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It's a very good question. In the first place, the "military fetish" is clearly not a partisan political issue - leaders of both main parties have encouraged or sustained it.
Secondly, it's not of very long standing. The perception of the standing army in American popular culture from the 1880s through the 1930s was pretty poor, as being mostly a rabble of drunks, criminals and dubious foreigners officered by younger sons of good Eastern families who had failed at anything else. The American myth of the "nation in arms" always gave the citizen-soldiers of major American wars a special status, so the grizzled old men who could still be seen in the 1910s and '20s marching in Memorial Day parades under the banners of the Grand Army of the Republic were lavished with respect and adulation. But the regulars involved in our imperial wars, Indian fighting, and peacetime garrison duty were distinctly unloved.
This dichotomy - praise for civilians in uniform and contempt for the regulars - seems to have lasted through the Second World War. This is certainly true if Holywood accurately reflected popular perception: a thousand wartime or post-war films feature the usual civies-in-uniform characters, but if there's a bad guy on our side, he's probably a long-service regular "sticking to the book" - Bogart's captain in the Caine Mutiny, for example.
The Cold War and America's post-1945 rise to hegemonic world power clearly made the military more important than it had been in our culture, and maybe the dire need to allay suspicion of bolshevist tendencies made Americans generally more inclined to wave the flag and thump the drum when military matters came up. But I don't recall ordinary people's attitudes about the military being as adulatory as they are now - young conscripts were often treated kindly in bus stations and diners, but it would have seemed just odd to walk up to one out of the blue, shake his hand and "thank him for his service", as I gathered has become normal in parts of the US now.
I suspect it has a great deal to do with our reaction to the Vietnam War, and particularly the later stage of the Vietnam War era which coincides with Ronald Reagan's presidency. The first president I can recall being effusive about the military in the toadying, smarmy way which is now de rigeur on the right, rather than restrainedly respectful in the Lyndon Johnson fashion, was Ronald Reagan. It most respects, Reagan stood for a reaction against the Left's truisms derived from the Vietnam era, and I suspect that much of his appeal to "Reagan Democrats" and other lower-middle class people was his rejection of what seemed the elite's contemptuous attitude, including to the military.
There is nothing nmore essential than Freedom and Liberty, this is what the military provides for you
Because after all its all about
you
Quote:
Originally Posted by cometclear
I've never said it was easy. Instead of attempting to turn this into a silly, emotive-based discussion, how about engaging in a logical debate? Why do we lionize these folks and not those who provide us with more essential goods and services at greater risks? I'd still like an answer as to who the military is protecting me from at this moment. Can we not subject this to cost/benefit analysis?
In liberal utopia there are no dictators, warlords, communists, or other evil people.
Please tell me from whom I'm being protected at this very moment sitting here in the Great Plains. You see, I've learned from you folks that we must subject all appendages of our federal government to cost/benefit analysis. Even which ones are turning profits. I would like to know what benefits I derive from War Incorporated. I'm already well aware of the costs. What are the benefits?
There is nothing nmore essential than Freedom and Liberty, this is what the military provides for you
Because after all its all about
you
The military provides none of those things and, in fact, has deprived thousands of those things over our history. It cannot provide those things. It can, however, take them away. At its best, it protects from external threat. Only in the mind of demagogues does that equate with providing us our Constitutional freedoms.
When I was in the military, this was my fetish, a D8 Caterpillar. On very cold days, sub zero temperatures, the smoke stack would glow red and blue flames would shoot out from the exhaust stack. Awesome raw power, it made me feel like a real he man!
I'm a vet with disregard for the military.
They're not special.
They apply for a job and get it.
Most have no marketable skills when they join.
It is my experiance that Vets with a high disregard for the Military were probably less than 4.0 preformers and may well have recieved something an Honarable discharge.....
It is my experiance that Vets with a high disregard for the Military were probably less than 4.0 preformers and may well have recieved something an Honarable discharge.....
And you'd be wrong.
No surprise there.
You're being pretty vile towards the other vets on this board who still suffer.
Luckily, this vet can spell.
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