…I could never forgive them for the death of my boy. It seems to me our mission to escort the Chancellor of the Klingon High Council to a peace summit is problematic at best. Spock says this could be an historic occasion, and I’d like to believe him, but how on earth can history get past people like me?
I watched a great pro-Obama union speech about racism, and from that followed a link to the video below, which makes the point that John McCain’s relatively unrepentant racist statements — ie. “I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” — are deeply problematic, and more so than just the subtle (and overt) racism that’s a part of mainstream American culture.
It’s not just that he’s using a racist term… Gook isn’t a word like “nigger” (a derogatory word wrapped up in the subjugation of blacks by whites), but is a specific wartime slur that is directly associated with the concept of genocide. That is, it implies not just a prevalence for racist thinking, but a desire for racial genocide. At a time in America’s history where there is a pathological fear of Arab culture, this is definitely not the subconscious foundation that America’s foreign relations should be built on.
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Oh boy, I’m sure I That’s 180 pages of fun!
I can’t think of a single vietnam war themed movie that doesn’t drop the “dink” or “gook” word in it. In the context of it usage, it never struck me as being any different than : “kraut” or “hun” or “ivan” a generic term to identify the enemy.
I guess I’ll have to add another word that I never use or think of using to my lexicon of words that folks would find offensive. Pretty soon I’ll run out of pages.
Yeah, I was surprised to find out that it was first used against Haitians, and is more of generic war/racial-hate term than something that’s specifically Vietnamese.
Well then, I’m sure every soldier that pounded ground over in Vietnam had no idea that when they used that word they using it any other way than as a derisive term to identify their directed enemy. I don’t much care for McCain, but if that’s the worst he has said, I don’t care. I don’t want to see him president, but I’d at least give him a pass on that. If the tales are true, he spent some time being tortured by the ‘gooks’
Fair enough — one could make the argument that almost everyone who went to Vietnam was an agent of genocide.
Personally I think his time being tortured disqualifies him.
I also think the fact that he seems to be completely incompetent, crashing his plane repeatedly, being at the bottom of his class, etc., should disqualify him.
Oh, Ok . Whatever…..
Red herrings.
Personally I’d like to vote none of the above.
Maybe you need to get a job and fix the fucking world!
Sorry about the previous post. That’s what I’m gonna start doing once I retire.
As far as all that political stuff, I’ve found a nifty website. Seems to be Non-partisan, https://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_mccain_crash_five_planes_did_he.html
Factcheck.org.
Check it out
Thanks — I made the mistake of just assuming that one was true. I know that site of course, but I hadn’t seen that entry.
I graduated at the bottom of the my class(like 608 of 680) and I think I’m doing pretty well. I’m sure most of my teachers thought I’d never amount to much. School just wasn’t my thing. I’m a skeptic. I’m not fond of either candidate and I’m not defending McCain for President, I just find that when faults that I can personally identify with are pointed out it touches a nerve.
Good followup:
https://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print
And from the washington post as well (on McCain’s crash record):
https://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/10/mccain_fudges_his_navy_record.html
Gook isn’t really from Vietnam. It comes from Korea, where I am living now. 국 or 国 (in Chinese) just means “country” during the Korean war it was first used to refer to the locals. That’s basically what it means, locals.
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