Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by KukriKhan
So you suggest a monument of heaped corpses to commemorate war-dead, to counter the glorification of war that you perceive?
Where, in your town, would you place such a statue?
I can't really see why it should be more problematic than the current statues we have...
Put them at the same places.
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
Hows about, instead of directing most people reading your post to PM an uninvolved moderator, you simply explain it yourself, or link to the relevant post?
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What you choose to do, is to focus so much on other aspects, that the brutal and senseless killings of it is forgotten, and that makes some people think that "hey, war is fun!". The heroism part of war is an extremely small part of it, war is and has always been about senseless murders.
Perhaps if we focused more on the murders of war instead of heroism, people would view war as a bad thing today...
One might think that, since this is a statue of a dead man, the point of war not being fun and games would get across.
I'm interested in how war has always been about 'senseless murders'. Do you have a different definition of murder from everybody else?
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what better place could there be then apart from outside a recriting office
Perhaps a plaque or monument to the constitution and freedoms we hold because of soldiers would be better. But then, that wouldn't be insulting to the military, would it?
Crazed Rabbit
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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But then, that wouldn't be insulting to the military, would it?
Did you find this insulting to the military?.....
http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk.../d38ba07a.html
how about this....http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk.../4aa50c8a.html
Both were at the time considered contraversial , as were many others .
As it happens there is a new statue being commisioned over here, some Galway fella from down the Claddagh .
A little heroic military enterprise in some place called the Somme .
Since the statue is being based on a photograph frame taken from a film it should be fairly accurate , after all the still is used in just about every book about the western Front and the film itself is in just about every documentary about the battle .
It is not a very happy picture , what with the depiction of futility death and suffering , is it insulting to the military ?
If so why is the picture a feature in the old British regiments museum down at the local Irish battalions barracks ?
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
For anyone interested the still that is being used for the statue is here....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4HW...elated&search= from 2:00-2:08 .
And for further interest view the UVF Somme memorial on the same page , not a bad rendition of "the green fields of France" .Although some people might take issue with the terrorist trappings on the war memorials depicted .
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by Tribesman
We're not talking about those statues, are we?
To the topic ... I thought this was the photo they were using for the statue:
http://extras.mnginteractive.com/liv...ETZ~p1_200.JPG
CR
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
We're not talking about those statues, are we?
Indeed. Those are totally different, thematically and stylistically.
I think you are jumping to conclusions as to the motifs of the protesting parents. They say they object to the 'design' as well as the 'location'. I would object to the design as well, without holding any grudge against the deceased young man. And I would object to its location in a public space.
After seeing the precast, I think this sculpture is utterly tasteless. It is impersonal, larger than life, stonier than stone, and most important of all: it is in no way reflective of the young man's sacrifice. It would be a cheap glorification of soldiery to install this overblown plastic toy soldier in a public place, not a symbol of recognition to an armed citizen of a free nation doing his duty.
I share your disdain for 'wussification' and I think that one guy's suggestion of putting up a sculpted peace dove is profoundly stupid. But this sculpture is horrible. Frankly, even the 'heroic' sculptors of the Soviet era infused their works with more humanity than this guy Henderson.
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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We're not talking about those statues, are we?
Hey its you who raised the issue of statues being insulting to the military .
Perhaps a plaque or monument to the constitution and freedoms we hold because of soldiers would be better. But then, that wouldn't be insulting to the military, would it?
Would you be having one of those tilting at windmills episodes ? or could you explain how a realistic depiction could be viewed as an insult to the military .
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Indeed. Those are totally different, thematically and stylistically.
Certainly , since they were done after it was all over and people were thinking "what the hell was that all about" , whereas this is being done while it is still going on and people are thinking "what the hell is this all about" .
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
That DOES look more like the statue. Hmmm, must confront my source (an ex-S.E.A.L.).
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by Adrian II
I think you are jumping to conclusions as to the motifs of the protesting parents. They say they object to the 'design' as well as the 'location'. I would object to the design as well, without holding any grudge against the deceased young man. And I would object to its location in a public space.
The tastefulness of lack thereof is not what they're protesting - they would protest the best statue in the world if it had a man carrying a gun. It's the gun they object to.
Frankly, I am disappointed with the sculpture also.
Crazed Rabbit
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit
The tastefulness of lack thereof is not what they're protesting - they would protest the best statue in the world if it had a man carrying a gun. It's the gun they object to.
Frankly, I am disappointed with the sculpture also.
Crazed Rabbit
I think you're making some possibly wrong consclusions here. Of course some people will object to any statue featuring a gun, you'll find those kind of people everywhere, and they might be quite vocal here, but are they the majority ? Me thinks a lot of people don't like the statue for the reasons AdrianII has mentioned: it is utterly tasteless and nearly an insult to real soldiers. They're probably the 'more silent' majority of the protestors, and have aligned themselves with the extreme anti-gun people, because in the end they just don't want the statue there, who cares why ?
On a little side note: am I the only one who thinks the statues face seems to have a strange resemblance to the sculpture ?
BTW after seeing Lemur's thread about Afghanistan and the Time covers he's posted I'll have to agree that the US has indeed become rather pussified. If even major media companies 'sugercoat' the truth of the wars you're fighting in, it's time to start worrying. But like said before, it often seems like another kind of bubble exist in the US: those who see war as nothing but heroic. Don't kid yourself, they're still people you are killing, still kids you're turning into orphans, still villages you're destroying. And your own people aren't all going to come back, and those that due might have some serious injuries. That's not to say there can't be heroism in war, but going to war for heroism sake is like throwing kids into a river so people can 'heroically' save them, if they do they are indeed heroes, but what about the rest ? Not that war isn't necessary, or even just the best option at times, I just have to wonder what has happened to the US that they seem to consider it the best option so easily, especially considering the abysmal results of the last few decades of wars/police actions/whatevers.
At the start of WWI a lot of young people went to war seeking glory, blissfully unaware of what horrors awaited them. Now I'm just an outside spectator and might be wrong of course, but it seems to me that in today's America a similar kind of blissful ignorance is being cultivated, making sure a new generation of cannon fodder is always available.
</rant>
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
Reading doc_bean's post reminded me of an interview with a US soldier I saw a long time ago. He said he was outraged when Al Jazeera showed footage of dead US soldiers. A week later, he saw dead and mangled Iraqis on tv, and was rather horrified that he wasn't outraged at that as well...
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by HoreTore
Reading doc_bean's post reminded me of an interview with a US soldier I saw a long time ago. He said he was outraged when Al Jazeera showed footage of dead US soldiers. A week later, he saw dead and mangled Iraqis on tv, and was rather horrified that he wasn't outraged at that as well...
A sad bit of truth in that for all of us probably.
Re: Blissa-ninnies, the cowering fear of any violence, and wussification of America
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Originally Posted by KukriKhan
That DOES look more like the statue. Hmmm, must confront my source (an ex-S.E.A.L.).
Good luck with that. :skull:
