Sacrifice

Coming up on this weekend's show:

• Spam Poetry
• Mold
• Pizza Commercials
• The Mob Helps Small Business
• much much more?

So it's been a little while since I've done even a mini rant but I was listening to some old Abbott & Costello programs (as if there are new ones?) and the talk about all the rationing in WWII got me thinking.

The president has made it clear that the best way we can support the war is by not questioning and by not sacrificing. Heck this is the first war in history where taxes were lowered to fight a war, of course if we could say the same for the debt, we'd be all set. And the reason they haven't asked us to sacrifice is that they feel like we're so petulant that we wouldn't support the war at all if it interfered with our way of life.

I think they might have that backwards. Sure we'd all complain about gas rationing or meat rationing, or tax increases on top of rubber or metal drives to support the war effort but we'd feel connected too. Right now the majority of us that don't know anyone personally in the service don't have the kind of connection, the kind of personal investment that our grandparents and great grandparents did in WWII.

You might argue that this war isn't like WWII, we're not fighting against any kind of Hitler there's no super army trying to reinvent the whole map but many Americans felt that Hitler was of no concern to us anyway. He was Europe's problem not ours. But once our boys were over there fighting, we changed our tune 100%

Maybe we were just more into 'supporting the troops' then but I don't think so. When is the last time you heard anyone left or right say that they didn't support the troops. True, some think support means helping them to win while others think that support means getting them out of harms way but nobody is against the troops. I think it's that we all felt a vested interest. If we were going to have to sacrifice anyway, we damned well were going to win. That's what America does.

Now, I'm not for this war. I'd be pissed off if I had to ration or give up anything for it but I think if I felt connected to it on a more personal level I might be more likely to support it.

Then again... maybe nobody was for this war enough to sacrifice personally whereas they were when it came to Hitler. I guess we'll never know.