Who Is Supporting the Troops?

We've heard many times over the past four years the plea from George W. Bush to support the troops. Well, I have to ask, who is supporting them and who isn't?

With Memorial Day just recently passed, certainly it was a time to remember those who have died in this war and others. It it's particularly startling to learn that our government has become too cheap to give fallen soldiers individual memorial services. A report out of Washington State says that "So many Fort Lewis soldiers are being killed in Iraq the Army base will no longer hold individual memorial services."

As a friend of mine aptly said about this sad situation: "The fact that these soldiers don't even get their own memorial service brings home the idea that these boys and girls are just a highly-disposable commodity to the war machine of the Bush administration."

But it's not just dead soldiers that Bush and our government doesn't support. How is keeping them over in Iraq to face tough circumstances and possible death supporting them? One soldier asks why they are in Iraq in this letter. The soldier asks, "Why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself?" And he states, "Most of my friends here share my views, but do not have the courage to say anything."

Why don't they have the courage, I wonder? Could it be that they are afraid of penalties from their own government if they express their true feelings? I'm sure our military wouldn't penalize someone who has served admirably in the military just for speaking out against this insane war. Um, right?

Nope. KATC reports that "an Iraq war veteran is scheduled to appear before a military panel Monday for wearing his uniform during an anti-war protest. ... The military panel will decide whether to change his discharge status from 'honorable' to 'other than honorable.'"

And we all know how well our government supports its wounded soldiers. The Walter Reed scandal illustrated that point. As The Washington Post reported, "Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses." Doesn't sound like support to me.

Here's the thing, Mr. Bush. In your typical spoiled-rich-kid manner, you smugly condemn those of us who want to bring the troops home. We're cut-and-runners, you say with a smirk. What are we running from? There was no threat to begin with. The only thing we're running from is your insanity for putting our troops in harm's way for no reason. You say we don't support the troops. Just because we prefer our soldiers to be alive and well means we don't support them? No sir, I think it is YOU and your administration that does not, has not, and apparently WILL NOT support our troops.

I met a new neighbor on Memorial Day. The guy was in the first Iraq War. He said he "was shot at and shot some people." Brave guy. He had medals on the wall in his basement. I have nothing but respect for him. He served for people like me and YOU, Mr. Bush, who have never set foot on foreign soil in a military uniform. You went AWOL for God's sake and haven't done anything to show your support for our men and women in uniform.

But I now value the opportunity to have this guy down the street as a neighbor. I value human life. I prefer to not sacrifice people to achieve some unknown and bizarre personal agenda. I support our troops.

What in your actions (not words!), Mr. Bush, indicates that YOU support our troops?

Disappointed in the Democrats

Democrats have a reputation of being wishy-washy; flip-floppers; perhaps even cowards. I've tried to refute such labels easily tossed about by conservative opponents. But now I have to side with the likes of Rush Limbaugh. It's sad to say that the Democrats — at least those WE elected to Congress — are indeed totally gutless and without resolve. And they have acted against our will.

I'm speaking, of course, about the Democrats giving George W. Bush the funding he wants for his war without requiring any timeline for a troop withdrawal. Once again, the Democrats have handed Bush a blank check instead of holding him accountable for starting a war based on lies, a war that costs American lives every day, a war with no end in sight and no clear explanation as to why we're there or why we went there to begin with.

As Keith Olbermann so aptly said in his recent Special Comment:
"Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear: Get us out of Iraq."

Olbermann went on to say, "You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans."

Our government has shown once again that it is out of control and without accountability. But it is up to us to demand accountability, no matter how futile that sometimes seems to be. Contact Congress today!

So, Falwell Is Dead

He can speak for himself:

I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men - that's their problem.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell

The argument that making contraceptives available to young people would prevent teen pregnancies is ridiculous. That's like offering a cookbook as a cure to people who are trying to lose weight.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell

This is probably as bad a day as the court has had on social issues since "Roe v Wade."
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, reacting to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Texas sodomy case, "Lawrence v. Texas," wherein the high court upheld an individual's (or a couple's) right to privacy; "It is a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter," said Justice Anthony M Kennedy, for the majority in an opinion "as broad in its constitutional vision as any ever issued by the court," wrote Charles Lane for The Washington Post; in his dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia, an extremist Evangelical Christian, complained that the justices voting to uphold the right to privacy were creating a new constitutional right, that they were not upholding the Constitution, quoted from "Planned Parenthood Federal Action Report" (July, 2003)

I had a student ask me, "Could the savior you believe in save Osama bin Laden?" Of course, we know the blood of Jesus Christ can save him, and then he must be executed.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, cited in Cary McMullen, "Falwell: Now Is the Time for Gospel," in the Lakeland (Florida) Ledger (November 12, 2001), quoted from Randy Cassingham, This is True (18 November 2001). Falwell added: "We visit prisoners on death row, and some of them are saved, but we believe their sentences should be carried out because they have a debt to society."

God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson agreed, quoted from John F Harris, "God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, to which Rev Pat Robertson again agreed, quoted from AANEWS #958 by American Atheists (September 14, 2001)

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, blaming civil libertarians, feminists, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters for the terrorist attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, quoted from John F Harris, "God Gave US 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says," The Washington Post (September 14, 2001)

AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, Sermon, July 4, 1976

It appears that America's anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, thank God, and is possibly being replaced by a Christ-centered men's movement which may become the foundation for a desperately needed national spiritual awakening.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

There is no separation of church and state. Modern US Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution.
-- Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The Bible is the inerrant ... word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible,without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.
-- Jerry Falwell, Finding Inner Peace and Strength

The Jews are returning to their land of unbelief. They are spiritually blind and desperately in need of their Messiah and Savior.
-- Jerry Falwell, Listen, America!

Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.
-- Jerry Falwell, on CNN's Crossfire, May 17, 1997

Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

The ACLU is to Christians what the American Nazi party is to Jews.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters.
-- Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won't have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!
-- Rev Jerry Falwell, America Can Be Saved, 1979 pp. 52-53, from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

Hey Jerry, I thank God that you did NOT live to see that day!

Adios, Jerry.

All in the Family

I've been thinking a lot this week about family. I guess more specifically I've been thinking about loyalties that I cannot understand. These loyalties include various familial relationships such as parents to children, one sibling to another, and even one person to his or her significant other, whether that be a spouse, live-in partner, or some other similar relationship.

Maybe the biggest problem in this whole dynamic is my own. The next person who tells me that I lack a capacity of forgiveness won't be the first—and probably won't be the last. Yes, I know the line in the Lord's prayer that says, "And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." And yes I know the saying, "To err is human, but forgiveness is divine."

My problem lies with continued forgiveness despite a history of being treated badly by another person or a group of people. At what point do you say, "Enough is enough?" And maybe, just maybe, you can still forgive that person or people, but do you still have to continue to associate with them, allowing them treat you poorly in the process?

I think of two siblings I know. One decided several years ago to wash his hands of his family, who he felt had treated him poorly for many years. Just after he made the decision he told me it was for his own mental health. It was making him crazy, he said, to try to justify having a continued relationship with people who continued to cause him pain. His sister still tries to have a relationship to those same parents despite similar treatment. She seems to refuse to give up on some idealistic view that she could have a decent, normal family despite many years that would contradict the possibility of such an outcome. Which sibling is right and which is wrong? All I know is the one who moved away and gave up contact with his family is quite content with that decision and feels he is in better mental health because of that decision.

I was just reading about the book "If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation." Long story short: One sister escaped years of abuse. One did not. One sister finally gave up on the notion of loyalty and forgiveness. The other sister is dead. Continuing to allow people to mistreat you CAN have dire consequences—physically and mentally. So we should always forgive those who trespass against us? I'm not the moral police, but it seems like a bad policy. Or at least, as I indicated, forgive if you must, but don't forget. And don't continue to allow yourself to be abused.

I am fortunate that my family has been very good to me. I'm probably in the minority of those who have never suffered abuse by the hands of family members, and my family has done a lot for me. I am grateful for that and love my family for that reason yet I still don't understand the "blood is thicker than water" mentality. If my mom hung up on me regularly (which I know someone whose mom used to do just that because it was an "inconvenient" time for the child to call the parent), it might happen twice, but I definitely wouldn't be calling back after that.

Yet people continue to feel some sense of loyalty or obligation to people who rarely did anything positive for them and worse yet failed to protect them from harm. And when they were harmed, the solution was to sweep the whole incident under the rug and pretend it didn't happen.

If your friends or others in you life treated you in a similar manner to the rotten way your family has treated you, you would most assuredly end that relationship. But just because it's family who is abusing you, or a partner of some sort, you feel that you have some sort of lifelong obligation to these people. The contract of family should go both ways, I believe. And if one side does not fulfill their end of the bargain, to treat you with respect, to not put you down, to assist you financially if possible and practical, and to protect you from harm, then I do not see any reason to continue in that relationship.

To err is human and forgiveness may be divine, but continuing in a relationship with someone who uses and abuses you just doesn't make sense.

Verizon Update

After wasting a lot of the time on the phone trying to straighten out my billing problems with Verizon, I asked to speak to a manager. After being put on hold for several more minutes, some guy finally picks up. I tell him my situation, and all he tells me is that he apologizes for the problems and then he tries to sell me on getting Direct TV, which is somehow affiliated with Verizon. Are you kidding me? I just said I was thinking about dropping Verizon services because dealing with them has been so difficult and this guy's only comeback is that I should add more Verizon services—without offering to do ANYTHING about the reasons I called?

I wasn't satisfied with that response and wrote an e-mail to Verizon. The space they allow for e-mails is pretty small so I said I had much more to complain about than they offered space for and I would love to speak with someone who might actually do something about it. I received this response:

"We appreciate your feedback and I apologize for the difficulties you've experienced.

I have forwarded your concerns regarding your service experience to the appropriate management team for review. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your comments.

Thank you for using Verizon. We appreciate your business."

That was it. No additional response has come. Nor do I expect it to.

Is There Such a Thing as Good Customer Service?

How rare is it to find good customer service these days? It can rarely be found at stores and restaurants here in the New River Valley. And it's certainly not found within utility companies of any kind. My latest problem is with Verizon.

I have numerous Verizon products and they keep screwing up my bill. They've been overcharging me for three months and the problem is not fixed yet. And to try to speak with someone via phone turns into a 45-minute event of voice prompts, being on hold, and having people to apologize while still doing nothing to help the problem.

I was wondering if others had similar problems and found numerous links, similar to the Wal-Mart sucks links in one of my earlier blogs.

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Verizon Sucks

Oh and there are sooooo many more examples out there of how Verizon sucks.