Politics and hypocrites
It seems like Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuala, has been funding and supporting communist rebels in Columbia for some time now. After this link was uncovered Mr Chavez turned on the FARC and is asking them to unarm themselves.
Big deal, another politician flip floping on an issue, right? Only thing is Mr. Chavez criticized the US a few years back for our interventionist policies in Iraq. While intervening in another countries civil war. Just another hypocrite, but he was lauded at the time by some for his stand on principles.
It seems to be a human thing to make saints of the people who say things we want to hear, and to demonize those who contradict our sense of right. Then either become bitter or make excuses for the person when we find that they do, in fact, have human faults and failings.
This especially struck me three and a half months ago listening to a Democracy Now podcast. It played excerpts of the recent winter soldier protest in Washington. It included the testimony of one John Michael Turner, who was in my unit, but in a different company and adjacent AO while I was in Ramadi. There he admitted to personally committing several acts of murder. And people cheered and applauded him. Since he was in a different company I never knew him or worked with him. But I know some people who did. From what they said, and from what I can understand from his own admissions, he was the worst sadist out there. He not only did what he admitted to doing, but he ate that shit up. He loved it. He is very much the exception to what is almost entirely a professional effort.
Besides the disgust I feel for this individual, who somehow slipped through the cracks and who never should have been trusted with a rifle, the thing that amazed me is that people were cheering him. And Im sure if I was there and said that he was full of shit, or was twisting the situation to make things sound the way he wanted, I would have been ostracised. Applauding an admitted murderer who is walking free.
Big deal, another politician flip floping on an issue, right? Only thing is Mr. Chavez criticized the US a few years back for our interventionist policies in Iraq. While intervening in another countries civil war. Just another hypocrite, but he was lauded at the time by some for his stand on principles.
It seems to be a human thing to make saints of the people who say things we want to hear, and to demonize those who contradict our sense of right. Then either become bitter or make excuses for the person when we find that they do, in fact, have human faults and failings.
This especially struck me three and a half months ago listening to a Democracy Now podcast. It played excerpts of the recent winter soldier protest in Washington. It included the testimony of one John Michael Turner, who was in my unit, but in a different company and adjacent AO while I was in Ramadi. There he admitted to personally committing several acts of murder. And people cheered and applauded him. Since he was in a different company I never knew him or worked with him. But I know some people who did. From what they said, and from what I can understand from his own admissions, he was the worst sadist out there. He not only did what he admitted to doing, but he ate that shit up. He loved it. He is very much the exception to what is almost entirely a professional effort.
Besides the disgust I feel for this individual, who somehow slipped through the cracks and who never should have been trusted with a rifle, the thing that amazed me is that people were cheering him. And Im sure if I was there and said that he was full of shit, or was twisting the situation to make things sound the way he wanted, I would have been ostracised. Applauding an admitted murderer who is walking free.