Motley Moose – Archive

From Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station:

The simple truth of the matter is that if America actually cared about its veterans, cared enough to do more than slap a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of their SUVs and feign outrage on command, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?

From Jim Wright, USN retired (h/t Smartypants):

This is nothing new.

This kind of bureaucratic flimflam when it comes to taking care of veterans? It’s been going on for years, for decades, from one war to the next and all the timeless space in between. And it’s not confined to the Veterans Administration.

It’s been happening in Phoenix and San Diego and New York City and New Orleans and Biloxi and Anchorage and Washington D.C. and from sea to shining sea.

This latest thing? The appalling revelation that the Phoenix VA was cooking the books in order to meet impossible deadlines and levels of throughput? That administrators were hiding unacceptable delays in service and care in order to get themselves monetary bonuses and to pad their resumes? The fact that veterans died waiting for the care they faithfully earned and rightfully deserve? Yeah. That’s not outrage you see on our faces, and it sure isn’t surprise, it’s amused resignation.

We’re used to it.

We’re used to being disposable assets.

We’re used to being left to die by bureaucrats and politicians and the American public.

We’re used to being forgotten when the nation doesn’t need us anymore.

Oh, please, don’t bother. I’m not looking for sympathy or any more feigned outrage, I’ve had plenty.

There’s more …

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Good morning Motley Meese! Hope your weekend has been lovely so far.

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A look at a song from a Broadway musical that dealt with racial issues before the civil rights era, after the jump ……  

The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama commemorated Memorial Day by honoring the brave men and women in uniform who have given their lives in service to our country. As we stand with our veterans and military families this weekend, the President underscored our commitment to uphold our nation’s sacred trust with our veterans and ensure they get the benefits and opportunities they deserve and have earned.

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Good morning, Moosekind. TGIF!

Today is the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech calling upon us to work with him to build a Great Society.

In that speech, President Johnson outlined the principles behind the programs he would later propose; programs  intended to lift Americans out of poverty, first by ending discrimination, then by putting a safety net under our elderly in the form of Medicare and finally, by launching programs intended to improve the well-being of all of our citizens. Some programs were resounding successes and some were unable to be implemented or were dismantled by Ronald Reagan and his demon spawn ideological progeny.

The paths could not be more clearly marked. We can be a Great Society or we can be the puny country that the Reagan Republicans, and now Ryan Republicans, want for us; a country  where George W. Bush’s have-mores hoard the wealth and despoil our natural resources: a path leading us to a country where the middle class is destroyed and our children are left with an earth that is uninhabitable.

A quick scan of right-wing opinion pieces shows that, to Republicans, championing the causes of minorities and the working poor is called “Democrats pandering”. That is because to them it would be pandering, an attempt to get people’s votes by pretending to care about them. To Democrats, civil rights and women’s reproductive rights and the rights of workers and LGBT rights are not poll-tested talking points … they are the core of our party and embedded as Democratic Party principles.

It is not pandering, it is who we are.

It is the promise of a Great Society, one that “rests on abundance and liberty for all” and “demands an end to poverty and racial injustice” with this reminder from LBJ: “we have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will, your labor, your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society.”

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  know where to find you!