How the government supports its veterans - Sad.

[Hampton]

You would think that people who go and are willing to die for their country deserve better than this, but they don't get it. It also remind me of a statment that Donald Rumsfeld said about veterans who were drafted:

"And what was left was sucked into the intake, trained for a period of months, and then went out, adding no value, no advantage, really, to the United States armed services over any sustained period of time, because the churning that took place, it took enormous amount of effort in terms of training, and then they were gone."

Nice.

By a vote along party lines, the majority members of the House Budget Committee passed and reported for a vote by the House a budget resolution that would cut $844 million from veterans’ medical care next year and $9.7 billion over the next 10 years. In addition, the budget resolution would cut $15 billion from the disability compensation and other benefit programs over the next 10 years.

http://capwiz.com/dav/issues/alert/?alerti...1691076&type=CU (http://capwiz.com/dav/issues/alert/?alertid=1691076&type=CU)

Incarcerated Veterans (http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm#incarcerated)

Over 225,000 veterans held in Nation’s prisons or jails in 1998.

Among adult males in 1998, there were 937 incarcerated veterans per 100,000 veteran residents.

1 in every 6 incarcerated veterans was not honorably discharged from the military.

About 20% of veterans in prison reported seeing combat duty during their military service.

In 1998, an estimated 56,500 Vietnam War-era veterans and 18,500 Persian Gulf War veterans were held in State and Federal prisons.

Nearly 60% of incarcerated veterans had served in the Army

[redstar2000]

The facts are accurate but the premise is wrong.

"You would think that people who go and are willing to die for their country deserve better than this..."

Try putting it into more precise terms. People who are damnfool enough to believe ruling class lies about "God & Country" and are consequently willing to serve in wars of criminal imperialist aggression get treated exactly as they deserve.

When the name of the restaurant is Shiteaters, you have no legitimate complaint when you see what's on your plate!

:cool:

[antieverything]

So...you, being smarter than everyone else, are a human being while they are not?

Tell me why being used, tricked, and cheated by your government makes you a bad person!

[Hampton]

While I can see why people would be wary of people who go and fight in wars and may see them as "the enemy" if you will, I don't agree that they get treated exactly as they deserve.

To me that kinda is like getting mad at people who are just doing these jobs which they have no other choice but to do. I don't get mad at the mailman or woman for putting junk mail in my mailbox nor do I get mad when someone slips a menu from a restaurant in my door handle. I don't blame people for doing shit jobs when they have no other source of income, I've been there to many time before to criticize anyone for it. What I do blame is the system that puts people in these positions that they have to join the military to get an education because they dropped out of high school and to get some type of foot hold in life with an income and future prospects better than before. I don't think anyone joins the military with the intent and hope that they will get to kill in the name of the government which is cutting their medical care.

And to say that a vet deserves to be homeless is kind of outlandish. No one deserves to be homeless, they don't deserve to be sick with the government denying that they had anything to do with it.

[redstar2000]

"Tell me why being used, tricked, and cheated by your government makes you a bad person."

Stupid acts, antieverything, almost always turn out to be bad acts. Allowing yourself to be used, tricked and cheated is stupid.

When I was a 20-year-old skinny kid in a midwestern state without any left background (there wasn't any left to speak of in 1962), I still managed somehow to figure out that being in an army was fucked! The fact that it was involved in a war at the time only reinforced my conviction.

I could have tried for a student deferment or made up a load of crap about conscientious objections or joined the National Guard...instead, I just told my draft board that if they drafted me, I would desert to the Viet Cong. (Of course, I had my bus ticket to Toronto in my pocket while I was uttering those brave words.)

They didn't draft me. :cheesy:

Does that make me "smarter" than other people...or was I just paying attention?

Of course, seven years or so later, tens of thousands of draftees just quit showing up for induction...the reason the U.S. Government stopped drafting people was that the machinery just completely broke down (much as the army itself did in Vietnam).

But the fact that I "did it in 1962" proves to me that anyone could have done it at any time...after all, there's really nothing "special" about me.

As to "people who are just doing their jobs"...I've often wondered what the outcome of the Nuremburg War Crimes trials would have been if the Nazis had thought to use that phrase. When they said "We're were just carrying out our orders!", that sounded Prussian and autocratic. But suppose Goering or Streicher had just gone into the witness box, shrugged their shoulders, given the judges that little shit-eating grin, and said "Hey, we were just doing our jobs." Acquittal?

Because, Hampton, there are jobs and there are jobs and you know the difference as well as I do. A mailman is not a cop. A fireman is not a soldier. A fileclerk at the Social Security Department is not a CIA agent.

If you have any fucking sense and any sense of human decency, there are jobs you don't take...no matter how hungry you are.

But if you do take one of those jobs, and the bosses shit on you, look for no sympathy from me. Anything bad happens to you, I figure in simple justice you probably had it coming.

Ask that homeless veteran how many homes did he destroy in Vietnam, Libya, Grenada, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, etc., etc.?

:cool:

[synthesis]

I knew you were old, but I didn't know you were that old, red ;)

Enh, I'm kidding. My mom was basically in the same situation you were, except she was living in urban New Yawk at the time.

Still - don't you think that a government has a responsibility to those who have served it loyally?

[Jaha]

consider this.

not helping veterans is proof that this government SUCKS ASS

it is just one more way of showing that the government has no respect for anybody.
one more way of showing that the government wants power WITHOUT responsibility.
one more way of showing that the government does not care about the its followers.

i suggest to all people that they should not show any support for their government or the law enforcement, or the soldiers, because guess what: when you cry "help", they wont come for you. it is sad, but they wont.

[Hampton]

So I can take it that had you been alive in 1932 when the Bonus Marches took place you would have been on the front line wanting MacArthur to burn the Hoovervilles of the vets right? Because hey, you went and fought in WWI and now when your kids are starving, you know what, to fucking bad deal with it I will be turning the other cheek.

You talk of a sense of human decency, it seems pretty indecent to not give a shit when people are starving on the street. And when you say that there are jobs you don't take no matter how hungry you are, it's complete and utter bollocks. When you are homeless with no prospects in life are you going to walk and sleep on the streets in hope that one day something will fall in your lap? Or will you reach for some source of monetary existence to try to pick yourself up, even if that income is a shit job, which you seem to blame them for.

What would you suggest to a poorly educated, jobless, and poor man who is reaching through the dumpster for his dinner? Collect welfare and have that stigma attached to you, sit on the corner all day and hope you get $5 a day for a sandwich, or join the army and be called a baby killer when you come back. I think people who go to jail for murder and get released are held in higher esteem than vets.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bus ticket to Canada when they faced the draft board.

[redstar2000]

I note, Hampton, that you convert my lack of sympathy into overt hostility...placing me in the front line of the soldiers that attacked the veterans bonus marchers in 1932...assuming, of course, that I would have been in an army then.

No, had I been an adult in the early 1930s, I would probably have been involved in the old Communist Party U.S.A.--it was still a pretty militant group then.

And I might have even supported the Bonus Marchers...I'm pretty sure the party did. But I would have done so as a tactic to embarrass the bourgeoisie...not because of any personal sympathies.

Yes, it is better to beg or collect welfare than to become a professional killer for the ruling class. That seems to me to be self-evident.

Does a capitalist government have a "responsibility" to those who have served it "loyally"? Well, they don't think so...why should I? The boss uses people and then throws them away...is that a "surprise" to anyone? The question is, what are you willing to let yourself be used for?

It shouldn't be necessary to add that the vast majority of the people in prison or homeless never killed anyone on behalf of U.S. imperialism. My sympathies are used up for the real victims of capitalism...I have none left for those who scab or kill in order to "get ahead."

Memory is always treacherous, but if I recall correctly, that bus ticket to Toronto cost $19.00...about 2-1/2 days work at minimum wage.

:cool: