Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

His bombing raid in Syria last week ago got responded to in Golan and there is now some shooting back and forth going on - Israel shelled southern Lebanon, Hezbollah hit Israel with some anti-tank fire and hit Golan with some shelling. One UN Peacekeeper in Lebanon and two IDF soldiers in Israel are dead so far, a bunch more wounded, and the Israeli right is calling for the usual "disproportionate" response to each response to their response to the initial response to their bombing raid.

It's all the perfectly predictable outcome to the bombing raid, which I, being the cynic I am, view as a Bibi campaign stop, motivated in just the way your parenthetical suggests. If you're less cynical, you might view it as his way of undermining the "ISIS first" strategy that the anti-ISIS forces have been following in Syria.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

It's annoying when critics attack a work (movie, book, etc.) for not having been about something else (and I still haven't seen the movie). That said, the review I linked earlier suggested that the movie is not only "not about" the nature of the conflict, but also that it repeatedly changes facts -- a/k/a fictionalizes -- to whitewash what happened. Would it have been hard for Eastwood to suggest somewhere in the film that Kyle was the victim of choices made by Americans?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Surely you jest. I love his body of work, consider him one of the icons of cool when I think about my personal style, and cinematically, he's a good director. But Eastwood has never made a secret of the fact he is a strong Republican. He'd rather admit he loved his dead, gay son.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Personally I think Eastwood did suggest that -- though in a way that left it open for people to decide if that suggestion was correct. First is just the trauma of the war over all, on Kyle as well as other soldiers. Second, and more to this point, at the funeral of another Seal the widow reads a poem or story from the soldier about how hateful the situation is. Kyle rejects that notion, but it's clear that other soldiers do not. (It's not particularly powerful and a bit cheesy, but that's because it's not a great movie.)

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I know that, and you know that, and Sidd knows that. But as a Thomas Pynchon fan, I believe it's important to judge a work on its own terms, and not on the basis of the author's life.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Fixed that.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I was responding to the last sentence of your post. Yes, it would be hard for Eastwood to allow for any doubt as to the heroism and nobility of even the most flawed of our veterans. Witness, as in Gran Torino, when he commits suicide by gangster. The vet will never be ambivalent in a Clint Eastwood film. Remember, this is the man who addressed an empty chair at the GOP convention.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

It should be possible to make a movie about Iraq that depicts a heroic and noble soldier who is the victim of choices made by Americans. From what Sidd and others have said, it sounds like Eastwood didn't do that, but maybe someone will.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

No dog in this hunt, but it seems to me that people are drawn to the jobs where they get paid to (and have permission to) do what they want. People who like to argue become lawyers. People who want to be in charge become cops. People who like computer shit go to google. People who want to kill are drawn to the military.

Obviously this isn't true of whatever-number-approaching-100%-is-correct of those joining the armed forces, but someone who has killed dozens upon dozens of people probably has a predilection for killing. We just give that guy the training and the tools to be efficient. And I firmly believe that the armed forces are constantly on the lookout for these types because we want them on that wall. We need them on that wall.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

And who's going to do it, Lieutenant Weinberg? You!?!

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I don't know if I agree with your example. I'll admit that I've never watched Platoon from start to finish, but it's because of the rape scene. I was like 16 or 17 when I saw that and I had to turn it off. Maybe the tone changes, but I didn't get any sense of heroism from what I saw.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I'm not so sure. Taking away the context of the war completey really makes it possible to cast anyone involved from our side as a hero. It's hard to call someone a hero, even when they commit heroic acts, when they are part of a war-for-no-reason.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

That's bullshit.


You are seeing this as yes/no -- does he have a predilection for killing or not. I see it as a spectrum, from the Buddhist who wouldn't step on an ant to the Jeffrey Dahmer.... The military is going to look to one end of that spectrum, but in today's military especially someone on the extreme end is going to be a disaster. Particularly with a sniper, in a war where the enemy isn't in uniform -- you want a guy who, on the one hand, is able to pull the trigger without remorse, but, on the other hand, can exercise judgment and patience and not pull the trigger when he shouldn't.



Is it possible that I am the only one who saw the Nightly Show episode?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

You saw a different version of Platoon than I did, I think.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I see what you did there.

I have to remove this from the context of the movie or the guy the movie is based on (because I don't give a shit about either) in order to continue this conversation. But, yeah. Sure. You're right. Nothing is black or white. Surely you don't want someone who is out of control and can't be controlled in a position where they have to exercise judgment before killing people. And, yeah, there's a spectrum when it comes to absolutely every topic one could possibly discuss. Okay.

My point is, maybe guys like these aren't always turned into killing machines. Maybe guys like these want to kill, have way fewer qualms about killing someone than a normal person would, and are looking for opportunities to do so. Seems to me, the armed forces would be on the lookout for guys like that because, in my opinion, it seems like it would be easier to train someone like this how to be good with a gun than to train someone who is good with a gun how not to care about blowing people's heads off.

Not that big a Larry Wilmore fan.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I'm not sure I agree, at least with respect to the Iraq War. I mean, I wouldn't call any Confederate soldier a "hero"* -- they were fighting on the side of evil. But while the Iraq war was stupid, counterproductive, not worth it, we never should have gone.... The people we were fighting, at least after the initial stages, were pretty evil themselves. If an American soldier gave his life to prevent the bombing of a Shiite gathering, would you say "yes, but he never should have been there so I can't say he's a hero"?

*Let me say right now that I find the whole "hero" talk pretty annoying. Hero this, hero that. It's not a word I use when not referring to sandwiches. But I'm responding in the vein of your comment.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I don't think anyone could seriously decide to volunteer for the military, especially for a combat group like the Seals, unless they were at least comfortable with the notion of killing. But the guy who affirmatively wants to kill, or likes killing, I would think would be a shitty soldier (just like the lawyers who never know when to stop arguing are actually pretty crappy lawyers).

One guy on the Nightly Show was an Army sniper, apparently with some enormous number of kills. He said he had no regret over the killing -- but he also had a severe alcohol problem after returning from war. His focus was that he was saving his friends and comrades. The movie-version of Kyle was similar, the real version may have been more "and they were bad guys."

I just started reading a book I bought years ago, that is specifically about how the military trains people to be okay with killing. It's interesting, scary. Just one guy's view, of course, but his view isn't that they look for the bloodthirsty types.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Well, that's rich. I guess it depends on your perspective and that's kind of the entire point, isn't it?

You can easily make a movie about Confederate soldiers who save their buddies from Union soldiers in situations where they are extremely outnumbered or who are the subject of awful tactics by the Union army. If you remove the whole point of the war and just show what's going on on the battlefield with no other real context then you will surely have many people watching the movie who look at the main characters as heros.

Now who's turning this conversation into a yes/no proposition? Of course we were fighting some pretty evil people. But, Shirley, there were Iraqis who were involved because they wanted to take up arms against an army that had no business being in their country.

I am completely with you. I think, next to "literally," it's the most over- and incorrectly-used word in the English language.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I dunno. The real life version of people is often the bullshit version they convey because they don't want anyone anywhere near what they're actually thinking.

The best example I have is cops. Obviously I'm not talking about all cops. But the people I've known who wanted to be cops were always the ones who got pushed around a lot when they were young or who were fucking lunatics who couldn't wait to use a gun with permission. Granted, my sample size is unsupportably low (maybe 3 people), but if you asked any one of those guys why they became a cop you'd get the first of the following George Stone answers:

http://youtu.be/vz4_fb6-_F0?t=13s

And the really answer would be because they wanted to be able to bust some heads and exert some authority. And we wouldn't have a police force without these guys.

As for your lawyer example, that ain't true. There are plenty of assholes who get their way because they just never stop negotiating. I've seen attorneys give on points just to get the other side to shut the fuck up about it.

I think for the most part, you absolutely have to train people to be okay with killing, because it's so against human nature. But you can't convince me that they aren't on the look out for the guys who come in and naturally don't seem to have a problem with it.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I was thinking about this the other day when the discussion first came up. My brother has more kills than my husband does. Like a gagillion Texans, my brother grew up hunting. Mainly ducks, geese and dove, but he is an excellent shot and had no problem whatsoever shooting and killing birds in the sky or snakes in the water or sick looking rodents that could be rabid. My husband grew up in urban and suburban Ohio, and he didn't start shooting until he joined the Marines during the first Gulf War. Aside from spiders and the mice he fed to his snakes, I don't think he's ever killed anything on purpose. But he was good at shooting. Though he didn't go to sniper school, had his unit gone anywhere, he would have been the guy they sent high to cover everyone if there were no other snipers around. He never had to.

I'm pretty sure that my husband wouldn't have had a problem at the time shooting and killing people to protect his unit. Not god, not country, not to defend democracy or something abstract, but the guys he went in with. He was very well trained / indoctrinated to work as a team with the people around him, and he was good at his job, which included being an excellent shot. Had he stayed in longer, I have no doubt that eventually he would have shot and killed someone and maybe even a lot of someones. And I think he would be relatively ok with it.

I think my brother would have had a major problem with it, though I guess if he had to, he could/would. He'd be a lot more messed up about it later, though, at least outwardly.

At any rate, I think my husband was a 19 year old who had no interest whatsoever in college and saw the Marines as something he could do instead. He'll tell you now that he was a horrible Marine, though I've never gotten the impression that he regrets it, and he's still immensely proud of getting through Parris Island and then being Force Recon. For someone who hates being told what to do or how to dress and is insanely stubborn, I sometimes can't believe he did it. I suspect a lot of adolescent anger, resentment, and desire to prove people wrong did a lot to drive him. I think also the adrenaline rush had a lot to do with it. He loved jumping out of planes and repelling and using zip lines and stuff like that. Plus he loved playing with the toys. I can't even count the number of times we've watched an action adventure movie where he's done whatever the people on screen are doing.

Now, he absolutely HATES the fetishization of the military, and he squirms whenever he hears the words "thank you for your service." I mentioned recently how I thought it'd be funny if he and my brother went to a gun range to compare efficiency, and he said it sounded like something that would support the NRA so he had no interest. But I still think he would not hesitate to kill someone if we were in legitimate danger.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Yeah, I thought Platoon was a weird example there, because it had definite American soldier bad guys.

But it's also pretty literal in its Sgt. Elias-as-Jesus imagery, albeit right a the end:
https://sanjosebarstool.files.wordpr...if?w=500&h=281

Weird, I don't specifically recall the rape scene though.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Thank him for his service.

A lot of data supports the idea that no one kills for his country or his flag. They kill to protect themselves and the members of their unit. Which is why 100% of infantry warfare consists of sending people to places on the battlefield where they have to fire to defend others, because not engaging is always an option so you have to take that option away. And in days past, when we had a non-volunteer force, even then a lot of guys just fired into the air, ineffectively but just enough to avoid being shot for cowardice.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

As a person who’s gone a lifetime of assiduously avoiding supporting the NRA, my present understanding is that one can pay a daily or hourly fee at a public or private range without resulting in a net benefit to Wayne LaPierre, BUT many ranges and sportsman’s rod and gun clubs require NRA membership in order to become a member — something about NRA death and dismemberment insurance, no doubt. So he can’t become a member. But paying $10, particularly at a publicly owned range, isn’t going to empower the NRA. I welcome corrections from anyone who sees it differently.

Unless he means he doesn’t want to support the NRA by enriching, even slightly, a person or business who is then more capable of donating. Because if that’s the standard, you’re pretty much going to have to displace yourself from Texas again, or “go freegan.”

What’s a person with a big fucking family ranch doing at a gun range, anyway? I thought people in Texas just fire their guns out the bathroom window to salute the dawn.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I don't know anything about gun ranges for two reasons: a) big fucking family ranch and b) public safety. I'm the worst shot in history (though I suspect that my youngest sister is worse, but there's no data to support it because she refuses to touch a weapon), so I don't go near guns to ensure that no one accidentally loses a toe or worse. I'm on the close hand to hand combat with blunt and/or sharp instrument team when the zombie Apocalypse comes.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Dude, spoiler. Damn.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

It was in the village where they find VC supplies - it happens after Tom Beringer kills the mayor's wife. Not as big a plot point as the rape in "Casualties of War," but it was part of why Charlie Sheen liked Wilem Dafoe better than Berenger.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Maybe that's the one I was thinking of. Do they take the girl into a hut with Michael J. Fox doing his Michael J. Fox thing outside?

I don't think I watched Platoon either.

TM

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

In looking this up, I found that both Thuy Thu Lee (“Casualties of War”) and Li Mai Thao (“Platoon”) have exactly one screen credit each — that of “Rape Victim” in their respective movies.

So.

Yeah.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

HUGE 2 on that "Thank you for your service" bullshit. It's hard to verbalize just why it is so annoying, but I cringe too.

We've seen all kinds of reasons in our family for joining the military. I think my foster-nephew did it to emulate his foster father. I've had a couple relatives do ROTC, focusing more on the college payments than the after college commitments - at least one of them very explicitly thinking, pre 9/11, that he had little or no chance of deployment and it was a good gig for a couple years. We've had people in the military as doctors, priests, and social workers - all unlikely to get shot at or shoot anyone. At least one in-law was doing it for immigration and naturalization reasons. Two family members have done special forces training - my father, who dropped out of it, and a brother-in-law who started in the SEAL program but was transferred out of it into a leadership track and ended up commanding a nuclear sub (SEALs never end up running things, they're too crazy). Both signed up for it more for the prestige, they were looking for the most elite military role and the fastest advancing they could.

There's a sizable part of the country where the military is just an alternate stepping stone to success, like college is or training for a union trade once was. I don't think every enlistee really thinks that hard about the killing part.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

That's the one. Sean Penn is the Evil Sergeant.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

SEALs I know are probably outliers. I met two when we were at Oxford. One of them is now a lawyer specializing in environmental projects and the other's title on linkedin says "Special Assistant to the President, National Security Council". A third SEAL is a Burning Man buddy, and everyone knows not to wake him up suddenly.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

What if one woke him up by “thanking him for his service,” IYKWIMAITYD?

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Oh, yeah right.

Funny story (not really), in high school a buddy had rented the movie you mentioned and the tape was sitting on top of the TV. His mother came in and looked at the box and said, "what's Casual Ties of War."

He's dead now.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

No, they most often shoot them at the doghouse, which is a scale replica of the real house, while reclining in the hot tub.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

I feel like this story could use an editor.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

If an editor was involved adder would get a rejection letter. No offense.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

None taken.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Those of us who will carry need buddies like you, so we can make it to episode 2.

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Great opening scene from Larry McMurtry's "Texasville," featuring one of my favorite fictional characters from 20th Century American literature, Duane Moore, expressing middle-aged angst (and frustration with falling oil prices) by using a .44 Magnum to turn the doghouse into splinters. (Was the doghouse a miniature of the McMansion built by his wife? Can't remember, but who cares?)

Re: Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.
 

Yes, the doghouse was a replica. Thus, my inclusion in the allusion, if you will. Kudos on recognizing it. McMurtry is one of my favorite writers and the Moore clan provided many hours of both happy and painful reading.