15 thoughts on “The President Uses The Pearl Harbor Anniversary”
This day shall live in infamy…again!
And as usual, I see the speech is non-partisan slamming of the Republicans, and class-neutral vilifying of the wealthy. And I see we have a bunch of Zeros too.
So we shouldn’t have taken care of our WWII veterans? We shouldn’t take care of our current veterans? We didn’t work as a unified nation to win WWII?
I really hope Obama doesn’t express a love of apple pie – I’d hate to see the conservative movement come out against apples.
It would be halfway believable for Obama to nationalize the apple pie industry…
Chris,
Did you even bother to read the linked article or did you just decied to go full strawman retard right off the bat?
No need to answer, the answer is blatantly apparent so the question is strictly rhetorical.
I read the article and the President’s statement. The statement was factually true, and the linked article took 2 plus 2 and came up with 17.549.
So what about the claim that “inequities in wealth” are the “defining issue of our time”? I’d say that the fact my labor is competing with labor that is a small fraction of my cost is the defining issue of the time with wealth inequity, such as it is, being a mere symptom.
So what about the claim that “inequities in wealth” are the “defining issue of our time”? Besides the fact that the words “income,” “inequalities” and “wealth” aren’t in the President’s statement on Pearl Harbor?
This is part of the “grab a bunch of stuff to get to 17 point whatever” I initially commented on. In order to get to the 17, you need to:
1) Pull in a different speech on an entirely different topic
2) Ignore historical fact
3) Make radical assumptions based, not on what’s said, but what you think lurks in somebody’s heart
Again, I hope he doesn’t make a speech about apple pie. I’d hate to see conservatives boycott apples.
Karl,
That was his speech from yesterday, not his statement on Pearl Harbor. Gee, you really are reaching to demonize him aren’t you?
“When the guns fell silent, they came home, went to school on the G.I. Bill, and built the largest middle class in history and the strongest economy in the world,”
That’s campaign tripe Chris. The clear implication is without the GI Bill, they would’ve been failures. Which is most definitely not factual. It’s insulting. On the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
If he decides to express a love of apple pie, I’m sure it will include a hat tip to the FDA. On the 4th of July.
The clear implication was that millions of Americans were able to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do, like go to college or buy houses. This is because, prior to the GI Bill, they wouldn’t have. The vets may not have been failures, but they certainly were greatly assisted by the GI Bill.
Remember, we didn’t have a GI Bill after WWI. The end result was the Bonus Army. The authors of the GI Bill were well aware of that fiasco.
Chris, the author of the GI Bill was the former RNC chairman.
In inflation adjusted 2010 dollars, the average payout for those still looking for work came to about $2,300 a year per returning veteran ($4 a week in 1946 dollars, coming from $20 a week to the 20% who used this benefit). For GI’s who went to college, the cost was somewhere around $5,500 (2010 dollars) a year (probably less than $100 per month, paid directly to the colleges). If such paltry spending can produce a booming economy and build a thriving middle class, how come Obama’s trillion dollar spending packages are such spectacular failures as economic stimulus?
Obama: Today, Michelle and I join the American people in honoring the memory of the more than 2,400 American patriots–military and civilian, men, women and children–who gave their lives in our first battle of the Second World War.
There were 11 people recorded as killed in the attacks who were under age 18, but how do you get from there to “children–who gave their lives in our first battle”? Were they drummers attached to Army units? Some of them were younger than three, so this seems unlikely. In fact, I don’t think many of the toddlers had signed up knowing the risks inherent in military service.
“Gave their lives” carries a connotation of a willing acceptance of duty, cognizant of potential dangers. His statement implies that all those killed at Pearl Harbor, including children, were somehow already part of a vast war machine, trading blows and soldiering on, not people going about their daily routines in peacetime. His statement gives no indication that Pearl Harbor was in any way different than the battles that followed, just being “our first battle”, as if we and the Japanese had agreed to a time and a date to commence hostilities.
Contrast this with FDR’s take on the event.
Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost.
Lost, not given, in an unprovoked attack hidden by deception and lies, not just a “first battle” of WW-II.
Does Obama know the difference between civilian victims of an unprovoked sneak attack, along with the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who work to defend us from such attacks, or does he mentally lump them all together as participants in a system of imperialist warmongers, with us bearing much of the guilt? I’m forced to wonder, because as his own statements and those of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who said about 9/11, “The chickens… have come home… to roost.”
If that’s his worldview, then I would expect him to transform that “day of infamy” into “children–who gave their lives in our first battle,” remembering the children (as Democrats always do), while forgetting the nature of the attack that killed them, making them bear an equal measure of responsibility for their fate as those who ordered their deaths.
If he’s so proud of that generation for storming the beaches to fight fascism, why is he so determined to implement it here? If he thinks we really owe such veterans a debt, why does he have them strip searched at the airport?
Or perhaps I’m just reading too much into his teleprompter.
average payout was $4 a week for those not going to college and about $25 a week for those who were.
George Turner – the direct payments of the GI Bill allowed millions to get either a college degree, trade school diploma or other training. This vastly increased their long-term earnings, while employing teachers and others. The GI bill also allowed millions to buy a home with no money down on a VA loan. This employed millions more in building houses and stuff to put in them. If you can’t figure out why this helped an economy, I can’t help you.
Regarding children, this site lists an 8-year-old girl with the rank of “civilian” right towards the top.
Us native speakers of English frequently use the phrase “gave their lives” to mean the same as “lives have been lost.” Just above the phrase you seem to be baffled by, Obama called Pearl Harbor an “unprovoked attack.”
In short, sir, the spittle coming from your lips as you launch into Obama Derangement Syndrome is starting to hit my screen.
Chris, home construction increased four-fold from 1938 to 1940. It doesn’t take zero-interest loans to make people start building.
And was the US the only country where people went to college after WW-II? If you add up the very low number of college degrees awarded per high-school graduating class (4 years earlier) during the war to the number till the post-war college boom ended (the WW-II high-school graduates just delayed college while they were overseas), you get the same average number of college graduates per high schooler as we had all throughout the 1920’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s. It’s a fair bet to say that we didn’t statistically get any extra college graduates that we wouldn’t have otherwise had in the absence of the war, and we certainly didn’t get any more than the expected average rates based on high-school graduating class sizes, once you account for the war delay.
Anyway, I’m not the one who chose to turn the Pearl Harbor anniversary into a campaign speech for higher taxes and more deficit spending. Obama’s teleprompter did that all on its own.
This day shall live in infamy…again!
And as usual, I see the speech is non-partisan slamming of the Republicans, and class-neutral vilifying of the wealthy. And I see we have a bunch of Zeros too.
So we shouldn’t have taken care of our WWII veterans? We shouldn’t take care of our current veterans? We didn’t work as a unified nation to win WWII?
I really hope Obama doesn’t express a love of apple pie – I’d hate to see the conservative movement come out against apples.
It would be halfway believable for Obama to nationalize the apple pie industry…
Chris,
Did you even bother to read the linked article or did you just decied to go full strawman retard right off the bat?
No need to answer, the answer is blatantly apparent so the question is strictly rhetorical.
I read the article and the President’s statement. The statement was factually true, and the linked article took 2 plus 2 and came up with 17.549.
So what about the claim that “inequities in wealth” are the “defining issue of our time”? I’d say that the fact my labor is competing with labor that is a small fraction of my cost is the defining issue of the time with wealth inequity, such as it is, being a mere symptom.
So what about the claim that “inequities in wealth” are the “defining issue of our time”? Besides the fact that the words “income,” “inequalities” and “wealth” aren’t in the President’s statement on Pearl Harbor?
This is part of the “grab a bunch of stuff to get to 17 point whatever” I initially commented on. In order to get to the 17, you need to:
1) Pull in a different speech on an entirely different topic
2) Ignore historical fact
3) Make radical assumptions based, not on what’s said, but what you think lurks in somebody’s heart
Again, I hope he doesn’t make a speech about apple pie. I’d hate to see conservatives boycott apples.
Karl,
That was his speech from yesterday, not his statement on Pearl Harbor. Gee, you really are reaching to demonize him aren’t you?
“When the guns fell silent, they came home, went to school on the G.I. Bill, and built the largest middle class in history and the strongest economy in the world,”
That’s campaign tripe Chris. The clear implication is without the GI Bill, they would’ve been failures. Which is most definitely not factual. It’s insulting. On the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
If he decides to express a love of apple pie, I’m sure it will include a hat tip to the FDA. On the 4th of July.
The clear implication was that millions of Americans were able to do things that they wouldn’t otherwise do, like go to college or buy houses. This is because, prior to the GI Bill, they wouldn’t have. The vets may not have been failures, but they certainly were greatly assisted by the GI Bill.
Remember, we didn’t have a GI Bill after WWI. The end result was the Bonus Army. The authors of the GI Bill were well aware of that fiasco.
Chris, the author of the GI Bill was the former RNC chairman.
In inflation adjusted 2010 dollars, the average payout for those still looking for work came to about $2,300 a year per returning veteran ($4 a week in 1946 dollars, coming from $20 a week to the 20% who used this benefit). For GI’s who went to college, the cost was somewhere around $5,500 (2010 dollars) a year (probably less than $100 per month, paid directly to the colleges). If such paltry spending can produce a booming economy and build a thriving middle class, how come Obama’s trillion dollar spending packages are such spectacular failures as economic stimulus?
Obama: Today, Michelle and I join the American people in honoring the memory of the more than 2,400 American patriots–military and civilian, men, women and children–who gave their lives in our first battle of the Second World War.
There were 11 people recorded as killed in the attacks who were under age 18, but how do you get from there to “children–who gave their lives in our first battle”? Were they drummers attached to Army units? Some of them were younger than three, so this seems unlikely. In fact, I don’t think many of the toddlers had signed up knowing the risks inherent in military service.
“Gave their lives” carries a connotation of a willing acceptance of duty, cognizant of potential dangers. His statement implies that all those killed at Pearl Harbor, including children, were somehow already part of a vast war machine, trading blows and soldiering on, not people going about their daily routines in peacetime. His statement gives no indication that Pearl Harbor was in any way different than the battles that followed, just being “our first battle”, as if we and the Japanese had agreed to a time and a date to commence hostilities.
Contrast this with FDR’s take on the event.
Lost, not given, in an unprovoked attack hidden by deception and lies, not just a “first battle” of WW-II.
Does Obama know the difference between civilian victims of an unprovoked sneak attack, along with the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who work to defend us from such attacks, or does he mentally lump them all together as participants in a system of imperialist warmongers, with us bearing much of the guilt? I’m forced to wonder, because as his own statements and those of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, who said about 9/11, “The chickens… have come home… to roost.”
If that’s his worldview, then I would expect him to transform that “day of infamy” into “children–who gave their lives in our first battle,” remembering the children (as Democrats always do), while forgetting the nature of the attack that killed them, making them bear an equal measure of responsibility for their fate as those who ordered their deaths.
If he’s so proud of that generation for storming the beaches to fight fascism, why is he so determined to implement it here? If he thinks we really owe such veterans a debt, why does he have them strip searched at the airport?
Or perhaps I’m just reading too much into his teleprompter.
average payout was $4 a week for those not going to college and about $25 a week for those who were.
George Turner – the direct payments of the GI Bill allowed millions to get either a college degree, trade school diploma or other training. This vastly increased their long-term earnings, while employing teachers and others. The GI bill also allowed millions to buy a home with no money down on a VA loan. This employed millions more in building houses and stuff to put in them. If you can’t figure out why this helped an economy, I can’t help you.
Regarding children, this site lists an 8-year-old girl with the rank of “civilian” right towards the top.
Us native speakers of English frequently use the phrase “gave their lives” to mean the same as “lives have been lost.” Just above the phrase you seem to be baffled by, Obama called Pearl Harbor an “unprovoked attack.”
In short, sir, the spittle coming from your lips as you launch into Obama Derangement Syndrome is starting to hit my screen.
Chris, home construction increased four-fold from 1938 to 1940. It doesn’t take zero-interest loans to make people start building.
And was the US the only country where people went to college after WW-II? If you add up the very low number of college degrees awarded per high-school graduating class (4 years earlier) during the war to the number till the post-war college boom ended (the WW-II high-school graduates just delayed college while they were overseas), you get the same average number of college graduates per high schooler as we had all throughout the 1920’s, 1950’s, and 1960’s. It’s a fair bet to say that we didn’t statistically get any extra college graduates that we wouldn’t have otherwise had in the absence of the war, and we certainly didn’t get any more than the expected average rates based on high-school graduating class sizes, once you account for the war delay.
Anyway, I’m not the one who chose to turn the Pearl Harbor anniversary into a campaign speech for higher taxes and more deficit spending. Obama’s teleprompter did that all on its own.