Patriotism Lite

Thom Shanker in today's NYT has a superb analysis on what's wrong with the BFEE war effort: It's that only the troops are asked to share the sacrifice, and no one else is. No income surtax, no blood drives, no war bonds, no gas rationing, and no draft to share the burden across all economic levels. The Greatest Generation must be really proud of us, their progeny.

This is the only war we have ever fought as a nation wherein the Home Front was not an integral part of the war effort. This is the also rare war wherein the children of the president who are of military age are not in uniform.

The lying hypocritical Chickenhawk motherfuckers inside the Beltway and their fellow-traveler lackeys around the country sporting those fucking yellow ribbons on their gas-hog SUVs waste no time in preening their patriotic feathers and crowing from the rooftops that they "support the troops". But they're not willing to make even the slightest personal sacrifice to make manifest that support.

Every time I see one of those goddam yellow ribbons it is all I can do to restrain myself from tearing it off and grinding into the blacktop.

But things could escalate rapidly out of control, with the ultimate result that I might have to share a jail cell with Karl Rove, and I don't think I could trust myself not to throttle the little turdblossom.