Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Brutally Honest Rant - 02/22/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: On Fixing Congress
Audio Transcripts
02/22/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

You know what’s really annoying about our government? It’s how easy things get whitewashed. Even the most egregious violations of our trust and our money get swept under the rug… and sometimes it even happens right in front of us!

Back when I lived in the southwestern part of Georgia for about five years, I used to hear all of this news from Tallahassee, Florida, because I lived about forty-five minutes north of Florida’s capital. And one of the stories that just absolutely blew my mind was how that state’s legislature bought the silence of a woman who was the victim of sexual harassment by one of their own. This came out around the time of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill issue, so "sexual harassment" was still a big subject. And some of this woman’s accounts were pretty damning. One incident pretty much fell under the category of attempted rape.

Now, nobody questioned the validity of the woman’s accusations. Nobody challenged her accusations or called her a liar… well except for the legislator himself. The hierarchy in the state legislature simply paid to settle the case and sealed it under a confidentiality clause. She could not tell anyone about it or of what happened to her.

So how did it any of this come out and be made public? Well this prick-bastard of a state legislator did that! During the whole Anita Hill issue he started blabbing to his friends and to associates about how he paid this woman to shut up about his actions, and called her every name in the book except a child of God. You see, SHE couldn’t say a word about the matter, but he could. She couldn’t even defend herself against his attacks on her character. Then they found out that the state legislature really didn’t have the authority to either issue a secret settlement or to seal it under a confidentiality clause. But they were so preoccupied with THIS matter – about the settlement itself and how it was breached – that they completely forgot about the abusive sexual harassment case itself! And what really infuriated me was that after all of this press…after all of this public outrage and how everyone says that this kind of activity is wrong… that this legislator essentially got away with it… because of who he was.

I think it was really THAT incident that really opened my eyes to the abuse of power going on in governments large and small, and it never got any better from there. I keep on expecting these politicians to somehow take a hint, especially after some of these upset elections, but they simply refuse to learn!

I got pissed off about how members of the US House and the US Senate could get away with things like writing bad checks from their own bank, or voting themselves a pay raise in the dead of night, or sneaking in pork-barrel spending. Every year Congress ignores their own annual budget deadline of October 1st and nobody calls them on it. And yet they EXPECT all private businesses to adhere to standards that they themselves cannot follow. It’s infuriating to see this happen! It really is! And these guys get away with just about everything!

Ethics committees? What a joke! They should be called WHITEWASH committees, because that’s what they really are! They just WASH their hands clean of the matter and then just get on with the business of screwing over the taxpayers.

And every year we keep on hearing about how things are going to be different! When the GOP took over Congress in January of 1995, they made a big presentation about how THEY would do things differently… with HONOR and INTEGRITY and ETHICS. Remember that? Remember all of the promises made with their Contract with America?

Now look at what’s happened to them! We have members of Congress either indicted, convicted, or under suspicion of accepting bribes from lobbying groups. We have a former House Majority Leader who tried to have the rules changed so he would keep his position even after he was indicted. We have a Senate majority leader who thinks that his training as a HEART specialist gives him the God-like ability to diagnose on the floor of the Senate in Washington DC the condition of a severely BRAIN-damaged woman in Florida! And nobody thinks anything of it, do they? We have members of Congress that get up on their respective floors and declare that even the most repressive bill before them is constitutional simply because THEY said so! And if a judge that is schooled in matters of the Constitution says otherwise, then the JUDGE is accused of "legislating from the bench"… but NOBODY accuses the politicians of passing judgement from the dais! Now THAT’S arrogance!

So like some of you, I think that it’s high time that we fix the system. We’ve got a great system of government in place, but let’s get brutally honest here… it’s been so badly corrupted and corroded by the people inside the system that it needs some SERIOUS tinkering around to get things to work again. We can’t simply vote the bastards out and vote in a new bunch of bastards from the opposing major political party. These hucksters have swapped parties around so many times that you can no longer tell the difference between the Dems and the Reps! They support certain positions when they are to his or her advantage and then hypocritize themselves when the situation calls for it and nobody calls them on it.

So then the next question is… HOW do we fix the system? What do we do to fix it? What needs to be changed? It’s one thing to say that there is a problem… it’s another to actually come up with a solution. That in and of itself contributes to the problem… we all admit that there IS a problem with the system but nobody has the courage to come up with ways to fix it! We need to actually take a blue pencil to the system and say "change this" or "change that" and put those fixes in so that you know there ARE definitive changes instead of just talking about how things should be "different".

So here goes… if I had a magical blue pencil to fix our US Congress so that it would work, this is what I’d do…

First, you know that oath of office that they take when they start their new term? I’d make it under penalty of perjury. If you violate that oath, such as passing bills that you know would undermine the US Constitution, then you get charged with perjury and you go to prison. I’d also make it so that anyone making any kind of statement or testimony on the floor of the House or Senate or in committee is automatically under penalty of perjury. No more swearing in only at the discretion of the committee chairman… everybody does it…and yes that would also include the President’s annual State of the Union address! "The State of the Union is strong! The economy is doing great!" Horsecrap, sir… and enjoy your two-year stay at Club Fed!

Second, ethics committees would no longer have fifteen different levels of punishment. There would just be three: acquittal, censure, or expulsion. And if you’re censured three times by the ethics committee during your career, then you’re automatically expelled from Congress. You’re done. Finished. Pack up your crap and go home. Hey, if "three strikes" are supposed to be so great in going after the street criminals, then it should also work against the liars, crooks, and thieves in government.

Third, every member of the House and Senate would be OBLIGATED to swear under penalty of perjury that their vote for or against any legislative bill before them only came AFTER they have personally read and understood EVERY SECTION of that bill! And yes, that would include the seventeen thousand amendments that get tacked onto them. Too many members of Congress really have NO IDEA whatsoever what’s in the bills that they vote for or against. They’ve never even heard of the bills, much less know what’s in them or if they’re in accordance with the US Constitution. They let their underlings read the bills and give them the condensed sound-bite summary and then wait for the party’s whip to tell them how to vote on it. I call that a direct and blatant violation of their oath of office and they should be prosecuted for it.

By the way, that kind of penalty would do wonders with cutting down on the pork projects put in and on the number of laws passed and the asinine amendments that get thrown in at the last minute. If these career hucksters had to swear under penalty of perjury that they knew EACH AND EVERY nuance of that bill before they could vote for or against it, then they wouldn’t be so flippant to throw in too many amendments on it. The first instance of saying "I don’t know" could lead them to a two-year stay at Club Fed playing "don’t drop the soap".

Fourth, the budget deadline… the only reason why these guys get away with violating their own rules regarding the October 1st budget deadline is because they keep on passing continuing resolutions. If I had that magical blue pencil, though, I’d prohibit that kind of extension at all. If Congress can’t get their act together by October 1st, then the government gets shut down. Period. No more money. No more delay. I wouldn’t want that to happen, but at the same time, Congress has no moral authority to dictate to the rest of the world how to do business if they can’t abide by their own damned rules. And I’d tie their pay to the health of the budget. If the budget is in surplus, then they get a 5% raise. If the budget is in deficit, then they get a 5% pay-cut. If they Congress wants to spend like there’s no tomorrow, then that’s fine... they’ll just be working for free. And that’ll save us even MORE money!

Fifth, the "Bob Dole" rule: this one was done by former Senator Bob Dole back in 1996. If you’re in the Congress and you run for another elected position other than your own, then you have to give up your current job! You can’t spend two years in the Senate running for President all the way up to the November elections and then retreat to your cushy government job if you lose. The minute you say, "I’m running for another job", then the next words out of your mouth have to be "I’m resigning my current position." You can’t properly serve your constituents if you’re busy putting your time, effort, and energy on running for that other job.

That rule alone would free up a lot of spaces in these elections. Think of the number of politicians that would effectively be removed from Congress if that rule were enforced. Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman… and Hillary Clinton would CERTAINLY have to think twice before risking HER cushy Senate seat on a run for the White House.

Sixth, I’d make a filibuster REAL. If you want to tie up the Congress with talk, then bring your adult diapers, bring your dinner, bring plenty of coffee, and bring the contents of the Library of Congress with you because you’re going to be talking nonstop. The minute you stop talking, your turn is over and there’s an immediate vote to close discussions. I don’t care which party does it, because both the Dems and the Reps have done it in the past, but I’d want them to actually WORK for it.

But then again these are all small fixes. Seriously. Well, at least THOSE things are small fixes. They could be put in place tomorrow if there’s enough political outrage. But I’ve still got two big magic blue-pencil fixes to make.

First big one is term limits. I’m still all for them, and twelve years in either the House or the Senate is more than enough time for anyone to get their "agenda" enacted. I think it’s insulting to hear politicians talk about getting a pension on the first day they serve.

Second big one… we need to fix the Senate. I’d like to see it go back to what it was originally under the US Constitution, when they were appointed by the state instead of elected by the people. That’s the real reason why they served six years instead of two, because back then the senators actually represented the interests of their respective states, not just the voters. It’s pretty stupid to have TWO legislative houses that are directly elected by the voters, so let’s just get it back to a true bicameral system. PLUS it gives more power back to the states, thus restoring the balance of power that was originally created. The governors and the state legislative bodies would have more say in how federal laws are passed and in how federal budgets are set up.

But… by now I’ve probably turned some of you guys off. I mean, come on, this stuff is a little BORING isn’t it? It’s much easier for us to simply say "Storm the Bastille! Throw the bums out! Let’s just elect the people from the OTHER major political party so we can go back to watching American Idol!" That does seem to be the common mindset here… just pick the other party in November and hope that they somehow don’t screw us over AS much as we’re getting screwed right now. That’s how it’s been for the past century or so. One major party screws up, so we give control over to the other major party.

But that’s EXACTLY what the politicians expect us to do! They want us to just stick with the Dems and the Reps and let THEM fix the problem themselves. And of course… THEY won’t! Because it’s in THEIR best interest for the system to be as screwed up as it is right now! As long as we just complain that there IS a problem and we don’t do anything about FIXING it, then the politicians will just go right on screwing us over.

You don’t like the current tax system? Hate to hear about the continually rising federal debt? You don’t like the bums in office? You don’t like hearing about the scandals and the bribery? Well it’s up to US as voters to do something about it! If these career politicians are the simple "public servants" that we think they are, then they’re actually waiting for US to tell them how to fix things. And if they aren’t the "public servants" that they pretend to be, then they certainly don’t want to do anything to spoil it for themselves and their buddies, and that means that it’s up to us to get them as far away from positions of power as possible.

Either way, guys, nothing will ever get fixed if WE don’t do it!

(Computer – various mixes about change, sorry you have to hear the rant to know what they are)
(Fade Music In – "Session" by Linkin Park)

Some of my more libertarian supporters are probably wondering why I haven’t said too much about third-party alternatives… and to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t think that the great unwashed are ready for that step yet. We gotta get the people MAD first. They have to be mad enough to DEMAND that changes be made to the status quo! That part is relatively easy. There’s quite a bit out there right now that piss people off.

And then comes the really hard part… you have to show that the Dems and the Reps have absolutely no intention on giving you the changes that you’re demanding. And of course once these career politicians find out that you’re willing to go outside of the Democrat-Republican duopoly, then both parties will trip over themselves to convince the masses that they really want those changes.

And thus the game begins all over again… and that’s what this is to the career politicians. It’s just a game. A game that is played with THEIR power and with OUR money, OUR freedoms… and even with OUR lives.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)

(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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Junior’s Veto Threat: I DARE YOU!

I’m watching the latest big scandal to hit the Bush Imperium, and this one is a doozy. It seems that the Imperium has rubber-stamped a deal that would turn control of our country’s ports over to a company run by the United Arab Emirates! This isn’t just a private company… this is a GOVERNMENT-RUN operation.

In other words, control over America’s ports will be DIRECTLY in the hands of a FOREIGN POWER!

Hey, I thought we were in a post-9/11 world! Remember all of that BS about “it’s a different world” from the White House? Remember all of that crap about “we are at war”? So why are we turning control of our ports – one of the most vulnerable areas of access – to a company that is run by a foreign government?

Right now those ports are being managed by a British-based company. Not a company run by the British government, mind you, but a PRIVATE company run from Great Britain. That’s a much different situation, and I’m not happy with that news either.

But what’s bothering even some conservatives is that the Bush Imperium is going to bat FOR this deal, and Bush Junior himself has VOWED to issue his dreaded VETO on any attempt by the Congress to stop this deal from happening.

OH MY! The dreaded VETO!

I suppose it would have a little more weight behind it if not for the fact that in the five years that the Bush Imperium has been in charge, the president has NEVER EVER VETOED ONE SINGLE BILL!

Every bill that has been put before the president has been SIGNED. Every bill. No matter what it is, even if it’s something that the White House opposed, Bush Junior has SIGNED. I would even dare speculate that Bush Junior doesn’t even know how to SPELL V-E-T-O, never mind know what it is or how it works!

Now conservative-libertarians like Neal Boortz are perplexed about how the White House could not predict the kind of outrage that this deal is causing. Well the answer to that is simple: the president doesn’t know because his people aren’t telling him! The President of the United States is living in a bubble of his own ignorance. Remember the outrage over his failed crony nomination of Harriet Miers? Remember “Brownie you’re doing a heckuvajob”?

And now we’re hearing that the President of the United States, the man for whom the buck is supposed to stop at, had absolutely NO IDEA that this deal was happening until AFTER it was already done and AFTER the Imperium had already signed off on it. Oh now THAT’S reassuring! Someone in the Imperium really needs to get fired over this.

So Mister President, if you want to get your Jesus Underoos all in a bunch because liberals, conservatives, Democrats, AND Republicans are trying to either stop or slow down this deal, and you want to threaten to use that power of veto, then I say BRING IT ON! I DARE YOU to veto any legislation designed to put a stop to this deal! I DOUBLE-DOG DARE YOU to do it! Go ahead! Prove to the rest of the free world that you’re just a tool for the people who are REALLY pulling the strings on this caper. You already pissed away any “political capital” you may have had during the whole mess with Hurricane Katrina and with the failed Miers nomination. You’re not going to get that back by pulling this little stunt. And forget about trying to generate any more 9/11 fear! You pissed that away too. You can’t talk about security and then give our ports away to the country that helped to bankroll the 9/11 terrorists!

This would almost be funny except for the fact that this joke is being played with OUR LIVES and with the security of the United States.
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Saturday, February 18, 2006

The Cheney “Hunting Scandal”… WAY Too Much About Little

Okay boys and girls, like you, I was a bit shocked by the news that Vice President Dick Cheney actually shot someone. Guys like Dick Cheney usually get OTHER people to use guns and then take the credit for it. Besides, someone actually convinced Cheney to come OUT of his various bunkers? Wow! It must be a really BIG investor behind that. This guy actually spends more time in hiding than Saddam Hussein and the Unabomber combined!

But then the White House Press Corps got their Jesus Underoos in a bunch over the fact that this “scandal” didn’t come through THEM. THEY were deprived of their golden opportunity to interrupt whatever boring Saturday night TV show is playing to jump in with this BREAKING story that the SECOND Vice-President in US history was caught SHOOTING someone! Never mind, of course, that this guy lived… and it was because of something STUPID done during a hunting trip. (The “stupid” thing, of course, was giving Cheney a loaded firearm.)

So phony outrage #1: this news was broke by someone OTHER than the mainstream media’s White House Press Corps. Get over it, jerkoffs! I know this is going to sound insane, but there are things in this world that actually go on OUTSIDE of your control. I’d be more concerned about this if the guy actually DIED, but thankfully he didn’t.

Phony outrage #2: Cheney was hunting quail on a hunting preserve. (Yes, some in the media are trying to make hay about this.) Hey, I’ve done that too. Fortunately I knew better than to point my loaded 12-guage in the direction of any human being! Birds, yes. Humans, no.

Phony outrage #3: Cheney chose FOX NEWS (aka “The F-word channel”) to give his side of the story. Hey, if I’m going to try to salvage my public image, I’m going to do it with a network that will kiss my ass instead of one that will try to kick my ass. Cheney doesn’t hide in bunkers because he has a love for darkness and dirt.

Phony outrage #4: The White House is covering up the details of this shooting. Hey, I’ve got two words for you about that. See if they sound familiar. Vince Foster. Ring any bells? How about Ron Brown? Remember how these guys actually DIED? Tell you what: once you in the media get all of the details about those two guys and how they died out in the open, THEN you can beat your little war drums about Cheney’s hunting accident.

So here’s the real lesson, boys and girls: keep the Vice President away from alcohol and firearms. I think that’s a pretty simple lesson that even the cons and neo-cons can comprehend, don’t you think?

Oh, and for all of you GOP ass-kissers who think that the VICTIM of this should somehow be at fault for being in the way of Cheney’s gun, you need to go back to your old mantras about personal responsibility. At least Cheney ADMITS that it’s his fault because he’s the one with the gun. Of course, whether or not he will be HELD responsible for it is a different story. Those who believe to BE the law usually will find ways to avoid being held BY it.

I’m actually bothered over the fact that the media is wasting time on THIS issue and not on some of the other things going on in Washington! The PATRIOT Act keeps on getting pushed back (and we still don’t know what’s in it or how it will “respect” our rights), the illegal wiretapping investigation is getting stonewalled by the Republicans, the economy is still going south, and why are thousands of trailers that are SUPPOSED to be going to flood victims in New Orleans still sitting in a gated lot? Why aren’t THESE things being harped on by the media?

In fact, if I were a conspiracy nut, I’d probably accuse the White House of actually STAGING the shooting as a diversion from these other incidents. I mean, the results of the Katrina Report in and of itself is enough of a damning incident for the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. BUT I don’t think even Machiavelli would have been devious enough to have someone shot in the face just to serve as a diversion. As it is, it was nothing more than the act of a dumbass.

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Thursday, February 16, 2006

Brutally Honest Rant - 02/15/06

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Student "Social Experts"
Audio Transcripts
02/15/06

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – "American Idiot Remix" – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

There are times when a certain subject comes up that really just gets under my skin… and today I came across one of them. This issue may seem to be a bit trite, but this something that really bugs me.

This issue comes to us by syndicated talk show host Neal Boortz and it concerns a decorated World War II fighter pilot by the name of "Pappy" Boyington. Now my fellow Generation X’ers may remember the name "Pappy" Boyington from the late-1970’s NBC TV show "Black Sheep Squadron" starring Robert Conrad. But the TV show was based on the real-life men of Marine Corps aviation unit VMF-214, otherwise known as the "Black Sheep Squadron", under the command of one Major Gregory "Pappy" Boyington. This man commanded one of the more successful and noteworthy Marine air squadrons in the South Pacific during World War II. He was given the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt in March of 1944 and the Navy Cross by President Truman in October of 1945. He was also a prisoner of war, being held by the Japanese after his last mission in January of 1944, which meant that he couldn’t receive his Medal of Honor until after the war when Japan surrendered and let him go. He eventually was promoted to the rank of colonel and died in 1988 at the age of 75. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full honors.

He was also a college graduate from the University of Washington, where he was in the ROTC program and earned his Bachelors of Science degree in aeronautical engineering. Before the war he was an engineer at Boeing.

So now let’s fast-forward to the present. A member of the UW student senate came up with the idea of some sort of way to honor Colonel Boyington. He wasn’t looking for a building to be named in the man’s honor or to have some huge statue carved. He simply thought that a plaque acknowledging one of the more noteworthy graduates of their university would suffice. Sounds simple enough, right? Hey, this guy not only received the highest medal in America, was recognized by TWO sitting presidents, AND had a TV show made about his life! There are politicians who get whole neighborhoods named after them for simply winning an election, so setting up a plaque for Colonel Boyington is THE VERY LEAST that the University of Washington could do!

BUT… apparently NOT for a couple of flaky female members of that student senate.

One female student by the name of Jill Edwards tried to table the whole idea, and when that failed, she gave her REAL reason why they shouldn’t have a plaque made for Colonel Boyington. She said – and this was put on the record – that it wasn’t appropriate to honor a person who killed other people. She said she didn’t believe that a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person that the University of Washington wanted to produce.

Another flaky female by the name of Ashley Miller even said that the campus was already full of monuments to, and I quote, "rich white men". Apparently MIZ Miller didn’t know squat who Gregory Boyington was, because he certainly wasn’t a "rich white man".

Well I happen to take offense to that kind of characterization given by Jill Edwards. She has the LUXURY to believe that a member of the Marine Corps wouldn’t be the example of the kind of person that university wanted to produce. But as someone who put in his four years in college and has his degree and has family members who served in the military, I have one simple question to MIZ Jill Edwards and MIZ Ashley Miller and the other flakes who successfully managed to stop this modest memorial…

WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

Seriously. WHO ARE YOU MIZ Jill Edwards to believe that someone who spent his time and sacrificed years of his life to organize a bunch of strangers into a successful military unit to fight an ugly war shouldn’t somehow be the kind of "example" that would reflect your university? Who the hell are you to make that kind of declaration? Colonel Boyington survived imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Japanese during a time of war. How would YOU handle such imprisonment, MIZ Edwards? Colonel Boyington refused to call the 26 airplanes he shot down in his career as "kills", preferring instead to call them "victories". Does that sound like something a barbaric warmonger would say, MIZ Edwards? This man worked with one of America’s largest aircraft companies to design airplanes prior to the war. He trained pilots, not just here but also for other countries to defend against the Japanese Empire prior to the war. What are YOUR achievements thus far? What have YOU done so far in your life to offset that kind of example that you frown down on? And what qualifies YOU to determine what sort of example should be set by an alumnus of that university? You haven’t even GRADUATED yet!

And the same goes to MIZ Ashley Miller. You’re right in that there ARE plenty of memorials to, quote, "rich white men". But do you know WHY they have memorials? What did they do? Do you even KNOW what those things are? Go find out, and then match those attributes to the person whose career you spit upon and carelessly discarded as being just another "rich white man". Who knows… you may even LEARN something in the process!

You know what, folks… this may seem to be a bit about nothing, but when you have someone who is recognized for his or her military service and they’re looked down upon by a bunch of students who think that they know everything… then that really gets under my skin. My great-uncle fought in World War II. I even have his medal. My father was on point during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I have a picture of him risking his neck on the high seas during that time. And I would be thoroughly pissed off to hear that some snot-nosed flaky college student would look down on the things that my father or my great-uncle did and say that simply BECAUSE of their service, that they weren’t somehow "examples" for other people to look up to or remember.

And let’s get brutally honest here… when you hear about student governments, you have to understand that these aren’t people who are trying to change the world. When I was in college I was HEAVILY involved with student government and student activities. I was that ONE percent of the students who actually busted their butts and sacrificed sleep, a social life, and sometimes even studies for the cause of student government. And student governments are really only concerned with the following things:

    1. When’s the next party?
    2. Who’s going to be playing at our next concert?
    3. Why can’t I park my car closer to my dorm or classroom building? And…
    4. How can I spin this to make it look good in my future resume?

And the people who GET elected to these student government positions? They’re still stuck playing high school popularity games! They’re only in there because their friends think they can get better parties. Been there, done that, and I still have the beer T-shirts to prove it!

You may not like the soldier for what he or she has to do when the situation calls for it; and you have every RIGHT to voice your objection to what they do… but when circumstances arise to where you’re asked to help honor an alumnus whose career exemplified the better parts of society during one of their ugliest times, then the very least that you can do is to put your PERSONAL biases aside. The student government at the University of Washington actually did themselves AND their university a huge disservice when they voted down such a modest memorial, and I would only hope that the University system itself and those private sources that agreed to help fund the project would take a stand and teach these self-professed know-it-alls about the reality of their situation.

You know, maybe University administration ought to change the name of the building that MIZ Miller and MIZ Edwards live in and call it the Boyington Residency Hall. Change the name of their street to Boyington Boulevard, and change the name of whatever scholarship or tuition grant they’re using to the "Black Sheep Squadron Financial Assistance Fund". I think it would be absolutely poetic.

(Computer – weird mix of stuff that you have to hear)
(Fade Music In – "Heretic, Hero" by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

You know, it’s one thing to oppose a military action. You want to protest American policy, then go right ahead and protest to your heart’s content. I’ll back up your right to do that all the way. But simply being a soldier should not automatically disqualify a person from being recognized for their achievements. And it certainly doesn’t entitle them to the scorn that some college students wrongly give.

The serviceman doesn’t have the luxury to pick and choose which conflicts he or she wants to get involved in. They put their lives on the line to do whatever job they get told to do, and most of them don’t even get so much as a thank you from the great unwashed for what they do. They don’t deserve to get spat upon or to be told that their contributions to society are somehow not "worthy" simply because they DID serve! Especially not by young adults whose only major decision thus far in their short adult existence is to decide between "less filling" and "tastes great".

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)

(Computer – Ending/"End of Recording")

[End of program]
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