Was pleased to get a phone call yesterday from long-time Lawrenceville friend, Karen C. We had a long, satisfying talk while Pat was having breakfast (at about 1:30), but when I went back in the kitchen, he told me he didn't feel well. He was very pale and I helped him back to bed. He slept until 5:00, but after that, seemed somewhat better. However, he ate little dinner--I hope this doesn't signify a downward turn in his illness.
Today is show day! We meet at 12:30, so will be able run through it before we actually go on. According to the flyer, it starts at 3:00, but we're still not sure if some other activity happens first. Okay, we'll play it by ear.
Wider: Those television commercials for the military make me crazy. Of course, the ad people are much too savvy to push their devil's work directly. Instead, they lure impressionable young people by showing soldiers performing admirable feats of strength (rappelling up a building, jumping out of a plane) and acting as humanitarians, almost always with a gang of laughing, adoring children as foils. You get the impression the major purpose of the armed services is to bring aid and comfort to suffering humanity when they're not having fun keeping in shape.
The ones aimed at parents are even more insidious. They portray earnest, soft-spoken youngsters and serious-minded mothers or fathers tip-toeing around the subject of signing up. These little plays are invariably in modest--but respectable--settings (a city apartment, a country kitchen) and feature actors with whom the viewer can identify. The son or daughter is mildly attractive, intelligent, and articulate and the parent is solemnly concerned, but "listening."
Of course these ads target the poor, cannon-fodder class. I wonder how many of them understand that a host of well-paid whores--writers, psychologists, and film-makers--are employed to entice them to become hired killers. Considering we never see the shredded bodies of either our soldiers or "the enemy"--let alone the little children we accidentally slaughter--one could be persuaded that the military is just another path to find one's place in life.
It isn't.
4 comments:
The government is of course targeting people who are not really of an age to have done a whole lot of thinking for themselves, and that makes it hard to speak clearly and honestly and directly about what they're doing ... "there but for the grace of God go I." Still, nothing's going to change if we can't demythologize The Troops.
You put your finger on the tough part,Jim. Even people who are--vaguely--against war or certain wars manage to persuade themselves that we should "support the troops." (I hate and despise the phrase "support OUR troops." They're not my troops and never have been.)
I mentioned before that a recruiter called the house wishing to speak to my son and that pissed me off...Well, another thing pissed me off: They asked us to stand at his graduation ceremony while we were subjected to The Pledge of Allegiance and The National Anthem and we live in a "liberal" area that voted overwhelmingly for the "anitwar" Obama. AUUUURRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!
Anyway, thanks for letting me vent and take a look at this.
Our little homeowners association AND the women's club to which I belong, always start meetings with the pledge of allegiance. I can't understand why--are they trying to flush out any anti-patriotic sentiments by noting who seems unenthusiastic or what?
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