General Chat

Janey, you are using specifics to generalise about soldiers.

I didn't agree with the poet's? generalisation either but I standby my original statement on the deleted thread that the quote wasn't the most offensive thing that I've seen this week.

Tiananmen Square massacre.....

Led mainly by students and intellectuals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989



Like I said Janey, I did agree with you on many of your points but then again there are (some) soldiers we need to thank for giving/risking their lives. If they hadn't we may be speaking German.

I don't think it is soldiers as such but society in general is to blame. We elect a Government and we let them do whatever they want even if it is against the will of the people ie send soldiers to Iraq etc.

The Government tells us what to do and yet aren't we their employers?

I note the singular absence of response to anything I have said in elaboration of my views -- about my British grandfather's deeds in Northern Ireland, about the abuses committed by British troops in Iraq (shall I tell you about the Canadian troops who tortured a Somali teenager to death?) ... about the poets and students and lawyers who have died in the service of humanity.


The fate of the thread is not up to me. Out of an impulse for self-preservation, I might delete my posts. The enemies of free speech are among us.

It precisely confirms my views on the poems.

Soldiers join the military by choice. (Those who don't, like my great-uncle who was gassed in October 1918 and died some time later at a field hospital, may still have choices ...)

They then do what they are told to do. Sometimes, heroically and selflessly and for the most honourable and laudable of purposes. Sometimes, in violation of all human decency and/or international law.

They are a part of us.

Cat, I think that was a point raised many times on the original thread, soldiers go where they are sent if anyone is to blame it is governments.

Which, in a funny roundabout way confirms Janey's views on the poem I suppose!!!


Who deleted?

There we go, Cãt.


Now do we thank them for fighting for oil?

As I said, I pity some. I thank none.

http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hundreds-colombian-lawyers-murdered-no-one-prosecuted-report-reveals


More than 400 Colombian lawyers have been murdered since 1991 but no one has been prosecuted for a single killing, a devastating report from 42 British lawyers who visited Colombia last year has revealed.

Uribe said: ‘There were 40 lawyers killed last year alone. They were persecuted because they were associated with the “crimes” or sympathies of their clients. If they are willing to defend them, the logic goes, then they must be fellow travellers.’


Lawyers all over the world fighting AND DYING for the rights and freedoms of other people. And other lawyers fighting for them.

Anybody want to thank a lawyer?


Oh, and who killed Garcia Lorca? Who killed the Kent State four? Who is killing the lawyers?

Janey Canuck: Meanwhile, maybe someone can tell me.

What is being fought for in Iraq?

Simple question.
-------------------------------

Oil.

Having said that I think you'll find most people are against the war in Iraq and many have been before it started.

As for the soldiers they're there to do a job, they don't have much choice in the matter. They go where the politicians send them.

Janey, you still haven't re-posted the comments re rape... I would like to re-read to see if my initial interpretation ( which was shared by others ) was correct....I think it is important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or Kent-State massacre, occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.



I remember the Kent State victims on Nov. 11.

CAMPUS ORGANIZERS fought for the freedom ... and the lives ... of the Vietnamese. And some died for it.

oooh and you never stir Sylvia? lol ;)

Sorry, couldn't resist.....I think there's a wooden spoon in most people's homes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/lorcas-grave-awakens-other-ghosts-1813199.html

The excavation of a mass grave on a Granada hillside where the POET Federico Garcia Lorca was murdered during the Spanish Civil War has reinforced calls for the area to be investigated. "Lorca was just one of 4,000 executions on a roadside just a kilometre long," says Juan Antonio Lopez Diaz, a Granada University professor. "There are so many bodies there that pine trees were planted just to stop them being uncovered by rainfall erosion."

After years of debate, digging finally began last week at the mass grave where half a dozen men, possibly including Lorca, were killed and buried on 18 August 1936 by hitmen from General Franco's right-wing Nationalist forces.



I remember Garcia Lorca on Nov 11.

HE FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM. And he died because of it.

"Interpret" as you like, everybody. Nothing has stopped you yet.

We are all free to choose to "interpret" what others say, and to choose how we then characterize what others say in public.

Have at it. Your interpretations and characterizations are your responsibility, not mine.

Janey, I was trying to explain the reaction on the boards to your post, I didn't say it was bad, just that people feel very emotional about what you were saying at this particular time.

I saw the thread (well some of it) this morning. I was going to reply to it but didn't have time then and came back a few minutes ago to find this one here instead.

I have to agree with Rose about the generalising. That's the way it came across to me too. It may not have been what you intended Janey (you've already said that you were responding to generalisations) but that's the way I interpreted it.

Having said that I actually agreed with some of the things you were saying and, although controversial, I didn't think the thread should be removed.

Then I don't take your point, SRS.

It was bound to stir emotions. What, that's bad? Nothing should ever be said that might stir emotions? Maybe the person who posted the vulgar stupid thing in the first place should delete it then, or I should report it because it offended me? It did. That was the first thing I said. It is deeply offensive. To anyone who values all the things it dishonoured -- freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to protest, the right to a fair trial (hahahaha), the right to vote -- and to all of the clergy, reporters, poets, campus organizers, lawyers and politicians who have fought AND DIED for those things.

Rose, there are several million things I could say if I had the time.

In this instance, I was RESPONDING to a nasty bit of fascistic militaristic tripe.

I responded to it as I saw fit.

did I say that your post should have been suppressed Janey? What I said was "your post was bound to stir emotions on the board"

Please read back a few pages at my first remark on here, I said that although I didn't agree with your post, there was no valid reason why it should have been deleted.

"Show gratitude by DOING. By respecting. By including. Because what MY society is about is respect and inclusion."

I don't think anyone would argue with that Janey, if you had said just that, simply and plainly , your 'case' would have been made.