Memorial Day nears
I’ve always been a cynic, even more so the older I get. I think I came out of my mother’s womb thinking, this isn’t going to work out well.
The definition of a cynic, by the way is: “A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.”
After approximately 50 years of following politics, one might easily see how I consider myself a worldclass cynic.
Fool me once, that sort of thing.
This coming Monday, we celebrate another Memorial Day, which is a holiday first introduced in 1868 to honor the Union soldiers, the Confederates be damned. Ironic since I had ancestors who fought on both sides of that war. How much actual fighting they did, I have no way of knowing. All I know is that my Spanish great-grandfather from Louisiana was a member of the Confederate Army, and my Union ancestors (at least one of them) fought for the north before they moved to Louisiana. Which probably explains why my maternal grannie from the Union side, who married a Cajun in Louisiana, never liked the confederate flag and always voted Republican.
I’m just glad one ancestor didn’t shoot the other because I wouldn’t be here today, given the opportunity to write about how screwed up this country has become.
Memorial Day is Different
Memorial Day, though, is different from Veterans Day, which still confuses a lot of people. Veterans Day honors the military veterans, whether they fought or not. Memorial Day, however, much more solemn, honors those who lost their lives during war time. Unfortunately, it’s also become the unofficial beginning of summer.
Which is why every Memorial Day, we see people eating hot dogs, drinking suds, playing, partying, having a ball; when in reality, we should all be sitting home with the curtains drawn, amidst a solemn air out of respect for the dead. That’s the point of Memorial Day, as opposed to just another paid holiday.
Memorial Day also marks a day for the elected public buffoons in D.C. to go out and play the part of the patriot who salutes the dead, visiting military cemeteries, all the while voting for any war that will rake in money for those who dump money into their campaign war chests: Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, to name but a few, while making sure that none of their kids ever get killed in battle.
I told you I was a cynic. George Washington was a bright guy, in my opinion. It was he who said we should never get involved in foreign wars. If our homeland is invaded, not counting FDR’s deliberate and successful plan to get Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor, giving him reason to enter WW II, then I would bet that almost every American would be willing to fight to defend our homeland if invaded, not counting the knee-jerk libs who oppose any and all guns.
Yet since the War of 1812, no foreign power has ever invaded our shores, but how many wars have we fought overseas? Too many.
One of my favorite Marine Generals was Gen. Smedley Butler. At the time of his death in 1940, he was the most decorated Marine in history.
He wrote a book, “War Is a Racket,” part of which went like this: “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 19021912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
General Butler was a cynic, but he had the personal experience to back it up.
Me, I just consider all of the poor military dead, many of them drafted with no say in the matter, the devastated family and friends they left behind, and I look at the hot dog festivities on Memorial Day, and I think, show some damn respect for the dead. Today isn’t a day to have fun, laugh, dance, and get drunk. It’s a day to mourn the loss of so many valuable lives left unfulfilled.