Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

“woke” is the new caravan.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Happy Veteran’s Day!

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  5. 5.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Thanks and best wishes to the Balloon Juice veterans, and veterans everywhere.

  8. 8.

    srv

    @Cacti: Just because your enemies stay between the yellow lines does not a war crime make.

    Not sure what’s up with that though. A-10 is awesome because it does great with traffic jams? Like how hard is that?

    Me thinks the Reds would have been a little less orderly in the Fulda Gap.

  9. 9.

    gogol's wife

    I would say “Thank you for your service,” but my consciousness has been raised on BJ that veterans don’t like that phrase. But thank you anyway!

  10. 10.

    PurpleGirl

    Many thanks to BJ veterans and other veterans for their service.

    I like how “American Heroes Channel” (formerly the Military Channel) has phrased it “Home of the Free because of the Brave.”

    Remember why we commemorate this date on this date: The 11th day of the 11th month and marks the end of World War I. It was originally called Armistice Day.

  12. 12.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @srv: As my GDP (General Defense Plan…where your unit goes when the balloon goes up) area when I was stationed in Germany WAS the Fulda Gap, I can assure you, I’m happy we never found out what it would look like. The area is too naturally beautiful to allow the Dogs of War to soil it.

  14. 14.

    d58826

    In addition to being thankful for the sacrifices of all our veterans, we can be thankful that Texas is Ebola free. Ohio is also Ebola free. Maine is free of the scourge of Ebola. The state of New York, the city of New York and even the subway system are free of Ebola. New Jersey in spite of Chris Christies best efforts, remains Ebola free just as it always has. And last but certainly not least the United States, one week after the election, is free of the Republican/faux news generated Ebola panic.

  15. 15.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @PurpleGirl: The brave are not to be found among the huddled masses quaking in fear over Ebola, I’ll tell you that.

    Nor among pants shitting NRA board members, either.

  17. 17.

    Cacti

    @srv:

    Just because your enemies stay between the yellow lines does not a war crime make.

    Boxing in and slaughtering forces that were withdrawing in compliance with UN Resolution 660 sure does.

  20. 20.

    ruemara

    Happy veterans day to all the vets on the board including the esteemed blogmaster.

    I’m home sick, otherwise I’d be at work. Trying to get work done. Lift head, tweak pose. Lie down. Lift head tweak pose. Lie down. I hear the republicans are cutting SNAP benefits, which will hurt veterans’ families. So patriotic.

  23. 23.

    Citizen_X

    Just passed the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month where I am. “Happy” Armistice Day.

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic

    @PurpleGirl: I like how “American Heroes Channel” (formerly the Military Channel) has phrased it “Home of the Free because of the Brave.”

    Let’s not forget that there are plenty of people in various places in the world who are bravely fighting to make their homes as free, today (and yesterday, and tomorrow.)

  27. 27.

    PurpleGirl

    To all who have commented on my comment: I find I have an existential problem. While I want to commemorate the sacrifices made by so many, I also want to acknowledge those sentiments which point out the other side (or another side) of the life equation. The outcome of WWI also gave us incredible poetry against war and its waste. Sometimes insurgents and the “enemy” are their country’s freedom fighters. Often people are just asses. And some of us struggle to hold multiple views at once because life is full of ambiguities and is not always black and white with clear dividing lines.

  28. 28.

    max

    @srv: Me thinks the Reds would have been a little less orderly in the Fulda Gap.

    Well, if you can find any remaining Red Army veterans of the Patriotic War, you can ask them how much they like enduring being hammered by the A-10 equivalent Ju87.

    I don’t think they liked it too much on account of so many many tanks, particularly in the part at that beginning where they lost half the army.

    @PurpleGirl: And some of us struggle to hold multiple views at once because life is full of ambiguities and is not always black and white with clear dividing lines.

    Driving tanks is fun; war really sucks.

    max
    [‘Happy Armistice Day.’]

  30. 30.

    Suzanne

    Thanks, BJ veterans!

    Maybe “BJ veterans” doesn’t sound like I meant it to sound. Oh well. Thanks anyway, y’all.

  31. 31.

    Seth Owen

    Sorry, Cacti. Pursuit is a recognized part of warfare. If anything, we ended that phase too quickly.

    Let’s save the ‘war crimes’ label for the real thing. Lord knows we have enough actual war crimes to answer for without confusing things with sloppy labeling.

    In the Gulf War American soldiers still has a good enough reputation that large numbers of the enemy willingly gave themselves up. I hope we can regain that someday.

  33. 33.

    Beatrice

    “Day After Tomorrow” – Tom Waits

    I close my eyes Every night
    And I dream that I can hold you
    They fill us full of lies Everyone buys
    About what it means to be a soldier
    I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel
    About all the blood that’s been spilled
    Look out on the street
    Get me back home
    On the day after tomorrow

    You can’t deny The other side
    Don’t want to die Any more than we do
    What I’m trying to say, Is don’t they pray
    To the same God that we do?
    Tell me, how does God choose?
    Whose prayers does he refuse?
    Who turns the wheel? And who throws the dice
    On the day after tomorrow?

    I’m not fighting For justice
    I am not fighting For freedom
    I am fighting For my life
    And another day In the world here
    I just do what I’ve been told
    You’re just the gravel on the road
    And the ones that are lucky
    Ones come home
    On the day after tomorrow

  35. 35.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Suzanne: Many veterans (Balloon Juice and otherwise) are also BJ (the other well known meaning of “BJ”) veterans. Or at least they used to brag about it to their buddies.

  36. 36.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Seth Owen:

    Let’s save the ‘war crimes’ label for the real thing.

    You know, like launching a war of aggression. Something both Saddam and the deserting coward did.

    Oh, also, too, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-According-To-Godwin.

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel

    WWI story my grandfather told me.
    His unit landed in France & was assembled to get their steel helmets, the last thing before leaving for the front. Some guys collapsed with the flu and the whole unit was quarantined. After 2 weeks it was determined the flu was no longer a threat & they were all well enough to die the officers showed up & ordered everyone to get their sht together because the trucks would be coming to take them to the trenches. The officers then left. When the trucks arrived the guys got back into bed and pulled the covers up. The drivers came in, assumed they had the wrong place & left. It was a couple more days til anyone figured out they had not shown up.

  41. 41.

    p.a.

    @d58826: my thought exactly. He’s doing the prep work. Then if the D’s show any backbone over the fence he’ll go. I didn’t leave the Dems, the Dems left me. Prick.

  43. 43.

    dmbeaster

    @Cacti: That report is garbage as is your baloney ranting about war crimes. My favorite piece of junk from the Clark report is that fuel oil bombs constitute war crimes because they are allegedly “asphixiating” bombs which supposedly suck the oxygen out of the local area, and because they cause “unnecessary harm”. Just utter garbage.

  44. 44.

    gene108

    @p.a.:

    I thought we do not want our side to copy the Republicans and play at being Republican-lite?

    Seems cooperating and trying to govern responsibly are the polar opposite to what the Republicans have done during the past 6 years.

  46. 46.

    Bill Arnold

    @d58826:

    And last but certainly not least the United States, one week after the election, is free of the Republican/faux news generated Ebola panic.

    Thanks, Ebola!
    Has anyone published any estimates of how many net votes Ebola gained for the Republicans? (I didn’t see any in a brief search.)

  49. 49.

    dance around in your bones

    I’m happy that all the veterans I know came back alive, even if not in one piece. And I respect their service.

    I’m angry as hell about the ones who didn’t make it back.

  50. 50.

    Loviatar

    My Desert Storm memory.

    I was at my desk in the truck with the Platoon Sgt., and we were going over the duty roster; who were we going to send on shit burning and water duty. Then we heard gas, gas, gas, we grabbed our gas masks and ran outside, the sky was black. We didn’t know it at the time but Saddam had lit off the oil wells. I started scrambling to get my mask on, while holding my breath and trying to remember all the training that had been hammered into us over the previous months. I’ll remember to my grave the look of fear on the Plt. Sgt.’s face, I must have looked the same. It hit me he was only 29 and I was only 24. FUCK, I was going to die from some shit in the middle of the fucking desert before I turned 25.

    Most afraid I ever been in my life.

  51. 51.

    raven

    @Loviatar: 24, damn, I was 19 and 10 months when I came home after tours in Korea and the Nam. If we had guys that were 21 we stood and stared.If they had been to college,that was too much!

    we, the unwilling,
    led by the unknowing,
    are doing the impossible
    for the ungrateful.
    we have done so much,
    for so long,
    with so little,
    we are now qualified to do anything
    with nothing.

  52. 52.

    Zinsky

    Are we supposed to be pleased as punch that you were complicit in the mass slaughter of other human beings? Explain to me in very precise detail how Saddam Hussein was planning to take away my freedom or any American’s freedom. Please, I’m all ears.

    We need a lot less glorification of the military as well as reinstating the draft and passing a permanent war tax. If the U.S. is involved in any foreign hostilities, there should be an immediate 10% surtax placed on all American’s incomes (corporations too). Watch how quicky we find peaceful solutions to foreign policy problems.

  54. 54.

    Loviatar

    @raven:

    24, damn, I was 19 and 10 months when I came home after tours in Korea and the Nam.

    That was the thing that always blew me away about the military, you forget how young everyone was. I was considered the “old man” because I was in my early 20s and was an officer. The military made you grow up at a very young age, I remember having to counsel an 18 old who was having marital problems and thinking to myself; what the fuck do I know about marriage, I can’t even commit to regular dates. At the age of 22 I was responsible for the lives of 32 men and millions of dollars worth of equipment. wow. Today I can barely get a 13yr. old to clean his room.

  55. 55.

    CZanne

    Huh. Small world, Cole. Spouse has very similar pictures, grew up in the town you’ve mentioned as your hometown, is about your age. Was confused when he looked over my shoulder and saw those pics and which site I was at.

    As with him, I am very glad you came back, too.

  56. 56.

    Smiling Mortician

    I’m very late to this party. It’s been a busy day. But on the topic of Veterans Day, here is a link to a show I co-wrote called Back in the World, which has two more performances this coming weekend if any of y’all are anywhere near wet & windy western Washington.

  57. 57.

    Jado

    @d58826:

    Pity the poor news networks – they have their best chance of 24/7 panic coverage evaporate into a fine mist of medical competence.

    Maybe CNN can sue the CDC for restraint of trade…

  58. 58.

    Jado

    @BGinCHI:

    I thought it was REALLY good. Shia LeBeouff was really good, and Brad Pitt is really magnetic. I have no idea how “historically accurate” it could be, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, in a “HOLY CRAP, I am glad I didn’t have anything to do with that. That’s horrible…” kinda way.

  59. 59.

    Jado

    @Zinsky:

    Don’t disagree on the tax part, but the issue you have is with the Old White Guys in charge, not tank driving grunts. Work to keep idiots like Bush II out of reach of the levers of war, and maybe we won’t have to deal with sending young military warriors overseas to fight for “strategic interests” that have nothing to do with an invasion of the US.

    Rail all you like about politicians sending someone else’s kid off to fight and die, but the grunts don’t deserve the vitriol

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