Bizarro Post Veterans Administration- Hello, and happy Veterans Day from all of us here at the old B-P. You know, the great thing about this national holiday is that it's both cathartic and profitable. How? Allow me to elaborate!
Let's first acknowledge that nobody really gives much of a shit about actual veterans. The Department of Defense certainly doesn't. The VA is a shitstorm of incompetency, the upper-echelon is filled with corrupt bastards, and sexual assaults are still constant and unaddressed. Civilians definitely don't care either. Nobody will hire a veteran because of liability issues with PTSD, and all of their military credentials count for exactly jack shit in a civilian job market that measures merit by diplomas, degrees and certifications. If we, the citizens of America, were to think about our constant failure to do anything positive to fix any of these issues it would make us really sad! As someone who isn't directly affected by veteran's issues, it is my right to not devote any of my valuable emotional energy to things that are important to former armed service members.
That's what Veteran's Day is for, folks!
On one day, every year, we join together for ten or fifteen minutes to say "Thank you" for performing duties we only vaguely understand, if we're even legally allowed to understand their mission for risk of being assassinated by elite covert operations units. And after expressing our gratitude through clinical, sanitized phrases and rituals we can go back to not caring. Only now we've got the comfort of knowing that we pretended to care, if only for a little while.
And the profit! If religion is the opiate of the masses, purchasing items on the pretense of supporting veterans is the opiate of a guilty nation that wants to ignore its shame! Break out your POW flags, your bumper stickers, your patriotic pastries and crying bald eagle T-shirts! Millions of brave men died for your marketing opportunities. Never forget their sacrifice as you cynically profit from their demise!
After all, nobody really believes the whole "sacrifice for our freedom" thing. World War II? Okay, Germany did have a whole lot of U-boats off the east coast, and Japan was doing shit so heinous that they deny it to this very day.
But Vietnam? A giant fuck-you to Communism and the USSR that ultimately failed. Gulf War? We gave a CIA-appointed dictator a gentle spanking and went on our merry way. Iraqi Freedom? We removed that CIA-appointed dictator and replaced him with an unstable CIA-backed government that represents a power vacuum waiting to happen. Afghanistan? Oh, you wanted to take it back, Taliban? Well gosh, we're all kind of tired of occupying your country, so go right the hell ahead and move back in. All of these invasions, had they never taken place, wouldn't have effected America's "freedoms" in any way. In fact, thanks to the very military industrial complex responsible for executing those wars, we now have no guarantee that the government won't decide to murder us if we piss them off enough.
In summation, yeah, it's all bullshit. But it's our bullshit. It's real American bullshit. And God bless us all for continuing this proud tradition of disquieting self-deception.
No comments:
Post a Comment