What Are You Remembering Today?

[H]ow many recall their President’s recent statement that US participation in the NATO attacks on Libya would last for “days, not weeks”?

[...]

And what about those promises made by the current occupant of the White House, clearly articulated during the last presidential campaign, that he’d get us out of Iraq and put an end to a war that – he and his supporters maintained – was fought under false pretenses? That these promises go unfulfilled, even as the President begins his campaign for a second term, is not even noted by his Republican enemies, let alone his Democratic supporters.

  Justin Raimondo

Of course, he believes he DID end the war in Iraq – we only have support personnel there now – no combat troops. See the difference?

Going further back in our time machine, we revisit older conflicts whose legacies have faded into near imperceptibility, like portraits left out in the rain: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Korea – all names that conjure visions of a world divided between East and West, the “Free World” and the Soviet bloc, the Bad Guys and the Good. Yet the memory loses its distinctiveness, for– long after the Bad Guys of yesteryear are but entries in some dusty encyclopedia — we are still trapped in that world. The specifics have changed – the Bad Guys are Muslims, now, not commies – but the general principle remains fully operative, and it is this: we are always the Good Guys.

Three cheers for the Good Guys and their dead heroes.

The Cassandras of the present era can be heard, and, even if they’re not always heeded, the evidence of their prescience is recorded and preserved by the great god Google, whose sacred algorithms have given us the modern equivalent of the sibyl’s oracular power. We can connect to the past with a few strokes of the keyboard, and not just call up the Official History but all versions of history as recorded by both the victors and the vanquished, the Court Historians and the Cassandras – and, in the process, glean some hint of what the future holds. The invention of the Internet augurs, perhaps, the reinvention of historical memory.

Until they finish tightening regulations on the internet.

Next up...

I didn't fight for your freedoms. In the six years I was in, I never once defended your right to vote, or to carry a gun, or to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure (that one doesn't really apply anymore, anyway), or any of the other things you enjoy as a citizen of this country. I just didn't. Neither did anyone who went to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam.

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The military hasn't actually deployed en masse to defend your freedom in a long, long time. Unless you call rich people fucking over the world's poor and powerless a form of freedom.

[...]

I don't mind honoring sacrifice, but the military doesn't have a monopoly on that, now does it? I also don't mind remembering military dead and wounded. But we do it all wrong. We just fetishize the suffering (like good Catholics, no?) without wondering why it ever happened in the first place. Remembrance and memorial, it would seem, also involve reflection and assessment.

[...]

A real Memorial Day would involve commitments to cease sacrifices that don't actually, you know, do anything in the name of freedom. Losing your legs so that Chevron can see higher profit margins is not noble. It's a god damned shame. Dying in the service of defense contractors doesn't bestow sainthood on the deceased. It just means that a life got snuffed out for no good reason. Reflexive military worship is a cancer on society. Unscrupulous people use it to justify their actions and avoid any criticism.

  First Draft

And for those of us who can’t pretend, here’s a great “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” flashback.

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....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.