Dead dreams and lies

Spent a few days with some of the folks that liberals sneer at. Most of them either had served, were serving, or knew someone who was serving, though few of them had actually been in combat. Which brings up the question: Why are so many of the people who will be directly affected by a decision to go to war, in favor of going to war?

One thing to point out, I suppose, is the socio-economic background of most of today's military. With the exception of the officers, most of today's military personnel are in the military because it's all there is for them. They lack the skills -- both social skills and academic skills -- to succeed in today's economy (and of those the social skills are the most important). They don't know what fork to eat with. They've never worn a tuxedo in their entire lives, and their entire wardrobe consists of t-shirt and jeans. They "talk funny" in the eyes of the elite who hire and promote. They are God's misbegotten children, forgotten by mainstream America, condemned to a life of no future and an early death courtesy of poverty and ignorance (and not just their own poverty and ignorance, but also the poverty of spirit and ignorance of soul of the elite who hire and promote, who view anyone who doesn't talk "right" or act "right" as sub-human). So they turn to the military.

But it's not just that. It's the fact that, for the most part, they like to destroy. They enjoy blowing shit up. They enjoy shooting things. They like killing critters. They fantasize of killing the folks who keep them from enjoying their favorite pursuits -- the environmentalists who close off their favorite 4x4 trails, the Washington bureaucrats who erect barriers to prevent them from visiting backwoods cabins and ghost towns, the faceless "liberals" who take their money in taxes but, somehow, never seem to do anything for these people except kick these people off their mining claims and take their land away from them at gunpoint. It's all that's left for them to do. They can't create. That option has largely been taken away from them, if they have work at all it's something dehumanizing and degrading such as plucking chickens or slaughtering hogs in a factory setting. The days when working men could feel proud of building a nation with their rail laying and spike-hammering are over, most of that is gone or is now done by Mexicans who can be treated like slaves because they have no legal status in America. If you can't build, if you aren't allowed to build, why not destroy?

You ask, "so why do they keep voting for Republican politicians?" But the thing is, none of the promises liberals ever made to them came true. FDR's "New Deal" was a great deal for the middle class, but the working class? Nope. Then Truman busted the unions. LBJ sent them to die in Vietnam, and starved his "Great Society" programs to the point they benefited only a few urban poor, not the masses of poor white trash living outside the urban core. What have Democrats done for the working man? What did 60 years of Democratic control of Congress from 1932 to 1994 do for these people? Nothing. Less than nothing. Took away much of what they had, in fact -- their freedom, their dignity, their ability to get by on their own without needing handouts or special treatment. I wander the desert and I see the mine workings where men like these pursued their dreams. Why are there no men there now pursuing their dreams? It is simple. They've been locked out. Forbidden. Kicked out. Had whatever they built taken from them at gunpoint as their workings and mill sites and cabins were declared to be "wilderness", and given nothing in return. Condemned to then watch helplessly as everything they ever built crumbles to ruin because some elite somewhere else thinks they're not human enough to be allowed to follow their dreams.

And most of the time this has happened, it has been Democrats passing the laws that make it happen.

I realize I'm treading old ground here. Joe Bageant has a couple of excellent books out there on the same basic thesis. But I saw this up close and personal these last few days, and figured maybe this would let some Democrats know why working people hate them. It's because Democrats have talked the talk... and that's it. As the saying goes, bullshit talks, it takes a real man to walk the walk -- and there ain't a real man in the whole Democratic bunch, and hasn't been for a long, long time.

-- Badtux the Western Penguin