Misguided Heroes.

L1011 · 13-06-2013 12:51AM

nervous_twitch wrote: »

Wow; I never bought into the Miracle Man agenda that the media was pushing, but I've listened to the recordings from the Cockpit and I always thought he was really stuck for somewhere to land. So did he devise it so that he could land in water? I thought that kind of maneuver was pretty much unprecedented for an Airbus and any kind of survival was against the odds. Is this conspiracy theory or does it have any real credentials?

Well, he didn't put the birds there, so you can't really say he devised it, but he had very much decided he was going to the river despite many other qualified people telling him to go to TEB.

Karl Stein · 13-06-2013 12:54AM

Sergeant wrote: »

Why not focus on both the outcomes of the interactions in 1950's and 1960's South American politics?

What interactions? What interactions in S.Am. were untainted by US brutality and terrorism?

We have to avoid questioning the utter barbarity of far-left ideologies that were present there as well?

No. Barbarity should be condemned regardless of what ideology underpins it. 'Left wing' barbarity in S.Am. was primarily a reaction to US terrorism.

That continue to deny citizens of Cuba many of the things we take for granted in a social democracy like Ireland.

Cuba has been strangled by the US for decades. It hasn't been allowed to develop so we have no idea where it would be these days had it been left alone.

How is modern-day socialism working out in South America at the moment?

Ask the peasant people of Venezuela that question and I'm sure the answer you'd get would 'Great - stay the **** out of our business'.

Also, what society doesn't employ socialism in one form or another? Did you have a socialist education? Yes. Do you drive on evil socialist roads in your virtuous capitalist car? Yes. Do graduates from socialist universities feed so-called capitalist corporations? Yes.

Dimithy · 13-06-2013 01:12AM

Cathal Cloch wrote: »

Afaia there was only one side that was propping up dictators, funding death squads, and brutally crushing democratic movements; this is the side that the lens of condemnation should focus on first. Any reaction against such murderous brutality is a footnote rather than the main act.

How about we condemn both?

Karl Stein · 13-06-2013 01:26AM

Dimithy wrote: »

How about we condemn both?

They're not equally condemnable.

I support people's right to fight back against empirical terrorism. I believe the slave owner, who maintains his privileges by threat of torture and murder, deserves any violence that is returned by his slaves. Fuck him - he deserves everything he gets for keeping slaves in the first place.

K-9 · 13-06-2013 01:56AM

Cathal Cloch wrote: »

They're not equally condemnable.

I support people's right to fight back against empirical terrorism. I believe the slave owner, who maintains his privileges by threat of torture and murder, deserves any violence that is returned by his slaves. Fuck him - he deserves everything he gets for keeping slaves in the first place.

Mod:

Please stop post i this thread, it's getting to soap boxing stage. 11/66 posts are from you i this thread ad it's starting to spoil it.

MadsL · 13-06-2013 01:59AM

Pat Kenny?

BillyMitchel · 13-06-2013 02:08AM

K-9 wrote: »

Mod:

Please stop post i this thread, it's getting to soap boxing stage. 11/66 posts are from you i this thread ad it's starting to spoil it.

Go home mod, you're drunk!

downonthefarm · 13-06-2013 02:09AM

the scissor sisters,they gt jail but should of been given a meadal

downonthefarm · 13-06-2013 02:10AM

downonthefarm wrote: »

the scissor sisters,they gt jail but should of been given a meadal

*medal

BillyMitchel · 13-06-2013 02:11AM

downonthefarm wrote: »

*medal

Dafuq???

Why is that?

downonthefarm · 13-06-2013 02:14AM

cleaning the streets of a dangerous scummer

dodderangler · 13-06-2013 02:33AM

Aqua man

http://youtu.be/V0kvdi3GGA0

FanadMan · 13-06-2013 02:56AM

Used to be a big fan of Lance Armstrong - bought the book, wore the wristband. All until the doping scandal revealed just how much of a cheating pr1ck he was. Both the book and wristband helped heat the house in the open fire :mad:

SniperSight · 13-06-2013 03:38AM

I find it sad that theres people on here that think theres no such thing as real heroes.

Personally, I never bought into Bobby Sands being regarded as such a hero.

Yakult · 13-06-2013 04:08AM

Bastards!

Grayson · 13-06-2013 08:08AM

playadeldick wrote: »

Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on

There's two points though.

1) what motivated him was right even if his actions were wrong. He saw massive social injustice. He witnessed poverty everywhere and saw the over throw of democratic presidents by US backed juntas. He believed that south america needed to change. With that i think most of us can agree with his motives and aims, even if we don't agree with his methods.

2) He became disillusioned with the soviet system. After the over throw of the cuban government the soviets sent aid. But it had loads of strings attached. And it was incompatible with their system. He eventually realised that the russian soviet system wouldn't work. And after flirting with china and the maoists realised that their system wouldn't work either. that's why he left cuba.

He was always motivated by the well being of the poor and dispossessed but in the end chose bad political systems. And as you said his methods were deeply flawed (Although probably no worse than any other 20th century revolutionary).

So yeah. He probably deserves to be in this thread as a misguided hero.

robbiezero · 13-06-2013 09:04AM

MYOB wrote: »

Well, he didn't put the birds there, so you can't really say he devised it, but he had very much decided he was going to the river despite many other qualified people telling him to go to TEB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

"The NTSB ran a series of tests using Airbus simulators in France, to see if Flight 1549 could have returned safely to their choice of LGA, either runway 13 or 22, or TEB runway 19. The test pilots were fully briefed on the series of events and maneuvers. The test pilots were only able to return successfully to either airport in eight of 15 attempts. The NTSB report noted that these test conditions were unrealistic: "The immediate turn made by the pilots during the simulations did not reflect or account for real-world considerations..." A single follow-up simulation was conducted where the pilot was delayed by 35 seconds: He crashed trying to return to LGA runway 22.[107]"

--Kaiser-- · 13-06-2013 09:09AM

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

I think there's a bit of a bandwagon going re Mother Teresa. She still did a lot more to help the poor and sick than most others did. And under extremely difficult circumstances in a hell-hole like Calcutta.

She didn't though. She thought suffering was holy and meant people got to heaven quicker. She just gave people a place to die and prayed over them

gurramok · 13-06-2013 09:52AM

Some people believe John Redmond was a hero. He led the slaughter of thousands of Irish men in WWI on a false promise, no hero there.

Seedy Arling · 13-06-2013 02:49PM

Cian O'Connors horse which was on drugs for the 2004 Olympics.

AngeGal · 13-06-2013 02:54PM

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

She didn't though. She thought suffering was holy and meant people got to heaven quicker. She just gave people a place to die and prayed over them

This. She most certainly did not. Christopher Hitchens cut that myth down to size nicely.

--Kaiser-- · 13-06-2013 03:05PM

Another modern 'hero' I'd be sceptical of would be Nelson Mandela. He was a co-founder of the militant wing of the ANC which deliberately targeted civilians in a campaign of terror (if this is a surprise to you, look up necklacing, a common punishment for enemies of the ANC).

But, unlike some other terrorists I could mention (Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness) he served time for his crimes

(cue hysterical responses from terrorist supporters, which are legion in this country)

Joe prim · 13-06-2013 03:11PM

Happy the land without heroes! ( Except the chocolates, and even then, only at Xmas)

Undercover · 13-06-2013 03:17PM

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

But, unlike some other terrorists I could mention (Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness) he served time for his crimes.

Of course Gerry served time in the H-blocks during internment but not sure that counts...

Cody Pomeray · 13-06-2013 03:19PM

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Another modern 'hero' I'd be sceptical of would be Nelson Mandela. He was a co-founder of the militant wing of the ANC which deliberately targeted civilians in a campaign of terror (if this is a surprise to you, look up necklacing, a common punishment for enemies of the ANC).

Nelson Mandela deliberately targeted civilians?

Sorry, why was he not tried for that then?

Mandela focussed on causing economic damage to the racist, authoritarian South African State. He did not advocate targeting civilians. That's why the buildings were bombed at night time. Mandela understood the human cost - but he also understood the cost of alienating whites. The latter awareness was a strong theme of his Presidency.

Where are you getting this (frankly) rubbish?

It seems to have become popular just to name any widely accepted honourable man and lambaste him without adequate reason or out of some bizarre need to provide 'balance' .

FTA69 · 13-06-2013 03:20PM

Che Guevara was a great man and his actions resonated throughout Latin America and the wider world. Himself, Fidel and the wider movement took Cuba from being a Mafia-run playground in the hands of a despot to a worker's republic that dramatically improved the lives and opportunities for its citizens. Despite some people apparently living in cloud cuckoo land, revolutions are rarely peaceful and seldom clean affairs and violence is often to be expected when confronting despots like Batista or regimes like the apartheid governments in South Africa. Our own country was no different.

Personally I consider the likes of Lenin, Guevara, Castro etc to be some of the greatest figures of the 20th Century.

FTA69 · 13-06-2013 03:21PM

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

Mandela focussed on causing economic damage to the racist, authoritarian South African State. He did not advocate targeting civilians. That's why the buildings were bombed at night time. Mandela understood the human cost - but he also understood the cost of alienating whites. The latter awareness was a strong theme of his Presidency.

Civilians did die during MK operations but the notion of him as a bloodthirsty terrorist is pure and utter b*llocks which was perpetuated by the likes of Thatcher.

Cody Pomeray · 13-06-2013 03:24PM

FTA69 wrote: »

Civilians did die during MK operations

I'm not sure how many civilians died, there was certainly no 'targeting' of civilians such as terrorist groups would undertake. And there was no advocation of civilian deaths by Mandela.

I am just contesting the "deliberately targeted" point.

AngeGal · 13-06-2013 03:30PM

FTA69 wrote: »

Che Guevara was a great man and his actions resonated throughout Latin America and the wider world. Himself, Fidel and the wider movement took Cuba from being a Mafia-run playground in the hands of a despot to a worker's republic that dramatically improved the lives and opportunities for its citizens. Despite some people apparently living in cloud cuckoo land, revolutions are rarely peaceful and seldom clean affairs and violence is often to be expected when confronting despots like Batista or regimes like the apartheid governments in South Africa. Our own country was no different.

Personally I consider the likes of Lenin, Guevara, Castro etc to be some of the greatest figures of the 20th Century.

Worker's republic, give me a break.

It's not much of a Republic when criticism of the government will land you in prison.

--Kaiser-- · 13-06-2013 03:34PM

Cody Pomeray wrote: »

I'm not sure how many civilians died, there was certainly no 'targeting' of civilians such as terrorist groups would undertake. And there was no advocation of civilian deaths by Mandela.

I am just contesting the "deliberately targeted" point.

Chruch Street bombing.

Now I realise this took place while Mandela was in prison, so I will concede the point that he did not advocate civilian deaths

Edit: Apparently Mandela writes in 'Long Walk to Freedom' that he signed off on this heinous act, so I will retract my earlier concession. He also refused a deal to renounce violence in order to be set free in 1985

Misguided Heroes.

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