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First off, thanks for at least keeping part of YOUR vitriol in control

Posted by tinear (A) on October 13, 2006 at 13:46:54

In Reply to: I wonder.. posted by jamesgarvin on October 13, 2006 at 10:38:21:

during your replies. Your lack of self-control really does make discussion challenging.
How many veterans you have had the courage to discuss this matter in person?
--Well, that's hardly pertinent but I have many friends who were Vets and with whom I've disagreed for years. I also ran a homeless shelter for years whose clients predominantly were Vietnam-era vets.

"And here is the hypocritcal nature of your argument. Many in the liberal community have argue that most of the solders were not willing participants, that their economic station in life forced them to enter the military before there was a draft, which then forced them to go to Vietnam.
--If this is their argument (why do I feel it's really yours?) it is incorrect. When we had our 500,000+ troop levels, which we did for years, in 'nam, the vast majority were draftees.

"But not, the leading liberal thinker on these here boards, calls them willing participants. I guess when the rich boys are allowed to defer, then let's talk about the non-voluntariness of service. When not convenient, let's talk about all these eighteen year old boys being murderers. At least have the courage to call them what you think them to be."
--I should leave you a tip for bringing so many words to my mouth. Surely you'd agree that one could be a volunteer and then refuse to fight in a specific war? In other words, a man cannot be coerced into killing another.
Secondly, "murderers" is your word. I think a lot of young men went over to have fun, shoot guns... be John Waynes. They didn't think of the children, women, elderly, and innocent men they'd be killing or help to be killed. Ignorance or non-consideration of consequences, of course, is not a strong defense.

"Comparing Nuremberg and Vietnam is wrong. The United States entered a Civil war on behalf one side. Which I think, in retrospect was wrong, it was certainly defensible. Should the South Vietnamese people have been allowed to be governed by a government of their own choice, no matter how corrupt? I think so. That the U.S. chose to interveve to protect that right was probably a mistake, it was philosophically defensible. Because a small minority of soldiers committed atrocities does not change that fact."
--You need to read a condensed version of The Pentagon Papers. Hint: we didn't intervene out of any great desire to see a better life for the Vietnamese. One reason was the Domino Theory, advanced first by Ike. Another was to send a message to China that we wouldn't stand for communism in a SE country. Then there was the fact that Vietnam was the "rice basket" of SE Asia. You may wish to take a gander at F. Fitzgerald's "Fire in the Lake" and be disabused of your right-wing rantings.

"On the other hand, W.W.II was a war as a result of one countries aggression towards a race of people within it's borders, but, more relevantly, because of that countries' aggression toward other sovereign nations. The Nuremberg trials were designed, primarily, to bring Nazis who were responsible for killing Jews to justice. Those were not acts of war, but of civilian crimes by a government on it's own people.:"
--Arguing with yourself again? The Nuremberg PRINICIPLE is that "just following orders" is NOT a justifiable defense in conflict of ANY sort.

"Morality is important in art? Well, is it essential? Without dredging up more vitriol, I am of the opinion that Saving Private Ryan is the best anti-war film ever made. Why? Because it shows, better than any other film of which I am aware, what war is really like, in the trenches. Yet there is no overt message that "war is bad." Your political viewpoint suggests that if SPR were made with the Vietnam War as a backdrop, it would cease to be a good film, art, because it did not do justice to what you regard as important - depicting the Vietnamese as "people", or showing them backwards. On the other hand, if Germans are protrayed in a bad light, who cares."

--I think "Saving Private Ryan" is an outstanding film precisely for its verisimilitude. It also manages the very difficult task of showing war for what it is... a great waste which turns ordinary fellows into killers.
Of course morality is critical to a film's standing. Art does not occur in a vacuum. For instance, slasher films which glorify torture and killing as "sport' no matter how cleverly filmed, well-acted, or perfectly scripted must always be execrable trash.
Art is, after all, for human beings, not wild animals.

And therein lies my point. A good film should be a good film, regardless of the backdrop. I think Coppola was making an anti-war film, he simply may have been using a language that you did not understand. Sheen was made amoral by the war, Duvall was crazy, not someone I would trust to pump my gas, and that to some people war is a profitable enterprise. Those are not the statements of an amoral man or film.
---You have twice missed my points about why this film is amoral. Go back and try again.

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