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Sestak boasts veteran support
PITTSBURGH—”Government doesn’t owe vets a living. But it does owe its existence to vets.”
That credo hangs above the door of the Brentwood Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1810 here, painted on a beat up looking sign that greets all who enter the squat brown building off Rout 51. On Monday, the sign welcomed Democrat Joe Sestak as he gathered with local military veterans to launch the Senate hopeful’s “Veterans for Sestak” initiative. On the other side of the state, the campaign also held an event at Sestak’s local VFW post in Delaware County.
In Pittsburgh, Sestak continued to label himself pragmatic, resisting Republican Pat Toomey’s efforts to paint him as a far-left liberal. Sestak called himself an “independent-minded problem solver who, after a 31 year military career, approaches issues practically, not based on a rigid political ideology.”
“The military is not a breeding ground for ideology,” Sestak said. “We look for practical, pragmatic solutions when we have a problem to solve. That was my job in the military, and that will be my job as a Senator.”
Sestak said that approach makes him the best candidate.
“Pat Toomey’s approach is focused on one thing, that if you favor those who are more privileged with tax cuts and tax breaks, then wealth will trickle down,” Sestak said. “That is not an approach that will work for veterans or real, working families.”
August 16, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Tags: Joe Sestak, Pat Toomey
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David Diano
Aug 16th, 2010
“The military is not a breeding ground for ideology” ??
Bullshit!!
The military mindset is an ideology. Overwhelming force. Overpriced government contracts. Resistance to closing bases or consolidating forces. Territorial battles between the different forces. Promotions due to ass-kissing over competence. Guns over diplomacy. Acceptable losses and collateral damage. Cover-up of civilian kills. Old men sending young men to die. Following orders instead of following values or common sense. Ostracizing gays. Resisting integration of the forces in the 1950′s. Covering up rapes of female soldiers. Promoting “Christian” evangelical beliefs as part of missions/goals (ie fighting for God and country). Demonizing and dehumanizing foreign “enemies” to help condition soldiers to kill.
The idea that the military has no ideology is ridiculous. The ideology is:
1) the end justify the means
2) “unit cohesion” is the justification for institutionalized discrimination
3) no thought is given to whether the money spend on peaceful civilian activities (like hospitals) would save more lives than are supposedly being “saved/defended” by military action.
4) the military is used to defend the business interests of the large corporations under the guise defending America
flynnbw
Aug 17th, 2010
Wow David, that’s quite a broad brush you’re painting with.
David Diano
Aug 17th, 2010
While I have respect for the troops who risk their lives, I am concerned for their misplaced trust in an organization that is poorly run and places little regard for their lives or anybody else’s. The US military is bloated and corrupt near the top. The military budget should be cut at least 50% and we should stop outsourcing to contractors at 10 times what we pay our soldiers.
We lose 6000 people each year due to drunk driving (that’s twice the 9/11 death toll) but we aren’t spending a trillion dollars to prevent it and shred the Constitution monitoring everyone’s alcohol consumption and purchases. We lose over a 100 times that to smoking. We don’t have a war on drugs.
We need civilian control reasserted over the military.