Occupy Wall Street

I recently read an article at The Atlantic that got me thinking. Actually it got me thinking, then commenting. I thought I would save those thoughts here. I keep thinking about the "end game" regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests. I just don't see people giving up and going away this time. People have finally gotten angry enough to take to the streets and a lot of people, like me, have been waiting for this to happen for a very long time. It's ABOUT time. Ironic maybe that it is happening during the Obama administration, but then again, if Bush were still president, Blackwater (not yet renamed Xe at that time) would have come in and shot everyone by now.

Therein lies my fear. With protests growing throughout the United States, and having served and knowing others who are currently serving or have served, I just don't see them accepting an illegal order to act against these protesters. Hell, a lot of these kids are in the military precisely because there are no other options out there. Not everyone is G.I. Joe out to save the world. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't. Sure, there was an aspect of wanting to make my father, also an Army veteran (a real WAR veteran, not just a "between wars" one like me) proud, and a pride in serving a country I love to this day and love even more in retrospect, but a big part was the fact that it was helping me get to college too. My parents, though they could easily have done so, surely weren't going to help me, so I did what I had to to help myself. If I was going to sell my body to someone I figured Uncle Sam would use it best. Sometimes things don't turn out the way we expect, but that's life, right?

My point is, as I note later, that I don't think contractors would hesitate one little minute to shoot those "librul scum" protesting against the fat cats they have sold their values out to serve. Clearly I have no love of military contractors. That may be the most restrained statement I have ever made. I don't like them. I don't trust them. I think they are sell-outs of the worst kind. I think they stay in the killing business because they like killing and they want to make a bunch of money doing it without a bunch of codes of honor and conduct in their way. They rape their own people for God's sake! Of course so do people in the military, but my guess is these are the same people. They just move on.

These are the people, I believe, who will eventually be unleashed on the protesters if things go awry and the National Guard balks, as I believe they will, at taking widespread violent action against U.S. citizens. There are a couple things I just flat out refuse to believe about U.S. military members. First, I do not believe that they are collectively stupid enough to believe the asinine myth that republicans support the military and vice-versa. Too much evidence of who provides health care and family support legislation exists out there a computer click away. Information is just too easy to get and disinformation is just too easily disproven. Secondly, they're not too blind to understand that the pro-GOP, pro-corporate, anti "librul" spit-myth Koolaid is served from the top down because the "brass" is heavily invested in the military-industrial complex (which now includes contracting).

Yes, brainwashing has always been a major part of military culture and it can be powerful. Tragically I understand that power better than most. I have over the past several years seen evidence of someone I had for years considered far too strong minded to EVER drink that particular flavor of Koolaid clearly guzzling the shit first by the occasional sip (thanks Michelle Malkin, you misogynistic hag) and eventually by the gallon. This is not a weak-minded, callow youth, either. Maybe it's a requirement of rank; then you just get so used to parroting the stuff at work that it becomes part of you by osmosis? I don't know but it's upsetting to witness. Despite that, I do not believe the rank and file "Joe Enlisted Person" has been that poisoned against the folks back home and I know from experience that not only republicans serve--especially not in this economy.

So Dick Cheney's buds at Halliburton via Blackwater, renamed Xe will likely be in charge of future civil unrest. That does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Very little gives me warm fuzzies anymore. It's just not that kind of world right now, but we are finally taking steps to send it back in the correct direction. I may only be able to Occupy Main Street, but we are all on Wall Street in spirit.

Regarding the Atlantic Article, here's the link:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/10/taking-stock-of-the-long-wars-a-proposal/246311/

My growing concern is the privatization of our military forces. Private forces do not serve the United States, they serve an employer. They can be ordered to do things our military cannot constitutionally do (such as acting against U.S. civilians during civil unrest--Occupy Wall Street for instance) and would not do, and here I reference the same. Our military functions under a standard of honor and structure completely lacking in the private sector, where acts as profoundly wrong as rape and murder are met with the ultimate sanction of...a change of name from Blackwater to Xe.

While I, as an Army veteran, have some understanding of the issues related to the all-volunteer military, I am also a mother who does not wish to see other mothers face the prospect of forced military service via a renewal of the draft when wars can be declared at the whim of presidents with agendas of their own--such as the agenda I would frankly consider profiteering in the case of past President G. W. Bush.

The United States is not what it used to be. The Bush administration proved that to me and the Obama administration has done precious little to assuage my concerns. What does remain the same is that the only way to make rank in the military is to kiss the brass of the person above you. It is not a merit based system and it is only by the purest accident that the best occasionally float to the top. Former NATO Commander General Wesley Clarks are few and far between. I strongly believe a new means for selection and placement of command, from top tier on down, including input from officers and enlisted military personnel as well as the military elite, is a great place to start.