Words and War, Hawks and Doves

W.J. Astore

Two of my colleagues at the Eisenhower Media Network, Danny Sjursen and Matthew Hoh, recently gave the best interview I’ve heard on America’s failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can watch it here.

They were described as anti-war veterans, which is true enough. But it did get me thinking about the words we use to describe war in America, or just words in general that we apply to military actions and the broader military world.

For example, instead of describing Sjursen and Hoh as “anti-war,” why not say they’re “pro-peace” or “pro-sanity” or “pro-humanity” or even “pro-using-history-to-avoid-expensive-and-deadly-quagmire-wars”? OK — that last one may be too long, but I often find pro-peace activists being described as critics, i.e. as malcontents.

Another example might be “think tank.” So many of the thinks tanks within the Beltway in DC are fronts for warrior corporations like Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and so on. Are they really “thinking” freely? And that “tank” word might be more descriptive than they realize, given they always “think” of expensive weaponry like main battle tanks as the solution to everything. (If memory serves, not only did we use the M1 Abrams tank in Iraq; we also tried a few in Afghanistan; similarly, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Army deployed tanks in jungle areas that were designed to battle their Soviet counterparts on the plains of Germany.)

So maybe “think tank” should mean: “Thinks always of tanks and other ultra-expensive weaponry.”

Here’s a heretical thought: Why are pro-war voices in the establishment referred to as “hawks”? As if they’re noble birds of prey?

I feel sorry for all the real hawks in nature (red-shouldered hawk, Audubon Society photo)

Meanwhile, pro-peace voices are dismissed as passive cooing “doves.” More than a few peace activists have all the energy and tenacity of hawks, and most of the pro-war ones are more likely to be cooing like doves in the ears of their bosses about the wisdom and wonders of going to war and staying there.

I suppose you could call pro-war voices “vultures” or “jackals” or perhaps “ticks” or some other parasite on the body politic, but I’d feel like I’m insulting the tick, which just does what it needs to do to survive. It’s not like ticks have think tanks where they can weigh their choices.

Readers, have a little fun with this. What military/Washington Beltway term annoys you, and how would you define it, in plainspeak? Have at it in the comments section, and many thanks, as always, for reading my posts.

P.S. No one, of course, can beat Orwell and the “war is peace” formulation. And Ambrose Bierce was a master of exposing cant and hypocrisy and dishonesty in his “Devil’s Dictionary.” In their spirit, have at it!

46 thoughts on “Words and War, Hawks and Doves”

  1. I am confident that cognitive linguist George Lakoff would concur with this insightful analysis. Thanks for thinking it through and writing it.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. “Briefing”-complex issue, often with a singular perception, summarized by emotionally-charged language

    “Humanitarian Crisis”-warfare that represents a profit loss

    “safety” -population control

    “God bless our troops”-the pawns are in play

    “we”-everybody lacking self-awareness, definition or firm ideology

    “necessary”-power might be lost

    “mistaken or untrue”-informed

    “authorized” -dictated by unknown/unrecognized/unelected individuals

    “analysis” -distortion and/or deception

    “attack” -criticism

    “schools”-training centers

    “vaccine” -experiment

    “economy” -Wall Street

    “spokesperson” – sock-puppet with seniority

    “Congressman/woman” – sock-puppet lacking curiosity

    “budget” -waste benefiting entrenched interests

    “studies” -financed, subjective conclusions supporting a narrative

    “healthcare” -problematic life-extending effort

    “entitlement” -potentially problematic (and often expensive) promise

    “President” -ignoramus who looks good on camera

    “Vice-President” -moron who looks bad in public

    “country” -products of failing/failed education system, including universities and graduate schools

    “jobs” -human capital

    “workers” -human capital that trade time for diminishing return called money

    “money” -a sleight of hand devaluation of labor/time

    “election” -popularized deception indicating the perception of change

    “change” -shift in media coverage

    “media coverage” -public distraction

    “misinformation” -inconvenient truth

    “information” -allowable opinion

    “Republican” -warmonger with stock-options

    “Democrat” -warmonger with stock-options who smiles a lot

    “Trump” -disrupter

    “Biden” -unconscious

    “Harris” -unsettling laugh-machine

    “press” -public assault on intellect

    “TV news” -public assault on intellect and wallet

    “wallets” -formerly representative of individual wealth, utility & empowerment”

    “voting” – self-righteous optimism bordering on delusion

    “military service” – economically disadvantaged and uninformed job-seeker

    “military officer” – obedient manager

    “American dream” -outdated, empty promise of opportunity/improvement/evolution

    “terrorist” – foreign patriot engaging in violence

    “domestic terrorist” -former believer of outdated, empty promise of opportunity/improvement/evolution

    “education” -structured perception

    “science” -bureaucratic control

    “internet” -threat

    “faith” -relatively rigid ideology that encouraging independent collaboration on collective issues

    “religion” -dangerous introspection discouraging/disallowing government control”

    “Bernie Sanders” -disruption

    “PeoplesParty” -collective disruption

    “Libertarian” -individual disruption expressed locally

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I see you’ve had some practice at this. 🙂

      I do like “unsettling laugh-machine” for Copmala Harris. I trust her as much as her delegate count from the primary.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I’m sorry about the “digital diarrhea”-I should have stopped sooner but they kept coming and I obviously need attention.

        Like

    3. One that never fails to infuriate me is ‘debrief’ meaning torture interrogations to extract from some poor victim information, which usually he does not have to start with… Same for ‘exploiting’ such prisoners. The latter apparently one of the multiple choice boxes to tick by 20 yr old ‘analists’, as a colleague of Chelsea Manning once explained. Enhanced interrogations of course being the culmination of such soothing obfuscations.

      Liked by 2 people

  3. Vultures and Jackals are fine animals and necessary to the ecosystems they live in. If you want a term for the warmongering voices, call them what they really are: cancer.

    Some terms I’m sick of hearing are U.S. “leadership” and “credibility” – which are rolled out whenever someone wants to bomb/drone assasinate/embargo/overthrow etc.

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    1. Yes. “Credibility.” As if America’s credibility is enhanced by incessant killing in endless wars.

      And “leadership.” How about some “competence” instead?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Excellent point. Cancer is an accurate metaphor. I think the cancer is in our form of capitalism, which prioritizes increasing profits above everything else, much like cancer prioritize their own growth. Our cancerous capitalism has metastasized into a number of systems, like the military industrial complex, the medical corporate complex, education, etc.

        The treatments for cancer tend to be unpleasant and I have a lot of doubt in our willingness to treat ours.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. How true. Allegedly, capitalism ensures competition and produces cost-efficiencies. But of course we have crony capitalism where profit is king, so forget efficiency and eliminate competition whenever and wherever you can.

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      3. The latest one being the undefined ‘eligibility’ for Afghan refugees. First shipped off to some military base anywhere in the world (if they’re lucky) to be ‘processed’ and then receive a visa if ‘eligible’. And if not, sent back to Kabul ? Processed I normally associated with unhealthy food, particularly meat. How appropriate …

        Liked by 1 person

  8. This article writes in no uncertain terms. I’m disappointed my comment on the article directly was deleted because some can’t handle the Truth. My reply to another comment remains.

    It took America 15 years to airlift its whipped, arrogant ass out of Vietnam; in Afghanistan it took 20. All the young men and women our diseased, criminal “leaders” doomed to be killed, mangled, or commit suicide in or after those fake, bullshit “wars” were, in effect, shit-canned by them like rotten meat. Trillions that should have educated, inspired, and nurtured them were wasted and stolen by our rabid, raping Capitalist War Machine………………………………………………..

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/56732.htm

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    1. Thank you for the thought provoking link. It got me thinking how The American empire will end, in cataclysm or with a whimper. I predict the latter, the same as the Roman Empire ended. The Roman plebs were sedated with circuses and bread. It is interesting that every major Roman town from Mesopotamia to Britain had a gladiatorial stadium. As long as the people had their bellies full of bread and their blood lust satiated with gladiatorial combats, they allowed the corruption, degradation and plundering of their own country and of those conquered.
      The army became the empire after 200 AD. and it became a monster just as ours has now. The monster has a huge appetite and is now looking for its next meal; I wonder where it will be?

      Liked by 2 people

  9. I have a complaint about a term that has become common parlance in the media and elsewhere, but it’s not just a Beltway thing, and I think it does lots of damage. It’s ‘ethnic cleansing’, the criminals’ euphemism for their genocidal murder and expulsion. Nobody should ever use the murderers’ positive-sounding term (‘cleansing’) as a label for as evil a thing as there is: mass murder. People should call a spade a spade and call it murder or expulsion or murder and expulsion, but don’t sugarcoat those atrocities. I suppose the appeal of ‘ethnic cleansing’ for media people was that it was a single term that covered both killing and forced exile, two disparate ways for the worst kinds of people to achieve the same end. Brevity, however, is never important enough to make any decent person choose to talk or write just like the murderers, no matter how pressed for time or column inches.
    By the way, a really annoying Beltway word is the stupidass ‘kerfuffle’, a trivializing word that always identifies the user as a lightweight, a fan of politics as sport rather than a serious political analyst.

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    1. Yes. “Collateral damage” is another term that shouldn’t be used. It usually means the “accidental” or “unintentional” murder of innocents. Still murder. Or manslaughter.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Absolutely agree, I also have always hated the term ‘ethnic cleansing’, for the same reason.
      In that vein I have another one, a bit more complicated. Why anti-semitism, but islamophobia, xenophobia etc ? Any ‘-phobia’ logically suggests something which inspires fear – whether rational or not – and therefore offers the xeno- or islamophobe an escape venue from (self) criticism : after all some foreigners/muslims are terrorists (as are some of us), just as some spiders not only look frightening but can be deadly, so the arachnophobes do have a valid reason to fear all of that species. But someone who is anti-something or someone, evidently is prejudiced as there is no obvious reason to fear or hate that thing or person(s). Therefore being anti-semitic does nor leave any room for nuances and attenuating circumstances, while being an islamophobe does.

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  10. help us understand, wja, where all the sane, responsible, caring, charitable americans are who yearn for equitability and compassionate understanding toward their consoeurs and confrères throughout the human family. i sense they exist in swelling numbers, but they do not speak out. they can’t all be drugged on patriotism and consumerism, disdainful of noetics, comatose, or dead. how have they been rendered silent, befuddled, and impuissant? there are so many fine, honourable people like you in the US. where are they all hiding?

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    1. There are always good people, Jeanie. But the establishment media and all the talking heads in government work hard to control the narrative and keep us divided, distracted, and downtrodden.

      I live in an affluent area where people come to vacation. I see yachts, golf courses, privileged people in Audis and BMWs and Range Rovers. They’re out enjoying themselves; their kids are sailing and otherwise out enjoying themselves. They give no thought to current events; Afghanistan is something they couldn’t care less about — it doesn’t touch their lives. And I don’t necessarily blame them.

      We are living in the best of times for a few and the worst of times for many; whether that leads to some kind of revolution remains to be seen. I’d say no; the empire can’t reform itself; we’re headed toward crisis and unrest, and some kind of collapse, whether in years or decades. Any recovery will depend on those “good people” becoming active and engaged and determined.

      Liked by 2 people

  12. Pingback: Offered Without Comment 12 | The Spiral Staircase

  13. A catchphrase of Bush’s occurs to me: We’ll fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.

    Why? Why go “over there” to fight people? Why not fight them “here” (assuming they ever come), where we have the home court advantage?

    The 9/11 hijackings “here” were done mostly by Saudi nationals. I’m still waiting for an Afghan or Iraqi attack on America. But we sure launched plenty against them “over there.”

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Here is what I sent to my congressional representative and senators. Note that I focused on the risk to Americans because that is what American senators and congressional representatives are supposed to focus on. I also do not want innocent people killed of any nationality to reduce my infinitesimal risk of terrorism. In fact, if we stop killing innocent people in other countries that will probably reduce the risk of terrorism.

      “The tragic death of 13 American service members in the terrorist attack at Kabul airport proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that President Biden was correct in getting us out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Clearly, in spite of the sacrifice of over 2000 American service members prior to this, Afghanistan is still an extremely dangerous place for our troops and President Biden’s decision to remove them ASAP is correct.

      Regarding the risk of terrorism here, I want to point out that the risk of any American dying in a terrorist attack is less than one in a million. I am not so much of a coward that I want American troops to be placed in danger to reduce my one in a million chance of dying from terrorism. I’ll take the risk. Bring our people home.”

      Here are two articles from the English edition of Der Spiegel that are worth reading. The conclusion of the first author was that our presence was making Afghanistan worse over 10 years ago. The second article points out that our way of thinking about Afghanistan is completely incapable of grasping the realities.

      https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-trillion-dollar-illusion-the-entirely-predictable-failure-of-the-west-s-mission-in-afghanistan-a-0193fa9c-aa6f-4719-84de-01ead3aefcf6

      https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-paradox-for-the-taliban-resistance-in-afghanistan-appears-to-be-growing-a-661beb11-035f-4eee-a749-b40c153055b9

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Maybe one day I’ll have the courage to read all the after-the facts crap that every single guilty politician now peddles as ‘I always knew/I always said’. I even stopped copying quotes for future use, such as ‘the taliban (plural by the way, it is not the name of a political party) will have to be responsible & and accountable for any war crimes they commit’. I think it was Blinken. As responsible & accountable as the US army after the invasion on October 7th, 2001 ? “People got killed & maimed during the chaos around the Kabul airport, the taliban are not capable of managing that situation.” All the innocent civilians who were killed/maimed/tortured etc etc starting October 2001 by US/NATO, were merely called collateral damage. No one was to be blamed, inevitable fog of war.
        I will now allow myself to also quote myself from way back then : ‘when the s**t hits the fan, we’ll blame it on the Afghans’.
        As for Biden stuttering that Afghanistan has not had an inclusive government for, eh ‘hundreds of years’, he might read up on the Afghan monarchy in the 20th century. They understood their country and its tribal organisation and while modernising many sectors (THEY had a female minister of health in the 1960’s), did not try to impose foreign political concepts, doomed from the word go. They invited engineers to build dams or improve in dustries – but not armies from some 50 different countries & and assorted languages to reform Afghan government and judiciary. Same for the wild concept of creating a ‘western style’ army in a country where wars are waged in a totally different way – as we should have known after the Soviet debacle. And in dozens of languages, with most recrutes illiterate.
        Finally, as for the chaos at the airport, Biden has himself to blame. First the withdrawal date was to be May 1st, then he changed it to 9/11 to somehow retroactively once more blame Afghanistan, in case the world would have forgotten what the justification for the occupation had been. And then boasted, that he would get the job done even earlier, by August 31st. And now wants to blame the taliban for refusing this one-sided jojo diplomacy ?
        He never disclaimed Trump’s decision to withdraw, so he had 1,5 year to prepare that, including getting rid of the terrible backlog in visa for ‘eligible’ Afghans, instead of leaving it to the last few weeks. And all this is just the tip of my iceberg … Don’t get me started.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Oh and apologies, I will add one more item : When Biden needed some ‘rationale’ to explain why now of all 20 years was the right time to withdraw, the ‘argument’ was that AlQaida was not a threat anymore. Not one word about the – much worse – ISIS and even evident ISIS terror attacks (maternity hospital, girls’ school) were routinely blamed on the taliban for convenience’s sake. Now that the withdrawal is a fact and explanations are not needed anymore, suddenly he and his crew ‘remember’ ISIS … If they had acknowledged the talibans’ hatred for ISIS when that crowd appeared in Afghanistan and had cooperated with them, together they might have chased them out. Then would have been the time to deal with the ‘lesser evil’.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. “He never disclaimed Trump’s decision to withdraw, so he had 1,5 year to prepare that, including getting rid of the terrible backlog in visa for ‘eligible’ Afghans, instead of leaving it to the last few weeks.”

          My comment in The Washington Post 2 Days ago.
          The US Military knew Trump made a deal with the Taliban in February 2020, to be out by MAY of this year.
          The President, Republican or Democrat, is a prisoner of the White House.

          The Trump Administration had the responsibility until January of this year, to make sure the Military had come up with a plan in those 11 months to withdraw in an orderly manner, including getting all their allies out safely.
          They had the Time, but Trump was preoccupied with spreading the LIE the Election was stolen from him.

          Biden, inheriting Trump’s deal and US promise to the Taliban, extended that May deadline by 3 months. He should have had his Secretary of Defence pressing the US Military to start the evacuation in January, and this humiliating debacle would not have happened.

          Do Americans now think Biden should have moved into the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Office, to ensure that orderly withdrawal? Watching the cacophony of voices on the left and the right demanding that in retrospect after this US calamity, is more Politics than recognition of Reality!

          This was another US Military failure, as great as wasting the $2Trillion in Taxpayer Dollars, borrowed money at that, yet couldn’t win against a poor, 3rd World Nation in a 20 year War the US started, and having their own PATRIOTS, to fight the obvious invader so far from their own home.

          Liked by 1 person

  14. Bush’s catchphrase was at best ignorant, stupid and childish! And America’s jumped on it with both feet.
    ” Yeah, Yeah. USA… USA… fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here…were No1 were No1!”
    And his other catchphrase ” You either with us or against us”. The implied consequence of not joining the effort was you were the enemy.
    It was ridiculous. Did anybody in Wash DC for one minute ever stop and think how much it would cost to send all these soldiers, their equipment and weapons half way around the World to fight a war? And did anybody actually think through what would be the criteria for winning these wars?

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  15. “What is needed [to combat terrorism], in my view, is resolve, not retreat; courage, not concession. Rather than thinking in terms of an exit strategy, focus on a strategy for success.”
    — Donald Rumsfeld

    “The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of the defeated regimes who’ll go on fighting long after their cause is lost.”
    — Donald Rumsfeld

    “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
    — Donald Rumsfeld

    And you sir, Are A….. Know Nothing!

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Old DR’s statement begs this question…
      Were we the “Dead-Enders” he was referring to…. one could say we were still fighting long after the cause was lost…. maybe these words would be called the ones that came back to ….
      Bite one in the ass… is that how you got a hole in the seat of your three piece dress suit, sir?

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Rumsfeld’s comments imply that with enough information one will reach at state in which everything is known. That is false.

      There are also unknowable unknowns. In other words there are things that we are incapable of ever knowing because our way of thinking about the situation is too limited,. Unknowable unknowns will remain unknown no matter how much information you have because your mindset is too limited. Scientific discoveries are an example of this. The observations are there, but until the new theory is created the knowledge they represent is unknowable. Afghanistan is another example, as are most foreign cultures.

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      1. Hi JPA,
        Agree completely about unknowable unknowns.
        You refer to a mindset too limited to process information/knowledge in a manner so as to make wise use of it. So very true. Our culture has come to prize knowledge and quickness over wisdom and deliberateness.
        Most of the great mistakes I have made in my life have been because I didn’t ask myself the right questions. Questions I might have asked if I had started with a different world view, or if you will, mindset. I assume that this would apply to any leaders making decisions that affect millions, or even billions.
        While I may be asking the impossible…an attempt to imagine the future…it seems to me that most people in power, or who have an overseer type position (news pundits for example) do not consider an action as never ending. No action ever has an ending, but the classic Type A life approach appears to only view life as Problem?-Apply Action A- problem Gone! Next!
        The concept of the long gestational period of consequences and the inability to recognize incremental progress (or motion) doesn’t appear in any leadership thinking presented to the public.
        Perhaps it’s not allowed.

        Liked by 2 people

  16. “America needs plutonium and it needs nuclear submarines and it needs MIRV missiles because America loves peace”
    Fictional quote from an Atomic Energy Commission agent in the novel The Prince of Tides

    Lest we forget, “we had to destroy the village in order to save it”

    while these are from other times, countries and circumstances they were of the same concept and these motives are still used by pundits/pols here today:
    “for our freedom and yours”
    “one last Push”

    Always useful the universal “so their sacrifices have not been in vain” meme, forever used to justify a questionable
    cause….the old On Flanders Fields stuff, plus the always useful “our way of life” used in some manner to justify either imposing in it on others, or just destroying their way of life.
    And of course “mission accomplished” was just an updated version of “stalingrad is secured”

    I am sure I can come up with more, but starting to get depressed. While Tolstoy had it figured out that the Napoleans of the world couldn’t attack Russia, or anybody else, unless the Corporals re-enlisted, I am not aware of any time in history where one people’s young men refused to go and and kill another people’s young men. Yes, there have been many protests, but I don’t know where it ever en-masse prevented a country from fielding an army. The closest I know of are the mass desertions of the Russian Army in 1917, but that was only AFTER everyone had marched off to one version or other of glory, or honor, or something. The stray histories of this battalion or other that mutiny/ refuse to fight has just lead to them being replaced and some other fodder brought in to fill the place.

    And the beat goes on.

    Liked by 2 people

  17. Wornsmooth: Really liked your “Prince of Tides” reference by Pat Conroy Author. Also his “Great Santini” was legend as well… With the incomparable Robert Duvall of Apocalypse…, and his Immortal performance as Col. Kilgore “I love the smell of napalm in the morning— reminds me of Victory!” How he said it so empty and all. His Col. Bull Meecham being just as good, but he redeems himself in that one… I was in SAC my Air Force days early to late 70’s. We had “Peace is our Profession” unofficially “War is our Hobby” The best of the worst…

    Liked by 2 people

    2. Hello Phil,
      Are you related to the blogs author, WJ? Just curious.
      For me Prince of Tides was a library book. It had many insightful remarks to the human condition, especially early in the book, but now lost to my memory. The one I wrote here I copied down while reading it because it struck me as so Orwellian. SAC’s “Peace is Our Profession” is right up there though I know many then, as now< truly believed it.
      I am glad you reminded me of the "… smell of napalm in…" movie line. One of the truly great portrayals of how one can lose their soul during surreal circumstances. Napalm has to be one of the more barbaric creations of modern civilized man.
      I had the book "the Great Santini", but it disappeared during one of my many moves. Other than being loosely connected to military flying, nothing memorable about it stands out to me.
      My working life career was shared with a significant percentage of ex-military (I was civilian), many who were full 20 year plus. As I developed more awareness over the years it seemed to me the most aggressively radical group was ex-Air Force. Navy a close second. (side note: they were by far the largest group of retired officers that I worked with, so it may seem "more radical" to my memory simply due to a given number is more likely to have a few stand out, for better or worse)
      The group that seemed to be more measured in their thinking about US foreign policy was army and marines. Admittedly they were far more likely to be 2 or 4 year enlistees or draftees who were glad to be out and done.

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  18. Americans love their binary choices. It is built into our political system. Democrats vs the GOP, Hawks vs Doves sometimes it is bit more complex. The labels come into play, like “Family Values”, which translates into an adherence to Macho-Male Authoritarian Nationalistic Christian Leadership.

    There is always the handy cliche of Liberal=Democratic Socialist=Godless Communist=Stalin=Mao=Castro.

    The McMega-Media encourages these binary choices of either or. They keep things riled up which is good for ratings and profit.

    As a Baby Boomer, I recall the many service organizations that had no political affiliations, like the Kiwanis, the Moose Lodge, Lions Clubs, 4 H, etc. They reached out beyond religion, political parties, or the immediate neighborhood to deliver some service to the community.

    We seem to have so little in common these days, Americans are sliced and diced racially, ethnically, gender, by age and religion. The 1% and the American Oligarchy loves it. Probably our American Oligarchy has more in common with other world Oligarchs than with the American Proles.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yes. “Seem to have so little in common.” But the reality is Americans agree they want higher pay, affordable health care, a cleaner environment, relief from student debt, and so on. The oligarchs do not want any of these things. So they work to keep us divided, distracted, and downtrodden. I’d add demobilized as well.

      The only mobilized people with vigor are the pro-Trumpers … and that spells trouble.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I agree especially on health care. Since I am retired many of my age contemporary types, lament the high cost of insurance, co-pays and deductibles. They are clueless as to how Western Europe, Canada, Japan among others have heath care for all, without our Frankenstein for Profit Health Care system.

        Bernie Sanders among others tried for Enhanced-Expanded Medicare 4 All. The Corporate Democrats and McMega-Media torpedoed, bombed and strafed that idea that All American Citizens from birth to death deserve quality health care.

        The poem by Yeats captures the Democratic Party (lacks conviction) and the Trumper’s (full of passionate intensity).

        Turning and turning in the widening gyre
        The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
        Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
        Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
        The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
        The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
        The best lack all conviction, while the worst
        Are full of passionate intensity.

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