Why is it that people refuse to realize that a memorial for one thing is not automatically against everything else?
Say we want to ercet a monument to Zebra. I’m envisioning a blindfolded figure swinging a bat, while 40 feet away dangles a clue, pinata like. Is this proposed monument a big FUCK YOU to people like Cecil who actually use their brain? Is it offensive to people like me who can actually think something through without getting all sleepy and starting to drool? Hell, no. It’a a monument to Zebra, and nothing else. And, IMHO, long overdue.
Here’s how I see this one playing out:
“Alright Corporal, we begin the sit-in a 0900 hours at the barracks. Take the standard ammo loadout, but for god’s sake don’t use it!”
“Yes sir. Right on!”
I have nightmares too sometimes. I have this one about the Campus Crusaders for Christ putting notes in the mailboxes of members of the Jewish and pagan student associations, reminding them that they are on the fast track to hell and should attend the next prayer meeting so they can be saved. There’s another one where all the flyers advertising gay/straight alliance support group meetings get ripped down, and the rainbow flag display is stolen. And then there’s the one where someone comes by in the middle of the night to write “DYKE” on our door.
Oh wait, those weren’t nightmares. They all really happened.
But thanks to everyone who’s worried that college campuses are getting too “PC”. I can always use a good laugh.
You know, the fact that the Jewish and pagan student associations actually exist on your campus is a strong blow to those who claim that the Religious Right are running rampant over the values of those who don’t agree with them. Having the freedom to establish such a group doesn’t mean you won’t get ridiculed or face adversity. There will always be small-minded bigots who fail to see the validity in someone else’s views. Doesn’t matter on which side of the political spectrum they fall; they’re still bigots.
Zebra
Please consider that the men and women who have been in our military are the pawns. It is easy to hate whoever wears the uniform for what his country is doing, but he is only a tool in the belt of the power mongers. We go to war for all kinds of reasons, but in the end those who died usually did so with the belief that they were making America a better country. Give your blessings to a vet, save your ire for the power mongers of the world.
I thank them for that.
They deserve to be honored.
My apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I wanted Zebra to know about a good protest opportunity.
The U.S. Air Force crew has just been returned from China. They landed in Hawaii a couple of hours ago. The military has announced that they’ll be given 30 days of leave, according to CNN. In addition, during their flight back, they ate steak, mashed potatoes, salad, and other non-standard-issue fare.
Using Zebra’s logic, this special treatment being afforded these servicemen and -women is obviously a huge “Fuck you” to the rest of the armed forces serving in the U.S. military. You should lodge a complaint.
jab1: So you were fifteen when the cease-fire was called in Vietnam. You may have been right in believing the war was wrong, but you were never draft eligible during that time. Had you been, you would have been forced to look at draft resistance in concrete terms, and found them much more daunting than the abstract.
What were your plans to uphold your refusal to serve? Going to Canada? You would have needed money and connections. A formal refusal? How would you addressed it, and to whom? The draft board itself? The Pentagon? And what could you have said that they hadn’t already heard? Would you have been willing to go to jail? In fairness, you don’t sound like you would have tried to weasel out by throwing the physical or psych exams, but those who did found themselves up against MDs who were more expert at closing the loopholes than inductees were at finding them.
I’m not saying you couldn’t have succeeded if you had refused to serve. But when your bluff is called, the fears you’ve previously shrugged off become life-size and three-dimensional.
I was going to cross that bridge when I came to it. Fortunately, the bridge was closed before I arrived.
BTW, I served three years in the Navy, from '76 to '79. It’s not military service per se that I was opposed to, it was the use of the military that I found objectionable, not to mention the draft. (Though I might not have opposed the draft during, say, WW2. What is objectionable during one set of circumstances might be perfectly reasonable during another set.)
jab1: Okay then. Fortunate you were, though.
To protest maybe Millosarian should get up in a tree and eat cottonballs covered with choco–oh wait–that was Yossarian.
I agree with some of this, but y’all ought to recognize that the handwriting is on the wall. White men and their silly monuments to their fatuous brutality are soon to be a thing of the past. The Shrublette is the last crypto-fascist moron that will hoodwink a majority (er, majority, right) for some time to come. We will seize both houses of congress in '02 and the Casa Blanca in '04. Get used to the idea.
How about a monument to all the Black people whose lives were shattered by slavery? How about a monument to the contributions of women?
As for the military, it is a giant, seething, tumor on society, and judging by the spate of ridiculous accidents and fiascos recently–the Ehime Maru, that turbo-prop that killed 24, drill sargeants raping recruits, and the EP3 Orion–it is run by incompetent, blinded-by-testosterone assholes. OK, the EP3 wasn’t the crew’s fault but the commander-in-chief looked like the utter moron that he is, mumbling sound bites to us about our fine soldiers, blah blah, ad nauseum. What an asshole. Frankly, I think it’s nice to see the arrogant cocksuckers squirm once in a while. I suggest we have a monument for all the chumps who want more monuments. A giant syphilitic phallus maybe. Land of the Free, if you are rich…
Just so long as they put shrub, Quayle and the rest of the GOP yellow-bellies next to him who did the same thing. Fair’s fair.
Chronolicht, if this country ever gets invaded, I hope the military just hands you over to the enemy. That good men and women offer their lives to protect the abhorrent likes of you simply sickens me. You are’t worth that, you piece of shit.
“Chronolicht, if this country ever gets invaded, I hope the military just hands you over to the enemy. That good men and women offer their lives to protect the abhorrent likes of you simply sickens me. You are’t worth that, you piece of shit.”
This is the sort of thing I am talking about. If you are ten years old or retarded disregard what I am to tell you. If neither of these are applicable, then you are a perfect example of the mindset which makes a military necessary. The fact is we have ruled the world since the second war. Are we on the pound exchange? Is French the international language of business? No. It’s all about dollars the world over. Who is going to invade? The Russians? N. Korea? China?
It’s a cute fantasy and indicative of the level of maturity you have reached and probably will. You are likely a Christian, too, which makes you a hypocrite. What about the commandments? Isn’t it wrong to kill? It doesn’t say "Thou shalt not kill unless its a Muslim infidel or someone with epicanthic folds.
The fact is, this country is an oligarchy and a plutocracy which runs roughshod on its neighbors. With few exceptions, every conflict since 1812 could have been avoided. That some whining PC students might be offended by another marble homage to white men’s savagery shouldn’t surprise or upset you. If we actually valued freedom and democracy as much as we say, if we actually had valor and courage, we would have stopped the Hutus from slaughtering the Tutsis though there was nothing to be gained but their lives. We would have had the balls to put soldiers on the ground in Bosnia in order to take out Milosevich without leveling their country, to give you a few recent examples. Brave men and women? More like lethal idiots. If there is anything execrable here, it is the killing of people over ideas which have no basis in reality. It takes a lot more courage to spend a couple of years in jail for resisting a draft because the idea of killing someone is repugnant, than to run headlong into combat. Fool.
Chronolicht, do you feel pressure on your temples when your head makes the transition from the large intestine to the small intestine?
The monument in question isn’t about war. It’s about people, regular people, with families, friends and lives they didn’t want to give up. But they did give them up, maybe because they thought the particular cause of a particular war was just. Maybe just because their country asked them to serve.
The mind-numbing idiocy of approximately two dozen of your statements needs refuting, but I’m sensing you’re not worth the finger exertion.
Uh, Chrono, I just wanted to let you know that this country is actually a theocracy and I am the Living Gawd that it worships. Just consider this one of those FYI type of things. Thank you for your time.
Spelling correction courtesy of me.
This is totally irrelavent
Zebra you ignorant sack of cockroach shit on a shingle.
You are here being allowed your viewpoints because at some point in history these people were willing to put their lives on the line to guarentee you the right to free speech.
I’m willing to donate $5, how about we all get together and ship zebra to China right now. One way ticket of course. You should develop a great following ranting about how americans who died in millitary service don’t deserve to be remembered.
These people are not supposed to have to resort to armed violence except in extreme circumstances. A combat infantryman enters the field knowing he will be called upon to kill or be killed. Thats a little different than a cop or a firefighter.
You come home, you get to wear your medals, you get preference for federal jobs, free medical care via VA hospitals, VA loans, your thank yous will be smaller but no less appreciated by those who love you.
Zebra, if you happen to be from England and you’re still pissed about that little Declaration of Independence thing, please go fuck a rolling cheerio. If you are anything else you should be eminently thankful that the US Army isn’t on their way to kill you for your blasphemous comments.
Correct me if I am mistaken here, but aren’t memorials supposed to be “exclusionary”? And as for the big “FUCK YOU” to the soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines who survive the conflict, they get a medal for being in combat. And a chance to marry, have families, die of old age.
This is your argument why we don’t need a military? This? I don’t expect you to know this, as it seems from your post you’ve never opened a history book in your life, but the Roman Empire used to rule the known (to them) world. What happened to them, you ask? Why don’t they still rule the world? They were invaded.
I’ll repeat it just in case you missed it the first time. They were invaded.
Yeah, it’s not like we’ve ever been attacked before.
If we didn’t have any military at all? China might. They have four times the population we do, and if we didn’t have any armed forces, they could probably take us if they wanted to.
The Soviet Union might have. Or maybe they would just have taken all of Europe.
Where have I heard stuff like this before? Oh, right:
(http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=66248)
What? We took over Canada and I missed it? Damn!
Please, O Wise One, tell me how we could have avoided World War II. The Civil War? How about World War I? According to your points about Bosnia and Rwanda, it would have been wrong to just not get involved in it, so we would have to have prevented it entirely. How do you propose we should have done that?
It seems as though you are unfamiliar with the term “Conscientious Objector.”