Why is THIS sniper not standing tall on America's movie screens?

[sibelian]

http://www.ivaw.org/blog/why

I sit through boring VA circles listening to horror stories about pain and guilt, fear and shame. Bathed in sanitary white light sitting on folding chairs are my brothers and sisters, they are in my dreams and memories wearing browns and tans and dirt. They are all there because a loved one gave them an ultimatum, get help or get out. They look tired, annoyed, hopeless. When it is my turn to talk I explain the illegal nature of the occupation and how the causes were fraudulent, the conduct despicable and the consequences critical. I get the look. The “you know you aren’t allowed to go there” look. I have nothing else to say.

Compare and contrast...

[dissentient]

1. He is not gung ho enough. Needs to have more - "America, Fuck Yea!" style patriotism

The blindly ultra-patriotic seem to be the ones America likes as war heroes.

[sibelian]

2. This guy's an ACTUAL hero!

He's been there, done that, stood up and said "FUCK THIS SHIT" and been arrested for it! This is the fucking guy! His actions are actually self-sacrificing and heroic! And they're slobbering over that fuckwit?!??

ARRRGH I WANNA SMASH STUFF

[dissentient]

3. That's America's ultra nationalism culture for you

It's drilled into you from the time you are a baby here, this type message.

[sibelian]

5. For me, as a Scotsman, US patriotism is just very weird.

Everyone in the world loves their country. Of course they do! It's their home. Where their mum and dad brought them up.

I've met people who came to the UK from Canada, China, Germany, France, Australia, Spain... nobody is like Americans.

I'm sorry, that's not fair. Many American's I've met, most really, have been quite normal and lovely. But it's like there's this special other breed that walk among you like the invasion of the fucking body snatchers. And the inside of their heads is a cartoon. They're like teenagers! Liberals and conservatives alike.

I feel so sorry for Americans that get it.

[truebluegreen]

6. We are exceptionally Exceptional, doncha know.

That, or in the grip of a collective psychosis. I wish more of us had lived abroad at some point, to gain some perspective, but destroying the middle class (thus limiting our opportunities) and then flooding us with propaganda has taken its toll. What was a well-deserved pride in our country has turned malignant. Just like a cancer.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. For me, as an American,

US patriotism is just very weird.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. I have never understood it, either,

and I live here. As you said, everyone loves their country and there's nothing wrong or strange about being attached to your home. But here, there is so often an attitude that the US is somehow better than everywhere else, leading inevitably to the idea that simply because one is a citizen of the US one is therefore better than everyone else. It's a weird and disturbing and dangerous tribalism. I'm not sure when or why it all started, but I remember that as a kid in the '50s and early '60s (during the Cold War) there was a lot of indoctrination in school and in the media about the evils of communism and how our system was objectively good and anything smacking even slightly of Communism or socialism was objectively evil. And, after all, "we" defeated Hitler (who actually was evil) and won WWII (not giving a lot of credit to other allies). It was pretty easy in those days to get people to believe that our country was the best, and all other countries were primitive, backward and deprived places whose citizens wanted more than anything to be Americans.

It was and is ridiculous, of course, but the attitude continues. Many Americans have never travelled outside the US, and entirely too many people believe the rubbish peddled by the likes of Fox News and right-wing politicians, who bitterly criticize anyone who doesn't beat the drum of American exceptionalism. It's awful and I don't know where it will lead - the results have been bad enough already.

[sibelian]

24. "bitterly criticize anyone who doesn't beat the drum of American exceptionalism"

Yeah, what IS that? I look at that stuff on the TV and it's like watching a sock puppet show. Seriously. It's like someone's built a virtue out of abandoming responsibility for managing their emotions appropriately.

[whathehell]

33. "What IS that"? It's the Righr Wing, of course, what else?

but more than half of us want nothing to do with the Right Wing.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

13. as an American, US patriotism is very weird.

Great description, the cartoon that some seem to have in their heads.

Yes, it's....hard to describe the feeling, when you can see "it" , and so few others can. It was like that here on DU in the early days, when so many couldn't see the truth about bewsh. It was SO obvious (to us here ), yet, so many people had no concept.

I would love to be in Scotland!

[sibelian]

14. Maybe it will happen one day, Blanche!

Scottish patriotism extends mostly just to things like this:

http://thechive.com/2014/06/24/meanwhile-in-scotland-22-photos/

yu may liek

?w=550&h=295

[BlancheSplanchnik]

15. I'm not quite sure what that means,

But I'm pretty sure it's hilarious!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

18. addendum:

I di'na liek...

I LOVED!!!
LoLoLoL!

[Half-Century Man]

20. Laughed so hard my wife came in to check on me.

She thought I was having some sort of weird fit.

[catbyte]

19. US patriotism creeps me out. As an Ojibwe, it's an extension of Manifest Destiny, which

perpetrated genocide on many of my ancestors. I'm just not feeling it.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

21. .

.

_/\_

[A Simple Game]

23. I was just wondering today if we would have been better off not fighting the Revolutionary War. n/t

[sibelian]

31. I don't think I'd go so far as *that*...

Trust me, If it had been left to the British humanity would still not have set foot on the moon... Some American qualities are very fine things.

[A Simple Game]

36. I honestly don't know about the moon landing.

You are assuming we would still be under English rule, Canada became free in 1867 in a much more amiable way, I assume we probably would have too. Still plenty of time to go to the moon. Would we have formed one larger country with Canada? Would we also have single payer health care, energy independence...? The British ended slavery in 1833, they and not the north would have taken the hit for the southerners losing their slaves leaving a more unified North American country when it did separate from England. After an amiable separation and possibly no Civil War would we be a less warring nation? By 1867 firearms had advanced to machine guns, would we still have a 2nd amendment and if not what would our death rate from guns be? Abortion?

I could go on, the possibilities are endless.

Yes some American qualities are very fine, what makes you think we wouldn't still have them?

What would the British have against going to the moon?

[sibelian]

37. I suppose I did land rather a large pebble in the pond of time with that statement, didn't I?

I should have been less circumspect. By the moon landing I sought to refer to the American propensity for finding and exceeding limits and forging opportunity out of circumstance. I believe that nations have characters, analects of subconsciously processed stories or emotional processes that are passed down in the form of the "spines" of events, which shape the playing out of politics and national culture.

I think seperating from Britain at the time America was the size it was was very brave. I don't think the magnitude of the task the American seperatists setthemselves was lost on them. I think the ideology that supported the attempt will have shone brightly in its aftermath.

I think you guys earned the right to call yourselves heroes. Yup, I really do.

The British wouldn't have anything against going to the moon per se. It's just that it probably would never occur to us! Far too much prosaic

Did you know that it was a Brit that essentially invented the computer? We pretty much ignored the potential fiscal and developmental consequences of all the work done by Alan Turing and let you guys run off with it!

No imagination. At least, no faith in the concept that the imagination can be used to make human reality a better place...

[A Simple Game]

39. I did know it was a Brit that invented the modern computer.

I view my question, would America be better off it the Revolutionary war were never fought, from the perspective that there is no such thing as a productive war. I don't think when looked at closely that any country has ever "won" a war, the price is always too high. I do know it is often much more complicated than that.

I know some wars are necessary, WWII being a good example. Now if America had remained in the Commonwealth would we have entered and ended the war earlier and thus saved millions of lives and averted much of the Holocaust? With the Holocaust averted would Israel have been necessary? Without Israel would the Middle East be more stable?

Now for a scary question, what if the American politicians sympathetic to the Nazis, and there were some, had won out and America had sided with the Nazis?

I'm not saying any of this would have happened, it's just an exercise in possibilities. A what if this time line took this turn instead of that turn. I am certainly not saying anything you may propose is wrong, all possibilities are just that, possibilities.

I think these types of questions are fun and keep the brain from getting rusty.

You seem to be British, then what do you think would be different today if America had stayed in the Commonwealth?

[Art_from_Ark]

27. Of course, at the height of the British Empire,

there was a lot of patriotism and "gung-hoism" going around in that part of the world:

"We don't want to fight
But, by jingo, if we do
We've got the men, we've got the guns
And we've got the money, too!"

[sibelian]

28. We hear almost nothing about that in our schools.

At least, I didn't.

It wasn't until I took up reading Kipling that the concept of the British Empire as an actual Empire began to sink in. Before then it was all portrayed just as a sort of friendly Sunday picnic.

There was this sense even in Kipling that it was more about spreading British values than anything else, you know, if you have to do something get on with it and stop grumbling, shake hands after a fight, all that sort of thing.

[whathehell]

34. There's a fuck load of "patriotism" in Europe, too, in the form of RW Euros against immigrants, etc

Germany, France, Sweden..It's hardly limited to the U.S..

[Tom Ripley]

35. There is a school of thought that "patriotism" was invented by Disraeli to serve the purposes of...

the British Empire

[sabrina 1]

30. It's not patriotism, it's the Right Wing form of Nationalism, and it is a threat to World Peace.

Patriotism is when you want your country to be better, safer, a good place to live.

Nationalism is when you want to rule the world because you think you are superior to all other nations and people.

It is also extremely bigoted.

Using 9/11 as an excuse this country has become more and more violent, isolated, and defensive. And a whole lot LESS safe because of that. That is what we are told by our Elected Officials, 'we are in more danger than ever'. Nationalism is also irrational, you can't reason with it, or talk to it. You are 'either with it or against it'.

[alarimer]

32. I feel like I always have to apologize for Americans like those.

I see it on Twitter a lot, for instance. When a non-American brings up WWI or II, some American always has to interject "Well, we had to save your asses twice or you'd be speaking German" or some such. Never mind that it's completely ignorant of history, it's also just plain rude. (Of course they might be joking; sometimes it's hard to tell).

[sibelian]

38. Well, we did our bit and got well and truly fucking hammered for it early on, so...

to be honest, though you won't hear many Brits say this, the fondness of some Americans to award themselves cool points in front of us kinda pales when you hear your mother's stories of growing up in a bomb shelter being read Peter Rabbit and the Flopsy Bunnies by her mother while Daddy was away busy liberating Belsen with no-one sure if he would ever come back. Getting through your cities being pounded into rubble and just keeping going without giving in... well. Some guy can do the "ha, saved yer ass" dance, but we know there are more important qualities than bravado.

Really, it does not sting so much.

I hope you understand. America has every right to be pleased with itself. It's just that sometimes these guys don't seem to realise how serious is the debt we owe. They'll never really be in that sort of danger. It would be lovely to be able to say thank you freely without certain individuals being intent on convincing themselves they've corrected our understanding.

Some think that if that idiot hadn't invaded Russia we could have lost despite your assistance.

German troops parading their tanks through the streets of London, rounding up the remaining males and ensuring their restraint. It could have happened. We were practically on our knees.

[Fred Sanders]

4. He will never be asked on a cable news show for his opinion....like real snipers are.....

[tecelote]

7. Born on the 4th of July | Oliver Stone

In the mid 1960s, suburban New York teenager Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) enlists in the Marines, fulfilling what he sees as his patriotic duty. During his second tour in Vietnam, he accidentally kills a fellow soldier during a retreat and later becomes permanently paralyzed in battle. Returning home to an uncaring Veterans Administration bureaucracy and to people on both sides of the political divide who don't understand what he went through, Kovic becomes an impassioned critic of the war.

The trailer:

[sibelian]

9. And then they did it all again.

Why?

I think it was to prove they were right the first time....

[uhnope]

10. It seems like all the "American Sniper" threads are full of people who haven't seen the film

[bigtree]

16. don't need to see bullshit

...to know it stinks

[Skittles]

25. and I would pay to see repuke propaganda - why?

[Fred Sanders]

11. I found an American Diaper sniper:

Taking careful aim at government officials and police....never arrested...his whiteness protects him.

[erronis]

17. Maybe "Empty Chair Talker" will comment

I doubt he'll make a film about real people with real conscious.

Proud To Be An American - catch George Carlin's American Bullsh!t -

[Half-Century Man]

22. To be fair

We should be proud of our Rice a Roni.

[Dawson Leery]

26. He is too mature to be part of a jingoistic story.

[woo me with science]

29. K&R