so I was watching HGTV last night with the wife,

[onethatcares]

and they were doing an extreme makeover of a Marines' home because he was raising 4 kids by himself (wife divorced him), and he had lost a leg during the occupation. Throughout the show they kept saying he protected our "freedoms" and I kept wondering how the hell the invasion of Iraq was protecting our freedoms. Seems to me, he would have better protected the freedom from unwarranted searches by arresting the current occupier of the whitehouse. Do you think I'm being a bit too cynical.

BTW, he got a great looking house, but I'm wondering how about the other 20,000 that didn't get a house makeover or an attaboy for protecting our "freedoms", do they get anything but the shaft? This guy, does he get enough of a disability pension to pay the taxes on his new home, and what happens after 8 more years of this shit?

[Taverner]

1. Nope - not "too" cynical at all. Cynical enough I'd say.

That's how the RW wins is through obfuscation

[BeatleBoot]

2. Love the Troops

Hate the War

That's my take - and I'm sticking to it.

[Fumesucker]

3. No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up. -Lily Tomlin n/t

[spanone]

4. i find no cynicism in your remarks.

[Captain Hilts]

5. I agree. I have Marines near and dear to me, but the Iraq War has NOTHING to do with our 'freedoms'

See? Democrats like Marines...

[HowHasItComeToThis]

6. MILITARY KNOWS NOTHING OF FREEDOM

[Captain Hilts]

7. That's not their business, and it shouldn't be. That's what government is for. nt

[Wcross]

12. I try to avoid using fowl language.

I really have to temper this response to you YEBBA. You do not have a clue, perhaps you should pull your head out of your ass and look around every once & a while. No, the military may not know anything of freedom. They may not know because they have been serving our civilian leadership for over 200 years. They have been following the orders of the commander in chief. No, they know nothing of freedom, they just pay the price of freedom.

You know nothing of freedom yebba, you obviously think it is free.

[Warpy]

8. Now he's going to find out he owes a lot of taxes on that makeover

both income taxes and property taxes. If he's lucky, he'll be able to unload the place at a fire sale price and be able to buy himself and his kids another house like the one he had before the makeover plus get out from under the taxes.

That's the kind of freedom he's going to get.

I got over the sob story makeover when I was five and it was "Queen for a Day." There was always a tax man waiting in the wings and he was never impressed by the weeping.

[Super Soaker Sniper]

13. His tax bill should not change

as most apraisals are done by square footage. At least in Texas they are. Right now, my wife and I are in the midst of a major remodel of our home. About $30K worth but as we are mostly just changing the interior, it will not affect our tax bill one bit.

[Lorien]

21. If his home goes from 1,300 square feet to 4,500 square feet it certainly will

he also likely won't be able to afford the upkeep or utilities. Many owners of "makeover" homes lose them within the first two years.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

34. it will change big time

particularly on his 2008 income. If his house was appraised at 150K and the new house appraises at $300K he has to pay income tax on the 150K difference...and at the top tax bracket (where he would be) he will owe about 40K...

sP

[zbdent]

9. "how about the other 20,000 that didn't get a house makeover"

depends ... did this one write a glowing letter about how der grand and glorious Fuhrer was doing an excellent job, and what wondrous things we were accomplishing in Iraq "that the liberal media refuses to cover"?

[SoCalDem]

10. Those shows are nothing more than Queen-For-A-Day/Infomercials

for Lowes, Home depot, Sears, and a slew of other "consumer goods"...Kleenex comes to mind..for all the tears of joy we are supposed to shed, as that doofus Billy Mays wannabee screams at the top of his lungs :puke:

[Not Me]

11. As I see it, we have less freedom since this war began

nt

[deaniac21]

14. They should have given the house to his ex-wife!

[itsrobert]

15. Why? He was left with the kids

Why should the house go to his wife with no kids?

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fumesucker]

17. Hmm...

:popcorn:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

23. hmmm...is right

:wtf:

me thinks the poster has unresolved issues inre the male species ;)

of course I could be wrong :shrug:

we shall see...in

5-4-3-2-1 ...

:popcorn:

[CreekDog]

28. um

:eyes:

[1]

18. do not watch these "feel good" build 'um a house shows...

they will build a house for one homeless person, or one disabled person, or one single mom... the television equivalent of hitting the lottery i guess is the appeal.

and i guess the reaction is that we are supposed to feel good. yay, you marine/homeless/disabled/single mom.

but i couldn't do that.

i saw one once, on abc i think, a single father with a bunch of kids living in a wreck that wasn't right. this huge team came in and demolished the old place (thank god) but in its place built a monstrosity of a house and then filled it with jacuzzi tubs in every bath, state of the art electronics and lcd screens in every room, etc. excess, excess, excess... it was like "let's build a home for mick jagger."

if they would have built that family a nice house to accommodate their needs for bedrooms and bathrooms and proper electrical wiring i would have been so moved and happy for the family. instead my first thoughts were "who needs all that?" and "how are they going to pay the taxes on all of that shit?"

these shows are built on the "lottery winner" mentality and they suck...

[Ilsa]

19. I guess the show forgot to mention that he wouldn't have lost his leg

if we hadn't been over there in the first place.

[Lorien]

20. "Extreme Makeover" spews that "fighting for our freedoms" meme at every

opportunity. Obviously ABC is using that show to do a little agenda pushing. Really pisses me off.

Another problem with the show; they build homes that are so huge and extravagant that most of the recipients end up losing them in a year or two because they can't afford the upkeep and utilities. I don't have a link, but there have been at least two articles posted here about that problem. The show is really nothing more than an hour long advertisement for Sears.

[bumblebee1]

22. I thought I was the only one who can't stand Ty Pennington.

I've watched the show several times. There are times I wanted to see one of the volunteers shove the bullhorn up Ty's ass. He'd be alot more useful if he'd put down the damned bullhorn and actually help with the building.

[SmileyRose]

24. The google has quite a few stories of people losing their extreme house

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080506_Is_Extreme_Makeover_S_J__house_for_sale_.html


Not a story that speaks well for ABC.

[Quantess]

25. Well, considering he lost a leg and braveley served our country,

I think a few thank-yous and compliments, even saying "he defended our freedoms", are small gestures of kindness that everyone should be generous enough to give.

Anyway, it's a bit too late now to tell him he shouldn't have enlisted. That would be very judgmental and rude. He just wanted to serve his country. It isn't his fault we have such a shitty, worthless president who lied us into war. So yes, I think you're being too cynical and too harsh.

[noamnety]

26. Did you see the episode? I did.

I had nothing against the marine himself. I wouldn't be getting all teary eyed at a giant new flag pole, but that's neither here nor there, and it's not what the OP was talking about.

The show itself though, it really was over the top as a piece of pro-military propaganda. It was painful to watch, even though the marines were sympathetic characters in it. It wasn't the marines that was the problem in the episode. It was all the wannabees making a point of demonstrating their patriotism like it was a competitive sport that was rather stomach-turning - along with the absolute extreme excesses in the house itself. The values in that were not good values.

I worked with a guy briefly doing Katrina stuff, (Skinner but not DU's skinner, I know at least one other DUer knows him) and extreme makeover had come through their area. I think he was working with emergency communities at the time they came through. Well, they all went over and thought they'd do a great thing, help EM rebuild a house for someone, and EM would pay for it. At the end of the first day most of them refused to return. They would do a take of the volunteers laying down sod. Then they'd announce, wait, we decided we want that from another camera angle, everyone roll the sod back up, we're going to redo this. So the volunteers would pick up the sod, and lay it down again.

The thing was, the volunteers had a lot of homes they were trying to get done for a lot of people. EM was like the George Bush of charity visits - the main thing they accomplished was preventing the volunteers from doing what they do best - getting as many people back on their feet as they can, in an efficient way. EM was there to exploit the situation, but they overall did more harm than good.

Having heard someone talk about the frustration of it all, I better understand the complaint about how much effort went into that one house. For that amount of money, they could have gotten a number of veterans who needed it off the streets, but instead they prefer to do one lavish obscenity of a house and make themselves out to be freaking amazing patriots because of it, and because they spewed empty slogans on cue.

None of that is a complaint about the Marine. I think he was duped into believing he was doing something honorable in Iraq, and duped into believing his country was build on that sort of honor. I don't know whether he deserves a pass on that or not, but that part wasn't what the OP was writing about.

[Quantess]

27. Well, that explains the responses in this thread! No, I have not seen that episode.

Thank you for the added info about the show. I was starting to think DUers had lost a little compassion for veterans, but I apparently missed some overbearing and nauseous fake-patriotism. That said, I'm in no hurry to watch the show! :)

[Fumesucker]

30. Just for your information..

"Marine" is always capitalized..

:hi:

[noamnety]

32. Not when you are prior army.

;)

[Vinca]

29. I've wondered about the "protecting our freedoms" remark, too.

It's uttered over and over and over again. My freedom wasn't impacted one iota by Sadam Hussein. I don't know about any of you. It's feel good bullshit and that's all. Make the poor guy feel like losing the leg was worth it somehow.

[babydollhead]

31. We need to fight for our troops' freedom!

War needs to be over!!!

[Ganja Ninja]

33. I have a problem in general with veterans receiving charity.

This particular case doesn't bother me but the whole notion that vets require charity means that our government isn't meeting it's obligations to them. And I think that point is lost on those who want to do good and help our vets.

[onethatcares]

35. as the original poster, I'd like to qualify a bit.

I think it sucks to lose a leg, an arm, an eye, a finger or a toe because of this occupation in a foreign land. I've had it with the warmongers that think Muslims are attacking United States corporate interests because they want us to read the Quaran (spelling?), or because Muslims want us to go back to the stone age. I'm fucking over it, that's all.

I have a son in the military and we agree to disagree, I love that kid. I don't think that a house could replace his leg, his wife, or his life if he got the same as the person in this show.

I've tried to educate co workers, and friends, some have payed attention, many have just figured the present situation out. None think we should be there forcing our countrys' wants on Iraq. I wish they would have woken sooner.

Anyway, I watched how VietNam vets got discarded, I just know it's not going to change for these returnees.

Peace, now more than ever.