Matt Damon Is Very Outspoken

yep still a republican that dodge it!

I salute the men and women who are in the armed services. They are defending a country and it’s values that treat them for the most part like trash. Way too many service men and women are underpaid and unappreciated for the work they do. An eye opener for me was finding out how many Navy families are on food stamps and still can’t make ends meet. They deserve better. Better housing, better pay and defintely better and safer uniforms and equipment. They also should be highly honored by all citizens and non citizens alike in this great country.

I’m glad to see so many people calling Matt out for his dumb comments. It’s nice to see so many people on here making sense. So if you guys are so smart about this, how come most of the people on here are pro-Brangelina?

effin….there is always the opportunity for lower rank personel to achieve higher rank.
I have a nephew who has been a grunt for over 10 yrs while he studied (curtesy of the USA) and finally received his commision..that he sought..
And that effin IS THE TRUTH!!

i HAPPEN TO LIKE MATT DAMON AS AN ENTERTAINER…I enjoy his films and find him very nice to look at, as well. I happen to know that he went to my school, Harvard..but did not graduate.
He is entitled to his opinion but I do not admire him painting the militarywith a broad brush. I would prefer that actors and singers keep their political thoughts to themselves…as inevitably..it is to the left of center…and anti everything. I find this boring…as if the Public cannot make up their own minds..without the actors leading us..ala George Clooney etc..Is their job so mindless that they strive to be taken seriously about something????

Very well said Matt!! Why should Bush with his family sitting there prettily and safely when some families are suffering because their brother, sister, father or husband are being killed unnecessarily for a very bad decision he made.

Jan, Thank you so much for posting. You spoke so clearly because you know from experience, you are so firmly entrenched in military life. I think the reason many are confused about what is and isn’t fact is they hear this kind of nonsense from someone they assume would not speak out in public so knowingly if they didn’t know what they were talking about. So…people hear him and assume he is right. I lived through the draft era in the late sixties and seventies. I said it then and I will say it now…we wouldn’t want our food cooked by people forced to cook it against their will. We wouldn’t want our hair cut by people who had no inclination or particular ability in that department but were forced to do it. Why, then, would it ever make any sense to force them to do something far, far more critical like defending our country? People , think! It was wrong then and it would be wrong now. Don’t jump on a bandwagon just because someone thinks they’re making a point! He is actually making an argument AGAINST a draft, which is as others here have said: the very people he thinks he is championing will be the people who will be forced into the military because they will not be in college! College, by the way, is NO LONGER just for the rich and privileged! It is for the determined. It is for the hard-working, perhaps, but it is available to anyone who wants to go and has graduated from High School. And High School is free and everyone has a right to go. Is is up to them to stay in, but once they have, there are so many ways to get a foot in the doors of colleges in this great country. I should know. I had ordinary grades in high school, but I stayed in school, graduated, started out at a local state school branch, applied for National Defense Loans to pay my own way(which I did by working summers and vacations) and I did it. I graduated from college! Raised in public housing in a very, very blue-collar town, and that was in the 60’s. Today it is almost easier to go to college if you ARE less- than- privileged, because there are so many programs not available to people with average or above average-incomes. Having said all that, what about the military as a calling? As an opportunity? What about the military as a step-up in the world for those who come from poverty and haven’t been offered guidance from parents or others? Do you know of any better way underachievers or underprivileged kids CAN step up otherwise? Can acquire discipline, order in their lives, focus on their futures? Can get health benefits, can get educated, can build a future based on the recognition and respect veterans receive in this wonderful country? I just don’t get what Matt sees as their options, otherwise. I think the opposite of Matt Damon.. I think it offers the quickest route to middle class for anyone below it, I think it should only be comprised of those who WANT to be soldiers, and I don’t want my country defended by anyone less than motivated and highly qualified to do so. Again Jan and others who wrote from the positions of experience, Thank You.

mel Says:

December 17th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Wasn’t it a Democrat that started the draft for the Vietnam war??? I think so.

^^

I don’t know if it was or wasn’t but it’s not the point. The point is that those who have influence “no matter poltical party” wouldnt be so quick to declare war if their child met the requirements handed down by the government to serve in the military.

jpf

Jeff Says:

December 17th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Just curious, when signing up for any branch of the military, on which page does say you won’t ever be expected to go to war?

^^^

You don’t seem to get it Jeff. This is about those who declare war. This is about the possibility of them taking a clearer view of what they’re signing off on if their child is destined to partipate. We weren’t attacked by the country we declared war on, and we DID declare war, and over 2500 sons and daughters have perished, and 3 times that have been injured in a war that may never have transpired if the sons and daughters of those of the privledge, the “fortunate sons,” were required to show up and do their time.

jpf

Em Says:

December 17th, 2006 at 7:10 pm

You missed the point. Matt would never have gone to war with Iraq. Bush declared war and lied to the American Public by saying there were WMD. Then when WMD wasn’t found, America was bringing democracy to Iraq. The PNAC documents were signed in 1998 by the Neocons. They tried to convince Clinton to go to war. They were hell bent on having a war and when 9/ll occurred they lied the American people into taking out Saddam. The American people bought for a while that there was some relation to what happened in NY and Saddam. That lie has finally been put to rest with the truth.

Perhaps if Bush had his daughters in this war, all that macho talk, all those lies, all that hype would have been dispensed with and the reality of life and death would have been more real to him.

The dead Americans are only a small part of this war. There are thousands dead in Iraq, there are millions of refugees and a civil war. The debt is in the billions and China holds our debt. We can’t do a thing against North Korea because China will pull the plug on our debt and we have no military to do a thing against Iran.

Matt Damon was so right.

MATT is HOT.

Grandma…”millions of refugees” where? “civil war” where? What debt does China hold that would place the United States in the position of not being able “to do a thing against North Korea”, and on what are you basing your position that “we have no military to do a thing against Iran”? Are these your assumptions and opinions or do you have specific facts? Are you doing what Matt is doing, which is speaking with authority about huge issues with no simple solutions as if he knows how to correct them? What should we do? If you know, let’s hear it.

Clinton received a lot of pressure from the Neocons to attack Iraq. They had fly overs during much of the last part of his administration. The Kurds were definitely part of this echo to do something to Saddam but the UN was on the ground and they did have Saddam in a box. David Kay tried very hard to get a little more time to halt this invasion and Scott Ritter was speaking out daily that there were no WMD. David Kay now tells the story of how Cheney was giving him GPS quadrants that were suppose to mark where the WMD was and it turned out the quadrants were in the ocean.

The aspirin factory was in Libia. Clinton bombed Libia not Iraq.