Does it matter that politicians haven't done 'service' of any kind?

(Note the quotes)

Does it matter if Bush skipped out on his Vietnam service to play coc-addicted flyboy and strut around with friends of Bin laden's dad?

Does it matter that Condi Rice doesn't have kids or a close family?

Does it matter that Hillary 'stood by her man' against the slings and arrows of the blight wing?

My own opinion is that Boxer said what I've been thinking myself. Bush recklessly flings human beings into Iraq like someone tossing ant poison in their crawlspace. My mom once said, after doing battle with the goody-goodies at the local schools system., that she would fight tooth and nail to make sure that her offspring would get what they needed out of that damn school system 'if it killed them'... I was bored at school and as a result, a 'troubled student'... But my point is that she would move mountains for her family, her children...

She identified very strongly with her role of bringing life into this world. I've seen her go toe to toe with teachers and principals to fight for her family. To her, the idea of someone in a stuffed (and hand tailored) shirt sending her children off to die in a war of lies would be the last straw. I can almost see her beating Cindy to the White House gates to drag Gates and Cheney out onto the lawn and beating the crap out of them and Rice too...

I think that you have to know what it's like to give life to know what it feels like to take it away. You have to have something to risk in any risk taking endevour to know what the best course should be. You have to risk something that you value the closest to your heart to make you really think if the decision you are making is the right one.

If Condi does not have children then she has no base from which to evaluate what it might feel like to have your only child exterminated in a war started on lies and greed. Now, if she risked the very high probability of losing her shoe collection, perhaps she might come close to relating what can happen during true loss...

The costs of war are high. The only experience I have is as a child waiting for my father to come home from the Vietnam war. I had nightmares of him not coming home. When he came home, he had nightmares and just wasn't the same... He had changed. He very rarely talked about being there... He once told someone that he was standing next to one of his buddies when he died. He told it with such a lack of emotion that my own hair stood on end... He had seen many buddies and other humans die...

War is carried by people differently by different people. Bush can send in more troops because he has never been in the position of having someone shooting at you to kill you. He has never listened to a commanding officer tell him to take some small piece of land because it needs to be taken inspite of the bullets and mortars whizzing by.

The rich, the worthless filthy rich, will never have the opportunity to stand in a seedy pharmacy and weigh the cost of drugs for your child over feeding your family. Never having to weigh fixing the car over eating for a month. Never have to worry about having to put up with their groping boss because they really need this job or they will be out on the street.

They will also never know the fear that jumps into the hearts of parents when their kids come home hopped up on the lies of the military recruiter that promises that they can 'quit at any time' and 'request where they want to serve'. Never have to fight the promises of money from that recruiter and then find out that the kid has already signed up... Never lie awake at night hoping that their child isn't in a firefight and hoping against all else that they come home whole...

America is a class based society, again. The rich get richer and the poor are used as tools.

When anyone of the right wing persuasion talks about knowing how it feels I feel sick...

My wife and I do not have children. We chose not to because this world is so incredibly screwed up. We couldn't rely on our jobs being able to support a family. We see now that that decision was, sadly, right.

Wow, to bring this to a quick close, does it matter that Condi doesn't have a 'dog in the fight'? Does it matter that the Bush twins aren't risking getting fragged by serving in the military? IF they value their children. IF they value human life. IF they risk losing something that they value, then I say YES it does matter.

Boxer's comments were a way to say that Bush and Cheney and the American Enterprise Institute (they drew up Bush's plan, right. I can't remember right now) are treating human lives like meer tools. They are treating human lives like expendible pawns in a rich man's war where the Halliburton's and the Bechtels and Blackwater's are getting filthy rich and the leaders of this country support it.

It's called 'disconnect' and it's dangerous...

(BTW, I'd support a 250,000 troop surge. Take the first born of every backer of the Bush war and send them over first. Then bring back the troops already there for the second and third time. Let's see how fast the Iraqi's are forced to 'stand up' then.)

/soapbox