 |  |
 
October 2012
August 2012 July 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
     |
 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! August 2, 2004 Tell it to the MarinesBy GreyhawkGreat entries below in the caption contest. A winner will be announced by mid-week. In the meantime, in the interest of keeping a fair and balanced website, here are some other responses to the photo: Ahem: it's no mystery. These people include many violent brainwashed killers, they consume troughs of right wing propaganda, they're xenophobic and racist, they reject nuance like anorexics reject digestion, and, surprise, surprise, they don't like Democrats. Yes, it's time to share the love from the Democratic Underground crowd! (For those unfamiliar, DU is a message board that until recently enjoyed a very prominent link from John Kerry's homepage) More insightful commentary from the Kerry/Edwards '04 crowd: I support them, but sometimes it's hard when they insist on working against their own self-interest. I chalk it up to ignorance. Sometimes honest ignorance, sometimes self-imposed ignorance. But ignorance is ignorance. and You call them "ignorant," and yet you "support" them. They bitterly oppose your politics, yet you feel support is the correct attitude. Do you think they support you and your right to dissent, to free speech? Test that theory, some time: tell some soldiers you think them ignorant. Then tell them you "support" them. Then run. and Would they do the bidding of George W Bush to attack or imprison our own people? That's a very scary thought that should reinforce the need to have civilian control and a more strict oversight. The Repubs have lead and guided the Marines and our troops in a very dangerous direction. and Indeed. After running and escaping harm, there would not be one left on this board with illusions of "supporting the troops". There are troops who were never eager to go there and are not like these thugs. I support one troop at a time...one at a time as I am made aware of their story. I also loathe one troop one at a time...one at a time as I am made aware of THEIR fascist imperialistic ideals. Person by person...not this jingoistic "the troops" bullshit. More... the chimp and a DUer would make "the hostile Marines meet Kerry" look like a love fest. That said, those guys were being rude. And they must be very uninformed or living under a rock if they are unaware of Kerry's military heroics. For his Vietnam service alone, they should have shown the man some respect. And still more... How can anyone support a coward and not a man who was wounded 3 times? An aWol coward drunk for 25 years? An aWol coward who never even flew solo but tells everyone he did? An aWol coward who couldn't pass a physical because he was a alcoholic/drug addict. A student who cheated to get D+, C-'s. A commander in thief who sent them out without body armor... Are marines that unaware? Hope the Marines are unaware of this guy: The active duty military has been given a pay raise every year since W took office. Last year he gave them 8%. This one's brief: Bush feeds their addiction to killing. This one's not: Remember most of this people that go in the Marines weren't the brightest light bulb in high school. They would make good Nazis. Remember the snipers in Iraq are mostly Marines and they like killing children and killing people so they can't get into hospitals for medical care. I don't have a bit of sympathy for them---hope they're headed somewhere the rest of humanity doesn't want to go to---and they never come back. These are really sick individuals---my brother-in-law is an ex-Marine and is he ever Cheyned-up! Early this morning this comment was on the site: I found this site from another site, and just thought id check it out, im not overly conservative, but to your standards thats probably enough to catagorize me as a fascist imperalist baby killer. I support all of our troops, and our President, and pray every night Kerry isnt elected president, as that will mean more fighting, more wars, and more death as our enemies will know how slow and hesitant the dems are to fight, so they will fight us more so. Some of you people make me wanna vomit. where do you think this stuff up? Calling Marines fat. Ummmm, you might hate em, but they arent fat, or out of shape, no matter how stupid you are you cant deny what you see. And Marine snipers killing civilans going to the hospital, WTF? With all the prison abuse being aired all over, how in the hell do you expect them to get away with killing kids and civies in broad daylight? I understand you hate our government right now, and our country, but get real. Comments like the ones here are just stupid, bizzare, out of this world scenarios that could never happen. If you take time to learn anything about the military, its pretty appearent that it requires alot of discipline, hard work, and dedication, something that not many of you know about Id guess. Ive accomplished nothing, and am pretty lazy to be honest, so for people to acheive what our soldiers have and do what they do amazes me, and i respect them all the more for it. Its people like you that make me want to turn off liberal or Democratic speeches and hearings, but not all liberals are as fanatical and crazy as you are. Im actually pretty shocked you people can honestly think this way, in the world we live in with information so avaible its amazing you are as misinformed as you are, its one thing to have a bad opinion, but its another to create fairy tails about why you feel that way. Wake up and come back to reality. Its floors me you can have such hatred toward soldiers, who have and would give their lives for you, all the while you spit on them and bad mouth them. Someone here said how their parents taught them to talk back if they disagreed with something. How is that any different than what he Marines were doing? Obviously they disagreed, but they were polite enough to stifle it. Theyre Americans, they have the right not to like or support Kerry, just like you dislike Bush, i dont see the difference. They dont like Kerry, so why would they help put him in office, nor would you help put Bush into office if you were in a situation like that. This site is absolutely crazy, theres more hatred and militant feelings in here than in any other group or community ive ever seen, about anything. It saddens me people are dying for our country (if you think its right doesnt matter) and you dont have the respect to at least appreciate them. How would you like it if your dad or brother or sister died, and all i could say how f-ng stupid they were, and how they deserved to die, and how i feel no sympathy for their family. thats sad and pathetic, and makes for a pretty sick human being But that last entry has since deleted by the moderator. Not up to the site's standards. Democratic Underground has featured this sort of commentary from well before John Kerry's page was ever established. What did he hope to gain from linking himself to them? (I mean, besides more votes than he'll ever get from Marines...) Posted by Greyhawk / August 2, 2004 9:46 PM | Permalink 1 Comment |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
Comments (0) |
|
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
Hmmm.
That was some of the most disgusting crap I've read in quite some time. There has got to be something fundamentally wrong with those people.
This just reinforces my impression that most liberals don't actually have a family member in action or retired military service.