The Devil Is At Work.

"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."  -- Bill Vaughan

I don’t care what your religious affiliation is, I am right here, right now saying the Devil is alive and well!  How else can one account for the truly vile rumors that abound in our present world, and for the truly vile activity of our elected representatives, at every level across the nation?

Recently, I was told in all seriousness by a young man presently serving in the U. S. Army, that a) our current President is personally responsible for the fact that today’s military is so short-handed, and will continue to be so, and b) that our current President wants to end healthcare for active duty military and veterans.  In fact, according to this young man, the President supposedly wants to force active duty military to pay for their own healthcare at a rate that would exceed the cost of Obamacare!

Now, this kid also told me that he is an E-6 and his current duty assignment has him performing the functions of a Company Grade Executive Officer (something that would normally be done by a Lieutenant or maybe a Captain, not an NCO).  He also complained at some length that he hates his current duty assignment, specifically because it is here in El Paso, Texas, at Ft. Bliss.  He expressed his frustration that he has little chance of being transferred elsewhere, and the blame for all this he lays at the feet of our current President.

I asked him where he got his information that makes the President responsible for all of his complaints, and tried to suggest that maybe he should be looking at Congress, rather than the President.  He was not interested in that, and insisted that he and his father have researched this matter thoroughly.

I could see very quickly that he was not going to be dissuaded in a short interaction with me, and he was totally resistant to any suggestion that maybe he needs to look deeper into this.  He also had no response when I told him that I have seen nothing to support his belief, so I pretty much got off the subject.

This is the second young man, currently on active duty, who has verbalized a strong belief of this nature to me.  The first was my grandson, who is even more naïve than this kid was.  Worse, these kids verbalize no respect for the man, or his office, and that is something my generation was taught is just not done, especially by active duty military.  The President is, after all, their Commander In Chief.

All of my research has revealed a number of totally false stories going around the internet and elsewhere, that hint at these things, and of course some of the worst of them are linked to names like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

It strikes me that these young men are being targeted by someone with truly evil intentions, and frankly, I am concerned about this trend.  For one thing, the statements that I hear from these young people border on outright treason, and the sad fact is that they are being deliberately misled by someone who obviously has no good intentions.  The young man who complained that he is doing the job of an officer in particular bothers me because, instead of seeing the positive aspect of his situation, he only complains that he hates the paperwork.

Another aspect of this situation that also troubles me is that these young men have not only been misled, and are not only misinformed, but they are totally ignorant of history and of the U. S. Army.  In other words, they don’t seem to realize that today’s Army is not even a shadow of what existed from the 1940’s up until the end of the Draft, in the 70’s.  Nor, do they realize, since they have no sense of history, what the Army looked like prior to World War II.  A peacetime Army is always going to be short handed, and many active duty soldiers are going to find themselves doing things that they did not expect, just to keep things moving.

Budgets are going to be smaller.  And, guess what?  It is NOT the President who determines that budget!  And, from the news lately, due to the intransigence and do-nothing attitude of certain current members of Congress, there is little chance of any improvement to this picture.

And, of course, to make matters worse we have our do-nothing Congress, specifically the House of Representatives, which to date has made forty aborted (pun intended) attempts to repeal the ACA (what they like to call Obamacare).  That's a lot of time and tax money poured right down the drain.  Meanwhile, not one of the opposition has come forward to offer any reasonable alternative to the ACA.

Across the country we see State Legislatures, also controlled by the real minority party in this nation, making serious efforts to control womens' health, to restrict pay levels for everyone, to block voting from anyone who might possibly want to vote for the majority party.  (Can you say, "Gerrymandering?")

Where is it going to end?  Is it going to end?  What will it take to get folks to register to vote, and then to turn out for all elections?  Remember, we are stuck with our current do-nothing representatives simply because a small, vocal minority of the eligible voters are turning out and controlling who gets elected!  Too many people are believing the ridiculous idea that their vote doesn't count.  Of course it doesn't count if you don't use it!