On Saturday, MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry admitted that many progressives despise the U.S. military as an "engine of war" while noting that the military has led the fight against segregation, Newsbusters reported.
"It is a surprising historical truth that the U.S. military, despised as an engine of war by many progressives, has been a leading institution in America's fight for racial equality," she said, citing a 1948 executive order signed by President Harry S. Truman.
Observing that her admission is "hardly a secret," Mark Finkelstein wrote that it's "stunning to hear a modern-day liberal" make such an admission.
"And when you need a war to be fought, you want your military to be the biggest, baddest engine around," he added.
But the loathing of the military by the left is nothing new.
Finkelstein reminded readers that Bill Clinton openly admitted that many of his fellow liberals "loath[ed] the military."
Stories of soldiers being spit on and ridiculed upon their return from Vietnam are legion.
A 2011 post at Conservative Byte says that liberals would much rather read stories accusing our military of being rapists and terrorists than stories highlighting their heroism and sacrifice.
"Jack Murtha, Dick Durbin, Harry Reid, practically the whole Democrat Party during the last four years of Bush-Cheney were seeking to secure defeat, impugning the character — I mean going so far as to ridicule volunteers because of where they came from," the post said.
According to many liberals, the post adds, many of those who join the military do so only because that's the only option available to them.
"They do it because of this rotten country and this rotten economy and they’ve got no other way out. That’s the standard story, that’s what they love to write about the US military," the article adds.
On occasion, someone in the media openly demonstrates that anti-military bias.
On the Sunday before Memorial Day 2012, for example, MSNBC's Chris Hayes said he was "uncomfortable" calling America's fallen military "heroes."
"I feel comfortable, ah, uncomfortable, about the word [heroes] because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war," he said.
Hayes ultimately apologized for the comment, but not before causing a firestorm of criticism.
"Still," Finkelstein added, "it's stunning to hear a modern-day liberal make a similar admission."
He concluded by thanking Harris-Perry for revealing what he called "an inconvenient truth."
As author and Army veteran Charles M. Province reminds us:
It is the Soldier, not the minister
Who has given us freedom of religion.It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press.It is the Soldier, not the poet
Who has given us freedom of speech.It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer
Who has given us freedom to protest.It is the Soldier, not the lawyer
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.It is the Soldier, not the politician
Who has given us the right to vote.It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
Related:
- MSNBC's Chris Hayes 'uncomfortable' calling fallen military 'heroes'
- MSNBC's Chris Hayes offers apology for anti-veteran comment
- VFW demands MSNBC, Chris Hayes apologize for 'disgusting' anti-veteran comment
- Military man allegedly denied service at California Chevron gas station
- Veteran says anti-war landlord refused to rent apartment due to military service
- Journalist Charles Davis brands U.S. soldiers as rapists on Twitter
- Obama to cut medical benefits for active, retired military, not union workers
- Army veteran banned from Old Navy store over teen employee in Marine uniform
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