I don't see the point about the dumb people from Harvard. There are dumb people from Harvard now too. Not everyone hated the Vietnam War protesters and not everyone hates BLM either.

As far as "as time went on" do you mean later on in the war, like 1972, when the anti-war candidate was crushed in one of the biggest landslides ever? Was it when one of the people who committed the Watergate Break-in said "I would do it again because he (McGovern) is a traitor to this country, to the American flag." Or do you mean like 20 years later when all the white people not in the KKK pretended like they had revered MLK?

lol

Go **** yourself.

What is this weak pointless ****? You think you're coming off well with this pearl clutching nonsense? You come off as disingenuous, unwilling to say what the **** you actually believe.

So.

Go **** yourself.

"Those boys... they said Dom's story that wasn't true might not be true. Can you imagine??"

****ing hell man have some self respect, Johnny.

Dude you are obtuse. I am responding directly to you with an example of exactly what you are defending in that post I quoted. That you don't get it is an indictment of you, not me. Give yourself one beat to think before you bang out your adolescent battle cries featuring all your fave forum battle buzz phazes if it's that complex of a point for you.

You are in a fantasy. You are not going to be in charge of anything. You are not going to affect any change. You are not going to be the catalyst or manning the guillatine. You are a self indulgent tempur tantrum artist offering nothing of value beyond making yourself feel things.

Here's a hint, dude. You are the only one who thinks you and dvaut are on the wavelength when you "yeah yeah!" Loudly behind him.

Is that clear enough?

The pearl clutching is not in reponse to you, buddy. There are actual effective people who are marching us toward a clear goal, and the people who see are fighting over inconsequential bull****. There is a lot more at stake than forum points. This **** is a sport.

My wife is from Vietnam. Her parents lived through a real war on their land. It's not as romantic as you think.

Man I got you mad enough to misspell every other word in this ****ing post, calm down bro, I said "pics or it didn't happen" to guy. It ain't World War 3.


As opposed to you, who has, as far as I can tell, not made a single ****ing point of substance this whole thread. Like when goofy went to the tape to reveal that in a thread ABOUT the myth of left wing disrespect to Real Americans that Paul D and Dom were building a writ small version of the myth of leftists attacking Dom's character...

The #1 top example you could find to prove goofy wrong was an entirely civil post? If that **** gets you into the pearl clutching at this point I think our strawmen about how the only thing that won't make you whine is head patting seem proven correct.

Dom wrote my name in a response to DVaut. Seriously, **** off with this incredibly emotional, completely pointless, insanely passive-aggressive bull****.


Like what the **** is Johnny Truant's Big Boy Thesis at this point? You're running your mouth real ****ing imperiously but I can't find it. I think at the end of the day we're going to get to you personally disliking me, which, fine. Good. You seem like an insufferable piece of ****.

Nah. You love yourself more than I could ever dislike you man, and since I gave you an opportunity to rehash the war story of the Vietnam War mythology thread again, you love me. like how many times have you quoted your "pics or did it happen" brilliance itt? Good one! Valor. I never addressed you about ever. But here it is. Again.

I don't know how much simpler I can make it. Not feeling confident it's gonna get there for a dude who is clearly going to be looking through this post with the main intent of picking out opportunities to either talk about his thread glory or cracks in the armor all the way down to spelling. Hang on, there is going to be more than one thought held at a time, so when you get the first one.....there's actually more.

I didn't once disagree with the points made about the Vietnam trope. I didn't come out complaining about you guys being abrasive as my concern, but guess what? That **** is self indulgent and unnecessary. Still not the main point. You want to make me defend myself against either of those things is a waste of time.

My question to dvaut, not you until now btw, is so ****ing what? Yes there were lessons to be learned about how this phenomenon took off and affected the discourse over the last 40 years. It's a valueable discussion. Two years ago. Today? Well it had better be the starting point and we had better get caught up to the much less subtle USE of the last 40 years of that trope. It has paid dividends now. Now we have the language of military rule being uttered at the highest levels. So great, we got it cleared up that Dom fell victim along with society to folding it into his paradigm. That it subtly made even liberals accept narratives that are useful to the right.

They are not at that point anymore man. They have used it. It will be an interesting history lesson when they study the catastrophe that is looming, but you know what else will be? How the people who recognized it decided it was worthy of spirited debate for internet points and felt like it was helping. That is what I am pearl clutching against. Not people's feelings getting hurt. Not tone policing, or rat ****ting. It is asking the people who are smart enough to recognize that there is intent behind these thing that---this ****---distraction, infighting, wasted energy, false sense of victory is also a calculated part of the intent. That the victims and consequences of the propaganda don't end where we think.

Bannon has said it. He said in plain english how he would win. He said in plain English what he is doing next. Guess what? while he keeps us hacking at the leaves he is focusing on the roots now.

So you all have had your pages and pages of victory laps. Let's use it to move on what else needs to be learned. Or not.

I mean jfc. They came out with info on the Russian propaganda mills this month. Guess what? They didn't try to disseminate fake news to give one narrative legs, they did it with the intent of causing discourse just like this thread.

We are past Rambo.

OK. The first thing you need to learn is to shut the **** up until you develop a point. 3 people in this ****ing thread said they learned something, and none of them were talking about your verbose finger wagging nonsense. Like I said, develop some convictions. It's good for the soul.

Well, that's not true.

It's a clear damned if you do/don't. Agree and you're echo-chamber dogpiling. Stay silent and people will pretend like Dvaut and Fly aren't trivially and obviously correct.

ffs I took the time to explain it in post #190

The rats are having sexual intercourse and not defecating.

You are positing that the 'stab-in-the-back' 'must worship the soldier if not the war' 'yellow ribbon' rhetoric to something like Republican political agents trying, not just to win on some policy issue, but to set Democrats at each other's throats.

I don't think this phenomenon is nearly that partisan or intentional. I think it's more dependent on a well of receptivity in the population that results from many things of which active and intentional propaganda is only one small component. While issues like this will be debated and lies can be uncovered by a small percentage of the people, most people don't want to hear it. I submit that probably regardless of how valiantly knee-jerk military support and myths about victimized warriors are attacked they are absolutely inevitable in any society that is involved in essentially perpetual war and has the military and defense industry as very large employers and parts of the economy. And that nothing would do so much to mitigate these attitudes as to dramatically pull back from leading military involvements worldwide, discourage rather than encourage arms sales, and cut the defense budget by 75%.

I was speaking less about the "me too" than the implication that it associated the two in any meaningful way other than agreeing on a point. Maybe wavelength was a bad word. Level. I'll accept that this is just my perception based on limited exposure. I partly arrived there based on posts of admiration from others toward, or calling out the idolization of dvaut as an elite poster. Not really the same tone for fly. Except from fly. Also, I have not seen dvaut saying we, our or us to take credit for fly's bolstering points. One of them seems more delighted with association than the other.

Fwiw, I agreed with both of them more than disagreed on the actual subjects being discussed. Fly is an accomplished troll as well. He got me to actually think there was a point in engaging with him well after I should have known better.

To your second point, what people needed to be told that and to what end? They were told, now what? I mean I am still here stupidly hoping this topic moves from square one--we agree that there is a history of using military honor as a blunt weapon against the left, that it worked itself into the very fabric of how our country engages in debate. I want to learn something more. Nobody is interested. The end of this conversation seems to be a scoreboard and the game's over. I guess it only leaves me scratching my head about how those same forces have moved on from the spitting meme, and what part we play in the new wave of propaganda funded by Mercer and Putin.

What was your account name on your last account, and what ethnic group did you disparage to get it banned?


Well, among others, you.

Apparently you're just going to whine pointlessly and invoke Mercer and Putin just to really hammer home how you have no ****ing idea what you're talking about, how you have nothing to add to this or any discussion, as far as I can tell. Not the direction I would pick, but you do you.

Well, the part you play is yelling at leftists for contradicting white man storyhour about the stab-in-the-back myth while simultaneously buying into and amplifying "Putin is doing DIVISIVE RHETORIC so BLM should shut up" liberalism. The kind that's deeply invested in the idea that Trump was a one-off who won through Russian hacking instead of the next step in a 40 year rhetorical campaign of increasingly reactionary right wing bull****. Like, for example, the idea that Vietnam vets were spit on.

Thanks. TBH I never heard tone policing or rat****ing before this thread and the context made me think I'm not interested in the level of discourse accusing/defending represents.

I'm sure you are right about the organic and inevitable nature of the military tropes, from spitting to stab in the back to instant hero to fetishizing to thank you for your service to gold star families. How it is wielded, and how effectively, that's a different story.

Regardless, I strongly believe we have turned a dramatic corner on the use of propaganda. I'm not putting the military tropes at the forefront of it and I don't think it is even that important what the topic represents. It is being used on the republicans as well right now. I don't think it is partisan, but I do think it effective in different ways along party lines.

One way it infects us across party lines is we now have to have debates instead of conversations, where even people who mostly agree are only allowed to take up sides on every discussion. This ensures division and even more decreases development of strategy. It's not just visible in politics. Sports. Parenting. ****ing smart phone preference. You name it. For example, I got informed by fly that my first lesson needs to be getting my points in order before I dare enter a discussion. Like there is no room for an evolving point of view between like minded people. Like there can't be a difference of opinion that allows room for anything other than smashing the other side.

Yes I do believe that this is purposful. Yes I do think the lever pullers are using big data to watch how people react to every agitation being thrown to us. Yes I do think it has evolved way past yellow ribbons or swift boating. We fell for that already and we are falling for something much more dangerous now. Much more blunt.

Pretty obviously the internet has a lot to do with that. People were always *******s for sure, but now they can let loose with people they don't have to see in person. There is room for an evolving point of view between like or unlike minded people though if you can multitask.

edit: I slipped a little here as I've been trying to avoid discussing the discourse itt.

Oh. Well, they're both sharp dudes, very good writers, and Good Boys. Fly is more succinct. Not sure what else to tell you.

I think you're putting the cart before the horse in how you think forum tribalism works.

I'm not sure what to say to that.

Well, the fact that my post didn't seem to help is proof-of-concept right there.

That's not quite accurate

Fly's obv elite.

While this dude is obviously on something or whatever at this point, I do want to riff on this post, because he explicitly laid out what is generally subtext.

Something we see over and over again from older white guys when exposed to this forum is spluttering, gasping shock at being so disrespected. seattlelou, kioshk, Howard Beale, Lestat, and now this thread.

They are so used to be treated like their opinions matters that merely asking this guy to "have a point" is treated as BEYOND THE PALE. They are used to just saying whatever the **** pops into their head and having people smile and nod.

And then we wonder why American society is rife with absolutely dog**** right wing urban legends as conventional wisdom. The lesson is challenge everything. Care about being right. Be right! These are achievable goals! Sitting around bull****ting with the guys about how you would've definitely made the NFL if you hadn't blown out your knee is one thing, who gives a ****, but when someone tells you that their niece has a student named "La-a"(pronounced Ladasha) at summer camp, laugh in their face at how that ain't ****ing true.

The 'side' getting 'smashed' has agency as well. That's the part you guys seem to forget.

Yeah nobody is confusing those two ever. He's more pointed than sharp imo. I'm not even convinced he means well a lot of the time.
See, I wasn't speaking to tribalism and I already said so. I was simply insulting fly by pointing out his observable needy clutching to dvaut. I'm not pretending it was to serve any purpose or make any broad point. It was just to be an ******* in kind. The thing is, I obviously hit the target based on how he flipped out subsequently and went off the rails firing wildly in the dark back.

Dude, I am turned around about him being an effective troll after the latest flurry. He keeps missing so wide that there is literally nothing for me to even defensively respond to. I'm legitimately more concerned for him than bothered by him at this point.

Not following. If this is a zinger it went over my head. Feel free to spike the ball in that case, or explain what you mean if it was a sincere exchange.

I didn't say everyone hates him or he never has a valid point mixed in with drivel, bile, trolling, self-congratulation, dick waving and neediness, but as I said, nobody is ever going to confuse a dvaut post for a fly post. Ever. Even his pals.

This is a valid point but lol if the form it takes is taking it to the "old white guys" in a poker forum. That's not gangsta. Also, what "guys" do you lump me in with because it's hard to keep track. Please man/white/American/privilege-splain my postiton to me. Is it just the all guys who don't get fly's elite genius?

What's wrong? What are you going on about?