I'm sitting here in my home office, trying to get work done and some assholes in fighter jets are buzzing over my house every ten minutes. As if there weren't enough reasons to hate imperialism.Let's just put this into perspective. Over in Afghanistan, the daily experience of farmers and city dwellers alike is to experience low flying jets disrupting their lives as well. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't just make it difficult to get work done, they live in fear that the next airplane will drop a bomb on their wedding or on their house.
Back home, here in Canada, the jets are supposed to provide entertainment to us and our children (?!). We look at them up in the sky and they are proof of what a great nation we are - and how great are the nations of other key military powers, particularly the USA and Britain. The awe and pride with which we are meant to be filled by the sight of these multi-billion dollar monstrosities, evidence of how low on the evolutionary ladder we still are, are to most people on the planet a source of fear.
Whether they are in Somalia, the Sudan, Iraq or Afghanistan - the sight of F-series jets mean that children will soon be dead.
Frankly, spectacles of militarism like the air show deserve to be picketed and shut down. The money spent to fly these airborne thugs around the world should be spent on building hospitals, schools and providing food.
It's particularly odious that they use Labour Day weekend as an opportunity to promote nationalism of the worst, most violent kind. This is the opposite of international solidarity. The union movement is responsible for a significant amount of money going into CNE coffers every Labour Day, as their members march into the CNE grounds. Perhaps it's utopian but I'd love nothing more than to see the union movement demand an end to the Air Show or they will take their 20,000 members elsewhere.
In the meantime, I wish these asshole would stop buzzing my house - using my tax dollars!
13 comments :
Well most guys feel nationalistic pride, or are awed by the cool technology, or both. I work just a couple of miles from Moffett Field in Mountain View CA and we hear fighter jets DIRECTLY overhead landing and taking off. A couple of the guys here run outside to get a glimpse every time they hear them. I don't go that far, but damn those are some cool machines. Yeah collateral damage in the war sucks, but that doesn't take away from the fact that these are marvels of engineering and technical accomplishment.
Sure, they're impressive technologically but it says something about our society that we drool over war machines, rather than any number of other impressive piece of technical equipment - from weather balloons to medical equipment.
Melt the guns.
Great, I can see it now, the Annual Medical Equipment show. WooHoo! Of course people love airshows, the aircraft are amazing, and there is nothing wrong with pride in your country.
Interesting picture you chose for your post. I was knew the two crewmen who survived that crash. Both were hurt. The WSO's arm was nearly severed. These "thugs" ensure thankless communists like yourself remain free. Building schools and providing food won't stop the bloodshed. Man has been killing since the beginning of time. He won't stop for sandwich.
Dear Anonymous
"Thankless communist"? Really? Is that the best you can come up with alongside an argument about the need to kill people to stop the bloodshed.
Well, I may be thankless (and actually I am thankful for many things - just not spending tens of billions on weapons) but at least I'm not an ignorant moron.
1) the military has nothing to do with my "freedom" - nor certainly that of the poor Afghans who are on the receiving end of our tender mercies, whether it be as a result of getting shot by "our" troops directly or as a result of getting shot, tortured and/or ripped off by the government of warlords and drug kingpins that we put into place, fund and support politically. It's not wonder NATO and the US are losing so badly. Hopefully their inevitable defeat will make the generals and politicians think twice before they send the military in to recolonize some other place halfway around the world.
Meanwhile dipshits like yourself will cheer on every year for the demonstration of great feats of aerial bravery - like dropping laser guided bombs on lightly armed shepherds while flying at Mach 3 or from 30,000 feet - while we divert cash from healthcare, education and social services. When your kid dies because of hospital waiting lists for MRI scans or cancer treatment you can keep yourself warm in the knowledge that at least the money that could have been used to keep them alive was instead spent killing dozens of kids on the other side of the planet.
"Ignorant moron"? "Dipshit"? Hmm...seems as if i hit a nerve. I wonder...have you ever been to Afghanistan? Ever actually met any of the "peace loving" populace? I have. It seems you may be the ignorant moron in this case. No NATO combatant intentionally kills civilians. That comes from Clausewitz's fog of war and is always a tragedy. At least we won't have to worry about you shooting straight. When and if the time comes for you to pick up a rifle and defend your beloved hospitals/MRI scanners from the hordes, i doubt the citizens of Canada will be seeing any feats of bravery from you.
Actually, ignorant moron and dipshit were more like scientific descriptions of your level of intellectual development.
As for NATO not killing civilians intentionally, you are truly living up to the labels I provided you. Certainly the model under McChrystal there was an attempt to reduce civilian casualties as a way to try and undercut support for the Taliban - but they discovered that people will hate an occupier who props up a vile, corrupt regime even when they don't kill as many civilians as previously (notwithstanding major scandals caught by the media, like the German requested bombing of a stolen oil tanker that killed 150, mostly local, mostly unarmed, people and led to the resignation of the German defense minister). But the broader record of dead civilians caught under NATO bombs speaks for itself - and not only in Afghanistan but also in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, which have suffered from hundreds of "targeted" attacks (in violation of Pakistani sovereignty) that have killed hundred, if not thousands of civilians.
As for feats of bravery from me or you, don't be a, you know, moron. Support for wars halfway around the world or masturbating while watching high tech killing machines fly overhead has nothing to do with bravery. It is, in fact, the very opposite of bravery. The people of Afghanistan who are resisting with little more than antiquated rifles and the occasional Stinger missile know more about bravery than you or I could ever fathom.
Says the guy who lives in a country that doesn't pay for its own defense (and on behalf of the MoD and DoD, you're welcome!), and still pays 1/3 of his income to the government. Hmmmm...
It's weird that Canadians have been such hippie peaceniks; they once had a proud tradition of fighting the good fight.
And by the way, one of the guys in that plane lost both his legs--but I know, self-righteous indignation is a one-way street...
Dear Anonymous
"Thankless communist"? Really? Is that the best you can come up with alongside an argument about the need to kill people to stop the bloodshed.
Well, I may be thankless (and actually I am thankful for many things - just not spending tens of billions on weapons) but at least I'm not an ignorant moron.
1) the military has nothing to do with my "freedom" - nor certainly that of the poor Afghans who are on the receiving end of our tender mercies, whether it be as a result of getting shot by "our" troops directly or as a result of getting shot, tortured and/or ripped off by the government of warlords and drug kingpins that we put into place, fund and support politically. It's not wonder NATO and the US are losing so badly. Hopefully their inevitable defeat will make the generals and politicians think twice before they send the military in to recolonize some other place halfway around the world.
Meanwhile dipshits like yourself will cheer on every year for the demonstration of great feats of aerial bravery - like dropping laser guided bombs on lightly armed shepherds while flying at Mach 3 or from 30,000 feet - while we divert cash from healthcare, education and social services. When your kid dies because of hospital waiting lists for MRI scans or cancer treatment you can keep yourself warm in the knowledge that at least the money that could have been used to keep them alive was instead spent killing dozens of kids on the other side of the planet.
Sure, they're impressive technologically but it says something about our society that we drool over war machines, rather than any number of other impressive piece of technical equipment - from weather balloons to medical equipment.
I hate air shows, too. For the same reasons. Sorry your only responses were unsympathetic.
Hi Heidrun - Thanks for the solidarity. No worries though - doofuses keep me sharp.
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