When I first read Stephen King’s anti-war comments, I was disappointed:
“I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s not as bright.”
He sounded a lot like John “Vietnam Vet” Kerry who said during the 2004 campaign that that if you don’t get a good education, “you get stuck in Iraq.”
I think that kind of reasoning is spurious at best, and it’s insulting. But I didn’t spend too much time stewing about it. Others did. Several blogs attacked him, perhaps rightfully, for being a jackass in a time of war. But then something really unique happened: Stephen King didn’t back down. He replied on his website: “That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt.” He goes on to say he supports the troops but believes the war in Iraq is a “waste of national resources … and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded.”
“I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don’t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career — military or otherwise,” King said.
While I don’t agree with his “education or Iraq” sentiment, I do agree with his sensibility to say what you mean and not back down from it. It’s a rare quality these days among celebs. They say something dumb (hello Ms. Paltrow, I’m speaking to you) and then when they’re called on it, they backpedal and accuse the reader/listener of misunderstanding. Apparently, Stephen King has something a lot of celebs don’t have these days: a backbone.
2 Comments
May 7, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I doubt if people are “impugning his patriotism” because he said kids should learn to read and get better jobs. The objection is clearly to the implication that people only join the military when they can’t get any other jobs. In the world that actually exists, many products of the public school system so beloved by liberals are actually *ineligible* for military service because they can’t meet the standards.
Having a backbone is a *necessary* condition for being a good person, it is not a *sufficient* condition.
When a society makes a practice of treating contemptuously those who risk their lives for that society, its future becomes very questionable.
More thoughts on this subject at an incident at the movies.
May 7, 2008 at 4:23 pm
I just read the post, DF, and I’m disgusted. How looney.
I think people like Kerry, Stephen King, Paltrow, Madonna, and the rest of the anti-war folks who like to say that Americans are stupid are just so far out of touch they don’t know what they’re talking about.
There are doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, and businessmen in the military. I resent beinng told that the US military is made up of idiots who can’t read and never finished high school.