Everybody LIKED Gene Debs, even the warden of the Atlanta Federal Pen (who was Gene's host during WWI.) He was a warm-hearted man who actually believed what he said, even though he was wrong.
Unlike that wannabe upper class twit Kerry.
Posted on 11/02/2006 11:20:17 AM PST by Miami Vice
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry uttered a liberal Democrat cliché while addressing an audience at Pasadena (Calif.) City College. What he said is a fundamental tenet of liberal Democrats.
Kerry informed the audience, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. ..."
The idea that those in the military are losers - that they are in the military because they are not talented enough, or smart enough, or skilled enough to get a real career - is not an original thought of Kerry's. It is part of the liberal Democrat canon.
This same notion was articulated during a commencement speech by liberal New York Times journalist Chris Hedges in 2003. Hedges described the soldiers he met in Iraq "as boys from places such as Mississippi and Arkansas who joined the military because there were no job opportunities."
It was expressed in a 2004 Newsweek magazine article about Pat Tillman, which stated, "American troops tend to be working-class or poor, disproportionately black, brown, or rural..." In that same edition of Newsweek, liberal journalist Anna Quindlen mentioned a chant by an anti-capitalist, antiwar, protest group called the Radical Teen Cheerleaders. The chant was, "Hey Bush/Who fights your war/Just minorities and the poor."
Peter Beinart editor of the left-wing magazine, The New Republic, followed this template in a 2004 piece he wrote about the military. "This week, the papers were filled with the heartbreaking story of Pat Tillman ....Tillman's story is so moving in part because it is so anomalous. ...the gulf between the military and the rest of American society is wider than it has been for generations," Beinart asserted. Bill Maher remarked during his HBO show in 2005 that the military recruits the dregs of society.
So the mantra of the poor, of society's misfits serving in the military has been repeated often enough by liberal Democrats since the Iraq war began.
This platitude was used to criticize the Vietnam War, the Korean War and World War II. Indeed, one of the first people to make this claim was the founder of the Socialist Party of America, Eugene Debs, who made this claim during World War I.
Debs said during an anti-World War I speech in 1918, "And here let me emphasize the fact - and it cannot be repeated too often - that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. ... They themselves did not go to war ..." Even though this myth has been debunked several times, the fanaticism of liberal Democrats is potent. When Kerry was justifiably criticized by the White House and pundits for his comments, he responded with another trite phrase. "I'm sick and tired of a whole bunch of Republican attacks, most of which come from people who never wore the uniform and never had the courage to stand up and go to war themselves." (Notice this last is very similar to Debs' statement.)
This tactic of impugning the integrity of critics who do not have a military background has been standard of liberal Democrats the past few years - and it has been especially true of Kerry. It is designed to silence debate. According to Kerry and other liberal Democrats, if one has not served in the military, then one has no right to speak their opinion, nor can they criticize those who have served.
This just shows the vile hypocrisy of Kerry and liberal antiwar Democrats - like Howard Dean and Bill Clinton, both of who avoided military service. This is evinced in two ways.
First, all Americans are allowed to voice their political opinions, whether they have served in the military or not. Unlike the world portrayed in Robert Heinlein's great novel Starship Troopers, American citizenship is not contingent upon military service. Nor is the First Amendment applicable only to those who served in the military.
Second, when a group of combat veterans did speak out against Kerry - as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, POWs for Truth and Carlton Sherwood, maker of the film "Stolen Honor" did - Kerry, his followers and other liberal Democrats who were not veterans, said they were lying. They claimed they were in engaged in a smear campaign. They said they were Republican Party operatives.
In other words Kerry, his followers and other liberal Democrats, "Swiftboated" them. People like Chris Matthews - who never served in the military - had no problem condemning the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. What will Kerry say now that the National Commander of The American Legion has called on him to apologize? Commander Paul A. Morin said, "As leader of The American Legion, I am outraged ... he should apologize now." Or that Jim Kouri, vice president of the 14,000-member National Association of Chiefs of Police, stated, "Kerry's education sure doesn't prevent him from saying stupid and ridiculous things."
What will Kerry say to his colleague and fellow Vietnam War veteran John McCain, who has condemned Kerry's statement?
Even more significant will be the response by all of these military veterans the Democrats recruited to run for the Congress and the Senate this year. Will they disavow Kerry's statement?
Even if they do, will anybody believe them? Especially since Kerry's intelligence-insulting explanation? Should anyone believe them? After all, as previously mentioned, this concept that the military is comprised of ignorant slobs did not originate with Kerry.
This concept is part and parcel of the canon of beliefs of liberal Democrats.
Michael P. Tremoglie is the author of A Sense of Duty. He can be contacted at elfegobaca@comcast.net.
Great post
Everybody LIKED Gene Debs, even the warden of the Atlanta Federal Pen (who was Gene's host during WWI.) He was a warm-hearted man who actually believed what he said, even though he was wrong.
Unlike that wannabe upper class twit Kerry.
What a coincidence that John Kerry should have similar views to a famous socialist when it comes to the military.
Was Debs really saying that? Was that his concept of the "working class"? And if Debs and Kerry were saying the same thing, is it really "the same thing" in the mouth of a labor leader and an Ivy League yuppie gigolo?
What Debs was saying would have resonated a lot with immigrant laborers who'd come here from Europe, where they probably didn't have any say in whether their countries went to war or not. The problem wasn't that the upper classes didn't want to fight and weren't willing to put their lives on the line -- some nobles could be quite bellicose -- but that humbler people didn't have a choice.
Debs's view doesn't fit the American experience so well, but it still resonates with a lot of people whose parents or grandparents may have come here to escape conscription in Europe's wars.
Of course the libs think this way. The only military men they know are Kerry, Cleland & Clark.....losers all.
The same claim was made during the Civil War, that the Union Army was full of German and Irish immigrants, and the Confederate Army was full of poor whites (who owned fewer than 20 slaves). "Rich man's war, poor man's fight."
"What if they gave a war and nobody came?"
John Kerry may not want to articulate this traditional Leftist view of international conflict, but he is clearly the heir to the tradition. There is real continuity between the thinking of Debs and the utterance of Kerry. The real difference is that Debs respected the workers (he was one) and Kerry clearly does not.
The Left has not changed. Same as it ever way (only more hypocritical).
I loved the book. It was the first real science fiction novel I ever read, and it made me a life-long fan.
What a travesty the movie was, playing into the fascist stereotypes of the brain-dead leftists.
Kerry suffers greatly by comparison to Eugene Debs, who for all his short-bus lefty delusions was rarely known to flip-flop.
Kerry's got the short-bus delusions down pat, but in terms of personal character Kerry falls short.
On the other hand, Debs was never in 'Nam.
Debs in that pic looks a lot like his hero, Lenin.
Yeah, that attitude allowed the Russian Revolution to succeed.
I'm sorry, I mean bolshevik revolution.
Though I am no fan of Eugene V. Debs, I wish to point out that Debs at least claimed to represent the people who made up the military and acknowledged their sacrifices. Today's elite Left dismisses them and their sacrifices entirely.
Awesome. Permanent link material right here.
Down 31) Socialist candidate Eugene
That was the clue in my local paper's crossword puzzle, today.
Tremoglie is a great writer. You should buy his novel A Sense of Duty.
It is the antidote to the liberalism that exists in novels and movies and songs and TV shows.
It is shame there is no such thing as an award for conservative fiction or politically incorrect novels it would win.
Great piece about Kerry in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
Debs at least was sincerely motivated (like so many deluded Americans who thought socialism was the cure for the excesses of the Gilded Age) to do what he thought was best for the ordinary American. He was essentially a kind person trying to do right, though he went horribly wrong.
Kerry just despises "ordinary Americans" and thinks he is SO much better than everybody else. He's not interested in helping anybody but himself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.