Columbia Leaders Grilled at Antisemitism Hearing

[Mickeypoo]

(04-30-2024, 11:55 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: On it's face I agree, it makes very little sense.  Islam, as it is practiced in most of the world, is a very regressive and authoritarian ideology.  But when you look at it through the lens these kids use, which is who is powerful and who is not, Islam is a victim.  What countries are the most powerful?  Western nations are largely Christian, especially historically, and the most powerful.  These kids view everything as either powerful or not powerful, extrapolated further in oppressor versus oppressed.  So to them, Islam is an oppressed ideology by the racist and more powerful western nations.  Not coincidentally the western nations the vast majority of these kids grew up in.  When kids go through their rebellious phase they rebel against the status quo, what they grew up immersed in, and are ultimately "oppressed" by.  Add it a small smattering of education on western intervention in the region and you get what you see today.

This is why you get the apparent cognitive dissonance of advocating for communism, an ideology that has murdered millions, considerably more than any other on Earth.  That's why they can wear a Che Guevara shirt, while ignoring that he was a bigoted, homophobic murderer.  And that's why they can praise Islam despite it being openly misogynistic in just about everywhere it predominates.  Despite it being openly and vehemently homophobic in the exact same fashion.  It's not about ideological consistency, it's about oppressed versus oppressor, and to these kids the "oppressed" are always right, always virtuous and always victimized.  And that's why they view Israel as the bad guy/oppressor, and even a vile terrorist organization like Hamas as a victim/oppressed.

Sounds like they needed to be raised better/have a better education.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-02-2024, 03:05 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote:

I could, if I wanted to be really bored, respond to all of this tripe.  But I found one particularly interesting example in your "law4palestine" list of "calls for genocide".

5 17/11/2023 Binyamin Netanyahu Prime Minister genocidal intent/civilian harm/collective punishment "It is necessary to make cultural changes in Gaza such as in Japan and Germany following WWII" 


Anyone think changing the culture of Germany or Japan post WW2 was a call for genocide of those people?  Last I looked both groups appear to still be around and going strong.  Also, last I looked a cultural change was absolutely necessary for both, and to their current benefit.

You're stuck in your "glory days" protesting a unpopular war and you've latched onto this current protest as a way to relive those days and equate the current struggle to your youth.  Your vehement denial of Vietnam protestors spitting on veterans makes a lot more sense now, hits too close to home.  Sorry, dude this isn't the same thing, the current kids are not you with slightly better grooming and less patchouli oil.  You're advocating for literally one of the most evil groups on the planet Earth, and you desperately want to be perceived as being right.   You're not, and an increasingly greater majority sees that.  No amount of ham fisted attempts at mitigating the actions of terrorists will change that.

Funny you mention this.  As a school project my son and a couple friends did a documentary on the unjust/unfair treatment of Vietnam Veterans.  I understand protesting the war, but the protesters who directly protested those poor soldiers are just about the lowest scumbags on the face of the earth.  No logic. No reason.  Just all feelzed up.  You'd think they could put the maybe 2 brain cells they have together and think about protesting the Gov't who was actually responsible for sending the soldiers to fight instead of the actual soldiers who had no choice.  Total scumbags.  I hope they drown in their patchouli.

[Dill]

(05-06-2024, 04:53 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Funny you mention this.  As a school project my son and a couple friends did a documentary on the unjust/unfair treatment of Vietnam Veterans.  I understand protesting the war, but the protesters who directly protested those poor soldiers are just about the lowest scumbags on the face of the earth.  No logic. No reason.  Just all feelzed up.  You'd think they could put the maybe 2 brain cells they have together and think about protesting the Gov't who was actually responsible for sending the soldiers to fight instead of the actual soldiers who had no choice.  Total scumbags.  I hope they drown in their patchouli.

Just curious Mick. 

Why do you think Vietnam protestors were protesting the soldiers and not the war and its leaders

Also, you were aware that many veterans protested the war as well, right? 

[Dill]

(05-06-2024, 04:29 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: And here we are a week later with ultra weak leaders scared, for whatever reason, to put the smack down.

As soon as any of the protests started interfering with the students or campus it should have been shut down immediately.  The weakness is just astounding.  These are not leaders of college campuses; they must have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night because they are just a bunch of scared little babies.

This bs is what happens when you have weakness and feelz rolled up into a nice safe space Lefty Progressive ball of chit.  Should have been shut down day 1.  

A lot of people share your feelings on this I'm sure. They see "weakness" whenever unpopular protests are not immediately shut down by force.

There is a double problem here though.

1) The protestors have a 1st Amendment right to free speech. Hard to shut them down without shutting that down.

2) On college campuses, academic freedom also comes into play. College leaders who don't respect that won't be around long.

There is precedent for use of extreme force. E.g., May, 4, 1970, Ohio Gov. Rhodes, a strong leader, called in the nation guard to quell demonstrations at
Kent State. And the soldiers who illegally fired into the students killing 4 (2 merely on their way to class) and wounding 9 others were acquitted. So it can definitely be done.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-07-2024, 07:28 PM)Dill Wrote: Just curious Mick. 

Why do you think Vietnam protestors were protesting the soldiers and not the war and its leaders

Also, you were aware that many veterans protested the war as well, right? 

Not the sharpest crayons in the box?

Yes.  I didn't say protesting the war was bad.  I said taking it out on the Veterans who had no choice vs the Gov't who sent them there was not cool.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-07-2024, 07:45 PM)Dill Wrote: A lot of people share your feelings on this I'm sure. They see "weakness" whenever unpopular protests are not immediately shut down by force.

There is a double problem here though.

1) The protestors have a 1st Amendment right to free speech. Hard to shut them down without shutting that down.

2) On college campuses, academic freedom also comes into play. College leaders who don't respect that won't be around long.

There is precedent for use of extreme force. E.g., May, 4, 1970, Ohio Gov. Rhodes, a strong leader, called in the nation guard to quell demonstrations at
Kent State. And the soldiers who illegally fired into the students killing 4 (2 merely on their way to class) and wounding 9 others were acquitted. So it can definitely be done.

Because it is weakness.

Extreme force? I'm not advocating going in shooting.  Good grief.  Peaceful protests that are not disrupting the campus or it's students, fine.  As soon as that changes start arresting/removing people.  This is not complicated.

Again, when did I say peaceful protests should be shut down?

Protestors do not have a right to disrupt college campuses and keep students from the education they are paying for.  Well, the ones not covered by Biden's vote buying anyway.

Academic freedom?  Colleges are practically left wing echo chambers run by left wing activists at this point.

Not seeing any leaders at any of these colleges.  If there were, none of this would be a story as the campuses would have shut down the issues as soon as they became less than peaceful.

[Dill]

(05-08-2024, 02:28 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: Not the sharpest crayons in the box?

Yes.  I didn't say protesting the war was bad.  I said taking it out on the Veterans who had no choice vs the Gov't who sent them there was not cool.

Sure, I was just saying that I don't recall protests attacking veterans---especially since veterans were an
important part of the protests.

Notice in the pictures, protestors call for the return of troops, getting them out of harms way, and they blame
Johnson and Nixon for the war.

What makes you think protestors were taking it out on veterans who had no choice but to go?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-08-2024, 05:23 PM)Dill Wrote: Sure, I was just saying that I don't recall protests attacking veterans---especially since veterans were an
important part of the protests.

That's funny, my father and his friends sure can.

[GMDino]

(05-08-2024, 06:09 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: That's funny, my father and his friends sure can.

My dad and uncles can't.  

Guess my personal experience cancels out yours?

Funny.   


Okay that's obviously sarcasm....but the point remains that not everyone had the same experience.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-08-2024, 08:50 PM)GMDino Wrote: My dad and uncles can't.

Where they Vietnam vets? 

Quote:Guess my personal experience cancels out yours?

Funny.   


Okay that's obviously sarcasm....but the point remains that not everyone had the same experience.

I have no doubt experiences varied.  What I take issue with now, and the first time he asserted it, is the claim that those types of events never occurred.

[Mickeypoo]

(05-08-2024, 05:23 PM)Dill Wrote: Sure, I was just saying that I don't recall protests attacking veterans---especially since veterans were an
important part of the protests.

Notice in the pictures, protestors call for the return of troops, getting them out of harms way, and they blame
Johnson and Nixon for the war.

What makes you think protestors were taking it out on veterans who had no choice but to go?

For starters, my son and his friends did a crap ton of research.

I'm blaming the "leaders" er activists pretending to be leaders at the colleges.

This is stupid simple stuff.  Peaceful protest = not disrupting students ability to learn, go to class, etc. = not a problem.  Protests that cause problems for the students and/or the campus = a problem = immediate removal of problem.  Weak leaders = not removing the problem OR leaders who agree with the protest not removing the problem.  

[Mickeypoo]

(05-08-2024, 08:50 PM)GMDino Wrote: My dad and uncles can't.  

Guess my personal experience cancels out yours?

Funny.   


Okay that's obviously sarcasm....but the point remains that not everyone had the same experience.

I've never experienced racism.  Must be all made up bs.  

When did anyone say all Vietnam Vets had the same experience or that all humans have the same experiences?  What are you even talking about?

[GMDino]

(05-09-2024, 08:12 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: I've never experienced racism.  Must be all made up bs.  

When did anyone say all Vietnam Vets had the same experience or that all humans have the same experiences?  What are you even talking about?

I don't know if you are white or black or Asian or what, but if you are white and never experienced racism you're gonna tick off a lot of people who claim whites are as oppressed as every other group due to reverse racism!  

SSF has twisted what Dill said in another thread to say that Dill said it "never happened" that veterans were the victim of protests or bad treatment.  That is not what Dill said.  It was clarified many times to SSF but he continues to lie about that. 

So when it brought it to this thread that his personal experience trumps everything else I responded.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-09-2024, 09:07 AM)GMDino Wrote: I don't know if you are white or black or Asian or what, but if you are white and never experienced racism you're gonna tick off a lot of people who claim whites are as oppressed as every other group due to reverse racism!  

SSF has twisted what Dill said in another thread to say that Dill said it "never happened" that veterans were the victim of protests or bad treatment.  That is not what Dill said.  It was clarified many times to SSF but he continues to lie about that. 

So when it brought it to this thread that his personal experience trumps everything else I responded.

No, you're lying.  He flat out said that vets being spat on was a "myth".  Myth is in quotes there because that's exactly what he said.  Now, please inform the class if a myth is something that happened or did not happen?  

Here's the post in full so you can't weasel and say it was edited.

(08-09-2023, 10:17 PM)Dill Wrote: Could very well be. The question of whether such things happened is often raised in college history courses on the '60s. From my memory, protestors and hippies and the like were more worried about being beaten up by gung ho active duty types. I do remember returning vets being largely welcomed into protests movements, which many eagerly joined. They became one of the most important constituents of the anti-war movement. 

As far as the myth of the spitting protestors, it seems to have emerged in the '90s. 
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-vietnam-protester.html
“So where do these stories come from?”
The reporter was asking about accounts that soldiers returning from Vietnam had been spat on by antiwar activists. I had told her the stories were not true. I told her that, on the contrary, opponents of the war had actually tried to recruit returning veterans. I told her about a 1971 Harris Poll survey that found that 99 percent of veterans said their reception from friends and family had been friendly, and 94 percent said their reception from age-group peers, the population most likely to have included the spitters, was friendly.

A follow-up poll, conducted in 1979 for the Veterans Administration (now the Department of Veterans Affairs), reported that former antiwar activists had warmer feelings toward Vietnam veterans than toward congressional leaders or even their erstwhile fellow travelers in the movement.

There are several books on the subject. Could be written by "leftists" though.
Spat on Veterans: An Enduring Myth
https://www.fromthesquare.org/spat-on-veterans-an-enduring-myth/
 
The Los Angeles Times editorialized that it was a mythical image—an edifying myth, said editor Michael McGough, but still a myth.

Apparently, Wall Street Journal editors did not get the memo. Its January 30, 2023, pages carried Jerry Davis’s “Vietnam War Veterans Deserve an Apology.” In the article, Davis claims that “veterans were often advised not to wear their uniforms lest they become targets for mistreatment. Some were cursed, spat on, and worse.” He goes on to say that “Vietnam veterans often had trouble getting jobs.”

Little in what Davis says is true. To fly home free on a commercial airline, returnees from Vietnam had to be in uniform. Employers were required to hire-back men drafted for Vietnam upon their return. It is true that plant closings in the auto and steel industries in the late 1970s hit Vietnam veterans hard—but that is not what Davis is writing about.

There is no evidence that Vietnam veterans were spat on. Nor could they have been, at least not in the manner described in the most often told stories. Those stories tell of landing at San Francisco Airport and being met by groups of spitters, often hippies. But flights from Vietnam landed at military airbases like Travis outside San Francisco; protesters could not have gotten on the airbase, much less near deplaning troops.

Legend of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/legend-of-the-spat-upon-vietnam-veteran/

In his exhaustive book entitled “The Spitting Image,” Vietnam vet and Holy Cross professor Jerry Lembcke documents veterans who claim they were spat on by anti-war protesters, but he found no physical evidence (photographs, news reports, etc.) that these transgressions actually occurred. His findings are supported by surveys of his fellow Vietnam veterans as they came home.

For instance, Lembcke notes that “a U.S. Senate study, based on data collected in August 1971 by Harris Associates, found that 75 percent of Vietnam-era veterans polled disagreed with the statement, ‘Those people at home who opposed the Vietnam War often blame veterans for our involvement there’ ” while “94 percent said their reception by people their own age who had not served in the armed forces was friendly.”

Meanwhile, the Veterans’ World Project at Southern Illinois University found that many Vietnam vets supported the anti-war protest, with researchers finding almost no veterans “finish(ing) their service in Vietnam believing that what the United States has done there has served to forward our nation’s purposes.”

In the face of such data, why would the current president nonetheless repeat the apocryphal myth about spat-on Vietnam veterans? Because — facts be damned — it serves a purpose: to suppress protest and perpetuate the ideology of militarism.

This objective is achieved through the narrative’s preposterous assumptions. Metaphorically, if not explicitly, the mythology equates anti-war activism with dishonoring the troops; implies that such protest is kryptonite to the Pentagon’s Superman; and therefore insinuates that America loses wars not when policies are wrong, but when dissent is tolerated.

So in the same post he claims vets being spat on was a "myth."  He cites sources that claim there is "no evidence it ever happened", that such events are a "legend", and that they are an "apocryphal myth."

So please tie yourself in knots trying to defend your buddy from the fact that he claimed such events never happened.  I think the above rather speaks for itself.  

[GMDino]

(05-09-2024, 11:52 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: No, you're lying.  He flat out said that vets being spat on was a "myth".  Myth is in quotes there because that's exactly what he said.  Now, please inform the class if a myth is something that happened or did not happen?  

Here's the post in full so you can't weasel and say it was edited.


So in the same post he claims vets being spat on was a "myth."  He cites sources that claim there is "no evidence it ever happened", that such events are a "legend", and that they are an "apocryphal myth."

So please tie yourself in knots trying to defend your buddy from the fact that he claimed such events never happened.  I think the above rather speaks for itself.  

No knot tying needed.  As I said it was a discussion in another thread.  It went on a long time.  Everything was explained.  But you, like a dog with a bone, hate Dill so much that you had to keep ignoring the bigger discussion to maintain your point.

(08-10-2023, 07:11 AM)Dill Wrote: I don't think anyone is disputing that protests occurred either of the Vietnam or the Iraq War.

The question is whether veterans were spit upon by protestors when they got home. Or to refine this a bit--the question is about whether and how much such alleged "spitting incidents" should be taken as representative of vets homecoming from the Vietnam War, since the issue is rarely raised in a political vacuum.

So this is more about establishing history than rewriting it. As far as I can tell, no one can find photographs or news accounts from the period in question which confirm the spitting--though there is a great deal of news footage and many photographs.  And many vets dispute it.

This columnist from Desert News, Bob Greene, got over a thousand replies when he posed the question to his readers. He selected some here for interesting reading. Many claim the spitting stories are bunk.  But the common thread that runs through them is that their service was not acknowledged. People had no idea what they had gone through and didn't seem to care. (As with many current A-stan and Iraq vets.) One claims he was indeed spit on, every day in Vietnam by Agent Orange and the government which sent him on a losing mission. https://www.deseret.com/1989/2/4/18800994/vietnam-vets-recall-their-homecomings-often-painfully

My own memories of the period (I began college in fall of '69, with vets all over the campus) are dominated by returning veterans joining the anti-war effort. They were probably the most visible group of returning vets. Most appear to have just gone home and integrated back into life. Of the 7-8 vets I knew from HS, only half went to Vietnam, and only one was killed. 

As far as your question "why are we rewriting history," in this particular case, the rewriting appears to have begun in earnest in the late '80s and early '90s. I've wondered if Hollywood films might have something to do with it as well. (Didn't Rambo say he was spit on?) Events which may not have happened, or happened very rarely, became a dominant representation of  the war for people who learned about it decades later, a fact easily integrated with the U.S. very own Dolchstosslegende--liberals stabbed the military in the back. The war was lost on the home front, etc. 

Seems to me that David Sirota's conclusion, from the ST link in my previous post, suggest why some groups would want to rewrite history, not only of Vietnam but other wars, like the Iraq War, as well.

Metaphorically, if not explicitly, the mythology equates anti-war activism with dishonoring the troops; implies that such protest is kryptonite to the Pentagon’s Superman; and therefore insinuates that America loses wars not when policies are wrong, but when dissent is tolerated.

Part of the "news legs" this issue gets is, it seems to me, derives from the ideological club it provides for revisionist history. If there are vets who were spat upon and otherwise disrespected when they returned, they'd have to experience this question as one more act of disrespect. Can't question the right wing revision of the war, then, without questioning those personal experiences--so "attacking the troops" yet again. No one who seriously wants to know what happened will treat the question that way, but there are strong ideological motivations here to keep the issue hot and muddled, in hopes the villains in U.S. history continue to be the people who wanted us out of such disastrous wars, not the people/policies that got  Americans into them. 

(08-10-2023, 09:34 AM)Dill Wrote: No one can determine for certain that no vet was EVER spat upon on returning home--over 2 million returned--but one can determine whether it was a "common experience" as SSF puts it. Just as one can determine whether pro-war demonstrators more commonly attacked anti-war demonstrators--which often included vets.

So Dill cited some polling and historical research which pretty much settles the question of how "common" spitting was, without disputing that some vets have claimed it. I.e., not very. The overwhelming number polled in 1979 remember their homecoming as positive. And when they remember protests, they seem to recall them as directed at the government, not the vets whose support they welcomed.

One of the books referred to in Sirota's Times article (linked in my previous post), Vietnam Vet Jerry Lembke's The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, includes accounts of veterans who claim to be spat upon. But could not confirm any of them (e.g., by interviewing other vets who returned with the a guy who claimed he was spit upon and don't remember spitting). 

Spitting gets termed a "myth" in this book, as in others, not because the author claimed it never happened, but because of how, through the machinations of politicians and Hollywood, it comes to be taken as something that regularly occurred. Representative.

Lembke thinks the myth really took off in 1990, as George H.W. Bush referred to VV spitters in a speech to drum up support for the Gulf War. And the use of the spitting image in revisionist history is what keeps people talking about it now. Like missing POWs. It would be interesting to survey still living vets to see if spitting stories break down along party lines.

(Another strange phenomena about the VN War--the number of people who claimed to have served there but did not. Millions according to David Hack's US Wings website: https://www.uswings.com/about-us-wings/vietnam-war-facts/ It would be interesting to know if and how many of those wannabes remember being spit upon. That would confirm the "myth" status.)

(08-10-2023, 09:30 AM)GMDino Wrote: I'm not willing to say no soldier was ever spit on.  It's a big country and everyone has their own individual experiences that we can't discount.  We also can't extrapolate them to encompass everyone else either.

I am willing to ask if some of the "soldiers were spit on" was metaphorical also.  I didn't know about any of the above writings and have not even bothered to go through it all yet though.

I don't know if that's "moral courage" or just having a discussion.  Someone will let me know.

(08-10-2023, 09:54 AM)Dill Wrote: No one is willing to say "no soldier was ever spit on." 

The interest for me is just how the notion took off decades after the war to become, for younger generations, a stereotypical but false image from that period in U.S. history.

Many vets claim it was the government which forgot them, and have claimed that since the war, 
so from a certain ideological position it becomes very useful to deflect that critique onto people who rightly protested the war.

THEY (protestors) mistreated soldiers. etc. While true patriots supported the troops--and, of course, the government's policies.

I always keep the wider ramifications of this kind of revisionism in mind as well, and whom it might serve. E.g.  Ramaswamy wants to abolish the Dept. of Education and, I guess, start from scratch with a kind of education that instills students with "patriotism" and pride in their country. I think that will mean an embrace of revisionist history wherever opportunity presents itself. And if you critique the spit myth in that hodge podge you are attacking the vets, yet again. 
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/vivek-ramaswamy-abolish-department-education-overhaul-education

(08-10-2023, 11:58 AM)GMDino Wrote: That's a shame.  I'm sure some, many, were met with all kinds of different people when they came back. Protestors at a military base seems more likely to have had the vitriol then a small town in SW PA where my family was.

I think that's all I and Dill have said:  Everyone had a different experience and some of what is "well known" thanks to the media may not have been as wide-spread as we were told when we were growing up. 

If it happened to your own family you are probably more likely to feel like it happened more everywhere else too and probably take it a lot more personally.  

Back to the topic of the thread I'm not sure what any of this had to do with Ramaswamy' crazy "ideas" though other than trying to make youth "love our country more".

(08-10-2023, 06:46 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL "Us" again.  Your quote below, from post #60, was the occasion for my use of your term "common experience."  

"As SSF puts it," followed ONLY by the two words singled out, just means that I am appropriating your TERM as I state one can determine WHETHER spitting was a common experience. I did not say "as SSF claims" it is, as I would have if that is what I meant. And even if I had, the appropriate response would have been a simple, "No that's not what I'm saying," rather than stridently accusing me of lying and linking me, by misconstructed analogy, to Holocaust denial.*  That sort of hyper-emotional and unjustified personal attack, while you are revealing MY character, shuts down threads as well as debate.

In any case, based on the case I've referred to in previous posts--books and polls of vets and documentary evidence from the period--being spit on was not a common experience. Not even close. So why are you "avoiding my points," as you frequently put it? 


The flipside now--Dill has not been "arguing that it never happened." And you just responded to a post which states that plainly. 

So why isn't the misrepresentation bolded above a "flat out lie," as you put it?

My posts are not about "invalidating the experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam";
They are about invalidating the MYTH that this was a common and representative experience.

And I've given the reasons why so many Vietnam Vets agree with me on this point--it's really THEIR argument, after all--e.g. it deflects criticism FROM the people and policies who created the Vietnam mess and deflects it TO the people who criticized that war and will likely be criticizing future wars as well. But you are not interested in THAT evidence. It's "anecdotal" coming from vets whose experiences you don't mind invalidating to keep your private grievances against "the left" going.

You cannot refute that argument, so you once again make it personal, framing the issue as "personal invalidation," ignoring that I specifically acknowledged how a vet who actually was spit on might feel. You claim to put forward your father's testimony, then make any further contextualization of it a personal insult to him if it does not support your narrative. That closes any further possibility of open discussion and assessment of the factual record of this issue in veteran history, but leaves you in your preferred position of strident, personal moral condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you. Not the first time. 

I'm not going to trade accusations of "ingenuousness" with you. And you are not going to respond to my evidence-based argument as an evidence-based argument. So "we" probably don't require any further revelation of my character. 

*Holocaust denial does not start with people trying to verify historical facts, but with denying facts to create an alternative history based emotional appeal and predetermined political goals, not the historical record. Have you even bothered actually reading such denials? Have you forgotten your recent complaint about people who argue by linking opponents to the worst people? Why do you always except yourself from the rules you want others to follow? 

I'm sure THOSE quotes are all "wrong" and you are right and I am "defending my buddy" in your eyes.

And honestly that's ok.  I've seen enough to understand where you come from with this.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-09-2024, 12:17 PM)GMDino Wrote: No knot tying needed.  As I said it was a discussion in another thread.  It went on a long time.  Everything was explained.  But you, like a dog with a bone, hate Dill so much that you had to keep ignoring the bigger discussion to maintain your point.









I'm sure THOSE quotes are all "wrong" and you are right and I am "defending my buddy" in your eyes.

And honestly that's ok.  I've seen enough to understand where you come from with this.

So predictable.  All of those came after the post I quoted.  This is what is know as "walking it back".  Dill said something stupid.  Dill got called out.  Dill slowly walked said statement back, all the while claiming her never really said what he initially said.  If Luvnit or another conservative poster went through this process you'd have put him through the ringer.  But it's the guy you share a brain with, so you'll defend him to the hilt.

Dino, it's ok to disagree with Dill every once in a while.  They won't come and take away your progressive membership card.

[Dill]

(05-09-2024, 08:09 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: For starters, my son and his friends did a crap ton of research.

Did they find out anything about the causes of the war, what the protestors were really protesting?

(05-09-2024, 08:09 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: I'm blaming the "leaders" er activists pretending to be leaders at the colleges.

This is stupid simple stuff.  Peaceful protest = not disrupting students ability to learn, go to class, etc. = not a problem.  Protests that cause problems for the students and/or the campus = a problem = immediate removal of problem.  Weak leaders = not removing the problem OR leaders who agree with the protest not removing the problem.  

I'm wondering if a "strong" leader who cleared the protests right away might not have created a bigger problem--and lost her job.

I remember how, back in the 60s, "strong" leaders got blowback from quashing protests that caused problems--especially in Chicago and Birmingham.
They gave the advantage and the moral high ground to the protestors.

I'm betting today's university presidents are very familiar with that history. That's historical memory is what makes them "weak."

[Dill]

(05-09-2024, 12:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: So predictable.  All of those came after the post I quoted.  This is what is know as "walking it back".  Dill said something stupid.  Dill got called out.  Dill slowly walked said statement back, all the while claiming her never really said what he initially said.  If Luvnit or another conservative poster went through this process you'd have put him through the ringer.  But it's the guy you share a brain with, so you'll defend him to the hilt.

Dino, it's ok to disagree with Dill every once in a while.  They won't come and take away your progressive membership card.

No. Dino represented the debate correctly. And calmly, I might add.  

The "first post [you] quoted" cites three sources which speak of the "myth" or "legend" of the spat upon vet. History professors now teach courses on the myth of the  the absence of evidence for it. Typical dill move--start with the factual record and historians' research.

I asked how the myth that all these historians are talking about got started and suggested: "it seems to have emerged in the 90s."

Your argument is:

1) Dill and the war researchers said "myth" when addressing the widespread belief that many vets were spat on when they deplaned from Vietnam.
2) A myth is something that did not happen! (See dictionary!)
3) That means Dill et al. claimed no vet was EVER spat on not at all even once, and that is the POINT, not all that talk about politically useful narratives.
4) Your Dad has a friend who says he was spat on--so you've got some third-hand testimony years after the fact that at least one vet WAS spit on.
5) So the "myth" cannot be a myth because at least one or a few somehow were spat upon. (See dictionary again.)
6) Ergo Dill is LYING when, following all those researchers, he calls the vets-spat-on legend a "myth," plus he's calling your Dad a "liar"! And you have the "proof."
7) Further, he is just "walking back" the LIE when he specifies the "myth" is the claim that being spat upon was "representative" because it was always really about claiming no one vet EVER etc.

So what is more likely--A) that sources in "the post first quoted" who use the term "myth" were careless non-professionals determined to prove that no vet could possibly have ever been spit on not even one time and you have exposed them and me as "liars," or

B) they were addressing a general belief, used as a political narrative, that many returning vets were spat on--which sent them looking for evidence that they have not yet found. Hence their provisional conclusion that the general belief is a "myth," as in false, not true (see dictionary). But you just want to believe "A" anyway because it suits you to claim I'm a LIAR (I said "myth"!) and it stops a discussion undermining a right wing narrative about Vietnam and protestors? 

I'm going with "B."  What you call "walking back" is just me trying to correct your origanl misunderstanding, which you cannot let go:

My posts are not about "invalidating the experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam";
They are about invalidating the MYTH that this was a common and representative experience.

I certainly still do think the bolded is correct, not a "lie," and not refuted by any 3rd hand testimony you introduce. There is at least one law professor who claims he found newspaper evidence from the period. And there was an interesting debate over the evidence in Slate some years back. We could have gone on to debate whether spitting was a common experience or whether it is just another right wing narrative generated before the Gulf War. Many people falsely claimed to be Vietnam veterans after the war, and many veterans falsely claimed combat experience. I'd like to find out how many of those also "remember" being spat upon. etc.

But no. We got a rage post begging the moderators indulgence because I called your father a LIAR and was like Holocaust deniers who discount testimony.
I.e, Typical SSF move--drive up emotion, call your opponent "liar." Then "stand by" your original claim without addressing the refutation or the facts.

So a learning moment about how historical evidence is vetted and the limits of inference from evidence was quashed to protect an ideological narrative. Yet again.

[GMDino]

(05-09-2024, 12:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: So predictable.  All of those came after the post I quoted.  This is what is know as "walking it back".  Dill said something stupid.  Dill got called out.  Dill slowly walked said statement back, all the while claiming her never really said what he initially said.  If Luvnit or another conservative poster went through this process you'd have put him through the ringer.  But it's the guy you share a brain with, so you'll defend him to the hilt.

Dino, it's ok to disagree with Dill every once in a while.  They won't come and take away your progressive membership card.

It's not about me or Luvnit or anyone else you want to name check.

It was called clarifying.  You jumped to a conclusion and Dill defended his point and made sure to be clear.

That you won't admit it, and continue to bring it up, is on you not him.

[Dill]

(05-09-2024, 05:06 PM)GMDino Wrote: It's not about me or Luvnit or anyone else you want to name check.
It was called clarifying.  You jumped to a conclusion and Dill defended his point and made sure to be clear.
That you won't admit it, and continue to bring it up, is on you not him.

What was interesting about that exchange was the trigger, namely Mickey's story about his
son learning that Vietnam protestors were protesting soldiers as opposed to LBJ, Nixon, and the Pentagon.

I.e., the "myth" that many or most vets were spit on or otherwise attacked by protestors when they arrived
back in the US.  To requote one of my statements on the issue:

No one is willing to say "no soldier was ever spit on." 
The interest for me is just how the notion took off decades after the war to become, for younger generations, a stereotypical but false image from that period in U.S. history.
Many vets claim it was the government which forgot them, and have claimed that since the war, 
so from a certain ideological position it becomes very useful to deflect that critique onto people who rightly protested the war.
THEY (protestors) mistreated soldiers. etc. While true patriots supported the troops--and, of course, the government's policies.

This lines up with the recent history of masses of Americans convinced that the Russia investigation was "fake" and the 2020 election was "rigged." 

Except historical revision of events which used to take decades now occurs in a few months.

Now right wing "memory" of the Vietnam War protests--which placed responsibility for the debacle on government/Pentagon lies--returns to define a new generation of protestors as infantile and lacking the facts, etc. and in dire need of violent comeuppance. As in '68, a "strong" authoritarian president, willing to bend democracy to his will, is waiting in the wings to restore order.