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No, it's not an urban legend. My father served in Vietnam and came home to jeers, rather than cheers. My uncle experienced the same thing. Once I was grown and out on my own, my first neighbor was a Vietnam Vet and used to tell the horror stories of coming home to slurs and venom. He would well up with tears talking about it.
That is so horrible. I was a Vietnam war protester but I never disrespected the vets. I think that's disgusting to blame the soldiers for the misguided decisions of our government.
There is an excellent movie which deals with this from a leftist anti-Vietnam-war perspective but shows great respect for the vets themselves. It's called "Coming Home" and it stars, among others, Hanoi Jane. I hope you will watch this great movie and forgive Jane Fonda for being a dumb kid with a lot of naive ideas when she went to Vietnam and stood side-by-side with the "enemy." I think her heart was in the right place but her head wasn't screwed on straight, so please don't let her stop you from watching what I think is one of the 5 best Vietnam War movies ever made.
Bruce Dern and Jon Voight both created incredibly believable characters and the ugliness of BOTH sides of the war are shown without any final judgment about who was "right." In most wars there is no clear "good and bad" like there was in WWII, usually it's much messier as we're currently seeing in Iraq. We all need to have compassion for one another and work together to stop the killing and hate, regardless of our political persuasions.
I saw that movie!! I liked it. Were you really a war protester? I didn't think you that old.
Did he go willingly to kill Vietnamese in their own country to "free them"?
It's a cop out to say you support the troops but not the politicians. The soldiers are as responsible as the politicians that sent them and the politicians are as responsible as the electorate that put them in office.
FFHD, EEK. Are you saying that these Vets deserved the treatment they got?
Either way, I believe that the purpose of Vietnam was to prevent the communist government in the northern region from invading the southern region. America opposed the expansion of the communist countries. To say that anybody went over there for the purpose of killing Vietnamese is akin to saying that the allies on D-day went into france to kill Frenchmen, or to Germany to kill german Civilians.
I do however, partially agree that it's a cop out to support the troops but not the war (politicians). Without the soldiers there is no war. To support the soldier but not the war is to say "I support you, but I don't support where you are and what you are doing and why you are doing it and I will criticize everything you do... but boy I sure support you".
So, FFHD I support you. I don't support what you say, how you say it, who you are saying it about, where you are saying it from, but I sure support you! Y'up, that just don't sound right.
Lannie, I am sure you are not aware, but FFHD is an American in "good standing" and is from my state. It does not mean he is right in what he says, as I took offense to it also.
PS. FFHD, I still like you. Seattle is getting some of the wildest weather after a month of rain (15" record month) a snow storm after thanksgiving, now we have wind storms coming through. We are living up to our reputation!
Were you really a war protester? I didn't think you that old.
I'm 50, and I was a protester starting around age 11. I remember being at a Bobby Kennedy rally at the Santa Barbara Courthouse gardens the day before he was assassinated in Los Angeles. And guess what... my friends and I were wearing "McCarthy for President" buttons and protesting Kennedy because he was too much of a hawk for our tastes. We got attacked physically by some Kennedy supporters who tore our buttons off and chased us away.
Politics might seem dirty and mean now, but trust me, it was even nastier in the late 1960s. Remember the Democratic Convention of 1968? Wow.... what chaos!
But the good thing about that era was that liberals were protesting against their own presumed party. Now everyone marches in lock-step to the beat of the lead drummer of whichever party they belong to. I hate that. We need constant revolution, not violent but a revolution of ideas and independence. Our 2-party system must always be challenged by protest from within each party and from outside both parties. We cannot remain a healthy democracy if we park ourselves in two stagnant camps and fight back and forth like we're on Crossfire or Hannity and Colmes. Blech....
I blame mass media for dumbing us down, constantly bashing us over the head with this "left versus right" nonsense. The world of ideas is not one-dimensional. It's infinite! Think outside the box, think off the left-right line that has been drawn for us. And s.c.r.e.w. mass media for their ratings-driven stupidity.
I blame mass media for dumbing us down, constantly bashing us over the head with this "left versus right" nonsense. The world of ideas is not one-dimensional. It's infinite! Think outside the box, think off the left-right line that has been drawn for us. And s.c.r.e.w. mass media for their ratings-driven stupidity.
Most journalism these days is more about info-tainment.
And that is exactly what happens when the ones running our media outlets --- be they TV, magazines, radio, internet, or newspapers --- are "for profit" corporations whose sole concern is maximizing shareholder profits. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Even worse, there are fewer and fewer media corporations every year. With the legal restrictions on monopolies going away (thanks, Reagan and Clinton), we have more and more media outlets owned by fewer companies every year. It's a monopoly, plan and simple, and even die-hard capitalists will (rightly) tell you that lack of competition is bad for the economy. It's bad for quality, bad for consumers, and ultimately bad for business in the long run.
I'm 50, and I was a protester starting around age 11. I remember being at a Bobby Kennedy rally at the Santa Barbara Courthouse gardens the day before he was assassinated in Los Angeles. And guess what... my friends and I were wearing "McCarthy for President" buttons and protesting Kennedy because he was too much of a hawk for our tastes. We got attacked physically by some Kennedy supporters who tore our buttons off and chased us away.
Politics might seem dirty and mean now, but trust me, it was even nastier in the late 1960s. Remember the Democratic Convention of 1968? Wow.... what chaos!
But the good thing about that era was that liberals were protesting against their own presumed party. Now everyone marches in lock-step to the beat of the lead drummer of whichever party they belong to. I hate that. We need constant revolution, not violent but a revolution of ideas and independence. Our 2-party system must always be challenged by protest from within each party and from outside both parties. We cannot remain a healthy democracy if we park ourselves in two stagnant camps and fight back and forth like we're on Crossfire or Hannity and Colmes. Blech....
I blame mass media for dumbing us down, constantly bashing us over the head with this "left versus right" nonsense. The world of ideas is not one-dimensional. It's infinite! Think outside the box, think off the left-right line that has been drawn for us. And s.c.r.e.w. mass media for their ratings-driven stupidity.
Interesting you were a political animal at 11. My kids are interested in Politics but that started after 911 and they are teens.
Yeah I agree, I think both sides have been so extreme and have let us down for one reason or another and it seems like we are so repulsed by one side verses another we choose the side we can most relate too. I choose the side that still see's the good in this country and I get sick when I hear the left bad mouthing us. I just can't support the hate America crowd.
Now I never said I hated Libs, just don't see eye to eye with them on most things.
Rush Limbaugh suffers from Conservative Psychological Neuroses...
Diversify Colleges' Political Tilt
By Laura Vanderkam, USA Today
Are you prone to fear and aggression? Resistant to change? Intolerant of ambiguity? If so, you have the mind-set to be a political conservative, according to a recently published study in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.
Four researchers from Berkeley, Stanford and the University of Maryland sorted through decades of speeches, court opinions and field studies to see what motivates that strange species known as the conservative. They found, according to a release from Berkeley's press office, "Disparate conservatives share a resistance to change and acceptance of inequality."
For example, Berkeley's press release notes, "Hitler, Mussolini and former president Ronald Reagan were individuals, but all were right-wing conservatives because they preached a return to an idealized past and condoned inequality in some form. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh can be described the same way." The authors claimed they had no political agenda.
I hope someone else reads your post and thinks about it...
Quote:
Originally Posted by AussieGirl
...Resistant to change? Intolerant of ambiguity? If so, you have the mind-set to be a political conservative,
When I was doing grad studies in social psychology in the early 1990s, there were already a lot of studies showing that tolerance for ambiguity is strongly correlated with liberalism.
You can see this very clearly illustrated in the statements uttered by all conservative pundits and politicians --- they love to frame issues in black-and-white terms, and they want you to choose between "good" and "evil." To them, there is no such thing as shades of gray. Such was the mindset of the Taliban, yet this lesson is lost on the non-thinking conservative who merely chooses to goose-step to the dictates of the flag-waving GOP president and the people who script his speeches.
Sadly, your post will only be openly received by those of us who already agree with you. The rest of them will scream "If you're not with us then you're with the terrorists."
p.s. --- look at my post above and then try to explain to me why I was BANNED from another forum for being a "right-wing demagogue." Wow.... San Francisco is intolerant in the opposite direction and I don't see much difference between their black-and-white view of the world and that of the Right. Kinda funny, actually....
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I hope someone else reads your post and thinks about it...
