Join the National Guard, Stupid!

Went to the movies and put up with all the commercials and trailers. I really don't mind them - except sometimes when a trailer for World Trade Center is jammed between the trailer for Tallagega Nights and a goofy promotional message complete with dancing snack food items. Sorry, but when I go to see "Snakes on a Plane" I am not interested in being jerked back to the reality of 9/11.

The other night, they ran an advert for the National Guard. They want us to join up, and they figure people who go to see a movie about a plane loaded with manaical homicidal snakes on crack are likely to be the kind of people who would still be willing to join up. Yes, they figured we were that stupid.

They showed lots of pictures and told lots of personal anecdotes about how the Guard are here at home helping out when disaster strikes. Presumably, we are expected not to have noticed that the Guard are mostly in Iraq, and were nowhere to be seen when Katrina struck. Yes, they figured we were that stupid.

I used to think we had a volunteer military. People who wanted to serve, could. But you didn't have to. Now I see things more clearly. People who need the money were signing up, and then they got themselves shipped to Iraq. If they are lucky, they will someday come back, maybe even in good health.

Folks who signed up for the Guard really didn't expect to be in Iraq, but that's where Bush sent them. Because of WMD's. Because of 9/11. Hmmmm...startin' to feel stupid yet?

I have decided to express my aggravation at these insulting messages from our idiot-boy war president and his half-assed Secretary of Defense. So when these ads run across the screen, I intend to run my mouth. Loud. Why should we sit silently and let that kind of propaganda stand? Lies like these get innocent people killed.

In the next six months, I hope nobody joins the National Guard. I hope nobody joins the Reserves. I hope nobody even talks to a recruiter for the Armed Forces. Let them run their ads one after another -- 24/7. Maybe then they will fire Rumsfeld. Maybe then they will stop exploiting the poor of this country to fill the ranks of Bush's army. Maybe, just maybe, he will have to think once before he sends them into unwise wars of choice; dishonest wars of false pretenses; illegal wars of shameful acts.

If it doesn't happen, maybe they're right.

How stupid are we?
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