anyone who cares about actual intelligence work, as opposed to those who get an erotic charge out of massive violence as an affirmation of "our" nation's manhood. "Standing Tall for America."