For many companies a dollar became more important than American moral loyalty. They hung out the red, white and blue on the 4th, but did nothing of practical value for those who the 4th of July honors. Not much on independent thought, the uniform story across all of the liberal commentators, media outlets, channels, shows, commentators, and hosts, activated nothing in the form of tangible support for the troops during the conflict. This storyline caused a chilling effect among most of America's major public companies. In fact one grocery store chain with stores in Florida declined to even put up an advertisement on their community bulletin boards telling their customers about a way to show their support for and provide assistance to the deployed troops.

 

They said they were "worried that some customers might not be able to separate the troops from the war." So the wimps in the media bred more wimps, to the detriment of the deployed troops and to their families here at home. The troops often reported how that lack of support, and opposition was psychological drag. While moderate and conservative talk show hosts, commentators, and news outlets for years have held concerts, ran fundraisers, held events and featured various troop-support groups to do good works for the troops, little to nothing of a practical benefit ever was done by anyone in the left-wing media.

 

The liberal media did not unabashedly advocate collecting and sending the troops care packages. It did not run drives to collect and send care packages. It did not run drives to do things for their families here at home. It did not raise money to get their kids off to college on schedule. It did not come to their defense or give them the benefit of the doubt when they were accused of wrongdoing on the battlefield. You will find no stories in the liberal media in which they are rigorously cross-examining people who are opposing the troops, attacking the troops, or charging them with wrongdoings. It questioned their every action. It gave the enemy every benefit of the doubt. It politicized the war which caused it to drag on additional years, and thereby caused additional deaths and injuries, instead of allowing them to do their job and return home sooner.

 

It opposed military decisions. Comprised largely of goofy people of little practical experience sitting in their studios, never having fought a war built a business, or done much else, the left wing media sat at their desks and opined on military strategy and toyed with soldiers' lives as though they were their equals or superiors. Now they want to turn the returning troops into a class of victims with special disabilities and special needs unattended by society which needs the liberal media assistance to call attention to their plight. They are stepping right into their usual litany of victimhood and classes of special need. They have already started rolling out storylines and interviews about how pitiful, needful and sympathetic their new class of victims is.

 

The people who serve in our military are smarter than that, and neither want nor need the assistance of those who tried to harm them. They know who was for them, and who was against them. And they will take their due from the right side -- not the wrong side. The American people who want to rejoin with those returning have in fact been doing so for some time unnoticed by the liberal media who only woke up in the transitional event the final departure of the few remaining troops arose. The best private groups and agencies to support are those in making sure our returning troops get plugged back in and get going again are easily findable on the Internet and through the military.

 

For example, the AMVETS have a network of employment and retooling and triing centers acors Amrica assiting America's newsets veterans in getting plugged back in. But you have not seen stories in the liberal media over the last year or so helping make sure all of the returning new veterans know about this service. Want to help returning soldiers? It's very simple. Hire them. Before anybody else, hire them. They deserve it more than everybody else in America. And they'll make the best employees. They're objective-oriented. While many Americans have been lollygagging on welfare and unemployment, and at the mall, for years, they've been at war to make it all possible.

 

Give them their due. The liberal media is so focused on acting out their usual tear-dripping, "poor thing, here let me help" victimhood approach, they don't even know that most of the troops from Iraq returned home a while ago. The only thing that woke the media up was the final closeout ceremony. Large numbers of troops have been flowing home for a while as America made its early political exit from something for which troops had worked so hard for the sake of America and the Iraqis. And during that time the left wing media did virtually nothing for them here at home, while continuing to work to secure the failure of their mission in order to build an example of failure for future arguments that America should not go to war again.

 

Statistical analysis of liberal news stories over the last two years reveals a paucity of interest in getting returning military service members a job here at home, making sure that their mortgage holder and car loan holder treat them right while they're serving, getting them connected up with fellow ex-servicemembers of their own generation to helpfully kick things around.

 

Over the last two years no graphic ad links have appeared on the left wing media's websites facilitating any of the foregoing. It is therefore inappropriate that members of the left wing media want to suddenly pop up and wrap themselves in the troops and the story as though they be patriots standing for the troops who have stood up for America. The left-wing media are essentially adolescents with cameras. They have precious little practical hands-on real-life experience, infrequently sacrifice of themselves for others, even in the way of personal giving, and often think that because they have a camera and personal opinion they should be the center of substantive attention.

 

Like adolescents, they tend to overly focus on the thing of the moment, amplify and overwork it, then suddenly drop it and grasp the next thing that catches their eye. The people who serve in our military, particularly those who bear arms in foreign lands for our defense, are the strongest of our population. They do not need the crybabies to look out for them. They are the ones who stand up and do what it takes to look out for everybody else. They are the protectors and defenders. They are the ones who would survive any disaster. For the leftist media to now try and wrap themselves in the troops and try to cultivate an aura of sympathy for them, is morally wrong.

 

To disprove this I propose a litmus test for 2012. Each liberal commentator and media outlet needs to man up and run a campaign to raise funds to do things for those military service members still serving in Afghanistan, and those who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. The goal should be $20 million per media outlet, raised from their viewers. Those funds will then be donated to the private charities which are well experienced in properly addressing the needs of the military community. This will move their coverage out of the self-service agenda and into the world of put up or shut up tangible production of benefit and delivery of actual service.

 

The viewers of liberal news will thus be put to the test -- will they really take out their own money and hand it over for this specific cause? If they do, the military community (that is, our neighbors who get deployed to look out for all of us) might have reason to give them a second look. If they do not, then all will know who left wing media are, and what they are really not made of, and we can write them off and tune them out. The reader will also know the same thing if you fail to see the that media segment do this in the first half of their 2012 coverage.

 

Martin C Boire, Chairman Support Our Troops®