Matthews, Rieckhoff, and the American lifestyle

Story:
Paul Rieckoff gets kudos for getting his important points in, Matthews gets jeers for going offtopic soapbox style, and McGovern gets the heebyjeeby award for the American lifestyle comment. (BTW I guess this is s'posed to be liberal army guy - Rieckhoff vs. conservative army guy-McGovern, but it is set up poorly and Chris Matthew has to keep taking time out to rant about Clinton).

I think McGovern's comment, "And one of the things I think we love doing as soldiers is being able provide a lifestyle for Americans that Americans do enjoy." is scary because he is so sincere (I saw the clip) and what he says is exactly true. I think more Americans would wake up more if their endless appetites to consume were laid bare more often - we go to war so you can buy huge cars and throw away food from TGIFridays after a binge. Our ubercushy imperial liftstyle causes death.

So I've copied a clip of the transcript below. Then following that is a link to a related article that I will post as another framing story. - Amy M - Think4Myself

[snip]
RIECKOFF: I agree 100 percent with the captain. I am little bothered by the fact that the troops and our morale have kind of been used as a political shield or a political hostage over the last few weeks. And I think that is a dangerous road to go down.

This discussion in Washington is why we pick up arms, it is why we defend our country. It is why we want to be a part of our military. And these things don‘t directly impact moral and the ground. Morale is impacted by frequent tours, by divorce rate, by the fact that America is paying attention to Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith and not what‘s happening in Fallujah and Ramadi. I think those are the things .

MATTHEWS: Well, I‘m not. You are the first person to mention those names on this show. You should be ashamed of yourself. You have just ended our virginity, sir. We have not mentioned those names and you brought them up.

RIECKHOFF: I know and I did because soldiers are bothered by it. They see that America‘s attention focused elsewhere. While on a President‘s Day, a long weekend, everyone else is off, our folks are walking in patrol in Ramadi and Fallujah. I am glad the senators had to pull a Saturday night here because we all did it when we were in Iraq and it‘s nice to see them finally ...

MATTHEWS: I agree with you. In fact, at home here, my moral goes down when our mind is so warped about this stuff about Britney Spears that people think that Bill Clinton was a better than FDR. They can‘t remember any of our presidents because we have holidays called “Presidents‘ Day” so we can sell mattresses because they don‘t want to offend anyone by mentioning the fact that George Washington was our first president.

There is sort of a dementalization of this country sometimes I think. Don‘t you think, captain? Why don‘t we have Washington‘s Birthday? That is the name of it. Nobody will call it that.

MCGOVERN: Today we live in a media society. And one of the things I think we love doing as soldiers is being able provide a lifestyle for Americans that Americans do enjoy. Soldiers do the hard work so that the civilians and the citizens ...

MATTHEWS: But it should not be encouraging infantilism at home. Infantilism. This is where we‘re headed, isn‘t it? Did you read that last poll on who our greatest presidents were? It is like people have Alzheimer‘s. They can‘t go back more than five presidents. They can‘t remember any of our presidents because we never teach history in this country. All we do is put nonsense on. We will be right back.

It‘s just my rant today. It‘s a federal holiday. Anyway, Paul Reickhoff and Robert McGovern, thank you both for your service.
[snip]

link to related topic
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/[…]/guilt-and-the-daily-contr_b_41609.html