WTF - the hostility from someone pissed that Kos is giving Kerry too

[Pirate Smile]

much credit???

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/27/204824/374

Fine, don't like the hippy bashing but why turn it into Kerry bashing?

:wtf:

[Mass]

1. Interestingly, two people who really dont like Kerry thought themselves

obliged to defend him.

But this thread proves to what point some people posting on these blogs are crazy (or trolls).

[Goldeneye]

2. Ok, I couldn't get past the title.

It cracked me up. But I don't really care for Kerry bashing anyway and I don't read Kos enough to know about the the hippie bashing problem, so I guess, I don't really have anything to add. :shrug:

[Pirate Smile]

3. I read the title and I've seen some comments about people not wanting

the anti-war protest to look like it is a bunch of people straight out of the 60's in tie-dye, etc. Fine I can understand someone who is or was a hippy not liking that but when they turned it into a bash the "John Kerry of 1971" thread I was :wow:

[Goldeneye]

4. ok, I'm going back in.

I don't understand how you can turn a stop bashing the hippies diary into a bash kerry diary, but I'm gonna go and see it. I'll be back.

[Goldeneye]

6. I don't really like DailyKos much.

It smells funny over there. I can only hold my breath so long...so once again, I don't really have anything to add.

[MH1]

5. Ugh. Now I need a shower.

I just posted to the thread but it was hard to keep it civil.

Anymore whenever I go over there I end up wanting to :puke:

[Pirate Smile]

8. It just seemed rather bizarre and it somehow made it to the recommended

list.

The irony that the OP was pissed because Kos had given Kerry too much credit in the Vietnam protests cracked me up and then it evolved into a generational pissing match in spots too. :eyes:

[fedupinBushcountry]

7. Nutso

I don't have an account at Kos and will not get one. I swear he is such a hypocrite. Why did he use Kerry as an example, I believe just to get tempers flaring.

Anyone from that period in time knows anyone with long hair and bell bottoms was considered a hippie, and most of us dabbled with it. One thing I will say is that yes we changed a lot of things back then, and we thought we had things under control, but then we went to sleep, and all hell broke loose again. John Kerry was right when he said, we're a little older and little bit grayer but we still know how to fight for our country, that was one of my favorite lines and brought out that "hippie" that fell asleep for to long. John Kerry never stopped fighting , to bad so many of us didn't follow in his footsteps, we may have been in a different situation now.

Peace On (Kerry On):hippie:

[kerrygoddess]

9. I just posted 3 responses

1) my recollection of JK being all over the news in the 70's - since I grew up in small town, MA.

2) The photo of JK at the Fullbright Commission

3) Wikipedia facts on JK during that time including info about the MSM coverage and two famous photos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/27/204824/374#264

[ginnyinWI]

12. good posts

the only other thing that might have helped is to post that pic of Kerry with his wife on the lawn, head down, weeping. A phoney wouldn't have done that. But that's ok.

[Pirate Smile]

13. Good idea.

[kerrygoddess]

15. I forgot about that one.

Wikipedia was a good resource. Hope it helped.

[Goldeneye]

16. I don't think I've seen that one.

Do you have a link?

[whometense]

17. Here it is.

It's such a heartbreaking shot. George Butler took it right after the medal-throwing ceremony.

[ginnyinWI]

20. thanks for posting, whome

I didn't get back to the forum until now. :)

[whometense]

22. You're welcome!

I wish I had a better copy of it. It's a wonderful picture.

[Goldeneye]

28. Thanks for digging that picture up for me.

:-)

[LittleClarkie]

29. That was definitely one things I found that made me love the man

there I was, right in the middle of Starbucks, crying my eyes out. Yep, definitely one of the big steps between ABB and Kerry supporter.

I've started a thread in GD:P to get their opinions of all this as well.

[TayTay]

31. That pic gets me

I can't watch it. I feel like an intruder into something deeply personal. It just gets me.

[karynnj]

32. Same here

Probably the same reason. As he was so totally in control of both himself and the situation for those days, the emotion nust have been extremely intense - maybe thinking of all those he lost - for him to have let how he felt show to this degree.

[whometense]

34. Yeah, me too.

It does feel like a moment that probably shouldn't have been recorded, but I'm glad it was.

Of course, there's undoubtedly someone out there thinking to themself that it was staged for the great political advantage it would give him 30 years from then. :sarcasm:

[karynnj]

26. That's my recollection too

and I was at IU in Bloomington from Sept 68 to May 72. The dorm I was in had a tv in the lounge (not like today when kids seem to all bring TVs). I remember a nearly full room watching the news that evening and the kids being very impressed. But, the biggest effect was probably not on the the anti-war students, but on the people who needed to be converted.

The country was polarized. It was true that the shooting of Kent State students in 1970 both scared college students and radicalized others, but it harden views on the other side as well. Comments captured on the Nixon tapes showed that they were afraid of Kerry's impact - not on the anti-war people - but on the people who still backed the war.

Like Michael Moore et al now, the Abbie Hoffmans, Jerry Rubins and even Tom Hayden probably made it harder to win over the people in the middle. (It was interesting that he listed Lennon. I recently saw the "Lennon" musical, which tells the story of his solo career from Yoko's POV - Hoffman and Rubin wanted Lennon to perform in an anti-Nixon event at the time of the Nixon 1972 convention - he refused as he had reached the conclusion that they were trouble. Lennon did perform at an event where Kerry spoke. So, even Lennon must have thought Kerry was useful.)

It was also disturbing that he mentioned so many RW lies and stereotypes.

[sandnsea]

10. "hardly remember Veterans Against the War"

That about says it all. What a goofball. I got news for the "hippies", it was the vets and moms that stopped that war. If they hadn't joined the protesting, we'd still be in Vietnam. That's the way I remember it.

[whometense]

23. That's the way I remember it too.

I actually wrote about this in my post below (#19).
It often seems like every single person has a different "sixties" locked away in their memory. But in my memory hippies had very little to do with ending the war. People often conflate hippies with regular young people who adopted the hippie style dress and long hair. And the music.

Kerry had the impact he did back then because he had a foot in each world. And because he was articulate, intelligent, and charismatic. It was because of people like Kerry that it felt safe for the vets and moms to get out and protest.

[JI7]

24. hey, good to see you back

i'm sorry about your father. i hope you and your family are doing ok.

and i agree with your comments. there is a reason the Nixon administration went after KErry as they did and went as far as hiring O'Neill to go after Kerry for them. not much different from the Bush administration getting other mothers to speak out against Cindy Sheehan.

[sandnsea]

25. Thank you

It was a shock, but what can you do but deal with it. Everyone seems to be doing well. I worry about my niece and nephew most, they lived on the same property as my dad and it is going to be awfully hard for them. Many interesting aspects to the trip though, I'll share more as time goes on. Right now it's kind of all boggled up together. I guess that's just the way though. Thanks again for your concern.

[wisteria]

11. Seems to me this guy is a bit off. I get the impression he is an

angry vet with memory lapses who actually formed his opinion about Kerry after reading or hearing the lies in O'Neil's book.

[Pirate Smile]

14. He isn't a vet.

"And many of us did NOT go. WOULD not go. "

[europegirl4jfk]

18. Some interesting comments

I find especially this one very good (I don't know if it was one of you who posted it):

"It seems to me that Cindy Sheehan and John Kerry have played similar roles in their respective war protests. While the true believers were there from the beginning, protesting the war before it even began in the case of Iraq, they were easily discounted as soft on communism/terror. It takes a new voice, one with "skin in the game," as Cindy Sheehan put it, to get the attention of the larger portion of our country that doesn't pay as close attention to the news as we do.

Look at the poll numbers and tell me that Cindy Sheehan's protest hasn't had an effect on public opinion about the war. In the same way that a soft spoken, patrician Ivy League grad could lend credibility to the VietNam War protest, Sheehan's position as a grieving mother has allowed people in this country to have the space they needed in which to truly think about the Iraq War and where they stand on it.

by hillaryk on Sat Aug 27th, 2005 at 20:33:23 PDT"

[whometense]

19. That is a good one.

It's fascinating to me that after all these years everything related to the sixties evokes such intense emotions. I wasn't a hippie, though my kids like to tease me that I was. I remember the hippies with a kind of jaundiced affection. They had their charms, but were overly enchanted with drugs. A lot of people from our generation adopted their style more than the lifestyle.

And most of the people protesting the war were not hippies. They were college students and professors, mothers, teenagers terrified of having to fight in that misbegotten war, and political activists. Not unlike the people protesting today. There was a certain romance to the antiwar movement, and certainly there were some people who used it for personal gain. Kerry wasn't one of them. The strongest negative emotions he evokes in those who remember him from back there are due to his making himself a focal point for the anger of those who hated the protesters. Just like Cindy Sheehan is today. Kerry was doing himself no political good.

People who talk about the sixties like it was all flowers and music and flowing skirts don't remember what really was. The anger was huge, on both sides. In some ways the hippies were the people who stuck their fingers in their ears and refused to listen to the anger from either side. Make love not war - nice sentiment, but in the context of the times, pretty irrelevant to the central issues.


Edited to add: I was 19 in 1971, and I remember Kerry from back then. He was my hero, and the hero of a lot of other people too. I think some of the anger directed at him now is the incredibly immature whining of people who thought of him as their white knight and are pissed off that he couldn't singlehandedly save them from the evil one.

[ginnyinWI]

21. That childish dependence is one thing that is wrong in American politics

People always want someone to come along on their white horse and save them, when they are adults and should get out there and do what they can for themselves. They are all too easily taken in by someone who appears strong and resolute--not to name any names!

[LittleClarkie]

27. This is what I wrote

If John Kerry was featured on the Nixon tapes then he damn well had an impact.

Did Nixon obsess about anyone ELSE specifically in the anti-war movement?

Kerry was to Nixon what Cindy Sheehan is to Bush.

[Pirate Smile]

30. Good point. That thread was destructive in a variety of ways.

[JI7]

33. didn't it kind of end when Congress stopped funding it

and Kerry appealed to Congress, the Senate specifically to do something to end it. especially with that hearing.

[ginnyinWI]

35. yes, that is what I understand--they defunded the war

They weren't only influenced by Kerry, of course, but used his testimony and the VVAW's presence to strengthen their case, it would seem, anyway. And Kerry's nation-wide coverage as he gave that testimony might have caused many people to really give it some serious consideration, because he was a fairly clean-cut veteran and not some "crazy dirty hippie". It brought the discourse up a notch or two!