> I know I'm over-posting, but honestly you don't see a difference
> between thanking active-duty soldiers for their service and
> "establishing the military as some superior caste to which the rest
> of us owe gratitude for all the freedoms and rights we possess." I
> mean, you don't honestly equate these things, do you?
With the exception of Union soldiers in the Civil War and US soldiers in WW2, US soldiers who lose "political independence" and "serve the government," doing "hard, shitty things that most people are unwilling to do . . . at significant personal risk," diminish, rather than augment, the rights and freedoms of Americans as well as others. We have a reason to thank them when they regain their political independence and stop serving the government, or, at the very least, when they begin to do as little as possible, focusing on not risking their minds and bodies for the power elite.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>