The Associated Press Has Gone To Far

[RICHARD]

IMO - there's a big difference between seeing a flag draped coffin, and watching a video of how that person inside ended up there. One's death is a very private and personal matter, or at least it should be.

.

Correct.

A sanitized version of the war is an aluminum casket.

I am not happy to see pics of young kids (and I do not use that term perjoratively) 'dying' on a battlefield. I put dying in quotes because of a special I watched about wounded soldiers coming back from the ME.

One guy said something like "I celebrate two birthdays, my real birthday and then the day I was wounded."

I guess that is the way to look at things-I can imagine the pain and the reminders of getting wounded in a place far away from home, fighting a war that is unpopular back home.

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We have a few options here.

We tuck tail and walk out.

We tuck tail and run out.

We stick to it - I effing hate the term "Stay the Course" because it's a clean version of "Let's keep sending money, men and more shiat to a war that should have been decisive and relatively fast." That and the fact that it turned into a catchphrase for financial, insurance and political stupidity.


Let's get our shiat together, walk into Afghanistan, clean the AHs out and come home.
I don't have the taste for a war that we 'fight' and have to follow every rule and every bomb with a mea culpa Eff this, no one holds homicide bombers and Taliban eff ups to any standards. I think we can bend the rules a bit.

AMEN.

[pomtzu]

Well Richard, I really don't think there is any way to sanitize it. War, and death by war is dirty. We all know that. We've seen way too much of it in our lifetime.

All I'm saying, is respect the person that gave his/her life, and their family as well. Show the coffins if you must, if only as a reminder that they are still dying, lest we forget. But please, keep the rest private.

[moosmom]

IMO - there's a big difference between seeing a flag draped coffin, and watching a video of how that person inside ended up there. One's death is a very private and personal matter, or at least it should be

My opinion too, Ellie.

[RICHARD]

Well Richard, I really don't think there is any way to sanitize it. War, and death by war is dirty. We all know that. We've seen way too much of it in our lifetime.

I want you to go to the window, open it up and yell, "I am as mad as HELL and I 'm not going to take this anymore."

The perfect example of this -not to say that they compare in any way- is what is happening at the Town Hall Meetings.

People are ticked off and getting the morons in charge to listen to them

Why? It's a matter of here and now, not over there and yesterday-as the war has become.

The reason the protests against the war were, and still are, ineffectual is the way they were organized.

How's about showing up at a rep's office two, three times a week? Nope, I used to pass the idiots gathered on a street corner in Burbank telling people to beep their horns against the war. IT's Friday night! Let's go stand on the street corner for a few hours, then go shopping at IKEA, it's a block away!

Up the street there is a Blue Star Highway Memorial at a park.....

Why not set up a protest there?

Nope they want to be on the corner where they yell and scream, make people slow down and gawk.

That will end the war really soon.

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A little distaste and reminder what the war is, a place far, far away from our comfortable lives, is what we need.

We do not stop and think about the war often.

LCpl. Bernard is someone we won't forget soon and that is a good thing.
The way he died may be too graphic for our tastes, but he's become everyone's brother, in-law, dad, cousin, nephew and kid we grew up with in the neighborhood.

Death on some road far away from home is not glamorous, Neither is the way he died. At the moment we care more about the coverage of his death, not the way he lived and served.

That is the crime here.

[pomtzu]

Touche.

But I still say that the manner in which it is reported, must be sensitive and respectful of that life that was ended far from home. It won't make it any less tragic, but at least it will show compassion.

[lizbud]

VietNam was overkill. It was shoved down our throats day after day by every broadcast station. You couldn't watch a newscast without seeing the death and destruction every day - and for how many years??? Wasn't that enough???

Better not tell that to blue, he doesn't believe it. At least that's what he said in another thread.

War wasnt served up on the radio or at the movies during the World Wars? Granted Im not old enough to even remeber the Viet Nam War, but didnt they have nightly news broadcasts and news reels at the movies during the WWs?
Wasnt it during Viet Nam that the nightly news stopped being objective and started injecting opinions?

[RICHARD]

Touche.

But I still say that the manner in which it is reported, must be sensitive and respectful of that life that was ended far from home. It won't make it any less tragic, but at least it will show compassion.

I sat in a class room and watched a 'school approved' film of a bulldozer pushing a stack of bodies into a trench at one of the "Konzentrationslager" us Americans liberated. TO THIS DAY that has always bothered me. I watch the Military Channel docus on concentration camps to see if I will catch that clip again.

I want to know if it was as gruesome then as it would be today.

This was way back in the day, so there were no concerned parents to complain about it. So, we watched it and held that horror deep inside our hearts.

How many people to you have to bury when you stop using shovels and start using diesel engined plows to shove them into the dirt and cover them?

Check it out.

The parents of today let these miserable little effers play violent video games- "the blood looks so real!!", yet we all have a problem with watching Private Everyone's Son get jacked with an RPG or an IED?

At the beginning of the book and movie "Blackhawk Down" is a quote from Plato that kinda goes....."Only the dead have seen the end of war."

All the rest of us can relive it on You Tube, the Inter Web and irresponsible media outlets like the AP and all the jackholes that contribute to The Huffingtones Post.

[pomtzu]

I've put in my 2 cents worth without offending anyone - I think. And with that, I really don't have anything else to contribute - unless someone has something really stupid to say (IMO), then I just might have to chime back in.

So all - have a happy Labor Day. Hmmm - labor is to work, so why do so many have the day off??? Chill - I'm being facetious!!!

[blue]

Better not tell that to blue, he doesn't believe it. At least that's what he said in another thread.

A couple of things here...

1. Havent I been posting enough for you to make a personal insult without going back to a post from last month?

2. Does your reading comprehension suck that bad you cant recognise a rhetorical question?

3. You do know the difference between a statement, something that is said, and a question, something that is asked, right?

4. It is highly possible you are just simply being deliberatly obtuse, to feel better about yourself.

[pomtzu]

So yesterday's very civilized discussion came to a screeching halt when one poster who hadn't made a comment all day, had to make a comment to antagonize another individual, knowing that there would be a counter-post. What's the purpose, and what do these individuals hope to achieve?? Why not just start a "bashing" or "insults" or "I can be nastier than you" thread, where you don't have to search for a reason to be nasty, and anything is fair game.

Stop muddying the waters and diverting the direction of the flow.
And not just in this thread, but all of them.
If the shoe fits, then I'm talking to you.

[lizbud]

Stop muddying the waters and diverting the direction of the flow.
And not just in this thread, but all of them.
If the shoe fits, then I'm talking to you.

" It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others."

[pomtzu]

" It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others."

I'm far from perfect, always have been and always will be.

But - I've always been a firm believer that it takes a bigger "man" (or person), to walk away from a confrontation/fight, rather than stay and throw punches. That's not being perfect - just smart. So it will continue to be just a vicious and ongoing circle here on PT, because too many just can't walk away.


It took you a while to find your quote, didn't it??? I seriously doubt that those are your original words.

[lizbud]

I'm far from perfect, always have been and always will be.

I know. You are forgiven.

[pomtzu]

I know. You are forgiven.

Thank you. You don't know how much that means to me..........

[lizbud]

I can only imagine.