Support Our War Profiteers
Here in San Diego--a military town--almost every vehicle is plastered with some variation of magnetic ribbon emblazoned with the slogan "Support Our Troops", or something similar. Sounds like a nice gesture of patriotic support, right?
Wrong.
First, and most obvious of all, slapping a magnet on the vehicle you use to cruise around the relative safety of American cities does absolutely nothing to "support" our men and women in uniform who are at this very moment doing their best to avoid getting killed, and who want more than anything else to return home to their friends and family.
Second, truly supporting our troops involves responsibile citizenship, which includes learning the truth about why our government has sent so many Americans overseas to risk or lose their lives. Watching FOX News does not qualify as responsible citizenship. Studying, researching, thinking about our government's actions, and making your voice personally known to your elected officials is responsible citizenship. If every American citizen did this, our troops would be much safer, and deployed only in areas where they are actually needed to defend the United States from attack, rather than invading other countries to serve corporate/political special interests. With fewer of our troops on special interest missions overseas, the North American continent would actually have an army present to defend the United States against attack or invasion.
Third, while browsing the seemingly infinite variety of "Support Our Troops" paraphenalia available at a store near you, I noticed something that should prevent every American from purchasing and displaying these ribbons, without any argument:
In other words, Americans are spending their hard-earned money on a product that economically benefits (communist) Chinese workers, while doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to support our troops. The ribbons might as well say "Support Our War Profiteers" (most of whom are clever enough to claim that they "donate" a tiny percentage of profits to some charitable organization).
So what does this have to do with the American Debtors Prison? Plenty. American companies outsourcing jobs overseas has rapidly become a leading factor in debtors imprisonment, as honest, hard-working blue- and white-collar American workers with credit cards, student loans, automobile loans, medical bills, and mortgages are unexpectedly losing their sources of income to cheap foreign labor. This is no fault of their own, yet the American Debtors Prison regards every debtor who defaults as a "deadbeat", regardless of the reason they defaulted. Even if their job was suddenly given to low-wage Asian or South American workers.
Every time you purchase one of these Chinese made "Support Our Troop" ribbons, you are supporting the same system that has cost so many Americans their jobs and threatened them with debtors imprisonment. You are also supporting a communist regime that has no regard for the freedom and human rights that our troops are ostensibly risking their lives to preserve. Perhaps a photo from the country that is taking so many American jobs will make this reality a little more clear:
Blogger will not allow me to show you the next photo in this series, because in that photo, the Chinese woman's head is mostly missing.
Living in a military town and interacting with military families on a regular basis, it is obvious that so many American "patriots" use these magnets to avoid the kind of active citizenship that truly supports our troops. They don't research world history and middle-east politics to learn why our troops are overseas. They don't read a variety of media to get the full picture. They don't even communicate with their elected officials and, in many cases I have seen, don't even know who their elected officials are. These magnetic ribbons serve a simple psychological purpose, and nothing more: $1.99 and 30 seconds of labor applying the magnet for public display makes them a "patriot", so learned research, political activism, and good citizenship are no longer necessary.
A perfect example of this is the bankruptcy "reform" bill just passed by Congress. One of the few debates in Congress over this corporate-written bill concerned what would happen to our troops serving overseas when they returned home to find their finances devastated, while bankruptcy protection had effectively been annihilated during their absence?
Few of the people I've spoken with in San Diego were even aware that Congress was passing a bankruptcy "reform" bill, that financial corporations had been purchasing this bill for the past eight years, or that their own loved ones could be at serious risk of debtors imprisonment because of it when they returned home from active duty. The few that had heard of it only repeated the slogans they'd heard in the national media, "Too many people abuse the bankruptcy system", and nothing more. They had no meaningful knowledge of this important subject at all.
But they all have MADE IN CHINA "Support Our Troop" magnets on their vehicles....
The American Debtors Prison came to exist because of unconscionable corporate and political powers that have no regard for human freedom or human rights (much like the Chinese communist regime). But the American Debtors Prison continues to exist because ordinary American citizens refuse to take an active role in their democracy to learn about debtors imprisonment, and to stop it.
All the best,
Paul
Wrong.
First, and most obvious of all, slapping a magnet on the vehicle you use to cruise around the relative safety of American cities does absolutely nothing to "support" our men and women in uniform who are at this very moment doing their best to avoid getting killed, and who want more than anything else to return home to their friends and family.
Second, truly supporting our troops involves responsibile citizenship, which includes learning the truth about why our government has sent so many Americans overseas to risk or lose their lives. Watching FOX News does not qualify as responsible citizenship. Studying, researching, thinking about our government's actions, and making your voice personally known to your elected officials is responsible citizenship. If every American citizen did this, our troops would be much safer, and deployed only in areas where they are actually needed to defend the United States from attack, rather than invading other countries to serve corporate/political special interests. With fewer of our troops on special interest missions overseas, the North American continent would actually have an army present to defend the United States against attack or invasion.
Third, while browsing the seemingly infinite variety of "Support Our Troops" paraphenalia available at a store near you, I noticed something that should prevent every American from purchasing and displaying these ribbons, without any argument:
 |  |
In other words, Americans are spending their hard-earned money on a product that economically benefits (communist) Chinese workers, while doing absolutely nothing whatsoever to support our troops. The ribbons might as well say "Support Our War Profiteers" (most of whom are clever enough to claim that they "donate" a tiny percentage of profits to some charitable organization).
So what does this have to do with the American Debtors Prison? Plenty. American companies outsourcing jobs overseas has rapidly become a leading factor in debtors imprisonment, as honest, hard-working blue- and white-collar American workers with credit cards, student loans, automobile loans, medical bills, and mortgages are unexpectedly losing their sources of income to cheap foreign labor. This is no fault of their own, yet the American Debtors Prison regards every debtor who defaults as a "deadbeat", regardless of the reason they defaulted. Even if their job was suddenly given to low-wage Asian or South American workers.
Every time you purchase one of these Chinese made "Support Our Troop" ribbons, you are supporting the same system that has cost so many Americans their jobs and threatened them with debtors imprisonment. You are also supporting a communist regime that has no regard for the freedom and human rights that our troops are ostensibly risking their lives to preserve. Perhaps a photo from the country that is taking so many American jobs will make this reality a little more clear:
Blogger will not allow me to show you the next photo in this series, because in that photo, the Chinese woman's head is mostly missing.
Living in a military town and interacting with military families on a regular basis, it is obvious that so many American "patriots" use these magnets to avoid the kind of active citizenship that truly supports our troops. They don't research world history and middle-east politics to learn why our troops are overseas. They don't read a variety of media to get the full picture. They don't even communicate with their elected officials and, in many cases I have seen, don't even know who their elected officials are. These magnetic ribbons serve a simple psychological purpose, and nothing more: $1.99 and 30 seconds of labor applying the magnet for public display makes them a "patriot", so learned research, political activism, and good citizenship are no longer necessary.
A perfect example of this is the bankruptcy "reform" bill just passed by Congress. One of the few debates in Congress over this corporate-written bill concerned what would happen to our troops serving overseas when they returned home to find their finances devastated, while bankruptcy protection had effectively been annihilated during their absence?
Few of the people I've spoken with in San Diego were even aware that Congress was passing a bankruptcy "reform" bill, that financial corporations had been purchasing this bill for the past eight years, or that their own loved ones could be at serious risk of debtors imprisonment because of it when they returned home from active duty. The few that had heard of it only repeated the slogans they'd heard in the national media, "Too many people abuse the bankruptcy system", and nothing more. They had no meaningful knowledge of this important subject at all.
But they all have MADE IN CHINA "Support Our Troop" magnets on their vehicles....
The American Debtors Prison came to exist because of unconscionable corporate and political powers that have no regard for human freedom or human rights (much like the Chinese communist regime). But the American Debtors Prison continues to exist because ordinary American citizens refuse to take an active role in their democracy to learn about debtors imprisonment, and to stop it.
All the best,
Paul
posted by Paul at 6:30 PM
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