Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

People are complicated. Love is not.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

In my day, never was longer.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

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

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

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

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Trump should be leading, not lying.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Our messy unity will be our strength.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Night Owl Open Thread

Reader Interactions

21Comments

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    I was ruminating on this fuckwad I got into a bit of a sparring match with today. Trump blathered about wanting to increase the size of the military and I booed, and this dude was like, “YOU’RE BOOING THE MILITARY?!” He got pissed at me when I said that we could reduce troop levels, and made some blar blar about how he keeps me safe or whatever.

    Did the military always have this attitude that anything other than knob-slobbing means that you hate them? Like, what? They volunteered for the job, I always opposed the Iraq invasion, why do they think I owe them shit? I would be more inclined to “support the military”, whatever that means, if so many of these idiots who got C’s in high school didn’t want to just work out and blow shit up and get paid for it. But so many of them act like they’re doing me a fucking favor. Um, no thanks.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    @Suzanne: It seems like the deification of the military started after 9/11. It makes me uneasy too. Cultures that require mindless deference to the warrior class seem to invariably come to a sticky end.

    Why did you go to the Trump rally? Teaturd tourism?

  7. 7.

    Steeplejack

    @Suzanne:

    Did the military always have this attitude that anything other than knob-slobbing means that you hate them?

    I don’t think it’s the actual military so much as the 101st Chairborne that feels that way. I grew up in a military family, and I certainly didn’t see that sense of special entitlement anywhere around me. But that was a different time.

    Yet I don’t think it’s much different now. Yeah, there are douchebags who are probably like “Well, if they’re going to treat me like a king I’ll let them,” but there are always douchebags like that. When I’ve been at the airport and seen people start spontaneously clapping when a line of GIs passes through in their fatigues, which has happened a few times (but not lately), most of them look slightly embarrassed.

  9. 9.

    Steeplejack

    @Betty Cracker:

    Agree with you that the idolatry got amped up big time after 9/11.

    Was away for a bit looking for this ad, which always made me mist up. Couldn’t find the one-minute version, which had more shots of the old coot looking like he was pissed that this young black woman was getting preferential treatment, and then boom—the payoff.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: I went to heckle. I’m going to see Sanders next week, but for cheering.

    It makes me sick. I am from a five-generation military family, and none of them have ever acted like they think they are owed anything. Honestly, though, I think it’s more an enlisted thing—those are the guys I’ve met who think I owe them gratitude for voluntarily fighting a war I didn’t support that actually put me in more danger than I was in before. And like I said, IME a significant number of these guys are not smart, not educated, and they joined the military because they could work out and play with guns, and then expect my deference for it. No. Fuck you. I will not be dominated by people who got C’s in high school.

  11. 11.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    Found the long version of that commercial. Much better. Still makes me mist up.

    Anyway, I thought of it because of how I think most military people are embarrassed by all the special attention—which never seems to extend to better veterans’ benefits, counseling, reintegration into civilian society, job programs, etc. You know, actually useful stuff.

  12. 12.

    Anne Laurie

    @Steeplejack: Yeah, and the same people who mouth platitudes about how “motherhood is the most precious job of all” and “children are our future” are the ones who fight most viciously against raising taxes to provide actual support for children and the people (mostly women) who take care of them. This is capitalism; what our society cares about, it monetizes. When we say something is priceless, we mean it has no value — it’s worthless.

  13. 13.

    Zinsky

    Suzanne – I absolutely agree. This worship of the military is not a healthy thing. Too many people today confuse militarism with patriotism. They aren’t the same thing. I would argue that a true patriot wants the U.S. Military to be active only when there is a clear and present danger to America’s security, which, arguably hasn’t happened since the War of 1812! These asshats in the military who say they are “protecting our freedom” by slaughtering thousands of innocent Iraqis or Yemenis or whatever country we happen to be invading or occupying at the time, have no idea what they are talking about. They are actually doing the bidding of large corporations by allowing them to exploit other countries natural resources under the guise of “helping them”. I still want them to explain how we convince the people in the Middle East that we are killing them for their own good?

  14. 14.

    Botsplainer

    I was talking to a friend of mine recently – he’d spent a few nasty tours in the sandbox actually mixing in the shit, with PTSD and some physical conditions to show for it. I was talking about some of the rear echelon fuckups that I deal with, guys who had no combat infirmities or time, yet managed to work the VA into higher disability ratings than he got. I commented on the wreckage of these guys’ lives, and how they wear their prior service as a talisman against criticism for being fuckups (my favorite being a twice bankrupt IT O-4 who never left CONUS drawing a retirement based on 90% disability, most of which was PTSD). My friend remarked thusly “I don’t wear camo or anything letting people know I was army. I don’t want people thanking me; it was my job.”

  15. 15.

    kc

    @Suzanne:

    Did the military always have this attitude that anything other than knob-slobbing means that you hate them?

    It’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

  16. 16.

    Iowa Old Lady

    My impression is that there’s a trace of guilt wrapped deep in that soldier worship. At some level, people know that only a small sliver of the population is being sent to fight a horrifying war that’s hard to justify. Granted current day soldiers volunteer, but the worshippers (at least many of them) know they’d never do that, and the absence of the draft means the risk and pain are not widely shared. So it ‘s like worship is what’s given instead of reasonable policy.

    The fact that a lot of the volunteers don’t have better choices makes it worse, not better, to me.

    I’m with Suzanne. No need to increase that.

  17. 17.

    scuffletuffle

    @Suzanne: i have had someone say that to me twice, both times it was a twenty-somethingish prick after he had tried to threaten and intimidate me (a gray-haired fifty-somethingish). Cuts NO mustard with me.

  19. 19.

    Keith G

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    My impression is that there’s a trace of guilt wrapped deep in that soldier worship.

    Yeah, maybe some of that.

    My highly cynical self just feels that it is yet another scio-emotional leverage point to be taken advantage of – just another tool for another type of marketing.

    There are evolutionary advantageous processes buried in all of our noggins such as a desire to belong and yet a suspicion of the “other” and even easy hostility toward outsiders wanting “our stuff”. These are buttons available to be pushed in all of us and this has become a favored technique of conservatives.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    Perhaps I am an asshole. Well, not perhaps. I’m definitely an asshole. But from time to time, I meet these douchebags who barely finished high school and can barely hold down a civilian job, but who act like they are smarter than I am and like they went into the military out of some heroic and noble bit of self-sacrifice, and I find out they’re ex-military, and I just shake my head. No, asshole, you went into the military because you need someone to tell you what to do all the time.

    I have an ex-friend whose husband is the portrait of this. They’re now trying to get him disability for his PTSD. My ex-friend is clinically depressed and often suicidal, but they keep loaded, unsecured guns in their house, even though they have a daughter. They’re trying to get disability because he won’t be bothered to take advantage of his GI Bill to finish college, and he couldn’t stay employed at Target. They’re racist, and they abuse that kid. They also shot their dog when they didn’t want it anymore. But guess what—HE SACRIFICED FOR MY FREEDUMB, or something. So knob-slobbing: Commence.

Comments are closed.