Award season has started and the idiots are showing

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Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: Award season has started and the idiots are showing

Post by Aesop »

Weetabix wrote:
Aesop wrote:They made their bed, and it's their careers and pensions above all. Including before the actual national defense, readiness, mission accomplishment, or troop welfare.
You say that like it's a new thing. It's been going on for probably 150 years.
No, it has not.
I don't have the time or inclination to give that the detailed fisking possible; suffice it to say that up until relatively recently (probably no earlier than about 1992), it simply was not so*, and for the few to whom it might apply, they were a relative pittance out of the whole.


Now it's virtually the entire establishment above a certain pay grade.
Those still stuck in the service and a victim of these recent vicissitudes have my sympathy and condolences.
But they should still GTFO with all possible haste.

*(e.g.: Were it not for his deathbed Memoirs, U.S. Grant would have died a pauper. Patton had family money before entering the service, but Bradley, MacArthur, and Marshall never did. The military was so small up until the Cold War as to not even be on the radar as any sort of path to retirement success.
Ike got it wrong: the problem is not the military-industrial complex; it's the politico-military-industrial complex that's become the problem, and it took just about 50 years from WWII to subvert and destroy the entire national military institution, primarily with the impetus of one political party, and the gasoline-on-the-flames accelerant of the current toxic presidency.)
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Greg
Posts: 8486
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:15 pm

Re: Award season has started and the idiots are showing

Post by Greg »

Aesop wrote:
Weetabix wrote:
Aesop wrote:They made their bed, and it's their careers and pensions above all. Including before the actual national defense, readiness, mission accomplishment, or troop welfare.
You say that like it's a new thing. It's been going on for probably 150 years.
No, it has not.
I don't have the time or inclination to give that the detailed fisking possible; suffice it to say that up until relatively recently (probably no earlier than about 1992), it simply was not so*, and for the few to whom it might apply, they were a relative pittance out of the whole.


Now it's virtually the entire establishment above a certain pay grade.
Those still stuck in the service and a victim of these recent vicissitudes have my sympathy and condolences.
But they should still GTFO with all possible haste.

*(e.g.: Were it not for his deathbed Memoirs, U.S. Grant would have died a pauper. Patton had family money before entering the service, but Bradley, MacArthur, and Marshall never did. The military was so small up until the Cold War as to not even be on the radar as any sort of path to retirement success.
Ike got it wrong: the problem is not the military-industrial complex; it's the politico-military-industrial complex that's become the problem, and it took just about 50 years from WWII to subvert and destroy the entire national military institution, primarily with the impetus of one political party, and the gasoline-on-the-flames accelerant of the current toxic presidency.)
There is a related issue that may be confusing things- the difference between a wartime and a peacetime military.

That's something we've always had at least a little trouble with, which is only fair because it's something everyone has always had trouble with. Admittedly, it was less of an issue in a world where everyone was aware that war was a universal pandemic that only saw brief pauses, expensively earned.

Now we have the general delusion that peace is the norm, which delusion has helped make our culture batshit insane, led to our current 'leadership', and many other things besides.
Maybe we're just jaded, but your villainy is not particularly impressive. -Ennesby

If you know what you're doing, you're not learning anything. -Unknown
Sanity is the process by which you continually adjust your beliefs so they are predictively sound. -esr
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Weetabix
Posts: 6106
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:04 pm

Re: Award season has started and the idiots are showing

Post by Weetabix »

Aesop wrote:
Weetabix wrote:
Aesop wrote:They made their bed, and it's their careers and pensions above all. Including before the actual national defense, readiness, mission accomplishment, or troop welfare.
You say that like it's a new thing. It's been going on for probably 150 years.
No, it has not.
I don't have the time or inclination to give that the detailed fisking possible; suffice it to say that up until relatively recently (probably no earlier than about 1992), it simply was not so*, and for the few to whom it might apply, they were a relative pittance out of the whole.
I may be lumping politicians with military and averaging.
Note to self: start reading sig lines. They're actually quite amusing. :D
Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: Award season has started and the idiots are showing

Post by Aesop »

That's precisely the point; until very recently, generals weren't political kissasses selected for their pliability.
Congress has abdicated its authority to withhold promotions unless the officers up for promotion were untainted by such horseshit.
(Thanks, fucktard John Boehner.) The current crop of ass nuggets are so beholden and cowed they'll go along with any jackassical scheme put forward, without even a demure whimper of protest.

Less than 20 years ago, half the officer corps would have resigned en masse over the current happy horseshit, and they'd have done so on the steps of the Capitol, and held press briefings until impeachment bills were in process. And they'd take a flamethrower to anybody so craven as to stay behind for a pension check.

What douchecanoes we have now are so attached to their pensions they'd eat shit if ordered, then ask for seconds, and to hell with consequences for the military or the country it serves.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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