Ingratitude

Ingratitude

There's no such thing as gratitude in this thrice-damned country anymore. Gratitude has a shorter shelf life than egg salad at a picnic next to an active volcano.

I, personally, don't have any idea why a person would serve voluntarily in this country's armed forces. You live and die at the whim of scared rich people and politicians (note the overlap), and should you have the poor taste to survive your service to this country, they mercilessly skimp on any after-action medical care you might require. Almost as if you don't actually deserve it.

Not to mention that military pay is gravely out of step with current economics and that many military families are stretched beyond their means.

And as much money as is spent on military budgets and defense contracts, you'd think we'd be able to reliably arm and armor our troops. Not to mention how many of the services that the armed forces used to perform for itself have been outsourced to crony corporations like Haliburton, with a painfully predictable result.

See. That's the problem of living in a nation with no accountability. It's bad enough that evil and rich people can run about despoiling the landscape, ripping off everyone they clap eyes on and jamming their genitalia into anything warm and concave, free of even the most trivial worries of consequences. We could maybe limp along like that. We could maybe manage. But the flip side of that coin is that good and hardworking people are routinely shafted and not only do they never see justice, but often are blamed for being a victim and further demonized and pilloried for it.

Greed is not a virtue, and yet everyone I have ever known who has put something ahead of the pursuit of money has been derided as impractical or even a "Sucker."

No one wants to feel like a sucker; it's one of the bitterest pills to swallow. And that desire, along with the love of money has nearly ruined every single good and righteous thing in this nation of ours.

So, I feel like it is just a symptom of the larger disease when Bob Dole can sit on the Senate floor, in a wheelchair, necessitated by injuries incurred in the defense of this country during WW2, only to have his fellow peers in the Republican party vote down a measure to support the signing of a treaty from the UN to help disabled people all over the world...A treaty modeled on the Americans with disabilities act.

And of course, the tissue paper thin explanation for this opposition is the premise that to support the treaty somehow erodes American Sovereignty. Because UN=American slavery plus REASONS!

Because the UN has proven itself more than capable of pushing around this country…or whatever. Heck, they can't even get America to pay its damn member dues.

I don't always agree with Bob Dole, but I do respect him. Can't say the same for many of his brethren.

But happily, respect for naked, unvarnished evil is not necessary for Fiddlers. We can certainly intellectually appreciate it of course. I mean, really, you gotta have a lot of chutzpah to be able to look Bob Dole in the eye, shake his GOOD hand, say something nice, and then jab it into him and worm it around in him until he turns into a hand puppet. You gotta have balls as big as church bells.

Maybe that's the takeaway here. Maybe the GOP is struggling to find their way after the crushing election defeats of the past and they've decided to choose cold hard bastardism as their path to power. One could make a case that we need cold, hard bastards in governments to make the sorts of cold hard bastard choices that only cold hard bastards can. And if that means being cold hard bastards to handicapped people, well I'm sure those guys are going to try to be equal to the challenge.

I mean those pesky spinally deficient Democrats aren't going to have the kind of American stick-it-to-it-iveness that will enable them to say "FUCK NO! How DARE you sir!" to disabled persons seeking a better life.

None of those fluffy-headed hippy types are going to have the raw cojones to stop those mooching, parasitic, 9/11 first responders and their families. Those people…with their endless "my lungs have turned into enormous bags of pus" and similar whining.

How dare you.

How dare you suffer a loss.

How dare you accuse with your eyes.

How dare you "serve" this country and expect anything in return.

That's the message these days, Even mouthing insincere words of praise or encouragement has become too much of a chore.

For an old testament God that once wiped out cities and land masses for less, I can only suspect that God is saving up something special for America. Is it any wonder why we some of us want to be clear of the blast radius when he finally gets fed up?

Somebody call Bob Dole and tell him we're taking him with us when we go.