Anyone whose been exposed to the story of a sting operation on a recruiter by a boy named David McSwane, might be wondering what kind of people these recruiters were. How could a soldier in the United States Army in good faith lead a young man to a website where he could obtain a fake high school diploma and then inform him of how to beat a drug test? For the answer to this question, all you’d have to do is head down to the video store and rent Glengary Glenross.
These are salesmen out trying to hook people up with a product they have no interest in buying. Only it’s not vinyl siding, stereo speakers, life insurance or Jehovah, but instead a signing bonus they may never get to spend and money for college classes they may never attend. Consider for a moment having to sell the idea to a young person that if they sign up now, they could get free training, medical and a canvas armored Humvee to tour the Iraqi countryside in. It’s about as daunting a task as any of us could possibly face in this life.
The notion that our recruiting shortfalls have more to do with the market and availability of school loans than a lack of support for the war, has been made by many since I started posting my contrary opinion on the political blogs. The mainstream press has thus far resisted linking the recruiting shortfall with a lack of support for the war.
My impression is that the topic is one that people would rather not touch at all if they don’t have to. This story about the recruiters is an instance ala Abu Gharib where the mission from up top will be to sandbag these two little guys as soon as possible and hope the story goes away. Like torture, it will still go on, but the very mention of it will be hit with the ‘liberal bias’ flamethrower and half of the country will conveniently consider it a dead issue.
These recruiters are currently in a position that this administration has put too many Americans in already. It’s the ‘I don’t care how you do it, but get me the numbers’ method of leadership that brought down Enron and a number of other corporations. I like to call it the ‘F*&K YOU, WHERE’S MY MONEY’ strategy. Famously successful in the mob, but extremely damaging when used within a civilized organization.
How it works is your boss tells you that they hate to be like this, but they’re feeling even more pressure from their boss. You tell your subordinates the same thing. At some point the people at the bottom get creative and start cutting corners. They purposely cause blackouts in California, cook the books and teach recruits how to beat drug tests. You’re happy because your boss isn’t busting your chops. You may even find it odd that employee A tends to get more done than employee B, but with a family to feed at home, you’ll take it. Sometime down the road it blows up, heads are chopped off, problem solved.
The healthy organization looks at the wrongdoing and asks itself whether such a thing could be happening across the board, and if so, what’s compelling these employees to resort to such methods. The dysfunctional organization looks to rid itself of the problem as quickly as possible and hopes that the dispatching of the guilty employees serves as an example to any others who would be dumb enough to get caught in the future. They get rid of enough people to make it look like they’re addressing the problem and otherwise act like nothing ever happened.
Ala Goofus and Gallant from the Highlights children’s magazine, the healthy organization seeks out the cause, while the dysfunctional organization ignores the cause and continues to pound the square peg into a round hole. In the case of our government and its leadership following the attacks of 9/11, it’s been Goofus all the way.
I predict that these recruiters will get dragged across the coals and word will go out that no shady methods are to be discussed over the phone or email. Will recruits who would be publicly considered unqualified still get in? Sure, but nobody will have evidence that a recruiter did what these two recruiters engaged in. Just as nobody abusing detainees will be snapping pictures of it anytime soon.
Politically the situation will be neutralized, and from that point forward anyone mentioning it can be accused of having a ‘liberal bias’. Problem solved. That is, unless you’re a recruiter. Their lives will continue to get tougher as the months go by, while President Bush and his administration ignore the cause of both the recruiting shortfalls and the shady methods being used.
The rate of divorce amongst recruiters has been on the rise, as have stress related disorders. In the military it’s often about doing more with less, and while this is good enough when it comes to digging ditches and peeling potatoes, it’ll never work in the recruiting mission. These soldiers are receiving zero support from their leadership and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon.
They’re the little people being squashed by the ‘f*&k you, where’s my money’ leadership method of the Bush administration. With this being the case, the media will most likely stay away from connecting the dots and comply with the story of this being the work of two ‘bad apples’ and not reflective of the organization.
Having been in the military and known several recruiters in my day, I can safely say that what the kid exposed happens all the time. Stories of what a recruiter lied about to get you to sign on the dotted line start swirling around that first day of basic training and continue until the day you go home for good.
What recruiters have to do is in most ways no different than what any other salesman in our culture does. It’s the product that separates them from other salesmen, and it’s the product that’s flawed at this point in time. Recruiters are an example of the best our military has to offer, and this fact should not get lost in the shuffle as this story unfolds.
While the National Guard soldiers who are currently behind bars were guilty of something much worse than these recruiters, the lack of interest over identifying and ridding the cause of their behavior on the part of our country’s leadership should serve as a warning of what will most likely happen here. The ‘f*&k you, where’s my money’ method of leadership will continue to make the job of our recruiters tougher, and the problem isn’t going to go away. Removing cameras and screaming ‘liberal bias’ has protected our leaders from having to deal with the mistreatment of prisoners, but labeling these two recruiters ‘bad apples’ will do nothing to solve the problem at hand.
Nice site. I think you nailed the problem, no one seems to care what they are doing just that they are getting caught. The worst part is that the recruiter is the one who will get raked over the coals and he was just trying to survive in a bad situation.
Thanks for the comment Karl. I really hope that this point of view can become a part of the public discourse. Everyone’s had a boss who lead this way.
I know what you mean about the “shit rolls downhill” aspects of the chain of command. But first I wanted to say that I don’t see the link between lower recruitment and lack of support for the war. If anything, it shows that there are fewer people who will volunteer for dangerous duty than for safe, secure duty.
In a volunteer army not at war you can get some pretty sophisticated computer, medical, logistical and electronic training in a short period of time that translates into a cushy private sector career. How many people do you know who went in for the 4 or 8 year terms and then went to a tech or defense firm somewhere? Introduce the possibility of gunfire and that college sounds a lot more comfortable.
I could start a tangent about Americans becoming self involved through prosperity. Anything that involves sacrafice is avoided, military, the priesthood, etc. Everyone wants to be successful stockbrokers, loan offices, movie stars, rappers and CEOs.
Sales isn’t the fraudulent activity people think it is. You mentioned life insurance as something no one wants to buy….until the husband dies and the widow and 4 children lose the house and go on welfare. Sales is about presenting the benefits of a product or service to potential buyers, you can do it shady or you can do it professionally. The military is still a great place to get physically fit, learn a valuable trade and secure a comfortable future.
Right Thinker: But first I wanted to say that I don’t see the link between lower recruitment and lack of support for the war. If anything, it shows that there are fewer people who will volunteer for dangerous duty than for safe, secure duty.
How can one claim to support something on a millitary scale such as this, yet not feel obligated to contribute? The definition of support back in the day didn’t include applying a bumpersticker and remaining from that day forward apathetically patriotic. It seems to me that words have replaced actual substance in our country. The task…or the ‘hard work’ that needs to be done, when a priviledged individual speaks of ‘hard work’, they’re not talking about something that they will actually have to do anymore, but instead what the lower class of people living in this country will have to do. When that entails cleaning office buildings, it’s an entirely different thing than when it entails fighting in a war.
When President Bush speaks of the ‘hard work’ ahead in Iraq, it makes us feel like it’s ‘us’ who are doing the hard work…that it’s America doing that hard work – but nothing could be further from the truth. In a country of over 250 million people, it’s only 1.4 million currently work in the Army, Air Force, Marines or Navy. A portion of this 1.4 million actually do the ‘hard work’, and since the war began, a stop loss policy has prevented soldiers who had already served their contract from re-entering society as civilians.
The ‘hard work’ talk is just that…talk. About half of 1% of the total population is involved in this work and those who are can be told they have to stay enlisted against their will. Out of the remaining 99.54% of the people in our country, if the 0.56% of them needed to fill the slots can’t be found, then the work they’re being asked to do must be reconsidered.
Patriotism has become a rather ornamental idea in our lives now, complete with massages from our leaders who currently don’t seem to care whether we enlist or not, but just that we vote a certain way.
Right Thinker: Sales isn’t the fraudulent activity people think it is. You mentioned life insurance as something no one wants to buy….until the husband dies and the widow and 4 children lose the house and go on welfare. Sales is about presenting the benefits of a product or service to potential buyers, you can do it shady or you can do it professionally.
I agree with this completely. The sales arena suffers from the effects of the ‘F*&k you, where’s my money’ style of leadership a lot more than any other. The shady salesman will be the the celebrated one in a lot of cases. Until that shady salesman gets caught, it’s all gravy.
Right Thinker: The military is still a great place to get physically fit, learn a valuable trade and secure a comfortable future.
I’d have to disagree with this. Having been in from 1996-2000, I can’t imagine it’s changed all that much already. Single life in a combat arms unit in the Army isn’t a life for everyone. The room they put two of you in is smaller than the cheapest hotel room I’ve ever been in and the pay is an insult. I could go on and on when it comes to this, but in terms of the pay and living conditions – I honestly believe it’s set up that way to get people to marry as soon as possible, and then find that they really have no place to go. Once a young soldier gets married (to get out of the barracks) and pumps out a couple kids, the outside world can look awfully scary. I’ve seen this phenomenon in action for years. My brother and I talk about all this stuff quite a bit…he served four years in the Marines, and the amount of times we see saw someone get hitched based solely on the horrible living conditions for the single troop is scary.
As far as the ‘comfortable future’ thing goes…you could end up dead, maimed or paralyzed.
How can one claim to support something on a millitary scale such as this, yet not feel obligated to contribute?
I support the State Troopers Fund but I don’t go out and try to catch criminals. I support relatives in college but I don’t go and physically teach them lessons. I support the war in Iraq but have medical conditions that have kept me out, and now I’m too old were I completely healthy.
Support comes in many shades and has to do with the abilities of those doing the supporting. Our office puts together packages of “treats from home” to send to the troops. I have a couple relatives who went to Iraq and I’ve tried to convey my pride in their sacrafice.
What would you propose the war supporters do? Do you want lines of 40 and 50 year olds trying to enlist? Do you want kids dropping out of schools of all kinds to join the military? That is why we have a volunteer army, the people that really want to enlist in the miliary can do so and those that don’t aren’t forced to.
My brother couldn’t even tell us where he was most of the time but we know part of it was in Iraq. He’s kinda tall and lankey and has a knee condition that is forcing him out. He wants to stay but now he’s forced (I joke about forced) to use all that high tech training in the private sector. My sister refueled and maintained helicopters in Iraq and now she’s headed for a career of her own in something to do with aircraft.
Of course there is danger in military duty and some people who signed up for the benefits died unexpectedly. Anyone who joins the military, police force, race car driver, test pilot, skydiver, high rise window washer, bomb squad/SWAT team, Ebola virus researcher, nuclear engeneer, etc. could die on the job. I could get killed on the way to work tomorrow but I support the creation of roads and highways.
Problems people have in the military are not due to the military itself or any war. It’s sad that people feel forced to marry or make bad decisions to alter environment to meet their comfort needs. I would ask, though, is a transfer not available? Can you not change your MOS or apply for different jobs? I would imagine a stink on Guam or Okinawa would be soo boring but aren’t there ways to offset the discomfort? Sports, schooling, hobbies, volunteering or anything to make a bad situation better.
And where are the parents? The clergy? The officers? Sargeants? Mentors? Where are the people who can listen to a young persons issues, make recomendations and generally look after the troubled youth for a while?
I’ve seen several “varieties” of miltary people, ones who didn’t particularly want to go and ended up liking it and those that didn’t. There are those who really wanted to go and ended up regreting it and those who are happy they made the decision. I wish you and your brother would have benefited more, my own Grandfather came out of the Navy and went into aerospace and my Father was an Army Accountant and came out to be successful in business. I know a guy who got booted for drug dealing from the Army and I know a guy who was all set to go tank commander but a wrong time, wrong place arrest killed that plan.
To be honest I am really “buyer beware” in this situation because everyone already knows the down side, watch GI Jane, Biloxi Blues and Appocalypse Now. No one goes into the military thinking this is a cake walk, I’m sure the recruiter, while boastful, did not promise you a room at the Hilton for your entire tour. Why did you join and what would you have done differernt? And no easy answer like “I wouldn’t have gone.” What could you have done to have made your military experience more positive?
Update to this story. The NYTimes ran the following story late last night:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/national/03recruit.html?hp&ex=1115092800&en=8c46bf8d528ad413&ei=5094&partner=homepage
In the article it explains how the number of instances has risen, with commanders actually encouraging their recruiters to bend the rules. The rate of recruiters being punnished for indescretions has droped from 50% to 30%. Perhaps the exposure of the two recruiters who were taped will factor into a less forgiving punnishment for them, but before this broke, the practice was condoned by the leadership and was punnished less often than it would have been prior to the difficulties they’ve had in getting the numbers.
This should be a significant moment in the war, as it requires attention now rather than later. That’s a huge understatement. My main reason for saying this is that while the Army cannot stock their units properly, our fellow citizens who put it on the line and signed up for our sake are going to have to serve longer terms against their will.
For many soldiers it’s already a case where their ‘enlistment’ has been changed into a ‘sentence’. I feel that if a single soldier has to deal with the government reniging on the deal, it signals a problem that needs attention. Our president and Congress need to understand that they’re representing the people, and the individuals being involuntarily extended are the ones they owe the most attention to right now.
Not a woman whose been on life support for fifteen years. For the media…they need to get real and quit wasting our time with these non-stories involving the inner workings of everyday people’s lives. Big Media is jumping the shark at this very moment, right in front of our eyes. Let’s pray that the same can’t be said for President Bush should he continue to ignore this particular reality of the war that’s currently turning soldiers into slaves.
I draw a distinction between municipal work where there’s a waiting list for new hires and work that is in need of people to serve. If the state police was in need of recruits, it would be something that the governor of the state should be on right away. It’s the public servants we cannot do without. If the firehouse was short ten people and your neighbor’s house burned down because of it…I think I’d be filling out an application. We have freedom in this country, but it comes at a price.
Not all of us are physically fit and prepared to contribute, but on the other hand, they’re signing up kids with bi polar disorder. Do you want him next to your kid holding a rifle on minimal sleep in Iraq?
The consequences of ignoring this is going to make things much worse for the ones who put their lives on the line who do have bright futures ahead of them if they can just get out alive. It’s not fair to them that the entire thing get diminished in such a way due to lack of attention. If we can do that, then everyone needs to take the stickers off of their cars and zip their lip when it comes to praise. Shut down the bar. The talking heads are staggering around drunk on the stuff already…they need to earn the right at this point.
I want the President to open up his mouth and deliver a speech that will envoke a sence of duty in this country of ours, which at the moment desperately needs it. If he put a call out to Americans to enlist, the numbers could be met. He doesn’t say a word, and it gets worse every day. Every day he stays mum on this problem is another day a kid with bi polar and a drug habbit has the chance of going nuts around a friend of mine over there. It’s serious business this hired killer gig, and it’s absolutely NOT for a segment of our society. The vetting process is being ignored now for the sake of getting the numbers.
Basically the country is being run like a dysfunctional corporation when it comes to the military. For the sake of the bottom line, which in this case is political capital and an approval rating, people are being mistreated. Just like any corporation out there, only they’re not in a position where they can just have a lay-off and start with a better looking balance sheet. The White House does not understand this distinction.
I am sincerely glad to hear that they’ve had positive experiences. They deserve it…along witih great success once they’re done.
I’m speaking first hand about the marriages. It’s an element of the mechanism put in place…especially in combat arms units…to mold the single soldiers into something more ‘convincible’ come time to re-up.
I imagine those people are telling them that if they’re thinking of joining that it’s not worth it. The reason will be the lack of support you receive once you’re in.
No, he didn’t. And my idea here isn’t really about the culpability of the recruiters, but moreso the current design and how it’s detrimental to so many things our culture relies on now. Bush’s approval rating or something else is preventing him from simply asking America to serve…a national prime-time speech is warranted right now. It could be that easy of a fix.
I advise against using the NYTimes as any sort of reference or source, attaching the NYT name to any “evidence” immediate renders said evidence contaminated. If I read in the NYT that the sun came up this morning I would have to actually go and check before I put any stock in that.
With that said, I agree the Bush should be saying more, much more. I think the question of the war has been won and Bush needs to act like a winner. I believe that we need to pull forces out of Europe and into Iraq to both secure Iraq quicker and ween the Europeans off of the American nipple.
I also agree that the environment of the enlisted personnel could be better, when I was asking about the mentors, officers and parents I was refering to once the people are in the military.
And where are the parents? The clergy? The officers? Sargeants? Mentors? Where are the people who can listen to a young persons issues, make recomendations and generally look after the troubled youth for a while?
The State Highway Patrol of my state are the lowest paid of all the law forces and I brought that up because they are in a very dangerous job but they go out there and do it, it’s their choice.
You will know that the situation is bad when the draft is instituted. We’ve made it this far with a volunteer army and zar-cow-ee is on his way out. Iraq will be self sufficient in a few years and I think when we look back we’ll see it went pretty well with what we had and the time we had to do it. Liberals won’t be remembered so favorably especially now that we are learning that North Vietnam was on the brink of collapse but liberals made us surrender before we were able to win. The media screwed us in Vietnam also, but that is another story.
Hope your friends over there are doing well and they need to know that they served an important role in history and to ignore the hate the liberal media has spread upon them. I always here the bad on TV but I hear the good from the people who are actually over there. And thank you for your service as well.
Would you agree that a quote offered by their paper would equal words actually spoken by someone being interviewed by a reporter? I don’t think you can disregard anything the Times has to offer. If FoxNews had footage of a politician making a statement, that’s different than a story being told completely through commentary.
You can take an opinion piece with a grain if salt if that’s your choice, but the news articles offered by the Times and most other news papers can be trusted for what shows up in quotations. You have to be carefull about statements that are snipped or contain elipses (…) obviously. The article I refered to concerning recruiters and the troubles they’re facing contained statements from actual recruiters and their supervisors.
A full two weeks after I read that, there wasn’t much else out there on the subject. This kid runs his sting operation and the story breaks. The NYTimes has already been diminished by the immediate negativity some respond with when they’re stated as a source for a story, but in this case, they had it right.
There’s a difference between manufacturing a story and predicting the weather with a story. More manufacturing is done in the industry these days…Terri Shaivo comes to mind…but the Times does some heady reporting. There’s a lot of money and a lot of mileage spent on their newsroom. The news portion of their Sunday paper is the standard others try to match, but I haven’t seen a news organization that even comes close.
Opinion and commentary are different from news reporting. It’s oil and water if you ask me. The portion of our country who denounces the Times will accept commentary as news way too often. Plenty of FoxNews and right-wing radio heads trash the paper on a daily basis, but in order for their schtick to work, it requires an enemy…a completely vile representation of everything they they despise about our country. They need an enemy, so the Times takes their lumps…but it doesn’t make everything they say right.
The forces in Europe are not guarding Europeans against anyone. First ID is in Germany and they deploy all over the globe. The benefit of having units on that hemisphere who can deploy from a closer home base is a good thing. I’ve heard this on some of the right-wing blogs I’ve been frequenting, that somehow having soldiers stationed in Europe deters from our mission in Iraq, but that’s absolutely not true. One has nothing to do with the other, as the forces in Europe can be deployed to Iraq just as often and easily as forces who reside stateside.
A quick story…when we were going through pre-deployment checks for Kosovo, the batallion chaplain admonished me for having Buddhist on my dog-tags…he was trying to convince me that unless I put Christian on there, my funeral would be less than what it could be.
Leaders in the military are often much better at what they do than leaders in the civilian world, but the bottom line is paramount, even moreso than in the outside world at times. My broken ribs while on alert one time were ignored by the batallion doctor because we couldn’t go under the number required for deployment. I went 30 days before being granted an x-ray. I would have been on the ground with my gun and 4 broken ribs…all for the sake of a Lieutenant Colonel’s career.
My leadership skills were greatly due to my military experience…having seen the best and the worst in action. The idea that the military can scare some people straight is valid, but when you’re in you’re expected to act like an adult. Front line leaders are there for their soldiers and responsible for growing them as men or women, but the mission is what’s in front of them…so if they’re in Iraq, the sergeant’s mission is keeping his soldiers alive and not really ensuring they’re growing in a positive way. And if too many people are in the military to be scared straight and not necessarily because they want to be, the sum of the whole gets diminished.
I’m sure they’re not struggling to get people to sign up though. The distinction lies in whether they’re able to fill the squad cars. If they weren’t able to, then government would have to figure out how to fix that. And a lack of cops would be fixed or the leader would get sacked. These things aren’t put up with on a local government level. On a national scale though, there’s a lot of talk by people who have no interest than to promote one party over the other, and with this mechanism in place, something like the problem with our military can balloon without so much as a word about it from our president. If the NYTimes is the only organization putting money into researching and reporting on it, the talking heads can just say, ‘look at the source’ and half the country continues to believe that it’s a non-issue.
This dynamic is exactally what you pointed out above. Only it WAS a story, and just because the Times first reported it, a certain amount of us choose not to take it seriously. The righteous indignation I heard when it came to Terri Shiavo would be coming from the right-wing on this very issue if it were a Democrat in the white house intead of a Republican.
The media cannot be blamed for a military failure. This has been the mantra for twenty years from people…my dad included, who seem to ignore the decisions made by our government that led us down that road. You can say, yea…LBJ pushed too hard and his advisors miscalculated how the Vietnamese would react to our actions, but the press covering the aftermath was what really lost the war…it’s a cop-out.
If the AP has a reporter on the ground and reports on a car bombing in Baghdad that kills 10 people and wounds 30 more…that headline is what someone will blame if Iraq has a civil war, but is it right to do so? I don’t think so. It’s a way of saying that the truth shouldn’t be told. I think that keeping such headlines from the people is a lot more damaging than anything else. What’s good about hiding the truth from the people? On Vietnam, the press was lax in the outset…and that’s what allowed the government to louse it up as badly as they did. The lack of exposure early on facilitated the bad decisionmaking.
The same has been said about Iraq. When Wolfowicz states that it would be very surprising for an insurgency to take hold of the situation, or very surprising that more than the number of troops they’re sending in would be needed…that wasn’t scrutinized in the press like it should have been. If the number had been scrutinized, perhaps more troops would have been sent initially, and perhaps more of the country could have been guarded against looters…like the museums for starters. The absence of press is worse than what some people hate about bad headlines.
Thanks! I agree with you here Right – we don’t hear enough of the good. The government sometimes manufacturers good news, when FoxNews, CNN and other organizations could spend some money and go out to find the good story. Networks aren’t willing to spend the money needed to get this stuff though. The reporters embedded respond to news, and when the elections went off with minimal violence, there were plenty of positive stories. Could more positive stuff be reported on? I think so…but at the same time, I think that more of the negative could be reported on as well.
The inner workings of the Iraqi parliment and the personalities involved…the regional differences between these people really fascinates me. But outside of the high-end political magazines…both left and right leaning…it’s hard to get that kind of in-depth reporting on the ins and outs of all that. The mainstream press is all about ratings. The story about liberal bias is a strong pull for commentators on CNN and FoxNews, so instead of reporting on the good or the bad, they’re reporting on the reporting.
This argument over bias has eaten up hours that could have been spent actually covering what’s going on…but it’s all about the bottom line! So the point of view that ’since I don’t see good headlines, they’re out there, but bias prevents them from being reported’ takes hold. I think there’s enough out there but you have to seek it out. The front sections of the Times and WSJournal are what I rely on in terms of a daily update. The cable news never hits my screen. With these two inputs along with what I read on the internet, the perspective I receive is alright…but it’s the Nation, National Review, Harpers…that’s where the gaps get filled.
I’m going on here. I think we’ve tapped into something here Right. If you get a chance, check out this…one of my old ones:
http://deadissue.com/archives/2004/08/25/crosseyed-and-painless/
I agree the media can’t be blamed for a military failure but in the case of Vietnam the media can skew the reality of a situation so badly that ingorant members of the public take action against governemnt that is detrimental to the military. The media, focusing on and magnifying the horrors of war created a frenzy of backlash that, had the situation been portrayed accurately would never have happened.
Media whips up a frenzy among a liberal ideological base. Liberal ideological base spreads flames of ignorance to moderates and moderates pressure conservatives. Support for actions in Vietnam wains, politicians are voted out of office based on false reporting of the war and liberals new to power sabotage their own country. This was Vietnam and almost Iraq except the public was too smart for the media this time and bloggers reported what the media refused to, the liberal monopoly of media is being broken.
Here’s a link to offset your NYT link, haha http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,155833,00.html
Media has the power to influence opinions and actions. If I tell my neighbor every day that I think I saw the guy down the street destryoing his landscape or that I heard it might be him and he goes down there to confront the guy and something happens, a fight or some altercation am I not responsible in some way? I don’t like the guy down the street and it sounds like something a jerk like that would do so I’ll just fill my neighbors head, reinforcing the belief that the guy down the street did it, am I free of blame? Sure, maybe I know the guy down the street was on vacation when the damage happened but he’s tricky that way, he could have come back just to break the stuff up, kinda like Kennedy’s magic bullet theory. I’m beginning to ramble but I think you get my drift.
Media, through reinforcement of a particular ideology, creates a public perception which the public then acts upon.
My impression of the Vietnam war era from what I read about it was that the press, for the most part, was silent during the first few years. LBJ’s critical decisions made early on went through without scrutiny, and with this absence of press coverage, the situation there was allowed to be construed as something it wasn’t…meaning, the decision to drop napalm and send over more troops when the generals on the ground over there were misleading the President on the actual effectiveness of our efforts…that is what allowed that situation to balloon like it did. The same idea with the situation in Iraq existed in South Vietnam where we were going to train them to defend themselves. When it came time to fight though, a Vietnamese man would not. I’ve read many accounts and seen documentaries where Vietnamese men explained this by saying something to the effect of, ‘we were being paid, and as long as the Americans were there, that was a good way to feed my family. But neither I or anyone else I knew was actually willing to kill a Vietnamese for the sake of an American. Someday they will go back home and we will have our country back. We all just waited for that day to come.’
This string of poor decisionmaking and blind faith led our troops and the country as a whole into a place we hadn’t been before. The people expected success and were told that the mission would be successfull. It was a few years of no results and outright lies from the government before the press got on the ball and started covering the war.
When this happened, a segment of the population was angered by it. Veterans were being treated horribly in terms of the amount of support the government was willing to provide, and now the press was reporting that they had lost their limbs for a series of lies. Not only that, but the tactics they used…the tactics their commanders had ordered, were now being scrutinized. People took it personally.
Where we go wrong though is to blame the media for any sort of military loss over there, as they had plenty of time to do that job…it’s just that the job couldn’t be done. We could have stayed over there for another ten years and came out with the same result. The population numbers of Vietnam and Laos would have been slashed even more brutally as they were already, and thousands of American soldiers would have died, but the end result in terms of our nation’s interests would have remained the same.
Blaming the media for a failure in the Vietnam war is to ignore a host of evidence that suggests not only that the war was unwinable, but that LBJ had been snowed by his military advisors in getting so deeply involved.
I really don’t think the country works as a bellows in that exact way anymore. More flames are spread in the opposite way from what I’ve seen in the past few years. Compare the Terri Shiavo story, Clinton impeachment with any such media roasting of a Republican or a story meant to energize the liberal base…it’s just not like that in this country. The myth that such a mechanism still exists is a base conservative argument these days. I could say the same about the ‘liberals want government involved in your life and we don’t’ argument. It’s become an inaccurate assessment of the landscape. Things evolve, but the rhetoric remains stuck in cement until the day comes when it’s no longer true.
Under Bush and this Congress, the role of government in our everyday lives has increased. FoxNews, CNN, MSNBC and the bloggers can get the flamethrowers pointed at any one ridiculous story they want to…as evidenced by the ‘runaway bride’ story. It just doesn’t hold water here in 2005. I’m only 26, and I’m quite sure that the liberal-to-moderate-to-conservative dynamic you described was a reality at a time in the past, but not now. If anything, it works in the opposite way.
This was an article about the Pope asking for fairness in the media. I wonder what specifically prompted him to make these statements. I’ve expected a backlash or some level of rhetoric from the Vatican against any American media entities that continue to report on molestation cases for a while now. The Boston Globe was the primary investigative source for a lot of the print on this case…I read the book they published a year or so ago. My grandmother and I exchange books that deal with history for the most part, and she asked me to read t hat one. I couldn’t get through it…only half and a skim of the rest as the material was just too disturbing.
I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that his statements are an encoded message to the American media that, ‘you’re either with us, or against us’. What do you make of his statement?
I agree with you 100% about most of what you’re saying here, as the first impression is often the lasting impression when it comes to public opinion in this country. What I’m bothered by though is the amount of brand loyalty and it’s role in politics today. FoxNews is just as guilty as the worst ‘liberal’ offender you can find. What I try to do is stay away from the cable news…or ‘drive-thru news’ outlets altogether, only watching them when I want to take a ‘trip to the zoo’ if you will. Then taking my print news from the WSJ, NYT and online from various sources. From there it’s 80% CSPAN (LOVE Washington Journal in the morning) and 20% McLaughliln, Meet the Press, etc.
Then I try my best to wrap it all up with a little Ben Franklin wisdom…’believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see’. Take the politics with a grain of salt, always asking ‘who stands to benefit’…and relying on the history at hand to determine my point of view.
The majority of political junkies subscribe to a brand name and never question the output from that paticular brand. Arguing the issue with someone who does this turns into a tit for tat discussion that goes nowhere. Point out a lie told by Bill O’Reiley and you’ll hear about Dan Rather. And while the correct answer is to shut it all off, people stand by their brand and appologize for their brand, draw literary blood for the sake of their brand…almost like it was their religion.
This can happen for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. What gets lost in this neverending newscycle is when someone lies. Nobody suffers for lying. Dan Rather did…but the hosts of primetime FoxNews, CNN and MSNBC can lie every night and it never gets dealt with appropriately.
From Right Thinker:
What would you propose the war supporters do? Do you want lines of 40 and 50 year olds trying to enlist? Do you want kids dropping out of schools of all kinds to join the military? That is why we have a volunteer army, the people that really want to enlist in the miliary can do so and those that don’t aren’t forced to.
This is pure slippery slope logical fallacy.
This is pure slippery slope logical fallacy.
No, it’s an expression to probe the point made by another. The gist of the statement is the writer feels people are not supporting the war according to his views of how a nation who supported the war would act.
The counter point challenges this idea by reminding the writer that the military can’t take everyone and sometimes all someone can do is show a yellow ribbon of support in mind and spirit. Imagine you are fighting for your country and you know that when you come back one of two things will happen. People will spit on you and call you baby killer or you will receive applause and see yellow ribbons everywhere just for you.
Which would raise your morale? Which would show you support? Talk to a vietnam vet and ask if he/she would have liked to have come home to applause and yellow ribbins everywhere?
Look up slippery slope, I think you mean something else here.
What happened to wise-aye-ker?
West coast