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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 1:52 am Post subject: "Winter Soldier" film touring as "art" |
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I was reluctant to post about this...but forewarned is forearmed...I wish Steve Pitkin were able to be present outside every theatre before the showing.
| Quote: | Doros and Heller Set Release of "Winter Soldier" to Launch New Company, Milliarium Zero
by Eugene Hernandez
Milestone Film co-founders Dennis Doros and Amy Heller have formed Milliarium Zero, a new film distribution company that will handle films with strong social and political content. First up for the new outfit is "Winter Soldier," a look at the 1971 Winter Solider Investigation conducted by activist group, Vietnam Veterans Against The War. The film was made by a collective of filmmakers who worked together to create the rarely seen documentary.
The name for Doros and Heller's new outlet translates as "zero milepost," named for the official landmark opposite the White House in Washington D.C. "Winter Soldier" will open for a week run at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater on August 12th, followed that night by a panel featuring 10 filmmakers and at least five of the soldiers.
In creating "Winter Soldier," a group of filmmakers, calling themselves 'Winterfilm,' worked to document the testimonies of many veterans. Included in the collective are Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Barbara Jarvis, Barbara Kopple, Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Benay Rubenstein and Michael Weil. The filmmakers worked over four days and nights, with donated equipment and film stock, to shoot footage of more than 125 veterans, among them a young John Kerry. The footage was edited over eight months to create the 95-minute movie. Screened in Cannes and Berlin, including a brief run at Cinema 2 in Manhattan, the film failed to get a TV broadcast and has been rarely seen since.
"We thought that 'Winter Soldier' gave us the perfect opportunity to start a brand-new venture that had its own identity -- a company that could take risks on powerful and possibly controversial films," explained Milliarium co-founder Dennis Doros in an email conversation with indieWIRE. "We are disturbed by the lack of discourse in the United States -- caused, perhaps, by a general lack of commitment and passion, anxiety about being in a minority, fear of our own government, and feelings of apathy and paranoia." Continuing he added, "There are brave filmmakers and distributors out there who are trying to make a difference and we want Milliarium to be part of this effort."
After the run in New York, Doros and Heller have booked the movie at a number of other venues, including Minnesota Film Arts in Minneapolis and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago for a week in mid-September, a night each at the Avalon in Stamford, CT and the Detroit Film Theater at the Detroit Film Institute (in August and November respectively), and a week at Reel Artways in Hartford, CT in late September.
http://www.indiewire.com/biz/biz_050728mill.html |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
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Joined: 07 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:10 am Post subject: |
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Oh, for heaven's sake. 
Well, I'll be staying away from this in droves.
| Quote: | | "We are disturbed by the lack of discourse in the United States -- caused, perhaps, by a general lack of commitment and passion, anxiety about being in a minority, fear of our own government, and feelings of apathy and paranoia." |
We are disturbed by the lack of discourse as well!
How the hell hard could it have been to present the pro-Vietnam vet side of the story during this last election?
Hundreds of vets coming forward to tell the truth abuot a losing candidate barely made a ruffle - but any moron who could forge a document or write an article on par with Elvis sightings was given free run of our entire media, as long as they could try to make GWB look bad!
This idiot misses the point, entirely.
It's not the government that's screwing us over and it's not the government that gives us reason to fear - it's the $%#$%# leftists and their lap-dog media!
Now, THAT'S cause for anxiety!
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Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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NNN...
| Quote: | A collective of filmmakers —— Fred Aronow, Nancy Baker, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Barbara Jarvis, Barbara Kopple, Michael Lesser, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Benay Rubenstein, and Michael Weil —— recorded the event, and produced an extraordinary documentary (apparently SO extraordinary that only the most left of the PBS world (WNET 13 -NYC) would even show it)/me#1) called Winter Soldier. Acclaimed at film festivals around the world, the film was rejected as too incendiary by U.S. television and played only on New York's local public television station, WNET. Since then, only few screenings by the filmmakers have kept the legacy alive. This is a rare chance to have another look at this searing document. A Milliarium Zero release. Followed by an 18-minute short film "A Conversation with the Filmmakers." (AKA "We're SO Rad")/me#1
There will be a panel discussion following the 8pm screening on Fri August 12.
Film Society of Lincoln Center |
I feel like passing the hat so we can send you and an SVPT contingent to NYC to participate (full protective gear [both physical and bio-chemical] would, of course, be provided) 
I wonder if NYC Protest Warriors might wish to mingle with the "artsy" NYC crowd? |
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MrJapan
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Joined: 27 Sep 2004
Posts: 465
Location: Chiba, Japan
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 4:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Navy_Navy_Navy wrote: | Oh, for heaven's sake.
Well, I'll be staying away from this in droves.
| Quote: | | "We are disturbed by the lack of discourse in the United States -- caused, perhaps, by a general lack of commitment and passion, anxiety about being in a minority, fear of our own government, and feelings of apathy and paranoia." |
We are disturbed by the lack of discourse as well!
How the hell hard could it have been to present the pro-Vietnam vet side of the story during this last election?
Hundreds of vets coming forward to tell the truth abuot a losing candidate barely made a ruffle - but any moron who could forge a document or write an article on par with Elvis sightings was given free run of our entire media, as long as they could try to make GWB look bad!
This idiot misses the point, entirely.
It's not the government that's screwing us over and it's not the government that gives us reason to fear - it's the $%#$%# leftists and their lap-dog media!
Now, THAT'S cause for anxiety! |
Wow NNN! I've never seen that much rage come out from you, but I totally agree... and in the overall big picture, it's like talking to a wall (a bunch of rocks in this case) :/ Meaning the libs... |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
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Joined: 07 May 2004
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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Not me, me-you!
I'd wear out my spit glands in one day, exposed to all that idiocy. 
Not to worry, MJ - my usual reaction to this level of willful ignorance. I can't believe these stupid people (rocks, indeed) are still trying to foist off the fairy tale that they were in the right.
Give me a freakin' break - everything in history since then has proven them stark raving WRONG!
_________________
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Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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MrJapan
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| Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:49 am Post subject: |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 6:51 am Post subject: |
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Here we go with the promotion campaign from (who else?) the NYT!!
The New York Times
| Quote: | Atrocities of the Past
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
Published: August 9, 2005
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 8 - Like a live hand grenade brought home from a distant battlefield, the 34-year-old antiwar documentary "Winter Soldier" has been handled for decades as if it could explode at any moment.
Now, the 95-minute film - which has circulated like 16-millimeter samizdat on college campuses for decades but has never been accessible to a wide audience - is about to get its first significant theatrical release in the United States, beginning on Friday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. (Other bookings, including Chicago, Detroit, Hartford and Minneapolis, can be found at www.wintersoldierfilm.com.)
Its distributors say that the war in Iraq has made the Vietnam-era film as powerful as when it was new, and its filmmakers are calling it eerily prescient of national embarrassments like the torture at Abu Ghraib.
Sheldon Ramsdell/Milliarium Zero
Rusty Sachs, a Vietnam veteran, from the 1971 antiwar documentary "Winter Soldier."
Review: 'Winter Soldier' (Jan. 28, 1972)
Forum: Movies
Enlarge This Image
Sheldon Ramsdell/Milliarium Zero
Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War testifying in Detroit in 1971, including, second through fourth from left, Rusty Sachs, Scott Camil and Kenneth J. Campbell.
Seldom has a film seen by so few caused so much consternation for so many years.
When it was made at a three-day gathering in 1971 of Vietnam veterans telling of the atrocities they had seen and committed, major news organizations sent reporters but published and broadcast next to nothing of what they filed - prompting the veterans to organize what would be a pivotal antiwar demonstration in Washington a few months later.
When the film was finished a year later, it was shown at the Cannes and Berlin film festivals, at theaters in France and England, and on German television. But in the United States, the television networks would not touch it, the film never found a distributor, and it disappeared for decades after playing a week at a single New York theater and a one-time airing on Channel 13.
When one of the veterans - John Kerry, who was seen on screen for less than a minute - ran for president last year, the old film turned up as propaganda on both sides of the partisan divide: Mr. Kerry's friend, the filmmaker George Butler, used footage from "Winter Soldier" to lionize him in a biographical film underwritten by Democrats called "Going Upriver." His political enemies on the right, meanwhile, created a Web site called Wintersoldier.com and made a film of their own, "Stolen Honor," to assail him as a traitor and a fraud.
"The context is why we wanted to do it," said Amy Heller, co-owner with her husband, Dennis Doros, of Milestone Films, perhaps best known for re-releasing Marcel Ophuls's 1971 masterpiece on the Nazi occupation of France, "The Sorrow and the Pity."
"We have a 9-year-old son," Ms. Heller said, "but if he were 19 and wondering what he should do with the next stage of his life, I sure would want him to see this film before considering going into the military."
The relevance of this grainy, ancient documentary comes from descriptions of abuse that could have been ripped from contemporary headlines, notwithstanding the changes in today's professional soldiers and their evolved, high-tech methods of warfare.
Listen, for instance, to the former Army interrogator as he describes using "clubs, rifle butts, pistols, knives" to extract information - "always monitored" by superiors or military police, he says - and recounts his superiors' overriding directive: "Don't get caught."
Or hear the former Marine captain, speaking of "standard operating prtocedure," describe how easily individual transgressions, overlooked by superiors, became de facto policy: "The general attitude of the officers was - I was a lieutenant at the time - 'Well, there's somebody senior to me here, and I guess if this wasn't S.O.P., he'd be doing something to stop it.' And since nobody senior ever did anything to stop it, the policy was promulgated, and everybody assumed that this was right."
Mr. Doros said he hoped the film would be shown on cable television, where anyone could see it, particularly today's troops and tomorrow's. "They should see that war isn't always what they imagine from movies and books and modern media," he said. "That the atrocities, the gore, the daily horror of bombs bursting out and bullets riddling your friends' bodies next to you, have been glossed over."
What gives "Winter Soldier" its power, he and Ms. Heller said, is not merely what is said on screen - accounts of Vietnamese women being raped or mutilated, children being shot, villages being burned, prisoners being thrown alive from helicopters - but who is saying it, and how they are shown.
It introduces us to Rusty Sachs, a handsome, curly-haired former Marine helicopter pilot, who recalls with an ironic smirk how his superiors instructed him not to "count prisoners when you're loading them on the aircraft - count them when you're unloading them," because, he says flatly, "the numbers may not jibe." He describes contests to see "how far they could throw the bound bodies out of the airplane."
And it introduces us to the gentle-sounding, Jesus-like Scott Camil, a former Marine scout and forward artillery observer, who in a whispery voice relates his personal journey from rah-rah patriot to trained killer to medal-winner to self-preservationist Angel of Death. "If I had to go into a village and kill 150 people just to make sure there was no one there to kill me when we walked out, that's what I did," he says.
Like other veterans, Mr. Camil - whose testimony at the Winter Soldier Investigation inspired Graham Nash's song "Oh, Camil!" - conveys how desensitized they became, and how dehumanized the Vietnamese became in their eyes. "Whoever had the most ears, they would get the most beers," he says of his comrades' corporeal trophies. "It became like a game."
This was being filmed, it should be emphasized, before the advent of rap groups and the confessional culture, before people routinely unburdened themselves on television or an Oprah granted absolution every afternoon. And it was happening at a stage in the war when the invasion of Laos was still a secret, when Agent Orange was unheard of, and when the public was still struggling to make sense of My Lai.
Yet the decidedly low-tech film does nothing to explicate what it records. It has no narration, except for an opening quotation from Thomas Paine, whence its title: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summertime soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
Nor is there any clue given to who made this film. And yet it was the product of an extraordinary collective of 18 unknown but up-and-coming documentarians, several of whom would have distinguished film careers: Barbara Kopple, who went on to direct the Oscar-winning documentaries "Harlan County, U.S.A." and "American Dream"; Nancy Baker, editor of the Oscar-winner "Born Into Brothels" and of "Vanya on 42nd Street"; Lucy Massie Phenix, editor of the Oscar-nominated "Regret to Inform," about widows of the Vietnam War; Bob Fiore, co-director of "Pumping Iron"; and David Grubin, for many years the directing partner of Bill Moyers.
Working with borrowed equipment and donated stock - much of it "short ends" left over from low-budget pornographic films - the group shot more than 100 hours over a three-day weekend, then spent six months editing it into what remains a raw and unadorned artifact, allowing the camera to gaze patiently as each witness tells his story.
But the group effort, Mr. Fiore said, meant no one could claim to be its auteur. "So it didn't have anybody pushing it, the way Michael Moore goes around," he said. "At the time, it seemed really important, it was a political statement. I wanted the film to be for and about the vets. But as a filmmaking and distributing ploy, it was a failure."
Though "Winter Soldier" was invited to Cannes and shown at several other film festivals, the group's efforts to have it shown on American television went nowhere. "We did a screening at NBC," said Fred Aronow, one of the filmmakers. "We got the reply back that this was incredibly interesting material that the American public should see, and it's unfortunate that NBC cannot broadcast it. They did not give a reason."
The film languished largely unseen, except for private and classroom viewings, until a retrospective at Berlin early last year. When Mr. Butler paid for rights to use footage from it, Mr. Fiore said, the filmmakers hoped that his lawyers would prevent anyone from using it to assassinate Mr. Kerry's character. But the producers of "Stolen Honor," an attack on Mr. Kerry that was shown on Sinclair Broadcasting stations last fall, did use excerpts from "Winter Soldier," and a veteran who testified, Kenneth J. Campbell, is suing them for defamation.
As polarizing as the film has proven to be, the filmmakers say they hope that a year removed from the context of a campaign, "Winter Soldier" will be seen the way it was originally intended.
First, of course, they are hoping it will get an audience, at all.
"It's not any fun to see," Ms. Phenix conceded, in an understatement. "But the whole society needs to hear about that part of us, because that's part of us, too. The whole society includes these people who are having to kill and be killed, and maim and be maimed." |
This really worries me, that it will be a template for anti-war lefties to push upon a very uninformed public.
"Wow, look what these Vietnam Vets say they were doing in that war! Gee, it must be true! Now, our troops are doing it again in Iraq."
No proof is needed, just repeat the lie enough to convince people that it's true.
I like to think that "Nah, it won't go anywhere." But look what Michael Moore did with his BS 'documentary' Farenheit 911.
A large segment of America bought the lie!!
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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This is the "payoff." Very subtle, hm? 
| Quote: | | The relevance of this grainy, ancient documentary comes from descriptions of abuse that could have been ripped from contemporary headlines, notwithstanding the changes in today's professional soldiers and their evolved, high-tech methods of warfare. |
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 12:47 am Post subject: |
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Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005 5:44 p.m. EDT
'Winter Soldier' Held Back to Help Kerry Campaign
~snip~
"Milestone Film and Video co-founders Dennis Doros and Amy Heller then picked up the film, which has been discredited by many vets.
But, said Heller, "because the right is well funded and very litigious, it became clear that the best way to release it was to have a separate corporation that would protect the assets of Milestone just in case the Swift Boat Veterans want to make trouble.”
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/8/9/174904.shtml |
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Deuce
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Joined: 19 Mar 2005
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Location: FL
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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Leave it to the New Yuk Times to Hype the lies, videotape from 34 years ago, and call it newsworthy! Notice no mention of Al Hubbard, Steve Pitkin, and the others who have since admitted to lying...the later discovered non-Vets who claimed to be veterans, lying.... Only the New Yuk Times could call Scott Camil of the Gainesville 8 Jesus-like...another RED flag showing the criminal bias of that useless newsrag. Given Kerry's propensity to flip-flop, perhaps he's the instigator here, and will be running as the first Anti-Military War Protestor candidate in '08. Who would actually pay to see this? Other than a few communists, anarchists, and other rabble, that is!
Deuce
| shawa wrote: | Here we go with the promotion campaign from (who else?) the NYT!!
snip
This really worries me, that it will be a template for anti-war lefties to push upon a very uninformed public.
"Wow, look what these Vietnam Vets say they were doing in that war! Gee, it must be true! Now, our troops are doing it again in Iraq."
No proof is needed, just repeat the lie enough to convince people that it's true.
I like to think that "Nah, it won't go anywhere." But look what Michael Moore did with his BS 'documentary' Farenheit 911.
A large segment of America bought the lie!! |
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SOLTC
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 25
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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Everyone,
Is there a website which analyzes "Winter Soldiers" in detail, cataloging all of the lies and falsehood in the film?
If there isn't, there should be!
I wasn't in VN. I was in college and AROTC at the time. I'll bet that all of those involved with this production are former VN-era college protestors. They all want to relive their "glory" days.
The name of this thing really burns me up!
"Winter Soldier"
They aren't the Winter Soldier, we are. Those who stayed the course.
JoeC |
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kate
Admin
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Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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Joe C,
wintersoldier.com
is a good place to start...
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Tanya
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 13 Aug 2004
Posts: 570
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:12 pm Post subject: |
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August 10, 2005
Lies sell
"The dis-proved 1971 movie and project known as “Winter Soldier” is going to have a re-awakening. It will be shown first at Film Society of Lincoln Center – followed by other public screenings in Chicago, Detroit, Hartford, Minneapolis and other venues reports the NY Times."
http://www.iowapresidentialwatch.com/cartoonarc/WinterSoldier.htm |
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Navy_Navy_Navy
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Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 5777
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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| SOLTC wrote: | | They aren't the Winter Soldier, we are. Those who stayed the course. |
I hadn't ever caught that, but you're right!
THEY are the "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots!"
(I'm a cousin to Thomas Paine - I should have known that!  )
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother |
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shawa
CNO
Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 2:08 am Post subject: |
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Deuce said
| Quote: | | Given Kerry's propensity to flip-flop, perhaps he's the instigator here, and will be running as the first Anti-Military War Protestor candidate in '08. |
I have been thinking along those lines too. Given the shift against the Iraq war that is building in this country and Cindy Sheehan's antics in Crawford, Texas gaining big headlines and national television coverage. the ever-opportunistic Kerry may well be considering running as the anti-war candidate in '08.
As it looks like Hillary is sewing up the nomination, Kerry may be figuring this is the only option he has against her. I can hear it now, the war protester HERO "I successfully led the fight to get us out of Vietnam, and I will get us out of Iraq!"
If the showing of this Winter Soldier film gains legs, I think the Vets are going to have to swing into action again. You were smeared once by this garbage, let's not let it be done again!!
_________________
“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776) |
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