Quotes and Stuff

[Gravdigr]

"One of the most disappointing regrets of my career is not having the Medal of Honor awarded to the most outstanding soldier I've ever had the privilege of commanding."

~Maj. Gen. Lloyd B. Ramsey (U.S. Army, retired), speaking (in an affidavit) of the late Lt. Garlin Murl Conner, Clinton County, KY, the second-most highly decorated soldier of World War II*, who, it appears, will not be receiving the Medal Honor, due to a filing technicality.

*The most highly decorated being Audie Murphy.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Bummer, but He doesn't care now.

And the people who claim they're doing it for him, where've you been for 70 years? Day late and a dollar short, people, what did you do for him when he was alive? Take him to a ball game, or feed the ducks at the park, maybe just sit and talk to him. He was 79 and in poor health when he died, I'm sure he could have used some company the last year or three.

[Gravdigr]

His wife has been working on this for 17 years. She didn't know there was a statute of limitations on it. And as far as 'company the last year or three', nowhere does it say he died alone or lonely.

Also: Regarding "he doesn't care now", I seriously doubt Conner was the kind of man who would've worried about a medal.

I have to admit to being a little baffled by the perceived tone of Bruce's post. Perhaps I've inadvertently struck a nerve...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Reading about this guy, and all the shit he did, I think he got short changed, but didn't strike me as the type of guy that felt entitled to the CM or resented not getting it. Now he's dead so he doesn't care either way.

His wife has been working on this for 17 years.

Sure, a good ewe wife will do that you know.
17 years... wonder why? Did he ask her to? For him? For her? Doing it out of love? Perceived obligation?

Two military historians dug into it, talked to witnesses, are thoroughly convinced the man deserved it. But back in the day he pissed somebody off, or they decided he had enough medals, or they were busy trying to get home. Out of sight out of mind, war's over, let's get on with life.

You can, however, bet the farm, when this stuff makes the news the politicians will be front and center smiling for the camera and shaking his hand off. And Ramsey, how did he help besides dictating a glowing appraisal?

I've seen so many of these WW II vets struggle with health issues for their last few years. They get isolated for lack of mobility, friends are dropping like flies, and the TV becomes their companion. Then they die and people who hadn't given them a thought come out of the woodwork singing hosannas.

I certainly don't want you to think I have anything against Conner, far from it. He was a hero in the finest sense of the word, and got shortchanged. But the people rushing to "honor" him, make me wonder what their motive is? How will what they are doing to "honor" him, help them?

[wanderer]

Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.

- Mason Cooley

[DanaC]

I could fill a page with quotes from the late, great Tony Benn. They just don't make them like that any more.

The Guardian's been putting together favourite Benn quotes, here's a couple:

7) “Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself”

Tony Benn thought any meaningful change could only come from below, and felt apathy was openly encouraged by those in positions of power. “The Prime Minister said in 1911, 14 years before I was born, that if women get the vote it will undermine parliamentary democracy. How did apartheid end? How did anything happen?”

6) “I think there are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all frighten people and secondly, demoralise them.”

Another quote from Tony Benn’s interview with Michael Moore in Sicko, in which he highlighted poverty and healthcare inequality as a democratic issue. “The people in debt become hopeless, and the hopeless people don’t vote... an educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern,” he said.

9) “There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.”

After his retirement from parliament, Benn became the public face of the Stop the War coalition. In a particularly spiky edition of BBC Question Time, his exchanges with US Republican John Bolton included this broadside:

I was born about a quarter of a mile from where we are sitting now and I was here in London during the Blitz. And every night I went down into the shelter. 500 people killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: ‘We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.’ That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it’s a war crime that’s been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.

From elsewhere:

"When you think of the number of men in the world who hate each other, why, when two men love each other, does the church split?"

On equal marriage and the Church of England.

[Sundae]

I admired and even venerated Tony Benn for as long as I've been politically aware.
Of course there were views he held which I didn't; and he never set himself up as some sort of guru that would have demanded it. In fact he would have been revolted by it.

But I have to say in later years it was the way he tied an anti-war message with terrorism which conflicted my views with his.

I can't pull rank. He lived through the Blitz, and through The Troubles.

So if he really felt that Western intervention in Iraq was the reason for Muslims to kill each other, or go overseas and kill civilians (the way the IRA killed other Christians) then I might be missing something.

I'll never deny his was a powerful voice though.
And the world need more like him.
Born privileged, privately and expensively educated.

[DanaC]

Oh, I disagreed with Benn on lots of things. His stance on Europe, for one.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I could fill a page with quotes from the late, great Tony Benn.

The other day I was impressed with...

In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions:
“What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
And how can we get rid of you?”
If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system.

[Sundae]

Born privileged, privately and expensively educated

That was supposed to have a smiley; to comment on where and when and what situation he was born in is completely unfair.

But, yes,
The man dedicated his life to working in politics outside of the strictures of Westminster, which was why he never was all that successful inside it.
If'n you call making a Minister, even a Shadow Minister unsuccessful.

Every interview I've heard, from Red Ken, Degsy and many others on the other side of the political spectrum, they've said they may not have agreed with him on everything. But they got to meet the man, and talk to him, be charmed by him, drink tea with him. And I envy them that.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Sundae

So if he really felt that Western intervention in Iraq was the reason for Muslims to kill each other, or go overseas and kill civilians (the way the IRA killed other Christians) then I might be missing something.

I wasn't very familiar with the guy, and he may have said other things to indicate he believed this... but based on the quotes above, I got the impression that he wasn't saying we caused their behavior, just that we were no better than them.

[Griff]

Sounds like a sharp mind, I guess he bears further reading.

[xoxoxoBruce]

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.

In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare,”

– James Madison, “Political Observations” from Letters and Other Writings.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

Oh, I’ll accomodate them, I’ll rummage around for something to feed them, for a ‘vegetarian plate’, if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.

Anthony Bourdain

[Gravdigr]

Bravo, Mr. Bourdain.