Thursday, September 22, 2005
deja vu all over again
Here's a couple of quotes I found online lately:
A = President Johnson, April 6, 1967
B = President Bush, August 24, 2005
Granted this was pointed out in an antiwar biased newsletter, but those are the words that were spoken.
On a related front, Pfc. Lynndie England is back in the news again. You remember her, the West Virginia Army private who had a proclivity towards leashes and collars. She's up for her court-martial. I know nothing about Pfc. England but what I've read in the news. However, I can't help but feel she's one of the victims here. The military isn't a normal working environment and Iraq is even less so. You don't, as one of the workers in our company did yesterday, tell your boss to go fuck themselves. You don't say, "I ain't doing that, I quit." One of the things that is drummed into you, is that you follow orders. When you get up, what you wear, what you do, where you eat, how you workout, are all things that you are told how and when and where to do.
Here's a young kid, who obviously isn't the brightest light on an admittedly dim street, put into a severely stressful situation, and is completely let down by those who are supposed to take care of her. Because while you are expected to do what you're told, you also expect those who tell you what to do to be looking out for you. Her boss, who also got her knocked up is in jail - he's obviously a shitbag - and now she's looking to join him. I think poor Pfc. England is just as much a victim as those she mistreated. If you think peer pressure in high school is bad, try imaging what it must be when people are trying to kill you and your peers are the only ones keeping you alive.
