On May 26, 5:52 am, John Forrest Tomlinson <[email hidden]>
Quoted message said:On Sun, 25 May 2008 18:24:27 -0700 (PDT), Bill C
Quoted message said:The past informs the future JT. How do you seperate people from their
past? You can't seperate Africans from being enslaved, you can't
seperate Jews from the Holocaust, you can't seperate Progressives from
their past either.
Yeah, that's why I'll never vote Democratic. It was the Republicans
that freed the slaves.
JT, I never said it's rational. Lots of those 20 something activists
in the 70s are now 50 something leaders in the progressive movement.
Vets had it massively worse than they do now in the 70s and everyone
admits it's a problem now. You're right it's time to move on, and the
reality is totally different now, but the lives that were lost after
coming home, and those shattered by drugs, and alcohol trying to deal
with the experiences of the war, and the homecoming they had to deal
with aren't going to be miraculously returned, or repaired.
If you can give the folks who made it back home, and then self
destructed their lives back, then I won't have a problem with it
anymore.
I don't trust anyone who was steeped in, and lived an ideology, when
they all of a sudden say "I'm not that person anymore."
I sure as hell try to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I'm
gonna be wary. The best I can do, is what I am now, and recognize that
things have changed significantly and say so.
The good thing is that our generation should be the last generation
this is an issue for. I'm really proud of the fact that almost
everyone has learned from the past mistakes on all sides, and aren't
repeating them.
It's a great thing that people today can seperate the civilian
politicians, and their policies from the folks who are stuck carrying
it out. I'm proud of the fact that we can have the disagreements, and
peaceful protests now without people on either side getting abused.
That's what democracy is supposed to be about, and how it's supposed
to work.
Tha saddest part is that a ton of those kids wanted no part of it,
were drafted into it, given next to nothing to prepare them for it,
treated like [censored] by the non-draftee/career types, and then came home
to be abused for something they never wanted any part of, and were
pretty much totally abandoned by the government that forced them to go
fight too.
http://www.suicidewall.com/SWStats.html
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DE1038F932A35756C0A967958260
Vietnam Vets Built Memorial Themselves; The Hostile Reaction
Published: May 1, 1991
To the Editor:
As a Vietnam veteran who teaches and writes on the war, it was with
keen interest and a growing sense of astonishment that I read "The
Unforgotten Vietnam Vet" by Eric T. Dean Jr. (Op-Ed, April 18). Mr.
Dean's thesis is that American society, contrary to conventional
wisdom, has been obsessed with welcoming home the Vietnam veterans.
Vietnam veterans, he argues, were neither unpopular nor neglected.
Since I have never met a Vietnam veteran who does not say that coming
home was one of the most difficult and wrenching aspects of the entire
experience, this thesis deserves further comment.
<<snipped>>
I doubt that Mr. Dean ever experienced as an undergraduate, as I did
at the University of Massachusetts in 1973, a professor ordering him
in a class to explain what it felt like to "murder innocent peasants
in Southeast Asia." Or being told by a fellow student that she had "a
real moral dilemma" over whether to invite him to a party at her home.
Or countless other demonstrations of animosity that do not show up in
polls.
More reading there, and welcome to Happy Valley here.
I'm tired of being told that this never happened and I'm making it up.
Segregation happened, women as second class citizens happened, bias
against just about every type of immigrant happened and still is,
etc...
The only way to deal with any of this stuff is to admit it, talk
about all aspects of it, and learn from each other Denial doesn't
help.
You don't do that, and I really appreciate and respect that. While we
may disagree I really respect you, and your arguments, and thank you,
and others here for showing me your view of things in a positive
fashion.
I know it makes me a better person. The blanket garbage that gets
spewed around today about Liberal/Progressives being un-patriotic/un-
American is ridiculous. The people are supposed to challenge and
question the folks in Washington. We're also supposed to be able to
get rid of them fairly easily if we disagree with them and their
actions What's blatantly un-American is the rigging of the system,
done by incumbents, so that incumbents are protected, and have a
massive advantage over anyone opposing them. Spouting ditto, and
blindly waving a flag, don't make you a patriot. Questioning the
government, and protesting their actions right up to violence, or
violating people's rights doesn't make you un-American. Seems to me
that's the foundation of the American tradition.
Doesn't matter what you think of her, and her arguments, until Cindy
Sheehan starts doing radio spots for Al-Qaeda she's acting in the true
American tradition and is jst as patriotic as those attacking her.
I'd be hard pressed to think of anything more patriotic, in the true
sense, than dissenting from the government, within the Constitution,
and fighting to limit the power of the federal government and protect
our freedoms from the government.
I think it'd be easier to get past if there were more , not even
apologies, but concessions that maybe they could've treated folks
coming home better, maybe seperated the people in uniform from those
making the policy, or that they made mistakes too, but I really
haven't seen much of that. I could've missed it, and Fonda's "apology"
was only for posing on the anti-aircraft gun that was killing American
pilots, not for her support for the cause.
I'm sure you can see the difference between disagreeing, and
protesting our actions, and active support for an enemy. It's the
latter that I object to. That's why I wont call the vast majority of
the anti-Vietnam war folks, or those opposing the current mess un-
American, traitors, or anything like that. They aren't, and weren't
actively working for, and supporting the enemy. Those are far, and
few, in between. Their actions may help the enemy inadvertantly, but
so does our not cutting as much petroleum out as possible because
people like the Saudis channel some of that money directly to the
terrorists, and enemy. What's worse?
Bill C
