The other day, Ted Cruz shared this Russian propaganda video, which shows scenes of Russian soldiers doing PT, paratroopers jumping out of an IL-76 Candid transport, and a soldier firing a bolt action rifle from a prone position in the snow...with this same thousand yard stare spliced in throughout. I don't speak Russian, and neither does Ted Cruz to my knowledge so I'm just going to run with the theory that Ted got a boner off of whatever imagery he thinks the Russian propagandists were trying to convey.
It's well done, my only objection to it at all is it's a cartoon...but then everything gets turned into cartoons these days and I suppose if you want to reach the young people who are why this is so, you probably are going to have to make some cartoons.
So, on balance, I'm just fine with that. Unlike the Russian military, the United States Armed Forces is an all-volunteer force and you have to do what you have to do in order to recruit enough people from a diverse and ever-changing population to get the job done. That's just the facts of life and the truth is, it's literally been that way for just a bit longer than I've even been alive.
As I've discussed elsewhere, people have lots of different reasons for enlisting, and the military has always had to pay attention to that because, like it or not, right or wrong, since the draft ended in 1973 the military has to put itself out there like any other employer, although the truth is it did that before, too. We as a people (Unlike a majority of the Russians, I should add) have always had strong currents of initiative and volunteerism when it comes to this stuff. We've also always had a lot of people with a restless desire to see the world and a low budget for doing so on their own terms, and these are always things that the government and the military have sought to take advantage of. Yes, I used that word on purpose, though I do not do so in a negative light. It's simply a fact of life that our country is not based on some authoritarian ideal and we have to give people a reason to do stuff. So, for the most part, we do.
Hence, as I've written before, things like me standing at attention and sweating in dress uniform in a university auditorium while some old black dude who was a Tuskegee Airman and a no-shit fucking hero back in the day talks about the difficulty of doing something as simple as getting gas in Cairo, Illinois, during segregation...or of finding a place to stay in Tennessee or getting lunch in Louisiana or finding a place to take a shit in Mississippi.
Sometimes, people are just owed respect, and owed a chance to tell their story as a goddamned fucking courtesy and I cannot and will not tell you it any other way.
And sometimes, it's going to be your duty to stand there and fucking listen, so that others will see and so that they will know that said acknowledgement is being given, because in a liberal democracy public opinion and public perception of the Armed Forces and the State are metrics that matter.
Because hey, there might be people in the crowd who are thinking of signing up!
We don't "Deserve" her story "shoved down our throats." She goddamned well deserves a right to tell her story and hey, somebody figured out how we can actually use this to get more people to enlist!
From a literally American perspective, isn't that a win for all sides?
Isn't that the kind of thing we say we want?
I mean, for fuck's sake they even do similar things in places like Russia and if anything, they probably do them even more there than we do here because it's even more of a survival issue in authoritarian states with conscript armies and throughout the former East Bloc and Soviet states there are monuments and parades and laws granting recognition aplenty to the Heroes of the Great Patriotic War and the Warrior Internationalists of the misbegotten Soviet adventure in Afghanistan because of it.
Right-wingers have this angry stupid delusion that some godlike authoritarian figure will just say "Jump" and they'll all snap to attention instantly and say "HOW HIGH, SIR?!?"
One only needs to look at the last five years to see how much pure unadulterated horse shit that is. Authoritarian governments often have very high amounts of avoidance of military service, because they're authoritarian governments and serving in those countries itself tends to be shitty.
One of my best friends in college was a veteran of the Egyptian Army, a conscript who spent his time as a gunner on an M1A1 Abrams tank. While the military in Egypt is very highly regarded by the public and one of the few aspects of the State considered to be entirely an institution of the People...and as the world saw during the Arab Spring, it's also often legitimately seen as a bulwark against certain excesses by the State...my friend often likened his service to a prison sentence.
Given the conditions he described to me through clouds of Hookah smoke, he ain't wrong.
That's how military service and public opinion often come together for the global Other Half. Think about that for a second.
We all ought to be damned grateful that Emma gets to be in a cartoon while promoting an ethic of volunteerism and national service.
And speaking, somewhat uncomfortably, of things like public opinion...
...Especially keeping in mind that I'm a former conservative and Republican myself...
I can remember when shit like this would've gotten Ted Cruz run straight out of Texas on a fucking rail.
I can remember when saying anything in favor of Russia or the Soviet Union might get you beat up.
I can remember when doing something like sharing Russian/Soviet propaganda would have literally been the end of any conservative politician's career...and they weren't all Republicans, either.
And I can remember an even longer period of time, like literally my whole life before the last five years, where talking shit about the United States Army for any reason would have been the end of any Republican.
So, perhaps the question is, if being a United States Army Corporal with two mommies is not acceptable to these chucklefucks, then what the hell is?
Anthony Bouchard, a Wyoming state senator and the son of a bitch they dug up to run against Liz Cheney...just created a massive scandal for himself, supposedly attempting to prevent a media expose' about the fact that when he was 18 he got a 14-year old girl pregnant. That he married her does not make it right.
Where I come from, that's called Statutory Rape and the old hard-edged conservative in me says this dude shouldn't be running for Congress, he should be running from jailhouse booty bandits. Is that wrong for me to think that? Well, I'm here to tell you in the (now-deceased) Republican Party that I came up in, such a thing would've been a common sentiment...right or wrong.
But today that guy is a candidate, likely running with the backing of the party establishment (you know, the people who taught me this stuff, or at least their ideological descendants) and it's Liz Cheney of all fucking people who is seen as the outlier.
The girl committed suicide, and their son won't talk to this asshole, so I have to assume there's a reason for that.
There was a time, if you'd asked me, that I'd have told you conservatism and Republicanism were all about family, and morals, built on the basis of revealed truth and the wisdom of our ancestors. Change was fine, but let's be careful about it, you know?
Nowadays it's not any of that. Nowadays they could give a fuck about family or values, they just want an excuse to fuck teenagers.
If there's any such thing as Republican family values it's that Republicans literally only value one kind of family, until they don't.
Hatred of social change is just an excuse for all that.
Conservatism as it is, has become nothing more than a meme to be used to excuse and justify bad behavior and shitty treatment of others, throw in glamorizing and glorifying our national enemies for a few shitty culture warrior bonus points...and don't forget to add in stealing a bunch of money.
Now, these people want to do nothing more than shout "Yee-haw" while placing the rest of us in harm's way. People like Red Cruz would rather get their ass conquered by the Russians and live in bomb shelters in a disease-ridden, irradiated wasteland than live in a changing, diverse, liberalizing America where they might have a little less power and have to learn to do with just a little less money.
And the last thing they'd ever want you to know is why.
Now the question is, what are we going to do about this crap? Because if we won't do something about it, nothing else matters. Another lesson I learned back in the day was "You get what you tolerate."
Tell the fucking story. Ask, and answer, the fucking question.
"Why?"
Hold those that are in power accountable and make them answer you. And if you don't like the answer, hold them accountable again and get them out.
Change the fucking meme. Period.
Not only while we still can, but because we still can. Yes, we can.
That is all.
Meme
/mēm/
noun
- an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.
- a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users.
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