amazing news, after innocent iraq vet gets hurt by riot police, vet groups vow help

[earlycuyler]

But it bothers me when a third party uses someones military background to make a point...such as when I hear "an Irqui vet is injured by the police.
The fact that he is a vet is irrelevant to the topic at hand...and his service is being used to pushhome a point.
In my eyes, no one has the right to try to gain by using the heroism of one of our military.

And thank you, personally, for your service.

Thank you for yours.

Yes, it's obvious some people are trying to make political hay out it, but what are you going to do? Didn't Glenn Beck make political hay with his "non-political" Restore Honor rally? He used the military as a jumping board for his own political agenda. Should he have been allowed to do it? Although I agree with you that the political agendas of third parties using the military to further their goals is deplorable, I do not believe we should stop it since it puts us on a perilous path. This isn't "Stolen Valor" where people are lying about a service record, but just profiting off of it. Not nice, not honorable and I'll happily call it out when I see it, but we shouldn't stop it.

In the spirit of not making political hay out of it, there has been little reporting on either side about the protesters getting out of jail and going back to help clean up the mess from the night before.

 

[Jarhead]

But it bothers me when a third party uses someones military background to make a point...such as when I hear "an Irqui vet is injured by the police.
The fact that he is a vet is irrelevant to the topic at hand...and his service is being used to pushhome a point.
In my eyes, no one has the right to try to gain by using the heroism of one of our military.

And thank you, personally, for your service.

Thank you for yours.

Yes, it's obvious some people are trying to make political hay out it, but what are you going to do? Didn't Glenn Beck make political hay with his "non-political" Restore Honor rally? He used the military as a jumping board for his own political agenda. Should he have been allowed to do it? Although I agree with you that the political agendas of third parties using the military to further their goals is deplorable, I do not believe we should stop it since it puts us on a perilous path. This isn't "Stolen Valor" where people are lying about a service record, but just profiting off of it. Not nice, not honorable and I'll happily call it out when I see it, but we shouldn't stop it.

Not a Glen Beck fan....and no, I did not appreciate the fact that he used the military to bolster his popularity.

However, do not get me wrong. I am not saying stop it...I am a proponent of free speech.
I simply dont like it when they do it.

An FYI...whereas I do not agree with most, if not all that the OWS protesters are protesting.....I have done nothing less than continually applaud their efforts as Americans exercising their right to free speech.

You should be able to find it in most threads about OWS.

I do not appreciate their lack of consideration for their neighbors....and some of the tactics they are suing for sympathy...such as the guy who mocked getting hit by a motor scooter

 

[Divine Wind]

I liked some of the ideas you proposed earlier reagrding how the mayor could have quelled it well before the protest began.

But in regard to the poilice force......would you say there was a failure of leadership there?

What should the CO of the police presence have done?

Once the decision to deploy the police with tear gas was made, the city leadership was already in a defensive, reactive mode. They'd already failed and were trying to regain control. They should never have lost control in the first place. That puts the fault squarely on the Mayor's desk, not in the Police Chief's office. The Mayor may not pay the penalty (that's politics for ya!), but she is whom I blame for this failure.

 

[Jarhead]

I liked some of the ideas you proposed earlier reagrding how the mayor could have quelled it well before the protest began.

But in regard to the poilice force......would you say there was a failure of leadership there?

What should the CO of the police presence have done?

Once the decision to deploy the police with tear gas was made, the city leadership was already in a defensive, reactive mode. They'd already failed and were trying to regain control. They should never have lost control in the first place. That puts the fault squarely on the Mayor's desk, not in the Police Chief's office. The Mayor may not pay the penalty (that's politics for ya!), but she is whom I blame for this failure.

And I hope we do not find ourselves blaming the mayor for a hasty decision in scaling back the police presence for that will likely end up resulting in more than just one wounded civilian.

 

[Divine Wind]

And I hope we do not find ourselves blaming the mayor for a hasty decision in scaling back the police presence for that will likely end up resulting in more than just one wounded civilian.

Could be a second screw up on her part, but we're not dealing with commie infiltrators here or al-Qaeda insurgents. These are mostly middle class American citizens upset with our government's performance. Frankly, it pisses me off a bit too, but I'm not willing to camp out for two weeks to prove it....at least not yet.