Forgive me for posting something totally off the topic of amateur radio, radio, or technology, but some things bear discussing in contexts and forums they normally shouldn’t be. Today on Memorial Day here in the US we remembered veterans who died in combat. If you ask folks on the street why we have Memorial Day and why it’s so important to remember our veterans, you’ll undoubtedly receive the same answer or some variation: “They died so we could have freedom.” They’re obviously not wrong, unless one digs specifically into the Vietnam War a lot deeper, but that’s another discussion for another day. While veterans on the surface fought for our freedom, there was much more to what they were fighting for. Our veterans throughout history fought to establish or maintain democracy which is based on our Constitution. They fought lawlessness, genocide, racism, and injustice to their fellow man. They fought for a land of opportunity where the rules, theoretically, gave everyone a fair chance to prosper. They fought for nations who were are allies. They fought for a country that welcomed the tired and poor “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” They fought for an imperfect union.
The veterans who we recognize, remember, and celebrate during Memorial Day would be aghast and incredulous at our leadership and what we’ve become. We have a president who has cozied up to evil Russia, sold out Ukraine by attempting to broker their surrender without their consent, thrown NATO to the curb, alienated and threatened allies, and has ruthlessly slashed and eliminated programs and resources specifically to support and help veterans. He recently said he wasn’t sure if he’s required to uphold the Constitution, a requirement that is explicitly stated in the President’s oath of office, and he’s working tirelessly to end habeas corpus, a hallmark of our democracy and something that distinguished us from other nations in 1776, because it’s so inconvenient when you’re trying herd up people. We used to proudly be a country of law and order; now we have a convicted 34 felony count criminal and convicted rapist sexual assaulter as our so-called leader, and he’s doing his best to ignore the law and judiciary, gaming the system by shipping people out of the country without due process before the courts can even get out of bed to find out what’s going on. With other and many questionable and undoubtedly unlawful acts, he just does it, in rapid succession, clogging a legal system that was never designed to handle a relentless legal denial-of-service attack from a sitting president. And those tired and poor huddled masses? They’re been shipped out as fast as possible, without due process, unless they’re white “huddled” not-so-tired-or-poor Afrikaners from South Africa, then we’re bringing them in faster than Tesla’s sales numbers are dropping. One political party is an accomplice to all this, the other is incompetent and incapable of stopping any of it. While Trump is raping and sodomizing our democracy, a quarter of the country is cheering him on, and perhaps a half of the country seems indifferent or unconcerned.
We don’t even seem to care enough to protect the sanctity of our flag. You can easily get a flag desecrated with black stripes, a blue stripe, a red stripe, or a multi-colored stripe flag. You can order a flag with a picture of the president on it, complete with some quote about making <insert Trump enemy here> cry, even with an obscenity or two. You can buy American flag-colored Punisher skull stickers for your truck or patriotic-colored crosses because Jesus was actually a white guy from Nebraska. The American flag was never intended to be something like a cheap made-in-China mobile phone case or tee shirt that you can customize at will to express your individuality, what team you’re rooting for, or identify what group of people you find entertaining to bully. But that’s what our flag has become.
Trump was quite happy and comfortable to politicize this Memorial Day, taking to Toilet Social to wish “all” a happy Memorial Day with another toxic orange skin dye-induced rant about the “scum” who let all these “illegals” into the country and how the previous four years was some sort of hellfire where everyone lost their jobs and was serially raped and murdered by MS-13, and afterwards forcibly turned gay. He couldn’t even keep his burger hole from ranting about his enemies and his greatest-accomplishments-ever during his Memorial Day speech, a normally solemn affair for a president. Trump ironically avoided the Vietnam draft by famously getting a foot doctor to write him an excuse note. But he does have a Purple Heart. The prestigious medal is awarded only to veterans who were wounded or killed in combat, but a Vietnam veteran saw fit to “award” Trump his Purple Heart. Trump said publicly he always wanted to have a Purple Heart, totally unaware that it’s not given to wealthy elite privileged brats who never saw any military service and who give no f—s about anyone but themselves, and especially not their country.
Next year the US will be celebrating its 250th anniversary as a nation. While I was just a wee young lad in 1976 during our Bicentennial, I know amateur radio celebrated with special callsign prefixes and special events. I just can’t see what there is to celebrate now, what is the lowest point in our history since the Civil War, and it’s getting worse.
Radio Artisan 
Truth all of it finally, thank you