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smooth · 08-27-2004, 08:07 PM

I agree with your point there, irate, that it's possible people only felt compelled to act now due to the context.

I just become concerned because it's hard to discern (I think maybe even for the people who feel upset) whether these are old wounds they have been holding since the transgression or whether they are new wounds reopened by innuendo and accusation. Sometimes those wounds may be based on the swirling allegations (like our earlier discussion of whether kerry chastised all the vets versus just a certain group of them) rather than an accurate remembrance of what occurred in the past. So imagined wrongdoings may be trumping actual ones. Or sometimes we feel the need to pin our pain and anguish on a tangible target, especially when dealing with something as elusive and powerful as fighting an unpopular war, being misused by our government, and essentially living with the guilt of things we may (or were wrongfully accused of) have done.

The part that sticks in my craw is that certain members of the swift boat group were supportive earlier in the campaign and now have changed their tunes.

But I certainly see your POV in regards to some people only becoming vocal about their feelings now even if they harbored them for a long time. I think that the media and a lot of people think of the vets as a monolithic group instead of allowing them individual space and identity. That seems to me to be a whole different type of tradedgy that ignores the complexity of the situation and of the human condition. Treating vets like a huge, monlithis voting block smacks to me of a type of commodification that I think is reprehensible but is also a natural occurrence of capitalism--ah shit, now I'm reifying the process, gotta go.

08-27-2004, 08:07 PM	#22 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	I agree with your point there, irate, that it's possible people only felt compelled to act now due to the context. I just become concerned because it's hard to discern (I think maybe even for the people who feel upset) whether these are old wounds they have been holding since the transgression or whether they are new wounds reopened by innuendo and accusation. Sometimes those wounds may be based on the swirling allegations (like our earlier discussion of whether kerry chastised all the vets versus just a certain group of them) rather than an accurate remembrance of what occurred in the past. So imagined wrongdoings may be trumping actual ones. Or sometimes we feel the need to pin our pain and anguish on a tangible target, especially when dealing with something as elusive and powerful as fighting an unpopular war, being misused by our government, and essentially living with the guilt of things we may (or were wrongfully accused of) have done. The part that sticks in my craw is that certain members of the swift boat group were supportive earlier in the campaign and now have changed their tunes. But I certainly see your POV in regards to some people only becoming vocal about their feelings now even if they harbored them for a long time. I think that the media and a lot of people think of the vets as a monolithic group instead of allowing them individual space and identity. That seems to me to be a whole different type of tradedgy that ignores the complexity of the situation and of the human condition. Treating vets like a huge, monlithis voting block smacks to me of a type of commodification that I think is reprehensible but is also a natural occurrence of capitalism--ah shit, now I'm reifying the process, gotta go. __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman