The 3 largest Colorado papers all had the same headline pictures this Memorial Day. Graduating Air Force Academy Cadets all throwing up their caps into the sky in unison with jet planes flying overhead. Thus we arrive to half time in America’s annual jingoistic display. Second half of this supposed public patriotic display of support for imperialist foreign policies will certainly be the 4th of July.

We are awash in ‘support our troops’ brain wash. Don’t you dare not support them! And not supporting the constant and continual warfare is always construed as not ‘supporting the troops’. Thirty of us met the parade of cars entering into the Air Force Academy base and they penned us dangerous folk in behind chains and concrete barriers. Up on the hill mounted Calvary watched us terrorist Injuns down below. What a sad lot the people entering the base seemed.

It gave me great pleasure to hold a sign demanding that the torture of American held POWs be ended. Just how proud can these graduating cadets actually be, when the employer they will be working for has such a low reputation from routinely torturing people? How about their parents? How proud can they really be?

This Memorial Day’s celebration of death just seemed more gruesome and pathetic than it has ever been. There was something pathetic about it all that seemed etched in the faces of the people in their vehicles as they came in. Next step? Buy some fire works and pretend that one is having a good time. Eat some turkey dogs and drink a little. Red, White, and Blue.