Trump: The Monster Who Came Home to Roost

Trump: The Monster Who Came Home To Roost

It is ironic to see Fox News resort to outright name calling on someone of their making.  For years, they have peddled bullshit using glib bloviators.  The alternate reality they created permitted anyone from saying anything about nearly everything.  They have taken populism to a new low, though when it comes to American Politics that was no mean accomplishment.  Fact is, years of creating a false reality wherein every decent and effective attempt to bring reason to any political action or discussion was reduced to panels where to a one the participants were  bigoted shills advancing positions that were quite frankly Un American.  Of course, given the 1st Amendment the powers to be were shielded from any action.  Thus stupid anti scientific positions were pronounced as “reasonable alternatives”  to prevailing findings.  Sitting behind the screen of this charade was the wizard himself, Roger Ailes, who climb the ladder of success by working for Richard Nixon, a man who was steeped in the politics of bullshit.

Ailes is the man behind the scene --  often touted as a genius but perhaps more accurately describe as a manipulator, a prevaricator and a pawn in the Murdoch Evil Empire.  That Trump would challenge the authenticity of this sham of a news station is so karmic as to reaffirm one’s belief in “just deserts.”  Fox has enjoyed for the longest time its minions of “Know Nothing” politicians kowtowing to its every whim.  They parade before the camera spouting spin designed to reinforce in the mind of the great masses the outright misrepresentations and lies advanced by the station.  Day in a day out the noise is unending, from those with English accents telling us what is good for the economy to pompous bullies interrupting guests with their asinine bravado.  Blonde babes hired to better entice the testosterone deficient old men, not unlike the nudes in the British tabloids (Murdoch marketing ploy), who read the news and the ticker tape on Wall Street.  There are even black commentators who carry the water.  It was all so neatly designed to produce neo conservative policies -- cause the rich need their safeguards.

Enter “The Donald.”  The reference itself speaks to a blazing egocentric maniac.  A supposed billionaire, which is undocumented, stomps on the scene to “make America great again.”  At first, the wizard and his band of merry men aren’t worry.  Somehow one can hear the discussion that “he is not our candidate.”  Of course, having reigned over all those years controlling and fashioning news, one could almost understand their unwarranted delusion that Fox was in control.  But alas, the atmosphere created by this manipulator of news, that one could say damn near anything and have a large contingent believe, was ripe for someone to step in and take the reigns of this out of control team of wild horses.  The Donald was good at that, wasn’t he?  His popular reality show was an example of how gullible the masses were and hungry they were for entertainment.  That this bombastic, pretty much ignorant, buffoon could appeal to a Republican base is not surprising since that base were primed and treated to a daily barrage of bullshit.  Fox wasn’t worried in the beginning for they actually thought they had the power to determine who would be king of their mountain of crap.  They could for example hold a debate where the questions are designed to one promote the foolishness that they hold to be undeniable truths and two begin to cull the field to get “their” candidate ready to cajole the country into believing in red white and blue bullshit.  The blonde was dispatched to dismiss the interloper.  Then boom, the bombastic never filtered narcissist fired volley after volley of insults.  Rather than die an ignominious public death, the monster grew.  And like Frankenstein, he moved beyond the laboratory and flayed at all in site.  And his numbers rose to the chagrin of all those who supposedly “knew” what was best.  

Hopefully, this incident will be the beginning of the end for this erstwhile purveyor of hate and bullshit though it is unlikely given the American appetite for this type of nonsense.  Fox exists where ignorance prevails.  It grows where there is bigotry and hate.  It thrives on an audience who looks for affirmation of their biases.  Hopefully, it is a monster of their own making that will begin to crack their foundation of lies and misrepresentations.  It was reported that the Fox core audience is old white guys in advanced age.  Therein lies, perhaps, the ending for this farce.

 

A Naive Look at Economics

Wall Street or the Bullshit Economy

Let’s get this straight.  I am not an economist.  The closest I ever came to understanding this field was a reading of Veblen’s “Theory of the Leisure Class.”  From my observation, limited as it maybe, wall street is just another casino where scoundrels and thieves come to pursue gambles that make them obscene amounts of capital that allows them to pursue their personal fetishes.  It is a den of inequity.  Some modern works confirm this rather vulgar if not naive assessment.

It came to me how utterly useless this institution is when watching, briefly -- I can’t listen too long because my head would explode -- a financial news report that the market was going down and fears arising that the US economy and even the world economy would tumble.  Again, we await with bated breath while the brokers begin their frenzy.

The reason for this volatile situation.  Dropping oil prices, a slowdown in China and fear the Fed will raise interest rates.  For the average Joe like me this means absolutely nothing but for the first thing: dropping oil prices.  What?  The fact that I will be paying less at the pump will hurt the economy.  Why?  Because the oil scoundrels won't be making obscene sums.  I can understand the oil workers losing their jobs and all that but that condition can be remedy easily by having the “roughnecks” (I think that what they call oil workers) fix the crumbling infrastructure and roads of this country, maybe even laying tracks for a high speed rail system.  As for the oil companies and their shareholders, they can all go to hell.  They stolen enough.  

This is the modern world we live in -- a completely useless enterprise, Wall Street can through their own internal machinations dictate what the average joe’s life will be.  Interesting to a one, these wall street's moguls, don’t care about the average joe.  How else does one describe how they lied, cheated, stole, cajoled and generally raped the economy with their false instruments designed to do little but enrich their earnings.  Hell they even paid the auditors to sanction their lies.

This is why this election is so important because we have one person who is actually talking about the criminals and their actions.  Clinton is using some horseshit reference to 9/11 to justify her talking millions from bankers.  Really?  That is audacity that is beyond definition.  When a thug (that being a big banker) gives you money it is not because of some tug at the heart sadness over 9/11.  No, he wants protection for his scheme.

Another thing is to keep an eye out for in the insane world of bigness and oneness is abnormal growth in an enterprise.  It is a fact that anytime a corporation profits skyrocket into the economic stratosphere there is some type of fraud going on.  Case in point the beloved airline industry (or better described as the monopoly infused world of air travel).  The prices of the past decade rose precipitously because of rising oil prices.  That is how these thieving executives got to charge you for nearly everything dispensed on a plane.  How they got to charge for baggage and even put an added cost on the ticket for rising fuel prices.  Question is, have any these increase been done away now that oil has fallen?  Yeah right.  See once you open the door to a thief he won't leave till he takes everything or you arrest him.

There is a scam perpetrated by government and business that the stuff they concern themselves with are important.  For example, the GNP is a driving index in this economic game yet it only measures new goods which for the most part is shipped from distant shores and all of the crap comes wrapped up packaging -- much of it plastic -- to be carted away to landfills contributing to waste -- a big time waste.  This idea that only new counts is the magic wand of the capitalist that does nothing but pillage and cajole.  That capitalism is sacrosanct and needs to be preserved to insure all the benefits of freedom is unadulterated bullshit.  It is little more than a con game created by those who profit off of the labor of people and subject them to the tyranny of currency which makes them forever enslaved to the ruling class.  True freedom can only be achieved when no one profits more from labor than those who sweat produces it.  As for this period of ignorance when business was supposed to usher in the Golden Age, well we have seen the havoc wreck by this outdated belief on the environment and the world.  As for those who would argue that less government is the only way to true freedom, I suggest they order some water from Flint Michigan.

PC and the Satirist

Recently, I was told I was “all wet” for making a humorous comment about Clinton’s use of makeup during the last debate.  The charge was that I had no right to comment on her looks, which I didn’t do.  I was commenting on her make-up.  Another PC observant also chimed in about the manner of my comment.  Now the reference was that Hillary shouldn’t use a Kabuki makeup artist.  Let me quote the entire text:

Here is my take on the debate. O'Malley should use a fleet enema before the debate and lay off the meth. Hillary should try talking to the Dali Lama and try to understand humility, how to go about getting it and try and get a makeup artist other than someone who normally does Kabuki actors. Finally it wouldn't hurt Bernie presentation to take a Valium or two a couple of hours before the debate. And ABC has got to deliver on the time. Stop the bs tease just to sell stuff. I thought moderators did good.

The observation is obviously satirical.  It is a “wise ass” observation.  It is designed to both capture the event from my perspective and to give it a wry assessment.  There is an old rule in comedy, if you have to explain the joke, forget about it.  That two people took offense at the Kabuki reference shows that they just don’t get it.  My humor is not their cup of tea.  Fine.  What is galling though is this unabashed assertion that I was denigrating Hillary because of her makeup.   Really?  To quote TS Eliot, “No, that is not it at all.”

What I find amusing is how women (the two who objected) somehow equate commenting on makeup as being misogynistic.  Hmmm.  As I already posted and said in other words, how absolutely ridiculous it is for women to defend makeup.  The biggest scam in the department stores, the absolute worst example of exploitation is the cosmetic industry.  The take useless elements combine it with alcohol and other substances (many poisonous) inflict pain on helpless creatures, and sell it at ridiculous high prices to women, though men are coming along on this charade of beauty.  Really?  What a great marketing effort on the behalf of these merchants of vanity that their customers have been so ingrained with the delusion that their products are femininity in all its wonder.   

It is truly amazing to see this dynamic unfold.  To misinterpret a comical piece as chauvinistic and feel the need to defend makeup is disturbing. Fuck those cats and dogs who suffered to bring the best to you.  Women need this for their look.

The absurdity of these modern times is exemplified in the absolute crap that comes to us over the medium of television that has reduced everything to a carnival side show.  Presidential debates are just shows, “Step right up folks, let’s see the angry white man, the disturbing uncomfortable other white man, and the lady with the credentials, step right up and see them dance on the high wire of veracity, see them dodge and come up with inane positions, see how real they are, see and hear….”

If I look at this side show and comment, it is designed to bring out the absurdity of what is on display.  I wasn’t being misogynistic when I made a reference to Clinton’s makeup.  It was overdone!  It was like millions of women sitting in a department stores getting their faces done by experts, and when they are done, the products represent hundreds of dollars, so an asshole can buy a yacht and parade around the Paris fashion shows displaying disgusting amounts of wealth.   Too much is too much.  Excess is excess.  If it bothers you to hear people say it, then turn away.  

Let me say this women have been victimized by the cosmetic industry.  It is a fucking sham.  If they choose to be duped into thinking that beauty can be applied and that self confidence is looking into a mirror and seeing someone who expresses your inner self and that inner self is constructed out of base layers and shadows and tints ad nauseam well that is your choice.  It is my right, however, and to look and say that it is too much, especially when it is too much, as was the case of Hillary on that night.  

As Shakespeare once wrote, It is a [piece written] by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  I bow to the bard for this feeble attempt to explain myself and those comments of my critics.

The Heart of Terror

The Heart of Terror

The world looks like it is in the throes of a new and horrific trend.  Death randomly strikes leaving in its wake innocent victims who are doing the normal things we do.  Police swoop in and reporters with their microphones and the cameras pointed at them begin reporting and as they talk the drone becomes a hum and captures our attention till we grow bored and move on to something else.  The lives directly affected fall into grief.

Days later we see the culprits in this 21st century tragedy.  Young men and now a woman become interesting subjects for a moment and then fade into annals of human folly.  Who are these kids who wantonly throw away their lives?  Their stories begin to unfold.  Most striking is the young woman who became the first of her gender to detonate her vest and scatter her earthly remains into thousands of pieces.  

Who is she?  Why?  Then bits and pieces of her story bubble up.  As an orphan, she was placed in one home after another.  The fundamental link to integration into society is the family.  It is the mother’s love that is most important.  Worth and identity comes from the bonding from womb to the arms.  The earliest formation of human consciousness, of human love is conveyed through the mother’s arms.  Looking at the primates, our cousins in evolution, tells us much about bonding.  What happens if it is absence.  A study by Spitz revealed how essential the early development is dependent upon on maternal attention and love.  What we have in this world, are legions of children who through no fault of their own are raised in an environment not conducive to the care and love they need.

This one bomber was one of the many.  Reports indicate she bounced between families.  There was no surprise that she was a rebel.  When the rules of society haven’t been learned, the rules don’t apply.  In fact, in some twisted way negative acts may produce attention.  She was also rumored to have drank which of course is the ultimate statement of rebellion especially youth.  One might say the disenfranchised aren’t really rebelling for they are merely expressing themselves.  What is most significant is the building up of anger.  

This world that has evolved is one based quite a bit of invidious comparison.  One need only look at the automobile, one of the more conspicuous statement on class and economic prowess.  The electronic media bombards everyone in the modern world with constant images of what is “good” and “beautiful.”  Empty headed non celebrities mouthed inane positions and philosophies so  inarticulate that they can’t be only classified as balderdash.   Yet they possess all the modern world can offer, cars, houses, vacations, and of course the spotlight.

For the disenfranchised existing in a world that doesn’t give a damn about them, and even worse, may resent them or even hate them for no other reason than the fact they are different, it is a place beyond their reckoning.  Prejudice permeates every facet of their lives.  They cannot escape it.  Their offenses are more severely punished.  They are disproportionately brought to “justice.”  They are incarcerated and penalize and stigmatized to the point they can’t even get menial jobs to sustain an existence.  The booze that once set them free now haunts their existence.  It no longer works.  Depression sets in and is exacerbated by the booze.  What once was freedom now becomes but another chain linking them to the offal of a world that is beyond them,and world where they are not included, a world that shuns them.

Then, someone gives them a ray of hope.  They are a soldier in a fight to conquer the devil who created this poisonous world of hate and greed.  The enemy is defined and it is hard not to see them through the lens of hate.  These infidels have bombed and pillaged the lands and people.  You can see the results of their actions.  They bomb.  They kill.  They steal.  They are responsible for this god forsaken world that reeks of their greed and hate.  When one has no attachment to the world, these claims are real.  From the perspective of disenfranchised, evidence abounds of all the nastiness of this class of people.  Hate is then channeled.

The lost find their way through the labyrinth of hate and religion.  Answers are simple and easily understood.  More importantly, one who once had no place in the world now is the most important person in the world.  The infidels, masses, live in reckless god defying abandon.   The hate fostered through the years of disenfranchisement now has a focus.  There is no connection for the bomber because there was never a connection with society.  The preservation of this world order will only perpetuate the crime of inhumanity felt in the marrow of the bomber’s being.  The moment of truth, the explosion, is made possible because the merchants of greed and wantonness are too willing to provide all that a zealot needs to rain calamity on society.  One can be sure that these merchants of death are well away from the turmoil and are ensconced in their cloistered halls of excess where they gather and make deals.  The lonely bomber now armed can face the hated world of convention and strike out in all the anger that has welled up over the years.

The bomber detonates the fuse and in that act finds a purpose in this world that never needed or wanted her.

What the hell is going on

When did stupid become a virtue?  The recent action by the boneheads in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood makes one wonder if there is any hope for the Republic.   The guiding principles of the House of Representatives are ignorance and arrogance    To a one this collection of men and women have demonstrated, they are unwilling to even attempt to deliberate and legislate.  They prefer to do little but pronounce their stupidity.  

To venture into women’s health with nothing save bias and ignorance is to demonstrate that nothing is sacred.  While they proclaim the moral high ground, there is nothing in their behavior that would suggest anything but a bunch of jaded jerks.  The irony of it all is that claim to be Christian.  One has to wonder what the hell gave them that delusion.

Of course, their religion is more steep in the tradition of the Old Testament.  They scan the passages of the bible looking for anything that will give them the right to trample on other people’s freedoms.  They are the silent majority and they have found their voice.

There was a time when their ignorance was a barrier to their activism.  When there was honest debate about issues, they stewed in their closed world frothing with the biases passed on from previous generations.  Over the years, this discontent festered and grew into an abscess of the soul.  It was the Archie Bunker generation, full of self importance and a knowledge that they were right though to the one they couldn’t explain what it was that made them think they the way they did.  They relied on allusions to god and country.  To those who disagreed they simply dismissed with name calling.  They red baited as a way of dismissing anything that interfered with their preconceived notions.  The sad thing is that they didn’t realize they were pawns in the game of power and control.

The history of crazy in this country goes back a long long way.  In modern times, we can point to Nixon, Reagan, and Bush.  Nixon kick started it when he claimed the south from the Democrats.  Reagan walked out of a 3rd rate acting career propped up with bigot money and heralded the age of dumb.  His one liners honed, more than likely by gag writers, struck the heart strings of the sleeping giant.  Never would he talk down to the masses (mainly because he like them was a shallow as a rain puddle).  His awwshucks non-answers appealed to those who had no response to the issues of the day that questioned their nonsense. Bush followed who with his genteel charm perfected the politics of ugly.   He employed Lee Atwater:  The evil genius behind the Willie Horton ads.   The master of twisting facts knew how to hit every latent and overt fear in a potential voter.  That W. , the dunce of modern times, and Rove his Svengali served under this man tells us much of how politics have become nothing less than the sad pathetic theater it is today.  The qualifications for a candidate has fallen so low that any idiot with an ego can enter the Republican primary.  That it is why the stage is so crowded.  You see, they don’t need to know anything, they don’t have to answer questions, they don’t even need to be factual.  They can mouthed buzz world and know that their constituents will nod their heads and think how right they are.  Science can be scorned.  Principles can be jettisoned.  Ethics can be dismissed.  Nothing of import matters, it is only important to hit the talking points. That women and children can be marginalized appeals to those who think they know what it is to be an American though they are descendants of immigrants.  They can talk about law and order while ignoring that guns are the chief factor in the crime rate.  They can live within a world of cognitive dissonance for their cliches and false beliefs sustain them.  You see they never question, and the ones who rise to the top of the dung heap are the ones who amuse the crowds of fools and feed their fears.

Almost any category of this population is under assault: women, gays, blacks, workers, the poor, seniors, students, etc. etc.  How is this possible?  How can this charade continue?  Where is the breaking point?  I am reminded of a song by the MC5 that came out in the 70’s, “Kick out the jams, motherfucker!!”

KIck Off 2016

The Age of Dumb

    Malcolm X observed on the death of Kennedy that the chickens have come home to roost.  Fast forward to present day and we have front and center perhaps the most obnoxious and arrogant ignoramus of our times standing atop the dung heap which is the field of candidates vying for the Republican nomination.  It is interesting to note that almost to the one this field is characterized by adherence to so called Christian beliefs and disdain for science.  One might legitimately ask how the political landscape has become populated with self-righteous arrogant fools who stand in opposition to any progress the species has made over the centuries.

    H. L. Mencken eloquently captured the current phenomenon when he stated, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”  That a buffoon like Trump can prance into the fray of a presidential election can be attributed to the constant and persistent attempt by the “new right” to shape public opinion by appealing to the basest of human proclivities.

The primary culprit in this mass deception is Roger Ailes and whoever is fronting the money to operate Fox News.  Murdoch is likeliest of suspect.  Whether he truly believes what is being aired is open to question, but there is no doubt he has a history of making money by exploiting the basest of instincts.  Why would his “news” service hack phones to pry into lives of people who possess public appeal?  Or worse why would a news organization exploit the death of a young woman?  Might he just be running this network for profit knowing all the while that hate exists in vast numbers of people and tapping into it can further his fortune?  That his papers employed sex to sell papers speaks to his understanding of human behavior, especially male human behavior.  How else can his band of provocateurs espouse hate and bigotry day after day using the weakest of arguments?   It isn’t really surprising that so many of his on-air people are mouthing a position that appeals to the worst of our instincts.  It is an old white racist philosophy that is triumphed, and key to this philosophy is ignorance and bigotry.  It is a way of keeping the exploited at each other’s throats while the moguls continue to rape and pillage the world and its people.  Excuse the Marxist interpretation.  

What was most amusing is when “The Donald” (only an arrogant asshole would take on that non de plume) pranced onto stage and stole the hearts and the minds of so many who look to Fox News for an affirmation of their fears and biases.  That Ms. Kelley, the point person designated to reign in the Monster of Capitalism, was marginalized by a misogynistic slur and rather than Trump’s poll numbers slipping they rose demonstrating that the monster was operating under his own power and no longer needed the juice from the Murdoch laboratory.  Flaying away, the monster began to trample on the would be sycophants sending their sorry asses to the shoulders of the Republican highway.  

What happened is classic.  Fox has been making it respectable to be an asshole bigot.  Just look at its team of commentators.  To the one, they mouth thinly veiled racist comments as well as advocating the most extreme and nonsensical positions on nearly any and all topics.  That Obama is targeted for every ill facing America and the World, and even his family is open to attacks, demonstrates an underlying business model designed to provoke and instill hate.  Of course, “The Donald” dropped a monkey wrench into the wheels of newly coined conservatism.   This is the underlying magic of Trump.  He is not subtle or cajoling.  No, he is what he is and what he is is a student of excess and bombast if not the prime master of it.

I do believe that there is a select group of monied people who knew they could buy their way into power.  Just look at the Congress.  Never have so many fools been elected to do little but to stand about and do nothing.  That the economy has been inverted to benefit the haves while the country falls to ruin demonstrates that greed has no limits.  That environmental concerns are ridiculed and waste and poisons heralded as good shows that corporate interest has replaced public interest.  That (excuse the alarmist if not conspiratorial allusions) moguls now have the power to release capital to shape and form and elect fools demonstrate that the republic is fracturing and perhaps is in its final throes.  Trump maybe our salvation for he is beholding to no one.  Walker, Huckabee, Bush, Carson, Cruz and all the rest of the assholes might just be coy enough to dupe the public into believing the horseshit philosophies and policies of the new right, but Trump is the logical end of all that bs.  He can be a unifying voice in the cacophony that has become the circus of the right   He is so blatantly over the top he can only appeal to the most desperate of us.  Many have flooded the Republican Party that has decided to go dumb and suckle the rich for money.  Trump can capture these folks.  Hopefully the rest of us will seize this opportunity and throw out all the mouth breathers who have been polling us to tell us what we wanted to hear while cozying up to those with money.   

Of Vets and Valor and Hypocrisy

The recent event in Washington honoring vets and their valor reflected all that has gone wrong in this country.  Let me state at outset that I am veteran.  I served in the military.  That doesn’t give me any special dispensation about what I am about to say.  It does, however, allow me to express my opinions without condemnation from anyone who hasn’t served.  Patriotism, in this country, has become little more than a label attached to harebrained positions that in the extreme are jingoistic rants serving an agenda of bias and hate.  Let me state, that the men and women who have served in the armed forces have given much, some their lives, others limbs, even more of them their minds to actions that have done more to serve special interests and neo cons who profess freedom while feeding a machinery that seeks to profit on misfortune and human tragedies.

The political leaders who have sent young men to war have been to a one blinded by ill-conceived beliefs that some nefarious force was attacking our system of government and was a threat to our national security.  That all of these wars were fought in lands many thousands of miles away from America with large bodies of waters separating us from them negates the national security issue. Certainly 911 was cause for concern but the fools in charge were asleep at the wheel and intelligent sources were tripping over one another.  As for the threat to our democracy, no force has eroded the foundation of our democracy more than our own Supreme Court.  Local and state hacks who created barriers to voting strike death blows to the very foundation of a democratic form of government.  So if we are really going to protect our way of life let’s start addressing our real threats as opposed to bogeymen.

Hypocrisy is all I could hear as the pleas went out to phone your donation to various and sundry organizations that help the vets.  Let us be reminded that every vet that needs help is a product of a misadventure.  The very politicians who endorsed the deployment of troops, who heartily passed legislation to spend vast amount of treasure to support military action fight like hell any attempt at a fair and balance tax code.  While vets have to wait for services, these chicken hawks feed their faces on graft from corporations who benefit most from these excursions into madness.

Most disturbing was the fact not a whisper was uttered calling out the buffoons and nefarious bastards who recklessly sent so many youngsters to their heart rendering fate and who set the stage for all of the mess that we now face.  How can we ever expect to truly honor these men and women if we don’t bring to justice those who wantonly dispatched so many in the pursuit of folly?  At the very least while honoring those who served, there should have been a condemnation of those who advocated war by wrapping themselves in flags while turning a blind eye to the needs of the citizenry.  What is truly ironic is that Osama was taken out with three choppers and a Seal team.   The guilty parties who created the mess in the Middle East now pontificate about what to do.  Rumsfeld who arrogantly condemned so many young men with the flippant response, “You go to war with army you have” still can’t see the error of his ways.  Smug and confident he ignores any question of blame.  His leader, Bush, still can’t see how wrong he was.  Of course, one can only conjecture what lurks in the evil of mind of Dick Cheney.

So here we are facing another threat, certainly a more serious and real threat than Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or chemical stockpile.  We have squandered billions in Iraq only to have another tyrant abuse his power and create a truly heinous force which is a real threat.  Funny that most of ISIL’s equipment was gotten by deserters of an army more concerned with petty corruption rather than their national security.   As for the other hell hole, Afghanistan will revert back to the same prehistoric state it was when we arrive oh so many years ago.  Of course its corrupt leaders will be found enjoying the luxury of their ill-gotten gains. 

It is fitting to honor our men and women who gave so much, but it is equally fitting to call out every scoundrel who has put those folk in harm’s way.  Without equal measure of blame and praise, we will eventually fall into the same cycle propelled by ignorance and greed.  Above all else, we must ensure that the vets who gave so much receive their just due.  We must demand that corporations and individuals pony up for the freedom and opportunities they enjoy.  Wearing a pin and waving a flag will never replace action.