Thoughts on Movie Advertisement

While watching TV tonight every station aired commercials for the new Brad Pitt movie every 30 minutes it seemed. The big line is

"We are interested in one thing, Killing Nazis"

I find this kind of funny, it doesn't disturb me at all, they were the enemy of the US during that time period. I saw the original "Inglorious Bastards" when I was about 9 or 10 on HBO (that is the first movie I remember having nudity in it from my youth, it made a lasting impression to say the least) . What does surprise me though, although it shouldn't, is where are all the do gooders who normally come out to say "you can't say that, you are going to offend the Germans", you know, the kind of people Hollywood is made up of. The kind of people who say eating meat is murder to animals.

What would happen if that same line was used every hour advertising for other movies about our wars against the Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, British, Iraqis, American Indians, Philippines, etc. (you name them and chances are high that the US Army has done away with a group of them, we are quite good at that, after all killing is the job of the military whether we acknowledge it or not. Any soldier active or not, remembers standing on the parade field and screaming at the top of their lungs "WHAT MAKE THE GRASS GROW GREEN, ........ THE BLOOD, THE BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW GREEN". That is when the realization of you job duty as a soldier comes to the forefront)

I am just curious as to what would happen if any other former or current enemy of the US was targeted in this manner. Where are the people saying consider the feelings of the Germans, many people living in the US are former German Nazis, they were being loyal to their country at the time. I wonder what they think as they see that commercial hourly and remember their dead brothers who were justifiably slain by the American War machine.  If we can bring up those wounds to the Germans, why is it not ok to show video clips of the attack on the twin towers every hour to make us remember current events and why we need a strong defense and that their are very powerful forces out there who wish death and destruction upon us.

Since there are American Nazis, I do not agree with them by the way, and I think they are a sad ridiculous group (the original Nazis were for national socialism by the way, remind you of  some of our current politicians?), why can we say "We are in the business of killing Nazis" but if someone said the same thing and substituted another group, say Muslims, they would be chastised and branded hate mongers? All Muslims do not wish death and destruction on us, all Nazis did not wish it upon us either. I know an old man who was a member of the former Hitler youth, he says he didn't understand at that time what it was really about, but that he was wanting to defend those around him and be patriotic to his country, not necessarily kill people. He said most of those around him felt the same way he did, it was the radicals that you had to watch out for. Sounds familiar to current events doesn't it? But yet it is OK to label them and wish death upon them.

I am just wondering if anyone else finds it odd. Personally it doesn't bother me, I was just noticing how it seemed unfair for us not to be able to say we are in the business of killing our current enemies when it is okay to glorify our past victories of killing Nazis. As a closing statement I will say that when I joined the U.S. Army at 17 years old, I like every other soldier, swore an Oath to Protect the Constitution of the United States of America from ALL enemies foreign and domestic, so any enemy of the US and its Constitution (yes even domestic politicians) should be fair game. Things are different now then they were in the 1700's; unfortunately we can't tar and feather them anymore and get away with it; the only effective weapon we currently have against those domestic enemies of the Constitution is our vote, so in the next voting year I am going to vote against any incumbent politician (Republican or Democrat) who has voted against what was laid out by our founding fathers when they laid out our Constitution. I am scared I am in a losing battle for the first time in my life. Get on the "We are in the business of Killing Socialism" band wagon and stick up for what so many of our forefathers died for.

Canadian Help?

CNN acts like the US has not been in Afghanistan, just how out of touch are they that they think the US military has not been there from the beginning.

"As U.S. troops begin increased deployments to Afghanistan, the United States can look to its northern neighbor for insights on the frontlines and the home front."

It goes on to say that Canada increased its number of troops last year 2,800 and have had 117 soldiers killed there. The article also says that Canada has invested $1.2 billion dollars there. I don't know how many US soldiers that have been there, but the fact that the US announced that it was sending an additional 30,000 troops tells me that there is more than Canada's 2,800. The US have had 608 KIA in Afghanistan as of October 2008. There should be no surprise that the number of US soldiers that die per year started to rise as soon as we started turning sectors that the US had previously secured over to other countries for security.

Half-hearted Apology

Napolitano issued a half-hearted apology last Thursday after naming war veterans as a possible threat to the security of the United States.

"This was an assessment, not an accusation," Napolitano continued. "It was limited to extremists those who seek to commit violence within the United States. And all this was meant to do was to give law enforcement what we call 'situational awareness.'"

A footnote in the report,

"Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling
Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," said that while there is no
specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are planning acts of
violence, such acts could come from unnamed "rightwing extremists" concerned
about illegal immigration, abortion, increasing federal power and restrictions
on firearms -- and singled out returning war veterans as susceptible to
recruitment.

She said that this was similar to a report on left wing extremist issued earlier. But there is a big difference; in the earlier report she named specific groups like the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. Here she named almost all veterans as a possible threat.

"The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist
groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or
suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today," the
report reads.

She is making a reference to the Oklahoma City Bombing as an example of possible threats. Primarily because this was the only recent example she could find of a veteran doing this sort of thing. Funny that she failed to mention the Washington D.C. sniper who was killing because of his extremist Muslim beliefs (no I don't think all Muslims are terrorists, I know many who are appaled by their extremist brothers). She says she mentions McVeigh because she says that McVeigh received his training in the Army in how to do this sort of thing. I am sorry to inform her, but I have been to US Army Combat Engineer training, and they did not cover blowing up multi-story buildings with truckloads of fertilizer, nor did they cover it when I had my training as an Army Cavalry Scout. And both of these professions cover explosives in great detail as much of their job includes destroying obstacles in both as an offensinve force and as a blocking action in the retreat. While it was effective (Oklahoma City bombing), the military has much better methods of destroying buildings, if you don't believe it just ask the people of Baghdad. So I feel pretty confident that he didn't learn that in the U.S. Army.

If this is the type of person assessing our threat level we are in even more trouble than I thought we were.

Here are some of the official responses to her apology:

"The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during
the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42
million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime," Rehbein
wrote. "To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical
'disgruntled military veteran' is unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole
example of Islam."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also criticized the report,
saying its portrayal of veterans was "offensive and unacceptable."

"Their leftwing assessment identifies actual terrorist organizations, like the
Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front," House Judiciary Committee
Ranking Member Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said in a statement issued Wednesday. "The rightwing report uses broad generalizations about veterans, pro-life groups,
federalists and supporters of gun rights. That's like saying if you love
puppies, you might be susceptible to recruitment by the Animal Liberation Front.
It is ridiculous and deeply offensive to millions of Americans."

Anyone is a Target including the American Legion

MSNBC Hints GOP a Hate Group Includes Republican symbol on screen during story about right-wing extremism

CNN Smears 'Right Wing' As Nazis
Recycling the mid-1990s liberal smear campaign against grassroots conservatism, CNN has posted an article on the new DHS threat report complete with a Getty Images photo of neo-Nazi and white supremacist flags.

If the report were about Nazi extremists, that picture would be warranted. However, the DHS report warns against an amorphous “right-wing extremism,” failing to mention by name any particular threatening group or intelligence of any planned attacks.

The DHS report did cite returning war veterans as at-risk for recruitment by right-wing extremist groups. It seems strange to think that those men and women who risked their lives to protect this country and their government could be or become Nazis, but that seems to be the implication.

Also note that the unnamed “prominent civil rights organization” that the DHS hit job cites to stoke anti-military paranoia is the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center — which designated the American Legion a “hate group” for its pro-enforcement stance on immigration law.

Read the American Legion Response here

Homeland Security Warns of Returning Veterans with Violent Potential

What is sad is the fact that the government knows what is driving people to extremist groups, but instead of curtailing their behavior they are taking steps to alienate returning veterans and put them on watch lists.

Communitarian Network

In January, speaking at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, former president Bill Clinton praised the Brady Campaign for continuing to lobby Congress for a new gun ban, and suggested that the mood in Washington might be more favorable toward a ban now than it had been during the last eight years. Further in his speech he made the contradicting statement that no one wants to revoke the Second Amendment, but later in his speech made another statement contradicting what he said earlier about not revoking the Second Amendment.

"[W]e're now in a position to begin again," he said. "It's not a leftward movement. It's a forward, communitarian movement."

The Communitarian Network or "Movement" is a relatively new political philosophy that started in the 90's, their slogan is "For Individual Rights and Social Responsibility". This sounds really good. While stating that there are not supporting communism or socialism they also publish the following in their Public Platform.

"Neither human existence nor individual liberty can be sustained for long outside the interdependent and overlapping communities to which all of us belong. Nor can any community long survive unless its members dedicate some of their attention, energy, and resources to shared projects. The exclusive pursuit of private interest erodes the network of social environments on which we all depend"

 Sounds like Utopia, but also a little like Communism or Socialism. If you don't believe it read this paragraph:

"At the heart of the communitarian understanding of social justice is the idea of reciprocity: each member of the community owes something to all the rest, and the community owes something to each of its members. Justice requires responsible individuals in a responsive community  .... Beyond self-support, individuals have a responsibility for the material and moral well-being of others....Beyond self-support, individuals have a responsibility for the material and moral well-being of others."

While stating individual rights as a goal of the movement; they contradict themselves with the statement about the Bill of Rights, in which the United States is based on:

"There is little sense in gun registration. What we need to significantly enhance public safety is domestic disarmament  ...... We join with those who read the Second Amendment the way it was written, as a communitarian clause, calling for community militias, not individual gun slingers."

Mr. Clinton supposedly wants to protect our "2nd Amendment Rights" with the Communitarian Movement. How can this be considering the above direct quote from their platform? On the "Movements" website they state:

"Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, for over a hundred years, that it does not prevent laws that bar guns."

 Obviously they have not read the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Report on the subject or many of the Supreme Court rulings that the 2nd Amendment's reference to "The People" is the exact same as the references to "The People" in the 1st and 4th Amendments. They state that it is an individual's right not the right of an organized (state or community run) militia.

The "Movement" likes to quote values of the ancient Greeks like the following.

"The ancient Greeks understood this well: A person who is completely private is lost to civic life. The exclusive pursuit of one's self-interest is not even a good prescription for conduct in the marketplace; for no social, political, economic, or moral order can survive that way."

The "Movement" obviously prescribe to the teachings of Greek philosopher Plato. In Plato's ideal state, the one-man rule of a tyrant is replaced by the one-man rule of a philosopher-king. The king uses a professional military/police class — the Guardians — to keep everyone else in line. Like the people of the former Soviet Union, the common people of Plato's ideal state would be trained periodically (once a month) in use of arms, but would have no right to arms, and arms would be centrally stored in state armories (Plato, Laws).
 

Because it does not fall in the "Movement's" ideals they totally ignore the wisdom of Aristotle. Like Plato, Aristotle considered arms a fundamental source of political power, but unlike Plato, Aristotle wanted ordinary people to possess this power. So it would seem they want to ignore the writings of Aristotle, who authored the Athenian Constitution this is a little odd since the Encyclopedia Britannica states, "Aristotle, more than any other thinker, determined the orientation and the content of Western intellectual history." 
In Aristotle's book, Politics, he argues that each citizen should work to earn his own living, should participate in political or legislative affairs, and should bear arms. 

Arms are essential to any good government: "Let us then enumerate the functions of a state, and we shall easily elicit what we want. . . . thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against external assailants" (Book 7, ch. VIII). It was hardly surprising that dictators always disarmed their subjects: "As of oligarchy so of tyranny . . . Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms" (Book 5, ch X).

Aristotle considered the possession of arms synonymous with possession of political power: "when the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest, the government is called by the generic name — a constitution . . . in a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens" (Book 3, ch VII).

In the Athenian Constitution Aristotle even makes his position on the right to bear arms by explaining that throughout Greek history disarmament of the public was the first step to Tyrannical Rule and in every respect showed a great advance in cruelty and crime.

I compiled the above information from many different sources including but not limited to:
The Communitarian Network
The George Washington University
Communitarianism - Wikipedia
The Second Amendment - Wikipedia
Aristotle vs. Pluto
Arms and the Greeks
The missing guns of Bombay

10 Silver Stars in 1 Battle

Good story about US Special Forces battling it out with Afghani rebels. It is a little sad that the reporter felt the need to put in the story that the soldiers used the lifeless body of an orphan as cover from bullets.