They died in service of their country, as did those who worked to save lives on 9/11. Why shouldn't that be honored as a national day of service, to remember them? (Photo: flickr.com)

Donald Kent Douglas recently contributed an article to Pajamas Media entitled “A ‘National Day of Service?’ Or a Political Hijacking of 9/11?” To say the least, I find his opinions to be overly cynical and I cannot agree with them. But that’s not all. To think that naming 9/11 a National Day of Service somehow dishonors those who lost their lives on that tragic day is backward.

To openly make the claim that President Obama and the Democrats are attempting to “reclaim” the day from Bush Republicans is not only cynical, but indicative of the kind of irrationality that has made reasonable discourse during the health care town halls largely impossible. People need emergency money for coverage, but the extreme right invokes zombies and death books to scare, rather than engaging in back-and-forth discussion. A National Day of Service is an emergency loan to the whole of America.

Obama signed the bill in April

September 11 is now “an annually recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance,” meant to “encourage and facilitate community service across the country.” Douglas, who believes that we live in a shadow reality where the president is actually a Nazi, sites an American Spectator piece by Matthew Vadum to trump up his cause:

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

In short, Vadum and Douglas believe that rather than honoring those who served and died with service for our own for those in need, Obama is “hijacking our generation’s day of infamy, turning it into a ‘socialist holiday of community service.’”

Proof of this?

It’s a single “White House-sponsored teleconference,” in which “the entire array of America-bashing left-wing special interests” attacked 9/11 as a “day of fear.” But Mr. Douglas and Mr. Vadum, that’s exactly what 9/11 is but should not be. Using  9/11 as a constant call to war against terrorism is fear mongering. Service is honorable; fear is paralysis unless it inspires us to act. Soldiers served their country. Those who gave their lives so that others could be saved on 9/11 did the same. Why shouldn’t we honor them with a National Day of Service? Contrary to previous reports, it isn’t mandatory. People can do as their consciences and skills dictate.

He seeks to honor the memories of those who have died, and serving your fellow man as they did is a perfect memorial. What can a clear-thinking person find wrong with that? (Photo: thewhizzer.blogspot.com)

Vadum questions the motives of the National Day of Service because of who may or may not have been involved in a conference call that may or may not have occurred. I don’t care if Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese and Benedict Arnold were in on that meeting… if the outcome is service that reminds us of those who have gone before us, that is noble. If that sound like hijacking to you, I advise you to seek help.

Why not GIVE?

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act – HR 1388 – officially passes on the torch of responsibility to current generations. At the very least, this answers former President John F. Kennedy’s call for us to “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Mr. Douglas, to call this “a paramilitary force of volunteer brown shirts” discredits the memory of 9/11 victims in the way you’re accusing Obama of doing. The green community service projects that will come out of GIVE will improve the nation as a whole. Yet you have the gall to say that “undeserved” communities would be served. Considering your seeming obsession with denigrating the “Hip Hop Caucus Advisory Board,” are you trying to show us your racism? If so, you’re succeeding.

The fear mongering is yours

Douglas next references an essay by Columbia history professor Eric Foner. Foner writes, “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.” Then you attempt to confuse readers by invoking the rhetoric of Ward Churchill, who claimed the people in the Twin Towers deserved to die. Last I checked, Ward Churchill does not represent Obama administration policy, nor does it represent popular opinion in any way. A National Day of Service is honorable, a signpost on the way toward a better America. At the very least, it’ll be an outlet to help curb the rampaging obesity rate. All voluntary, of course. Not mandatory. It’s an outlet to do well and be active.

Obama makes reasonable associations, Douglas froths at the mouth

So making the World Trade Center Memorial  ”a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man’s inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich’s Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond” is in some way inaccurate, Mr. Douglas? Was it not intolerance that led to the tragedy? How is that hijacking the somber remembrance of those who died? If anything, those who died join in the stand against intolerance and hate. It is yet another reminder that America needs something like a National Day of Service. Those who died are honored BY acts of service. It’s not a “Republican” or “Democrat” day; it’s a day that honors the best in humanity – the spirit of service. That is a just cause… there is a poetic justice in what GIVE makes possible. It is emergency money to empower those who want to serve but didn’t have the means to do so before.

Serving the greater good

Douglas ends his screed by labeling the National Day of Service “not a noble national service,” but “a cold, calculating national disgrace.” I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think you understand what it means to be an American. The right to choose to serve others on a National Day of Service (or any other day, for that matter) is a true sign of humanity. Latching on to the baseless complaint that adding noble action to the memorial of the fallen is political grandstanding is not only misguided, but it is bitter to the point of being unpalatable. However, you do have the right to your opinion, being an American. How do you honor the fallen, Mr. Douglas?

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It’s good to know that in the event of a financial disaster, cash loans are available to carry you into your next paycheck. Taking a cash loan is an efficient, inexpensive means of obtaining additional capital when surprises take a chunk our of your budget.

Right about now, political advisers would like to take a chunk out of Vice President Joe Biden. He has inadvertently revealed the location of the (now) Biden bunker that was intended to save the life of America’s Vice President in the event of a terrorist attack (or Amtrak quarantine)…

Whoopsie daisy!

Slips of the tongue are one thing. They happen to all of us. However, when you’re dealing with sensitive information that relates to America’s national security, you have to be able to keep things under your hat – like the location of the Biden bunker!

Jonathan Passantino reports (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/17/oops-biden-reveals-location-secret-vp-bunker/) for Fox News that Vice President Joe Biden may have “finally outdone himself.” The location of the Biden bunker is likely classified. It is supposed to save his life.

According to reports, Biden was substituting for President Obama at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, which is a  yearly schmooze-fest between politicians and the media elite. While regaling scribes with tales of Vice Presidentry, Biden decided to kick the party up a notch by inviting everyone back to his crib at the old U.S. Naval Observatory. It just so happens, he intimated, that there’s a secret shelter underneath where they could play with his model train collection. I exaggerate here, but the reality is that the Biden bunker has been compromised.

Cheney hid there during 9/11

The Naval Observatory has been called home by sitting vice presidents since 1974. Former Vice President Dick Cheney allegedly hid in the Biden bunker (it was actually the Halliburton bunker then) during the fallout of 9/11. One would hope that his gun play was limited to Nintendo’s “Duck Hunt” during that time.

And then the president has a place…

Eleanor Clift of Newsweek said Biden revealed the location of the Biden bunker at the dinner. He was filling in for President Obama, who is only the second president since Grover Cleveland to skip the Gridiron Club dinner. Clift’s account is as follows:

(He) said a young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall.

The neighbors of the Naval Observatory said it seemed as though workers were digging deep into the ground, which could support the theory of there being a Biden bunker. No doubt it would have been funded by tremendous cash loans from taxpayers, dollars which would be repaid by arch cynicism and supreme arrogance. Cheney had his own set of rules, you see. Constitutionally protected citizens are just a squirrel trying to get a nut and a cash loan.

No swine in Biden bunker

As those who have followed the exploits of Vice President Joe Biden can attest, this Biden bunker guffaw is not the first time he’s put his foot in his mouth. Recently, at the onset of swine flu mania, Biden let it flow on television, claiming that if a member of his family asked him about traveling, he’d advise against the use of public transportation.

It has been revealed that the vice president was wearing a foam hand during the interview that proclaimed the superiority of General Motors, but I’m just making that one up. Biden also claimed that GM cars are immune to the swine flu, which is true. Your vehicle cannot contract a pig disease. Plus, Biden didn’t say that, either. But what he did say prompted an airline PR person to cry “borderline fearmongering” at Amtrak Joe. Stocks go down when important people talk that way, while the number of cash loans taken goes up.

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