[Spam] RE: [Vision2020] Grunt's-Eye View

Tue Dec 6 11:10:12 PST 2005

Bill, et al,

I find it curious that many of those lately complaining about the content of 
V 2020 are not showing the way by posting on the matters important to them 
or by asking questions on topics relating to their interests in Moscow 
affairs or otherwise.

These people remind me of those from whom our forefathers fled -- those who 
were intolerant and cowardly afraid of free expression and where it might 
lead.

Like anyone else, the content complainers have the right to express their 
opinion.  However, the absence of follow through with topical concerns 
belies their real purpose.

Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
deco at moscow.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill London" <london at moscow.com>
To: "Chasuk" <chasuk at gmail.com>; <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: [Spam] RE: [Vision2020] Grunt's-Eye View

> To those who write to V2020 complaining about the dialogue: check out the
> quality writing of this posting (below by "chasuk").  Or read Joan Opyr's
> postings with an understanding that under it all, she is making pointed
> comments with her on-target satire.
> Or realize that some very unlikely political goals (for example, stopping
> the Third Street bridge) were pushed forward through this communication
> system.
> Yes, I still enjoy V2020......
> BL
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Chasuk" <chasuk at gmail.com>
> To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 12:32 AM
> Subject: Re: [Spam] RE: [Vision2020] Grunt's-Eye View
>
>
>> I hesitated joining this thread because I respect a lot of the people
>> contributing to it, and I knew that what I would say was likely to
>> offend.  However, I lack restraint, and it is easier to apologize than
>> to stay quiet.
>>
>> First, I served in the United States Air Force.  To many who served in
>> the other branches, that is like confessing that I served in the Boy
>> Scouts.  This I know from personal experience. I've gotten in numerous
>> inflamed arguments with Marine and Army vets who expressed just such a
>> sentiment.
>>
>> They were right, of course.  I joined the USAF precisely _because_ I
>> knew that we were civilians in uniform.  Before I joined, I went to
>> the library and looked up the mortality rates for the four branches,
>> ranking them in descending order, based on the prospect of becoming a
>> combat statistic: Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines.  Can you guess which
>> enlistment criterion I was following?
>>
>> When I read Anthony Swofford's words, "I am a writer, one who lived
>> through one of the essential experiences of manhood: warfare," I
>> gagged.  Figuratively speaking, of course, as very little actually
>> makes me gag.  But this comes close.  Warfare is no more an essential
>> experience of manhood than the shaving of pubic-regions is an
>> essential experience of womanhood.  Scores of people do both of these
>> things, but that doesn't make them "essential."  That Swofford could
>> write those words and believe them reveals, to me, that he is a deeply
>> troubled individual.
>>
>> I spent 10 years in the USAF.  Frankly, it was a job to which I was
>> ill-suited.  Jingoism has never worked with me.  I spent virtually
>> none of my young life trying to be cool or tough, my testosterone
>> quotient being apparently inferior.  I don't like sports, NASCAR is a
>> puzzling aberration, and I've never bragged about throwing up (this
>> may be generational, but bragging about puking was a common rite of
>> passage during my developing years).  The brownie buttons that the
>> USAF was intent on giving always made me wince, and not because they
>> poked me with the pins: I didn't want, or need, an attaboy for doing
>> something for which I was contractually obligated.  To me, the
>> defining characteristic of being an adult (a "man," if you are of my
>> gender) is doing the things that need to be done, BUT THAT YOU DON'T
>> WANT TO DO, and doing them without reward or complaint.  It isn't the
>> length/flaccidness/erectness of your penis, or even the
>> Schwarzeneggerian dimensions of your other muscles.  It's shutting up
>> and doing the job that needs to be done.  That's the only essential
>> ingredient of being a "man," in my opinion.
>>
>> Conversely, being a man sometimes involves refusing to do the job that
>> someone else deems necessary, but that's a different, perhaps
>> thornier, subject.
>>
>> Most people don't join the military for any noble purposes.  They join
>> because it gets them away from an unpleasant situation at home,
>> because it is a desperately needed job, because there is a family
>> tradition of joining, for the travel, for the educational benefits.  A
>> few join to serve their country.  To those reading this who joined to
>> serve their country, thank you.
>>
>> I respect soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines who do the job
>> that they volunteered to do and who do it well, just as I respect
>> dedicated bakers and chiropractors and nurses and policemen and
>> teachers.  I respect truckers and fishermen and roofers and loggers.
>> Over 900 truckers died on the job in 2004.  They died shipping frozen
>> beef patties to McDonald's and cartons of Twinkies to Safeway, all for
>> you and me.  But do millions put stickers on their cars, extolling us
>> to "support our truckers?"
>>
>> I am not denigrating our troops.  In fact, I am firmly declaring that
>> it is possible to hate the war and be a member of the "'hate Bush' at
>> all cost" crusade without denigrating our troops at all.  I place
>> myself in that category, although I am not a particularly vociferous
>> Bush-hater.  I don't know that Kerry would have done any better, nor
>> Clinton before him, if either had been in an identical situation.  If
>> I am a hater of anything political, it is our flawed election system.
>> I don't have any solutions, but it seems pretty broken to me, when the
>> ill-educated and ill-informed decide an election, controlled by
>> zealots with money.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chas
>>
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>
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