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Oct. 24th, 2006 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumWhat do Tyrone Power, Jimmie Stewart, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Henry Fonda, Mickey Rooney, John Huston, Frank Capra and John Ford have in common?
They all served in uniform during WW2, and all of them had existing careers which had already made them, if not famous, not anonymous either.
Other stars were too old to enlist, but spent time travelling to the front (or near front) to entertain the troops.
What do Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro,Joe Scarborough, Nathan Taylor, Paul Gourley, Jess Beeson and a slew of others have in common?
They support the war, vocally, and with gusto; but they refuse to enlist.
They explain it with simple things, Goldberg, for example, says he can't afford the salary cut. Oh, yeah, that's a winner with me.
I single Goldberg out because he has, recently, decided that we made a mistake in invading Iraq. That's a new flash.
On the other hand, as he said in his LA Times column this past week, that doesn't we ought to pull the troops out. Nope, we're committed now, and even if it was a mistake, we can't be seen as lacking in will, nope, we have to stay the course. This means, of course, that more people are going to get killed (this month looks to top one hundred more dead, and a lot more than that wounded).
Goldberg is a chickenhawk.
I don't mean to say that one can't support the war without enlisting. No.
Glenn Greenwald defines chickenhawk thus, Something more than mere support for a war without fighting in it is required to earn the "chicken hawk" label. Chicken-hawkism is the belief that advocating a war from afar is a sign of personal courage and strength, and that opposing a war from afar is a sign of personal cowardice and weakness. A "chicken hawk" is someone who not merely advocates a war, but believes that their advocacy is proof of the courage which those who will actually fight the war in combat require.
I would add (and it's part of how I chose this list, which excludes people like George Will, Rush Limbaugh, Michaels Reagan and Savage as well as pretty much all the talking heads out there, the Coulters, O'Reillys and Hannitys of the world. Andy, "soldiers are my lackies and can't have feelings, much less care about getting killed, Sullivan is in class by himself) that those who are in such places of prominence, are saying this is the most important fight since WW2 (and perhaps of all time) and yet have things more important to do than put their money where there mouth is.
Goldberg, in his peurile attempt to defend his position (the war was a bad idea, and it's been screwed up, so much so that he doesn't really support it, but we can't quit) is asking people to die for that mistake. He, like the rest of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders can't be bothered to do bear the risk himself, but neither can he find the cojones to actually be against the war. So he asks more soldiers to die, more families to bear the grief, all so he can refuse to face the fruits of the field he was so vigorously sowing.
So, to Jonah Goldberg, for egregious bloviation, in the face of common sense, and with a willingness to run from the consequences of your actions, above and beyond the call of duty, I hearby award you a Chicken Head to the Kombat Keyboard Badge, of the Keyboard Kommando ( Signifying Second Award)
They all served in uniform during WW2, and all of them had existing careers which had already made them, if not famous, not anonymous either.
Other stars were too old to enlist, but spent time travelling to the front (or near front) to entertain the troops.
What do Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro,Joe Scarborough, Nathan Taylor, Paul Gourley, Jess Beeson and a slew of others have in common?
They support the war, vocally, and with gusto; but they refuse to enlist.
They explain it with simple things, Goldberg, for example, says he can't afford the salary cut. Oh, yeah, that's a winner with me.
I single Goldberg out because he has, recently, decided that we made a mistake in invading Iraq. That's a new flash.
On the other hand, as he said in his LA Times column this past week, that doesn't we ought to pull the troops out. Nope, we're committed now, and even if it was a mistake, we can't be seen as lacking in will, nope, we have to stay the course. This means, of course, that more people are going to get killed (this month looks to top one hundred more dead, and a lot more than that wounded).
Goldberg is a chickenhawk.
I don't mean to say that one can't support the war without enlisting. No.
Glenn Greenwald defines chickenhawk thus, Something more than mere support for a war without fighting in it is required to earn the "chicken hawk" label. Chicken-hawkism is the belief that advocating a war from afar is a sign of personal courage and strength, and that opposing a war from afar is a sign of personal cowardice and weakness. A "chicken hawk" is someone who not merely advocates a war, but believes that their advocacy is proof of the courage which those who will actually fight the war in combat require.
I would add (and it's part of how I chose this list, which excludes people like George Will, Rush Limbaugh, Michaels Reagan and Savage as well as pretty much all the talking heads out there, the Coulters, O'Reillys and Hannitys of the world. Andy, "soldiers are my lackies and can't have feelings, much less care about getting killed, Sullivan is in class by himself) that those who are in such places of prominence, are saying this is the most important fight since WW2 (and perhaps of all time) and yet have things more important to do than put their money where there mouth is.
Goldberg, in his peurile attempt to defend his position (the war was a bad idea, and it's been screwed up, so much so that he doesn't really support it, but we can't quit) is asking people to die for that mistake. He, like the rest of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders can't be bothered to do bear the risk himself, but neither can he find the cojones to actually be against the war. So he asks more soldiers to die, more families to bear the grief, all so he can refuse to face the fruits of the field he was so vigorously sowing.
So, to Jonah Goldberg, for egregious bloviation, in the face of common sense, and with a willingness to run from the consequences of your actions, above and beyond the call of duty, I hearby award you a Chicken Head to the Kombat Keyboard Badge, of the Keyboard Kommando ( Signifying Second Award)
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Details
Date: 2006-10-25 01:16 am (UTC)Until 1943, Jimmy Stewart served in the First Motion Picture Unit while he fought for a combat assignment. When he got it at last, he flew 20 bombing missions over Germany before taking a high-level staff position. He worked his way from private to colonel in the four years of the war.
After losing his wife Carole Lombard in a flying crash (she was selling war bonds), Clark Gable also insisted on flying fighting missions. Both he and Stewart were decorated veterans.
Henry Fonda went to sea on a destroyer; he said, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio."
Ronald Reagan served during WWII. In Hollywood, in the First Motion Picture Unit. He did not actually liberate Auschwitz, his claims to the contrary.
Tyrone Power was a Marine pilot flying supplies in and the wounded out in the heavily embattled Pacific theatre.
John Ford was with a film unit; he landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, a position of great danger. His films of the invasion have been lost; they were too bloody to show.
John Huston served with the Signal Corps, making films in the Aleutians and in Italy. The Italian film was so explicit about combat that the US suppressed it until the 1970s.
Re: Details
Date: 2006-10-25 01:34 am (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 03:46 am (UTC)I have it with no heads, with one, with two, and with none, in yellow.
I'm tempted to diddle it to the yellow, with two heads, but the symbolism of the blue is worth keeping.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 03:48 am (UTC)My definition of chickenhawk is someone who thinks his geopolitical goals are worth the lives of people less important to the world than him- or herself.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 04:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 05:14 am (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2006-10-25 01:14 pm (UTC)Weak people worry about looking strong; strong people worry about being right.
To quote Ross Perot (or misquote, possibly) "It's just that simple."
It's a rare day when I see you employ debating dirty tricks.
Date: 2006-10-25 08:00 pm (UTC)I won't argue with calling him a chicken hawk (if you think such namecalling helps), but I find your reasoning that people must establish their legitimacy in order to argue a point of view to be fallacious. By your reasoning, most, if not all of our lawmakers should be unable to advocate any of the positions they take when they vote for the laws they pass, because they lack legitimacy. (This might be an excellent thing if it were true, considering the pure amount of BS that gets passed, but still...)
Re: It's a rare day when I see you employ debating dirty tricks.
Date: 2006-10-25 08:48 pm (UTC)But when asked why they (who are of age to enlist) aren't joining up, to fight the good fight, they have other priorities, and besides (say many of them) they are doing just as much to fight the good fight from their keyboards.
I don't say that not serving removes one's right to an opinion, nor even to a public opinion, but to call for others to fight, with the rhetoric that not fighting is going to bring about the fall of civilisation, and then to say, "oh, well I can't because I need to make a better living than an officer's salary," is hypocrisy, and that is where they lose the credibilty which allows them to claim any justification for their right to try to persuade us.
When they (as Goldberg did to earn this) say, "all is gone to shit, and should never have been done, but now that's it's been started, it's so important that "all you other people need to leave your families, get killed, wounded, emotionally scarred, and all the other consequences of war, while I sit back here and cheer you on," then they lose all legitimacy.
TK
Re: It's a rare day when I see you employ debating dirty tricks.
Date: 2006-10-25 09:28 pm (UTC)Well then.
Yes.
You're right.
Carry on!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-26 12:14 am (UTC)