Charles Sykes/The War

Anyways, I think that is how you spell his name. First of all, let me get the positives for Mr. Sykes out of the way quick. One, he is not O' Reilly in the sense that he allows his callers to speak. However rare it is that a liberal (anyone with a dissenting view) call in and talk to him he does allow them to get their point across. Once the person is done sharing their viewpoint he thanks them for their opinion and says goodbye, at which point he then verbally berates them for having a different opinion. Also, he seems to be an honest person. He speaks his mind (even though it often comes off as racist/sexist) he does appear to be genuine when he talks. For example the other day, he was talking about the way girls dress, he said, "so I look at this woman and she is looking real good, but then wait she's 14. I mean we have all done that before, haven't we?" And finally, to end the good things I have to say about Sykes, he has a great radio voice. So now that you know a little about Sykes and how his show is set up I can get to what the topic was for this morning. As many know Summerfest is going on right now, which means that around 100,000 people will make their way to the fair grounds throughout the course of each day for almost 2 weeks. The issue addressed was why a military video game or simulator (set-up by the U.S. Army) was removed from the fair grounds due to complaints about the presence of guns within it.

Conservatives and Sykes, immediately went on the offensive saying that the video game/simulator was simply there to show people a day in the life of a serviceman/woman. When I heard this I could not understand what the problem was. I agreed that there should be no reason to not have this U.S. Army video game thing at Summerfest. So I continued to listen for about the next hour or hour and a half and it was really amazing what some of the callers said. One man said that he could not believe that this army game was banned when there was a place where you could play GTA (Grand Theft Auto), which "condones" the merciless slaughter of innocent citizens and police officers. See this is why it is difficult to listen to conservative talk radio. I am sure that Rockstar Games (the producer of GTA) does not condone killing, let alone the killing of police officers (or the use of cheat codes). Another caller said that it didn't bother him because he was boycotting Summerfest due to minorities. I mean even if you were this racist is that something you would say while you are calling in to a radio program. And of course Sykes helped the guy out by saying irresponsible minorities. The final caller was the one that really bothered me though. She called in saying that her son was back from a tour in Iraq and that he would be going for his second in the near future. She said that it was an insult to him, for people to not be allowed to utilize this game and see what a servivepersons life was like.

What I am about to say would surely get me called unpatriotic by any conservative, so its a good thing no one reads these anyways. I am sick of parents and people using their children, spouse or friends who are serving as a justification for their cause. Do I thank the people who serve in our military for their service, yes I do. However, that does not mean I have to agree with what they are doing. We lost 2792 people to 9/11 and now in response we have lost 4,100 (estimate) people in the War on Iraq not to mention the fact that we have spent 533 billion dollars and counting on this war that was almost entirely unjustified. These same people who use their relative who is serving to justify the war can only see the life of their son/daughter or the people in the army that they are serving with. Well, I would ask those same people to think about the 45 million people without healthcare or those who work two or three jobs to stay off of welfare and keep food on the table for their children. So, it is my opinion that instead of funding a war that has now killed more people than 9/11 maybe we should spend the next 533 billion dollars on people who need help inside this country. And no telling them to get a job at 5.75 an hour is not a sufficient answer.