On the subject of national service, it might be time to take a look back at an essay by Harvey Swados, "Why Resign from the Human Race," which ran in Esquire in 1959 and which is generally credited with starting the national conversation that launched the Peace Corps. Swados was an American radical of the best sort -- non-Communist, non-ideological, common sense, idealistic, patriotic -- an immensely attractive figure. How many contributors to the Partisan Review actualy worked on an automobile assembly line instead of just outgassing about "the working class"? Just one, Harvey Swados. He used this experience to write his best novel, ON THE LINE.
It wouldn't hurt recruiting if the starting pay during boot camp was at least $15/hour and regular increases followed. If a service person dies in a combat zone or is incapacitated, they and their family should be taken care of by continuing their salary and benefits. Respect for people who serve is excellent, but it doesn't get the bills paid.
Friedman’s take (“How Netanyahu Is Trying to Save Himself, Elect Trump and Defeat Harris “ NYT 9/3) should move Biden to cut off bombs to BiBi once and for all.
Joe your article is such a train wreck of uninformed illogic it’s a real pain to dissect and correct;
1. In a previous post I destroyed your comment that President Trump is authoritarian. If you want to try again, then try using some facts and logic.
2. Not all public sector employees strive to serve the people they are supposed to serve but instead seek to serve their own personal interests and the institutions that support them:
a. The US government industrial complex is a perfect example of self-serving unelected bureaucrats, on the take politicians, snake-oil lobbyists and the large political donors/beneficiaries all working to extort hard working US taxpayers.
b. Government employee unions, especially the teacher’s union, should be abolished. They don’t serve the citizens and students; they serve the union members and leaders. It is ludicrous that they are allowed to donate to the campaigns of politicians who are responsible to negotiate agreements with the unions. The conflicts of interest on both sides of the negotiations are outrageous.
c. The cratering of US military recruitment is because the woke military leadership has demonized the largest demographic who has historically served.
3. Tom Friedman is an idiot and isn’t intelligent enough to understand or predict what Bibi Netanyahu thinks. All of the Israelis political leaders are in solidarity to Netanyahu’s response to the barbaric Oct. 7 attack on Israelis citizens by the Hamas. It is the Hamas who use their own citizens as human shields in battle and if they were serious about a ceasefire they would release the hostages that they have so brutally captured and held.
4. The sale of USS is more than an economic issue; it is a national security strategic issue for US interests to maintain domestic control of major industries. The steelmakers union is as much at fault as corporate management for the demise of USS, both with their long litany of short term perspectives. When and if the marketplace understands the viability of a long term strategy there will be no shortage of capital for investment. The proposed takeover from rival US based Cleveland-Cliffs is the best national security strategic alternative.
5. Megan McArdle and Joe Klein and all of the other democrats have such a myopic vision that their only solution is more government spending more of hard-working taxpayer dollars, which never works. Why not create more good paying jobs and opportunities? How about kicking the teacher’s union’s failed/lazy “everybody has to go to college” program to the curb and restoring shop class to schools? We need more tradespeople than woke sociology teachers and DEI administrators.
6. It is hysterical to hear democrat’s whine when criticized about the worst US military failure in history in the failed Biden’s administration withdrawal from Afghanistan abandoning 13 US Marines and an undocumented number of allies to the persecution and certain torture and certain death at the hands of the Taliban, the $1billion embassy, the Bagram Air Force Base which was the US only air base within a four hour air strike of China and Russia and the left behind $80 billion in US military hardware to the Taliban including night vision technology which was the tactical advantage of the US military. President Trump would never have done that and whose instructions were to take everything to the last nail. And this was all done because Beijing Biden, the worst POTUS in history, wanted to make a political statement on the anniversary of 9/11.
7. And don’t worry; no one on the top half of the IQ curve believes anything from CNN.
Joe, can you actually think for yourself or do you merely regurgitate the vomit of the failing NYTimes and the Worthless comPost? I’ve explained to you before that intelligent people can’t dumb down to that level.
Even veterans don't always rise to the occasion. I once thought Gabe Gutierrez at NBC was a good reporter. Now he seems to drink from the Trump trough daily.
On the subject of national service, it might be time to take a look back at an essay by Harvey Swados, "Why Resign from the Human Race," which ran in Esquire in 1959 and which is generally credited with starting the national conversation that launched the Peace Corps. Swados was an American radical of the best sort -- non-Communist, non-ideological, common sense, idealistic, patriotic -- an immensely attractive figure. How many contributors to the Partisan Review actualy worked on an automobile assembly line instead of just outgassing about "the working class"? Just one, Harvey Swados. He used this experience to write his best novel, ON THE LINE.
It wouldn't hurt recruiting if the starting pay during boot camp was at least $15/hour and regular increases followed. If a service person dies in a combat zone or is incapacitated, they and their family should be taken care of by continuing their salary and benefits. Respect for people who serve is excellent, but it doesn't get the bills paid.
Friedman’s take (“How Netanyahu Is Trying to Save Himself, Elect Trump and Defeat Harris “ NYT 9/3) should move Biden to cut off bombs to BiBi once and for all.
Joe your article is such a train wreck of uninformed illogic it’s a real pain to dissect and correct;
1. In a previous post I destroyed your comment that President Trump is authoritarian. If you want to try again, then try using some facts and logic.
2. Not all public sector employees strive to serve the people they are supposed to serve but instead seek to serve their own personal interests and the institutions that support them:
a. The US government industrial complex is a perfect example of self-serving unelected bureaucrats, on the take politicians, snake-oil lobbyists and the large political donors/beneficiaries all working to extort hard working US taxpayers.
b. Government employee unions, especially the teacher’s union, should be abolished. They don’t serve the citizens and students; they serve the union members and leaders. It is ludicrous that they are allowed to donate to the campaigns of politicians who are responsible to negotiate agreements with the unions. The conflicts of interest on both sides of the negotiations are outrageous.
c. The cratering of US military recruitment is because the woke military leadership has demonized the largest demographic who has historically served.
3. Tom Friedman is an idiot and isn’t intelligent enough to understand or predict what Bibi Netanyahu thinks. All of the Israelis political leaders are in solidarity to Netanyahu’s response to the barbaric Oct. 7 attack on Israelis citizens by the Hamas. It is the Hamas who use their own citizens as human shields in battle and if they were serious about a ceasefire they would release the hostages that they have so brutally captured and held.
4. The sale of USS is more than an economic issue; it is a national security strategic issue for US interests to maintain domestic control of major industries. The steelmakers union is as much at fault as corporate management for the demise of USS, both with their long litany of short term perspectives. When and if the marketplace understands the viability of a long term strategy there will be no shortage of capital for investment. The proposed takeover from rival US based Cleveland-Cliffs is the best national security strategic alternative.
5. Megan McArdle and Joe Klein and all of the other democrats have such a myopic vision that their only solution is more government spending more of hard-working taxpayer dollars, which never works. Why not create more good paying jobs and opportunities? How about kicking the teacher’s union’s failed/lazy “everybody has to go to college” program to the curb and restoring shop class to schools? We need more tradespeople than woke sociology teachers and DEI administrators.
6. It is hysterical to hear democrat’s whine when criticized about the worst US military failure in history in the failed Biden’s administration withdrawal from Afghanistan abandoning 13 US Marines and an undocumented number of allies to the persecution and certain torture and certain death at the hands of the Taliban, the $1billion embassy, the Bagram Air Force Base which was the US only air base within a four hour air strike of China and Russia and the left behind $80 billion in US military hardware to the Taliban including night vision technology which was the tactical advantage of the US military. President Trump would never have done that and whose instructions were to take everything to the last nail. And this was all done because Beijing Biden, the worst POTUS in history, wanted to make a political statement on the anniversary of 9/11.
7. And don’t worry; no one on the top half of the IQ curve believes anything from CNN.
Joe, can you actually think for yourself or do you merely regurgitate the vomit of the failing NYTimes and the Worthless comPost? I’ve explained to you before that intelligent people can’t dumb down to that level.
Even veterans don't always rise to the occasion. I once thought Gabe Gutierrez at NBC was a good reporter. Now he seems to drink from the Trump trough daily.
There are folks meeting Joe’s definition of patriotism among both Democrats and Republicans; neither party has a monopoly.