Thankful?

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. I’m relatively healthy. I have a job (sure I hate it, but it pays the mortgage), I have a roof over my head, I can feed myself, my kid and the cat(s), DD has just about everything she wants or asks for – yes she is spoiled rotten. I have almost reached SABLE with my stash. I have friends and family that I love. So yes I have a lot to be thankful for.

But I am angry – so angry I could spit tacks. I am so angry at our government. Not only for starting this stupid unnecessary war, and then keeping it going at the expense of 10s of thousands of live, and even more wounded and permanently scarred soldiers and civilians alike. I am angry at the gullibility of our the citizens who still think 9/11 was perpetrated by Saddam Hussein. But after the news I heard last night I am not only angry I am ashamed of our government. Why? Because they continually spew patriotic drivel about ‘support our troops’ when in fact they themselves do not.

Here are some of the ways our government is supporting our troops.

Almost half a million of the nation’s 24 million veterans were homeless at some point during 2006. More than 25 percent of the homeless population in the United States are military veterans, although they represent 11 percent of the civilian adult population.

The SEB office of the Pentagon is sending dunning letters to soldiers that were wounded during active duty, and were then discharged because they were no longer physically able to serve and now the Pentagon wants part of their signing bonuses back! Read about it here.

And let’s not forget the fiasco at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Lest you forgot or didn’t know – read about that here.

Then there are the existing Federal rules that force disabled veterans to give up their military retirement funds in order to receive disability benefits. In other words every VA disability dollar a vet receives is deducted from his retirement pay.

The list goes on and on. Meanwhile we’ve spent $611 BILLION so far on this war with little or no accountability to where that money is going. I suspect it’s lining the pockets of Halliburton and Black Water and other no bid contractors. Did you know that 51% of your tax dollars are being spent on the military? The estimate is that the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have cost each taxpaying family approximately $20,000 so far. Imagine what you could do with that extra $20 grand… pay your oil and gas bills? Pay for that shopping spree the president sent us on when this all started? There has been no accountability for these billions of dollars, and yet the government continues to short change the very men and women they keep sending into this endless conflict and tossing them aside like trash when they are no longer able to serve.

This is just appalling to me. If anything this is a lesson that I learned from the Vietnam Era. Even if we detest the war and hate everything that is being done internationally in the name of our country, we still must respect and take care to honor our Vets. And sadly it appears that we are failing them once again. Shame on us.

I have written to my representatives and can only hope that this congress gets off their butts and does what we sent them there to do. Stop the damn war, and take care of those that served. Then we can start the impeachment proceedings of the thugs, liars and thieves that are running this government.

Sorry for the rant… it’s just been building inside and the more I hear about how we keep letting down our soldiers the more enraged I get.

So when you are sitting around with your friends and family tomorrow, giving thanks, be sure to include those who are serving our country now and those who have served in the past.

Knitting? yes I am knitting – sometimes I feel like Madam Defarge knitting away through the French Revolution. I’ve almost finished knitting my second Lucy bag. Then I can felt them. I’m almost finished with one of the STR Lenore socks. AND I’ve started knitting and designing a smoke ring out of the gorgeous merino silk I spun a few weeks ago. If it comes out and nice as I am envisioning I will post the pattern.