Re: Somehow No One Seems To Think

In article <d2f8c926-fb69-4171-a531-a387e02ad1d7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Bill C <tritonrider@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Apr 1, 9:40 am, Bill C <tritonri...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 I saw it here, and have heard, and read the stories, both from vets
and the folks treating them from large areas of the country. There's
been plenty written on it. I don't think there was much in military
towns Howard. I have heard stories of troops, and their supporters,
also attacking "those little pinko commie faggots" over peaceful
protests too. I'm sure you'd say THAT happened.
 Bill C- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I wanted to add some more perspective, to try and get past the he/she
said thing.
The situation here wasn't one dimensional by any means. This was a
fairly conservative bluecollar famirng community. Umass was an
"agricultural" college, Amherst College had been rich white, mostly
conservative, Smith and Mt. Holyoke produced some "freethinkers" but
that all blew up on the campuses here in the 60s as they all went
massively left with Amherst taking longer. Hampshire college came on
the scene with it's planned radicalism in '70.
There was a huge clash of cultures between the "progressive" students
and professors, and the basically blue collar, farm, mostly immigrant,
old world mentality here. They hated each other. This went on through
all my school years, but faded as the area became gentrified, elitist,
and othe most liberal spot in America. The last bastion of the fight
is the town nickname, and that's over too, according to the local
paper. We're now Noho. There're still a bunch of older folks, and my
generation with lots of resentment towards being overrun and called
every name in the book, and treated like third class citizens. First
class were the wealthy, the academic, and the activist. Second class
were the poor, whom they could patronize, and pat themselves on the
back about helping, but not actually interacting with as people, and
then there were the blue collar, farmers, etc...folks who were
ignorant backwards, knuckle dragging scum, who needed to be re-
educated.
The cops for the most part were in the latter category too, so there
were real problems between them and the college folks, students, and
hippies here. 99% of those the cops were dead wrong in IMO. My partner
Ed and his friends were frequent targets despite wanting to do nothing
but party, and play music. He's enough older so he got to take the
brunt of reaction, where I only got to watch it happen. He wouldn't
hurt a fly, but that hatred for the cops is still there today.
The difference is that while he hasn't changed much, politically,
even he thinks they've gone way overboard here.
This is where I'm coming from on this stuff, and why Howard. I hung
around, a little bit with some of the academic folks because we were
in some of the same classes, but was never invited to one of their
houses. Most of my friends were kids from the handfull of local
sudsidised housing projects because the elementery school I went to
was, basically, in the middle of them. Lots of them didn't make it
through the drugs, alcohol, crime, and violence. Being treated as
***, hopeless, and helpless had a pretty nasty effect on lots of
them, and their attitude towards society. Same for the blue collar
kids.
I could give you more of it, but it's redundant. You know the fucked
up family *** I dealt with and how I ended up being raised by my
grandparents who were exactly what the activists screamed was wrong
with America. Still not sure how decent, hard working, poor people got
to be the enemy, but they were. Usually *** to do with not being
properly educated and not understanding the plight of the people. My
grandmother used to tell them she was the people and her formal
education ended at 13 when her mother sent her from Wilkes-Barre Pa.
into NY city to be a domestic and send money home because they weren't
making it on the pay from the coal mines. Hunting and fishing were
critical to feeding the family then. My Uncle got to finish school
because he was a football star until he blew his knee out his senior
year. He was supposed to be the first to go to college, instead he
went to Korea and became a DAV.
The values they held to, and taught me, of belief in the country,
hard work, no-handouts, you get what you earn, no-excuse, no-whining,
hunting, fishing, support the military were the worst possible things
you could believe in when I was growing up here according to the
elites. We were just too stupid to know all that was wrong, and needed
to be properly educated.
Yeah, I've got a big chip on my shoulder, well earned I'd say.
Bill C

Yeah, this goes a long way toward explaining many things. Not necessarily the way
you might think, however. News flash, Bill: school kids can be assholes and shun
people for many reasons. Particularly outspoken people who have obvious chips on
their shoulders.

Second: "decent, hard working, poor people" were *not* the enemy. No one was
hating on your grandparents. This part of your base of knowledge is fantastically
flawed. And the suggestion of 're-education camps" that's implied by "We were just
too stupid to know all that was wrong, and needed to be properly educated" fits right
in with that.

Sorry, Bill, but you've grown up distrusting (and "hating" would not be an
uncharitable characterization of it) a huge portion of the population and believing
that they bear you ill will and want to see you and your "kind" done away with. It
colors everything you write in threads like this. I've tried to have reasonable
discussions with you and be friendly but you can't let up with the strawman building
and attacks on my politics (as perceived by you, which seems to have little to do
with my reality). Think about it for a while. It's spring - go for some bike rides.

--
tanx,
Howard

Whatever happened to
Leon Trotsky?
He got an icepick
That made his ears burn.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
.

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