General Chat

Well, I didn't report my own. ;)

The message regarding the deletion of mine is dated a minute before the message regarding the deletion of the post insulting me with untruths.

So I guess someone else reported mine, but didn't see any problem with the nastiness aimed at me!

Quelle surprise. ;)

That is strange, wonder if the same person reported both posts?

Well, his post, consisting of we all know what, is. I guess someone took exception to me calling him and his post what they were. Quel dommage.


Surely no one could object to this:


I believe the world would be a better place without a lot of the wars we have now and have had in the past. I think most of us do.


Bumper stickers of the past ...

What would happen if they gave a war and nobody came?

What if schools got all the funding they needed and the military had to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber?

These both come from the Vietnam era, just as the nasty "poem" does. Some wars are fought for evil purposes, by evil means, and some people who fight in wars do evil things.


That's called the truth.


The nasty "poem" was one singularly insignificant individual's misguided opinion.

I think David has done a disappearing act Janey

Thanks Sylvia.

Ann

he is still apparently alive

just google his name, and loads cof sites come up.



sylvia

Love the fact that he can/could talk 'hillbilly' Sylvia, is he still alive? Wonder if he is aware of the controversy he caused on here!!

From Wikiquote

Charles Province, a veteran of the US Army, is the sole Founder and President of The George S. Patton, Jr. Historical Society. He is the author of "The Unknown Patton", "Patton's Third Army", and "Patton's One-Minute Messages"



"That" poem was published on the George Patton Historical Society website. Also attributed through reading in the US House.

©Copyright 1970, 2005 by Charles M. Province

This poem is often attributed to Fr. Dennis Edward O'Brien. Father O'Brien apparently sent the poem to Dear Abbey, who incorrectly attributed it to him. Before his death, he was always quick to say that he had not written the verse.




I'm not sure what Province's credentials are, apart from having served in the US forces somewhere sometime, and the founder of the George Patton Historical Society .... but this is what he lists on his site:-

Acting Resume:

Theatre Experience
Vesta (staged reading)
Mark/Mr. Matthews
San Diego Coalition for Improving End-of-life Care

Radio Man
The Old Radio Man (One Man Show)
North Park Vaudeville Theater (San Diego)

One-Act Plays
Various roles and productions
Golden Hill Players (San Diego)

And Then There Were None
General Mackenzie
Golden Hill Players (San Diego)

Musical Theatre Experience
Tonite On Broadway
Grandpa/Narrator
Clackamette Youth Ballet (Oregon City)

Video Experience
Y2K - Fact or Fiction
One-Armed Man
Union-Tribune Co. Video (San Diego)

Television/ Radio Experience
Personal Interviews
The Patton Society

Voice-over Experience
Patton (DVD)
Historical Narrative
20th Century Fox

Accents
British, French, Irish, Southern, Hillbilly, Italian

Special Skills
Acting, Singing, Writing, Improvisation, Directing, Assistant Directing

Motion-Picture Experience
Full Circle
John, a coffee house patron
Sharkhouse Productions (Beaverton OR)

Portland Rose City Festival
Impressions: W.C. Fields, John Wayne, The Godfather, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre, etc.




I love what he lists as his "accents"!!

Ah thank you, so the poem referred to the vietnam war, I don't think anyone realised that and I agree, not appropriate really at all.

Ann In Glos.

Sorry not to have replied - I've been out all day 'doing Family history stuff' then got stuck on the M4.

I looked up 'that' poem. The one that has caused all the argy bargey - it is by Charles Province. I just googled his name.

David, do you think you could make your point without being personally insulting please.

Ann, I can remember my mum saying, quoting my nan probably , that hopes were very high for the League of Nations when it was formed , an 'ideal' , but that in effect it turned out to be "toothless".

back later
xx

Thank you Rose, not really off topic in an 'all round' sense. And that is interesting about the league of nations, I am sure that at one stage (when reading up for various MOD promotion interviews) I must have been aware of it but nine years down the line of retirement the brain is not what it was on 'serious' subjects.

I agree that those goals are much in line with the thinking on recent 'wars'.

It is a good addition to the discussion though so many thanks for directing us away from personality bashing!!

I was thinking...... lol and though it is not on the topic as it stands now it was prompted by it so I will post and be damned :))

,re Versailles treaty, and the reparations that Germany was supposed to pay after WW1 and which as Janey said somewhere earlier in debate created the conditions in Germany which were contributory to the rise of Hitler. I believe the reparation total, came to more than the actual amount of gold in the world reserves at the time!
Poverty (real and perceived) , dissension re 'who is to blame' for a 'depression', is a powerful tool in the hands of a despot, Hitler used it to great advantage.

(following my usual thought process...I leapt to the UN and its predecessor the League of Nations founded after WW1 , I've taken this from wiki as it stands as it is a fairly full description of their intended purpose )

"The League of Nations (LoN) was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The League's goals included upholding the new found Rights of Man such as right of non whites, rights of women, rights of soldiers, disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them. When during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, the League accused Benito Mussolini's soldiers of targeting Red Cross medical tents, Mussolini responded that Ethiopians were not fully human, therefore the human rights laws did not apply. Benito Mussolini stated that "The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."[1]

After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. In May 1933 the League was powerless to convince Hitler that Franz Bernheim, a Jew, was protected under the minority clauses established by the League in 1919 (that all minorities were fully human and held equal rights among all men). Hitler claimed these clauses violated Germany's sovereignty. Germany withdrew from the League soon to be followed by many other totalitarian and militaristic nations. The onset of World War II showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League."

I wouldn't normally be one to quote Mussolini , but the phrase above seems particularly pertinent , both then and now?

"The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."

In other words, there comes a point where talk , influence, compromise cannot win over a tyrant or an ideology or a government bent on war .

I draw your attention to the League's goals in the first paragraph.... they are the ( I think) also pertinent to more recent and debateable conflicts and the role the UN has chosen to take in them.

I am not making any specific point here, it is more for information :) and to perhaps pull the thread back to a topic rather than personal impressions of each other :)

Well it's given you something to read anyway lol

xx

Namelessone Thank you. Which poem did you look up please only there are more than one on this thread.

I've struggled over the last few days - I chose my board name as I don't want to call or be called names.

I'll be upfront, won't use bad language or drip feed info.

Poetry, like books, flims etc., don't always cross time lines. So I looked up the poem in question. Written by a WW11 Vet it was appropriate - but as it was actually written in 1970 and thence about the Vietnam War - it wasn't.

My father was a WW11 soldier. By joining the Territorials before the outbreak of war it could be said he chose to fight, unlike many of the men under his command who didn't. My father fought in many of the bloodiest theatres of the war. I beleive he fought to give me and others the right to pursue our own intersts and ideals. To give us the opportunity to follow the paths we want to - to fight the fights we want to. to be allowed to stand up for those we want to. He would , however, not have denied that there are 'bad apples'. There are 'bad apples' in a lot of barrels but not all apples are bad.

I am proud of my father. I am proud of our military, I am proud of the people of Wooton Bassett. I am proud to be British - I am not proud of the British Govt.

I am surprised to see this still here, allbeit a little off subject.

Can we refrain from any personal remarks to or about Janey until she is likely to be awake please, it is unfair if she is unable to answer.

I have to add that personally I don't like the phrase FFS abbreviated or in full, the f word is one I dislike intensely and one I would never use. However, I have become accustomed to seeing it on here and, while I wouldn't like it directed at me I would probably ignore it, knowing that to some people it is every day language.

My Mother never swore in her life (she was very 'puritan'), she would never even say 'darn' because that was a euphemism for Damn. she would be appalled to hear me sometimes. When I was eleven I was sent to my room for saying 'blast'.

OMD's

Peter..i see we have another name change...I have noticed you do this often to have a pop at Janey

წ Julie წ

We're going to have to agree to disagree Janey....I can only go from what I see and where I come from FFS is not the same as for Pete's sake. It is usually said with more anger. I don't prefer such "colour" as you describe it & it does feel very personal to me.

I am addressing this instance of "colour" as it was directed at me and no one else so please don't bring in other instances as there is no evidence that I had seen it at the time at all. I have not been watching/posting on this thread 24/7. I have already mentioned that where I did see such "colour" directed at you at the time, I did speak up for you. In fact in my opening post on this thread I think I was the only person to make references to personal remarks made towards you on the deleted thread (but I may be wrong).

So now my references to it where "persistent", "disrupting", and I am "harping". I'm sorry that you expect me to let go such remarks directed at me without challenging them, perhaps I'm not so succinct as you, however, I did not consider them persistent (3 posts? at most and some were in response to what you said) or that I was disrupting Ann's thread at the time.

Also if you (or anyone else) were to voice your opinions or argue your point I would never say you were "harping" on about them. I would hopefully never use such a put down phrase as I consider it belittling.

My bringing this up again was purely in response to Ann and Sylvia's words. To be honest I did not want to bring it to the boards again but when Sylvia mentioned it too, I posted. It wasn't anything to do with Green Pen's posts & supporting him so please don't insinuate that it was.

As I said, we'll have to agree to disagree because unfortunately I can not see us resolving this.

Apologies to Ann :) I hope you don't mind me posting on your thread.

Also thank you Rose :) PS the Peat Bogs of Ireland look very beautiful, I can see why you'd like to visit.

And I continue to wonder why anyone would want to portray themself as such a moron!

David, you addressed comments to me about "Red Indians" "scalping" Europeans and how I should somehow be grateful to the British mlitary for whatever they did to the "Red Indians".

I explained to you that the only acts of hostility by Aboriginal people in Canada were properly characterized as defensive acts against hostile invading/occupying forces.

Are you disputing that?

I explained to you that in the early stages of British colonization of Canada, the 18th century, there was brutal repression of the Aboriginal populations in some places. Not to rescue anyone from being "scalped", at least not to rescue anyone from *unprovoked* attack, but to establish and assert control over the territory and the people living in it.

What point are you thinking you are trying to make?

British dominion over the territories that became Canada was established by force? Indeed it was. As were French, Roman and prehistoric dominion over England by an array of invaders/occupiers. Are you considering giving England back to the Italians or something?

Treatment of the First Nations by the British Crown and Canadian governments has been lacking decency in many ways, up to and including the present. As an individual, I am not responsible for any of it, and can do nothing to make reparation for any of it except support policies, and parties that advocate them, to improve the situation. I do.

Is there something in particular you want? If you tell me what it is, I'll see whether I can make you happy.

First maybe you can tell me what relationship there is between anything you have said and the subject matter of this thread, which is a text posted at this website and my reaction to it, or even with side issues like the invasion/occupation of Iraq in this century.

If you're suggesting that I'm secretary of the Genghis Khan fan club ... well, you're really just a silly boy, aren't you?

I regret that Rose has been pointlessly insulted. Me, as far as I know, I am 1/32nd Irish, dating from the 18th century, so I doubt I'd be welcome in the bogs or anywhere else in Ireland.