Amazing quote about Repubs by retired Major General

[lwcon]

Paul D. Eaton, Maj. Gen. U.S. Army (Ret.) on this week's Real Time with Bill Maher:

So many military believe that Republican administrations are good for the military. That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier, that the Republican Party, the Republican-dominated Congress has absolutely been the worst thing that has happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.

Can't add anything to that!

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Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. WOW, just WOW!

this has been in the whispers that you hear from time to time in srange places but not usually openly aknoweldged

[Clarkie1]

2. K & R. nt

[Kurovski]

3. K&R. It's obvious by now, I would think.

But decades of Repub propaganda don't vanish overnight.

Or do they?

[peacetalksforall]

4. I remember the smirky winks about the military vote in 2000 - boy were

they confident that it was 'in the bag'.

[Trajan]

5. Bravo Soldier ....

VERY well said ... and so damned true ...

Hell .... They are fucking up the COUNTRY; the Military and everything else ...

[calimary]

6. Whoa! A KEEPER! Kicked, recommended and bookmarked.

I wanna hang onto this one.

EXCELLENT!!! Thanks for posting this!

In fact, I'm copying it in here so I can add it to my DU journal. I want this REALLY easy to find. It's in my favorite quotes file now, too.

Amazing quote about Repubs by retired Major General Paul D. Eaton, Maj. Gen. U.S. Army (Ret.) on this week's Real Time with Bill Maher:
So many military believe that Republican administrations are good for the military. That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier, that the Republican Party, the Republican-dominated Congress has absolutely been the worst thing that has happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.

from DUer lwcon, 3/10/07
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3154340&mesg_id=3154340

[Maccagirl]

7. Eaton totally rocked on Real Time

A complete smackdown on the Bush cabal. The only point he missed was about the abused wife syndrome between the Repukes and the military. IMHO I think the root cause is that Rush Limbaugh has been given free air time on Armed Forces Radio (on our time and our dime) thanks to B52 Bob Dornan. Years of propaganda has it's effect.

[lwcon]

11. The Limbaugh thing is a scandal, but this goes deeper

Both the military and the GOP hew to an authoritarian mindset. The GOP, of course, gooses that up with its loud, hypocritical, and often fatal brand of pseudo-patriotism. With few exceptions, it's peopled by chickenhawks who think war is great... as long as it's fought by someone else's children.

For some reason, the media embraces their framing, to the point where a heroic soldier -- who was doubly heroic by trying to stop our troops from killing and dying in a doomed and unnecessary war -- was deemed less patriotic and less respectful of the military than a draft dodger who thinks the only problem with the Vietnam War is that we stopped fighting it. Max Cleland, who lost his limbs in that war, was tarred the same way -- because he didn't belong to the party of Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney.


___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[jwirr]

21. This false romance with the military and the pugs has been going

on for a long time. My son-in-law and daughter were stationed in Germany in the 80s. They were lobbied by their officers and NCOs to vote pug because it was good for the military. They were told that the Democrats would cut their pay. My family did not listen.

[alfredo]

8. What was that thing about "containing" the executive?

[pnorman]

9. Does anyone here know where the complete text of Gen. Eaton's comments can be found on the web?

Thanks.

pnorman

[pnorman]

19. I found it, elsewhere on DU!!

Here it is: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/10/eaton-military

pnorman

[snowbear]

10. I wish he would have said that on Tweety's show..

I'd love to see his face!



He was rambling on with his "Repugs are the Daddy Party" crap again on Thursday's show.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

24. Tweety is just an overpaid SHILL

:mad:

The general summed it up well

[glitch]

12. People miss the true beauty of Republicans, especially ones like Bush and Cheney

They have given us a very clear focus on exactly what is wrong with our system.

I think they were a fatal mistake by the people who want the republican way of life to prevail.

[lwcon]

13. Ironically, one reason they get away with it is...

They've done so much wrong on such a grand scale, if you simply describe a small subset of their misdeeds, people decide that you're being shrill.

People are so predisposed to thinking the foibles of politics are shared evenly, so it's not a big deal if they keep their tribal loyalties, even as it becomes completely obvious that their tribe has gone all to hell.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Joe Chi Minh]

15. A very significant point.

[glitch]

16. That's the whole principle behind shock and awe, or blitzkrieg.

But these guys have been so blatant even the tribal loyalties are eroding (I believe this from their eroding polls and personal experience with quite a few republican family members).

Nobody wants to be seen as a bad guy, or a least nobody in the rank and file wants to be associated with bad guys, and these guys are making it very obvious, even to the semi-aware, that they are very bad indeed. The reality that their foibles are not in fact shared equally across parties is becoming much harder to avoid.

What really frightens me are the less obviously dumb/evil ones and the corporate media that only marginally covers their complicity. I consider Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice somewhat similar to Coulter: they actually benefit our side by exposing the corrupt underbelly of the system, not just to us but also to the people currently supporting them whose numbers are not growing. If the face of their ideology were actually charming and intelligent, if I saw more converts and their poll numbers growing, I'd be a lot more freaked out right now.

[LuckyLib]

23. You're absolutely right. My extended family thinks I'm crazy when I recite the litany of abuses.

Since the list is so damned long, they think I've gone over the edge.

[lwcon]

25. Nice to hear corroboration, thanks

Even though they can't refute one of our points about our country's wayward government, all that sticks in their head is how overheated we are -- not "OMG, my country is being raped by the corrupt and incompetent!"


___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. At last, the truth from someone who can speak with immense authority -

a General.

[AX10]

17. K & R!

[stonebone]

18. kick

[sce56]

20. View the interview here online.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/10/eaton-military
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3154995
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, appeared last night on HBO’s Bill Maher Show.

“We are in the midst of recovering right now from a constitutional crisis where you had the executive trump the other branches of government,” Eaton said. “Thank god” Congress changed hands in November, he said, giving us “a chance to unsort and figure out how to get out from under this.”

Eaton lamented that so many service members believe that conservatives “are good for the military.” “That is rarely the case. And we have got to get a message through to every soldier, every family member, every friend of soldier,” that the Bush administration and its allies in Congress have “absolutely been the worst thing that’s happened to the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.”
One year ago this week, Eaton called for the resignation of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a New York Times op-ed. Vanity Fair has a new article checking in on Eaton now:

His new business cards say “consultant,” primarily because he doesn’t know what else he now is. Since he spoke out, several possible defense-related jobs have mysteriously dried up. ‘Maybe it’s the way I part my hair,’ he says. In late January, his elder son, a 29-year-old Arabic linguist who is an army specialist, went to Afghanistan. His younger son, 27, an army captain who has already spent 14 months in Iraq, will probably go back before long.

Shrub's replacement medal for the Purple Heart

Courtesy Jon Stewart's The Daily Show

http://web.archive.org/web/20030602211200/

[sce56]

22. Crooks & Liars have a better version posted now

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/10/general-eaton-republican-congress-worst-thing-thats-happened-to-us-army-and-marine-corps/
WinMedia http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/15132/1/RealTime-Eaton.wmv
Quicktime http://www.crooksandliars.com/Media/Download/15132/2/RealTime-Eaton.mov

[orleans]

26. k&r n/t

[Contrite]

27. That just blew me away when I heard it.

But then I thought--does that mean the Democrats are going to build up the military? Is this condemnation of civilian defense leadership an excuse for a military coup?

Check out the articles linked in the OP for this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=148140&mesg_id=148160

[Toots]

28. Not to even mention the National Guard

The Republicans have almost destroyed the National Guard completely. Who in their right mind would enlist in the Guard knowing they actually were enlisting in the Army and would be shipped off to war instead of staying at home protecting their communities from natural disasters which supposedly is the purpose of the Guard. To protect out nation from within our nation. Not be shipped off to some godforsaken place to protect Halliburton's Profit Margin. The man in charge now who abandoned his National Guard unit in sixties must really hate the guard because he has undermined it from the very beginning.

[fishnfla]

29. So who are the traitors? Who has committed treason?

Its one thing to betray our country. But as poll after poll shows americans losing faith in this president and the direction the country is heading, whose fault is that?
It is one thing to turn your back personally on our land. But if you cause millions upon millions of our citizens to lose faith in the USA, you are the greater traitor. The worse ever. The GOP is the party of treason

[LiberalFighter]

30. Here is a response at this site by a blogger on the Major General's quote. Very Good

The Blog From Another Dimension Archived 3/11/2007