[sanjuro]

I went to a free concert in Golden Gate Park. I usually avoid the big events around the city, so I was a little surprised to take part in this dialog: two guys were arguing abou the war and Bush, but both from the anti-war side.

Anyway, I joined in and asked one guy who was yelling about the soldiers if he blamed them for the war. And he said yes, because they chose to fought.

With that kind of logic, I knew there was no reasoning with him. The other guy in this argument was sarcastically calling him "a pacifist". The jerk responded, "I'm no pacifist" in a rather most threatening tone.

I finally decided to shut him up by saying, "yeah, he's no pacifist. He's going to the airport to punch a soldier in the face..."

 

[Westy]

I've heard if you can kill them with fresh bathwater and bullets made from soap.

 

[BurlyShirley]

Yeah, why even argue anymore? Its not as if somebody actually has a "correct answer". Its so speculative and subjectively driven anytime some "has a plan". Blaming soldiers for fighting is stupid though. You live in SF though. If I lived in Alaska, I wouldnt complain about the snow.

 

[$tinkle]

how was the music?
any political overtones? (as if that could be avoided in SF)
what do hippie boobs look like?

 

[H8R]

I went to a free concert in Golden Gate Park...

Jesus! What were you thinking????


The only thing that would make me go to a free show in SF would be the promise that hippies and homeless people were going to be publicly slaughtered.

 

[sanjuro]

how was the music?
any political overtones? (as if that could be avoided in SF)
what do hippie boobs look like?

It was actually a very cool concert, Hardly Simply Bluegrass http://www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com/. They had 5 stages, and I saw North Mississippi All-Stars, a very heavy jam band.

No hippie boobies this time, too many families around. I did sit next to a bunch of drunken ex college kids, who kept falling on each other and making out.

 

[$tinkle]

The only thing that would make me go to a free show in SF would be the promise that hippies and homeless people were going to be publicly slaughtered.

you a closet hobosexual?

better blatent than latent!

 

[H8R]

you a closet hobosexual?

better blatent than latent!

I don't fvck hobos, I cook them and use them for glue.

 

[$tinkle]

I don't fvck hobos, I cook them and use them for glue.

http://hobosexual.com

how 'bout now, cottonhole joe?

 

[H8R]

http://hobosexual.com

how 'bout now, cottonhole joe?

Wow.

You suck.

 

[ohio]

how was the music?
any political overtones? (as if that could be avoided in SF)
what do hippie boobs look like?

In the crowd, yes. In the music, not much. It's bluegrass... southern mountain music.

A couple of songs about miners getting trampled by the man. Interrupted every couple of minutes by the Blue Angels screaming overhead in formation - it was also Fleet Week. All the yuppies and frat boys lined up in the Marina and North Beach, while all the trustafarians and wine country cowboys descended on the park.

 

[Westy]

So a real question. According to this most Iraqis want the US out. The Iraqi gov has the right to ask us to leave but I doubt they ever would as it would most likely cause their demise. So at what point do we actually leave, when the US public sees fit, when the US gov sees fit. when the Iraqi gov asks or when it becomes a popular movement.

 

[$tinkle]

So a real question. According to this most Iraqis want the US out. The Iraqi gov has the right to ask us to leave but I doubt they ever would as it would most likely cause their demise. So at what point do we actually leave, when the US public sees fit, when the US gov sees fit. when the Iraqi gov asks or when it becomes a popular movement.

"out" as defined in germany, belgium, japan, SK, saudi arabia, et. al.?
or "out" as in the true sense of the word?

i seriously can't think of anyone who wants us "in" iraq.

 

[sanjuro]

Yeah, why even argue anymore? Its not as if somebody actually has a "correct answer". Its so speculative and subjectively driven anytime some "has a plan". Blaming soldiers for fighting is stupid though. You live in SF though. If I lived in Alaska, I wouldnt complain about the snow.

I was saying to friends afterwards my belief in of being against the war but supporting the soldiers is a safe one, which I mean is hard to challenge but not necessarily the answer which is right.

An example of a "safe" answer is being anti-abortion but pro-choice; you cover your bases there.

However, I am strongly against the war, but I don't blame the soldiers in serving there. I respect their commitments, and if faced with deserting their comrades and their legal obligations, I believe many soldiers would fight first.

 

[Westy]

"out" as defined in germany, belgium, japan, SK, saudi arabia, et. al.?
or "out" as in the true sense of the word?

i seriously can't think of anyone who wants us "in" iraq.

Out in Vietnamese styleo.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

Last chopper out of Saigon style-eee...

 

[sanjuro]

Oh yeah, this whole thing started when the anti-soldiers guy mentioned he was hoping one of the Blue Angels, who were flying for Fleet Week, would crash...

 

[$tinkle]

some letters-to-the-editor the latimes decided to post in response to their article lionizing a felled soldier:

If an individual were to kill 11 people in house-to-house gang warfare in South Los Angeles, we wouldn't call him a hero; we'd call him a bloodthirsty, homicidal maniac. We would fear for the future of our city.

But when it's war, we nominate these individuals for one of the nation's highest honors. We spend several hundred billion dollars to send thousands of our young adults overseas so they can engage in this kind of behavior in someone else's country.

The 11 people we dismiss as insurgents are mourned by their own families, some of whom consider their actions a logical response to a foreign power occupying their land, while others grieve at the senselessness of it all.

The Times has shown its support for the troops, like we're all expected to do. But if Marine Pfc. Christopher Adlesperger had been a street gang member, we would have been subjected to articles explaining how we needed to provide alternatives to murderous organizations that provide a sense of belonging to its members.

T.C. PETERSON
Los Angeles

***

Reading about Adlesperger's valor, while compelling, left me with an overwhelming sadness. We are apparently hard-wired to kill each other over land or oil or our gods. Imagine what a man with the passion of Adlesperger could have done for his family and for the world in the next 60 years had he lived. I admire his bravery and loyalty to his friends. But I condemn those who required this of him and more than 2,000 of his brothers. I only wish his bravery could have been spent as a firefighter or a police officer, at home, where we need him more than ever.

GEORGE WATERS
Pasadena

***

I was repulsed by the tone of The Times' article. How dare you glorify the obscenity of killing, with descriptions of gurgling blood. Maybe the so-called Iraqi insurgents are not the enemy but in fact are freedom fighters, valiantly attempting to rid their country of a repugnant foreign presence fighting not for freedom and democracy but for America's insatiable appetite for oil. The United States must end this senseless war, sooner rather than later, and articles like this espousing flag-waving patriotism are only perpetuating the myth that modern war, and this one in particular, can be won.

RUSS RODDERBACK
Las Vegas

 

[sanjuro]

I have to say this piece is so poorly written it is possible that it was a slam job.

Insurgents high on drugs? Blood gurling in the nostrils? This sounds more like a pulp novel than an obit or a op-ed...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-me-bravery3oct03,1,1025916.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

On Nov. 10, 2004, in 30 minutes of close combat, Marine Pfc. Christopher Adlesperger, a soft-spoken, religious young man who loved poetry and art, attacked an enemy stronghold in Fallouja, Iraq, and killed at least 11 insurgents.

He killed them with his M-16 and with his grenade launcher. He killed them at such close range he could hear the blood gurgling in their mouths and noses.

He killed insurgents who were heavily armed and probably high on drugs — and who had just killed his close friend, Lance Cpl. Erick Hodges.

He protected two wounded squad members from attack and saved innumerable Marines.

When it was over, Adlesperger's face had been bloodied by shrapnel and he had bullet holes in the sleeve and collar of his uniform. He refused to be evacuated until Hodges' body was recovered.

"It was a tremendous bit of fighting," said Col. Patrick Malay, the battalion commander. "He was a quiet kid, but he was remarkable. He was one tough bastard."

For his bravery, Adlesperger is among a handful of Marines who have been nominated for the Medal of Honor in Iraq.

 

[manimal]

sometimes people forget this fact:

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-George Orwell

the world will NEVER be a place of utopia where brotherly love and kindness will win over the hearts of those divided by moral, political and religious barriers. the harsh reality is that sometimes, people kill other people and the ones we have working for us are damn good at it.

 

[Westy]

Quote from Apocolypse now, stupid movie but I find a disturbing truth to the statement.

...........We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us.

 

[manimal]

Quote from Apocolypse now, stupid movie but I find a disturbing truth to the statement.

excellent quote. disturbing but necessary to understand what it takes

 

[llkoolkeg]

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it."

"I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great desire of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary."

"I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the face of a danger it is unable to comprehend."

"Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets."​

---Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness...the novella which inspired FFC to film "Apocolypse Now".

 

[$tinkle]

from sfgate letters to the editor (4 letter):

Fleet Week farewells

Editor -- Thank you, Fleet Week. My preschool-aged daughter, having heard your airplanes overhead all week, is now completely traumatized and afraid to go outside. She just heard a commercial airliner in the sky and ran inside shrieking, shaking, and trying to close all the windows and doors. We tried to have a fun family weekend enjoying free music in our park, but it was ruined by the thundering sound of those hateful airplanes overhead, forcing her (and most of the other children I saw) to throw her hands over her face and cower.

If there is ever an opportunity for me to vote on any proposition keeping this ridiculous event and huge waste of resources from marring the skies of my city again, you can bet I'll be the first in line to get it voted in.

DEMETRA DELÍA

San Francisco

sleeping-bag-wetter

 

[sanjuro]

from sfgate letters to the editor (4 letter):

sleeping-bag-wetter

Dear Editor:

I took my family to San Francisco to see our wonderful miltary pilots display their flying abilities in an exercise of our air superiority over the rest of the world. Unfortunately my littlest one saw some peaceniks dancing at Golden Gate Park, and now she keeps asking me "Why do we have to go war, daddy?".

I vote to ban all free music concerts, or at least ones which do not attract hippies.

BTW, my 2 year old nephew does not have any issues when hears a plane fly overhead.

 

[dante]

from sfgate letters to the editor (4 letter):

sleeping-bag-wetter

sounds like someone's preschool age daughter needs to grow a pair. :biggrin:

 

[Secret Squirrel]

And mom needs a freakin' clue....

 

[N8 v2.0]

from sfgate letters to the editor (4 letter):

sleeping-bag-wetter

Not totally unexpected from the Liberal Utopia.

 

[H8R]

Not totally unexpected from the Liberal Utopia.

Trust me, even though it's a "Liberal Utopia", most people in the bay area are not that lame.


Related note:

Years ago, on baseball season opening day in 2002, jet fighters buzzed about 100' over Pac Bell park while fireworks were going off right as they finished the pledge of allegiance.

I was working in an office in the city at the time a couple miles away. People were running into the stret completely freaking out - it sounded like a city wide attack. One woman was standing in a doorway screaming and crying on her cell phone to her kids.


So in perpective, if you have no idea that the jets are SUPPOSED to be there, it can be a little startling. If you're 2 years old, more so.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Trust me, even though it's a "Liberal Utopia", most people in the bay area are not that lame.


Related note:

Years ago, on baseball season opening day in 2002, jet fighters buzzed about 100' over Pac Bell park while fireworks were going off right as they finished the pledge of allegiance.

I was working in an office in the city at the time a couple miles away. People were running into the stret completely freaking out - it sounded like a city wide attack. One woman was standing in a doorway screaming and crying on her cell phone to her kids.


So in perpective, if you have no idea that the jets are SUPPOSED to be there, it can be a little startling. If you're 2 years old, more so.

pfft.... most 2 year olds are terrified of Santa for chrissakes...

 

[$tinkle]

Years ago, on baseball season opening day in 2002, jet fighters buzzed about 100' over Pac Bell park while fireworks were going off right as they finished the pledge of allegiance.

awesome, especially after watching some good war prawn