General Chat

You made everything plain quite a while ago, Little Buglar. I'm not referring to this thread. You have no respect for anyone who disagrees with you, and your response to people disagreeing with you is to suppress their words. That's what you did to mine.

I'll say what I think to anyone who wants to listen. I have contempt for anyone involved in the action against Iraq. That includes anyone who voted for the governments that sent their militaries there.

That would include myself, if I were in the UK. Because I would almost certainly have voted Labour. So I'd pity anyone who felt they had no choice but to vote Labour, I guess. As I pity anyone who felt they had no choice but to join the military and get sent to Iraq.

One can abstain from voting; whether that's a good choice or not, dunno, would depend on the circumstances. One can also abstain from going to Iraq; whether one has the resources one needs to be able to make that choice also depends on the circumstances.

I'm capable of feeling contempt and pity and other things at the same time in a situation. I could feel respect for a soldier who, say, rescued a child from death in Iraq, while still feeling contempt and/or pity for the soldier for being there in the first place.

Just as I can feel respect for a soldier who fought at great personal risk, for honourable reasons, to liberate the Netherlands, say, while feeling contempt and hatred for him when he subsequently assaulted a member of the civilian population after the liberation.

People aren't all good or all bad. My feelings and opinions about them are no more all positive or all negative.

Eric Blair did much good. He was also an informant. Go figure, eh?


Now how about YOU address the subject matter at hand: the tripe that my entire commentary was about?

ukkk humm!
wots the difference soldiers/human beings

like a teenage boy rapes a 5yr old!

LisaJJ:


"It is the Soldier, not the reporter
Who has given us freedom of the press."


There is a subject matter here, you see. Address it if you like.

i did janey

read my last thread

i suggested what the poem meant


oh and its tony blair
not eric

Actually, I did say I have case reports of *Canadian* soldiers convicted of rape and other crimes against the civilian population in occupied areas after WWII.

And I have referred to the *Canadian* soldiers who tortured and killed a teenager in Somalia.



Soldiers do NOT bestow upon us everything good we have. MANY people, in many occupations and in many ways, deserve our thanks for what we have.

Many clergy and many reporters and many lawyers and many of all the rest to whom that tripe expressed complete disrespect deserve thanks.

Many of them don't. Many of them deserve nothing but contempt. Some deserve both. People do good and bad things in their lives.

All people.

To save others the bother.....George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903.

A thought provoking thread, although it should be pointed out that sections of the British public did and do protest about the illegal invasion of Troops to Iraq.

toooocha.lisa!

janey
have you heard of rape & pillage!
or do you jus come on here for a laugh!

You know perfectly well what I'm talking about when I refer to you having suppressed my words, Little Buglar. You didn't like what I said, and bingo, I was no longer able to say them where I had said them.


LisaJJ, I'm sorry, but I have no idea how your brothers, or anyone else, are "serving their country" in Iraq.

They are doing a job they are sent to do. They are "serving their country" in the sense that any employee serves their employer. They are not protecting their country, or defending their country, or anything at all like. They are protecting and defending very particular interests, which are not the interests of the people of their country (other than the people who stand to profit from controlling Iraq's resources) or the people of the world.

That IS my opinion, based on the facts available to me and my understanding of them. It is an opinion about events and issues of rather large importance in the world and to the world.

If it is my opinion that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is illegal, unjustified and all-round wrong to the point of evil, what would you expect my opinion to be of the people who perpetrate it?

DET - well aware of the protests and objections, certainly. Have not ever meant to discount them. And everything I have said would be said and has been said by many in Britain, very certainly.

Re-posting this for any latecomers who may not have read the thread right through:

"Today at 18:25

Well, this has been one of the most interesting threads I've read in a long time on these boards! Please let it stay for a while longer.

I do think though that attacking Janey for her opinion is not the correct way for the thread to go. By all means disagree with her, that's healthy debating and we need more of it here, but please do not make it personal.

Just because someone has an opinion that differs from your opinion does not make that person wrong and does not invalidate their opinion.

Please consider this. What I personally think about anyone is my business and not their business. That is true for all of us. It therefore follows that what I think about something - war, religion, politics, fashion, TV, literary criticism (the list is endless) is my business. I am perfectly happy for people to disagree with me. Perfectly happy for people to have a different view on something. But, I am not happy if they insult me because of my view or opinion.

Therefore, please do not let this thread degenerate into some personal slanging match. That's not what Janey intended in her original thread and not what the poster of this thread intended either.

This is of course just my opinion - and as stated above I do not care what any of you think of it - just don't all shout at once!

Jill"

Janey, before you talk yourself into another corner it was not Little Buglar who reported the thread!

Coming back in after a cup of tea and housework
I've had to read through so sorry if I have missed anything

Janey, had your entire commentary been about the 'tripe' in that poem very few would have disagreed, you make pertinent points that all those professions and others have contributed much to 'freedom' and the developement of a decent society... likewise that not all soldiers are honourable ( I believe that the vast majority are)

however what many found offensive ( and you know it because you're not dumb) is the ***implication*** in the words re rape and ( if I have it correctly ) the 'exploiting of women as prostitutes'... yes of course that happens, in every sphere...but the ***implication*** was that it is a 'soldier thing'...sorry but that is how I read it, and so did others what ever your intent, .

It may well not have been intended to read that way, but it did. I know you refered ( obliquely) to Vietnam, some here are not old enough to remember that....

War is bloody, soldiers are just human, there are good and bad , and a hell of a lot... like most of us, somewhere in between.

Julie Ann: "maybe what its trying to tell you here janey
is that with out soldiers puting their lives down in wars against dictators, you wouldnt hav eyour freedom to sit and type"

What the tripe actually **says** is

clergy are not to be thanked for freedom of religion
journalists are not to be thanked for freedom of the press
lawyers are not to be thanked for the right to a fair trial
poets are not to be thanked for freedom of speech
politicians are not to be thanked for the right to vote

and what I'm saying is those are LIES, disrespectful, nasty, ugly lies.

Clergy have worked and died for freedom of religion (not just their own).
Journalists have worked and died for freedom of the press.
Lawyers have worked and died for the right to a fair trial.
Poets have worked and died for freedom of speech.
Politicians have worked and died for the right to vote.
And still are.


And without all of them, their lives and deaths, THOSE SOLDIERS WOULD HAVE HAD NOTHING TO FIGHT FOR.

Rose, Little Buglar knows what I am talking about. Nobody else needs to guess.

i gotta laugh,

cos i think you just look for fight janey
your bitter , real bitter cos it says in your word,
and the way you keep cutting and pasting everythin

you ask a question
then go off ranting with the answer wen everyones tried to offer you an answer

its a laugh in a way

I'm sure he does Janey, I am just pointing out that it was not LB that reported your original thread.

I have tired of responding to mischaracterization.

Reporting that soldiers have committed crimes against civilian populations is not saying that all soldiers commit crimes against civilian populations.

Anybody who wants to keep pretending it is, or should be interpreted that way, or is grounds for taking huge offence of some sort, carry on.

Claiming that soldiers are responsible for our having any and all of the rights and freedoms we have is dishonest. Claiming that any and all other individuals and groups deserve no thanks for the rights and freedoms we have is despicable.

That's what the piece of tripe in the thread does.

My immediate response was to the portrayal of soldiers as responsible for everything good and the huge omission of all the evil soldiers are responsible for. I was outraged at being served up this dishonest, despicable crud here where I pay for the use of the site.

LisaJJ: "So are you saying that all soldiers past and present dont defend their countries....so your ancesters who fought, what exactly were they doing then??"

So you are saying that you choose not to respond to what I did say, and instead to make up garbage and pretend I said it?

Alrighty then.

Oh ......... read the thread at all, LisaJJ?

The only ancestor of mine who fought, in recent history and in fact that I know of at all, was my paternal grandfather.

He fought before WWI, not sure where. Some outcropping of empire. Nothing I'm proud of.

Oh, that's right, a maternal gr-grfather fought in India in the 1870s. I assume he joined up after the death of his first wife, about six months after their marrage, when he was about 21 or 22. I don't know; see the world? Bury his sorrow? Take the only job available? Did five years in India, after which discharge was promised. Instead, he was told he was being sent to Afghanistan. More imperialist adventures, not one that sounded attractive, I assume. He deserted. He lived the rest of his life in fear of the military -- some 60 more years, half of them in Canada. I doubt he deserted for any high-minded principles, but he did.

Back to the paternal grandfather -- he was part of the evil, vicious, rotten occupying forces in Ireland after WWI. I have absolutely no doubt that when he went out at night dressed in black on secret missions, he killed people. Am I proud of him??? Don't make me laugh. He was also a horrible gambling, drinking, wife-abusing man. But maybe he saved a kid in WWI. I wouldn't know. If he died, he deserves thanks.

And no doubt some of the people he fought against, in Egypt and Ireland and wherever else he was, also did atrocious things, and they or others also deserve thanks for other things they did.