Volkswagen was "the people's car" - a small, cheap, easily-maintained automobile designed to serve the motoring needs of most German drivers. It had been hailed as the symbol of the National Socialists German Workers' Party - more commonly known as the Nazis. Nazis held to one indefatigable motto: "The Common Good Outranks Private Profit".
Yet, Adolph Hitler and his generals were chauffered around in luxurious Mercedes convertible limousines with spacious back seats that could easily accommodate the most bulky of military brass.
That's why socialism never worked: "the common good" never included those at the top of the food chain. If you had money, power, or influence, you weren't considered 'common'. You were entitled to the privileges your status brought you - or bought you. Abraham Lincoln had once noted that, "The Lord must have loved the common man, because he made so many of them". And in every culture, including the 'democratic' United States of America, the 'common man' was celebrated as the foundation of society, the muscle that brought strength and endurance to the population. Socialist and communist countries despised and degraded the United States and its wicked 'capitalism'. Marxists decried capitalism as the inherent 'evil' that kept the middle-class and lower-class individuals under the thumbs of the upper-class society. But the American model of free enterprise and capitalistic venture was as engrained in the U.S.A. as Communism and a state-run economy had been engrained in the U.S.S.R. until it crumbled into a pile of ashen rubble in the last decade of the 20th century.
Now, eight years into the new century, American bravado was overwhleming the Internet as "Bushites", "neo-cons", and the "conservative media" boastfully proclaimed that the great United States would never collapse into ruin as Russia had. Naivete'
loomed large across the land as supporters of the Bush folly in Iraq pounded their patriotic chests and vowed that America would remain strong and would become the victor in this shameless, immoral, illegal 'war'.
One undeniable statement of twisted irony was something that most conservatives chose to overlook. If you were to compile a roster of the most influential conservatives of the past quarter-century, you would make a startling discovery: hoards of these war-mongers, among them the most hawkish Republicans who relentlessly pounded the war drums, NEVER bothered to participate in the wars of their own eras. Yet, these diehard, gung-ho warriors were perfectly willing to send others t fight their battles for them as the U.S.A. entered a new century. And the list was as long as it was damning:
Dennis Hastert; Tom DeLay; Roy Blunt; Bill Frist; Mitch McConnell; Rick Santorum; Trent Lott; Jeb Bush; Karl Rove; Paul Wolfowitz; Saxby Chambliss; Vin Weber; Richard Perle; Douglas Feith; Eliot Abrams; Richard Shelby; Jon Kyl; Tim Hutchison; Christopher Cox; Newt Gingrich; Phil Gramm; Dana Rohrabacher; John M. McHugh; J.C. Watts; Rudy Giuliani; George Pataki; Spencer Abraham; John Engler; Sean Hannity; Bill O'Reilly; Michael Savage; George Will; Chris Matthews; Paul Gigot; Bill Bennett; Pat Buchanan; John Wayne; Bill Kristol; Ken Starr; Antonin Scalia; Clarence Thomas; Ralph Reed; Micheal Medved and Charlie Daniels - all prominent proponents of 'war' ALL DID NOT SERVE in any military capacity, yet found it suitable and appropriate to send others off to have their bodies blown apart, brains splattered, and families decimated.
Other Republican cheerleaders for war included those whose military service was conveniently deferred, or accommodated in a casual, non-threatening manner. Those 'heroic' souls included Lindsay Graham, who served as a National Guard lawyer; Jack Kemp who didn't serve due to a 'knee problem' (although he continued playing in the NFL for eight years); "B-1" Bob Dorman, who consciously enlisted after fighting had ended in Korea; Arnold Schwarzenegger, who went AWOL from an Austrian army base; Dan Quayle, who served in his Indiana National Guard's journalism unit; Rush Limbaugh, who did not serve due to being classifed 4-F with an 'anal cyst'; Ronald Reagan, who served in a non-combat role making war films due to allegedly poor eyesight; and John Ashcroft, who got seven deferments so he could teach 'business' classes!
Most notable, of course, were the nation's three top 'war' leaders of the 21st century: the closet Donald Rumsfeld ever came to the perils of real 'war' was sitting in a simulated flight deck as a Navy flight instructor in the mid-1950's. Dick Cheney did not serve because he was given a number of deferments, the last one 'by marriage'. And, finally, George W. Bush, the U.S.A.'s Commander-In-Chief, failed to complete his six-year stint with the National Guard, and was conveniently assigned to Alabama' guard unit so he could campaign for a family friend who was running for the U.S. Senate. To add one more bit of irony to Bush's valiant military career, he failed to show up for a required medical exam, then mysteriously disappeared from duty without any further reprimand or punishment.
Yet these cowardly cretins had no compunction about