So, here we are. The tail-end of a relatively one sided “war”. Anti-war protestors have been grilled in the media. We are un-American while George Bush and his buddies are the patriotic leaders of the “free” world. At least according to the media. I wonder, how does patriotism and “supporting our soldiers” relate to this story by Holly Sklar over at Alternet. 

Sklar writes that “Private First Class Jessica Lynch, a truck driver’s daughter, joined the Army to get a college education to become a teacher. Nationwide, teachers are being laid off, schools closed and college aid slashed to pay for tax cuts for President Bush, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other upper-class Americans.”

It’s more of the same really. Look at the big picture. Poor and working people have been consistently undermined by U.S. presidents as they happily cooperate with global capitalism. They further their own wealth as they push the poor further down. It’s nothing new. The majority of those in the military are not the children of the wealthy. They are poor and working people’s children and have far fewer options available to them then the children of U.S. presidents.

Now this is patriotic: “Never before in wartime, with Americans killed, wounded and captured in the line of duty, have the wealthy lined their pockets with tax breaks. With $1.6 trillion in tax cuts favoring the rich already enacted through 2010, President Bush wants more, costing nearly $2 trillion through 2013 Ð including added interest on the swelling national debt, reports the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.”

Is it not increasingly clear that those in power care nothing at all for U.S. soldiers? Bush is not motivated by a love of freedom. His regime is motivated by something very sinister and it will, I believe, be the undoing of the U.S.

Read the rest of Sklar’s article, Upper-Class Tax Cuts, Working-Class Soldiers.