Well Mitt, I Thought Vietnam Was Wrong Then

Back in the days of the Vietnam War and the draft I'd concluded that I wanted no part of killing people in favor of one despot over another for the profit of corporations.  By my time to be personally impacted we'd gotten to the stage of having little balls fall down and determine who was probably going to go.  My father, not exactly a hippie, told me I was to go to Canada rather than get into it.

I demurred.  I told him and anybody who cared to get into it that I was an American and not a Canadian and I had no intention of being run off from my country.  As an American it was my right to tell the government to fuck off and it was their right to toss me in jail and I figured forcing them to deal with me was the right way to go.  I could not claim to be a pacifist and I wasn't exactly afraid of getting hurt or the consequences of interrupting my education so...  I was, however, pretty sure jail would suck badly.

Here's the deal, I've never tried to have it both ways.  I've never tried to pretend I wanted to go be a part of that killing and I've never tried to pretend I was for it before I was against it before I was... et-damn-cetera.  I've never claimed to be more right than those who chose other paths, I was right for my reasons for me.  People went to 'Nam as volunteers, as draftees, people didn't go thanks to deferments, by luck, by leaving, by going to jail - there was a hell of a gamut of actions available.

Deferments were an entirely voluntary thing to take, nobody had deferments pressed on them by the government - in fact, quite the opposite; the government wanted volunteers, Mitt.  Mitt took four deferments for Mitt's reasons, some while he promoted the war he was avoiding.  There was a word for it at the time: Chicken Hawk.  The rich privileged Mormon Romney didn't want to go and he didn't go, but it was great by him for other people to go - that would be particularly those without the influence to manage avoiding it - there were a lot of those draftees who weren't exactly thrilled to be drafted.

Mittens is a damned chicken hawk running for the Party who made Purple Heart band aides and Swift-boated the rich privileged John Kerry who did go to The 'Nam and elected GWB.  There is your GOP for you in all its hypocritical glory.

Big damned surprised - oh by the way, there is no war on women...

Which Wisconsin ?

I've been hearing something about a recall election in Wisconsin today, well maybe a bit more than something.  I guess I may not be in a tiny minority that knows about it.  A whole bunch of Wisconsinites got together and signed petitions to recall the Governor and some others and it is a national attention attraction.

I've gotten to hear a lot about how voters in Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin didn't get to hear about what their then candidates had to say about how they were going to do the things they did get up to.  My reaction to that excuse making is "horseshit" since they voted GOP and that bunch hasn't been making any sort of secret about their agenda.  Well, fine and good on that one - that was then and now is now and the recall in Wisconsin is now - like right this moment.  Here's the deal about Wisconsin, nobody can say they don't know this time around, there's been plenty of yelling and what not in Wisconsin about what has been done.

That election will be wrapping up in just a little while and Wisconsin will have made themselves clear.  The rest of the nation will look on and see what it is that Wisconsin means to tell the nation about themselves.

Will Wisconsin join Indiana in a race to the bottom, will Wisconsin continue to scapegoat those who have bargained for protections the rest did not and who bear no responsibility for the condition of the rest?  Does Wisconsin care to be "a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kochs"*?  Is it the will of Wisconsinites to subsidize the plutocrats at the cost of the ordinary and the poor citizens?

We'll see.



*credit to Charles Pierce