Peace group bid to get sea victims' cash boxes removed
Feb 22 2009 By Kurt Bayer
PEACE campaigners are demanding that defused mines used as giant charity collection boxes be scrapped...because they were weapons of war.
The red and white mines - once used to protect ports from Nazi U-boats - have been used to help raise cash for the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society for decades.
But Jan Melichar of the Peace Pledge Union said: "In our minds, it's bizarre that an object specifically designed to destroy people is being used to collect money for good causes.
"It would be a good thing to remove them. These are objects that we don't really want in our lives."
Montrose Community Council are supporting a bid to have a SFMS collecting mine removed from the town's High Street.
Member Terry Wood said: "It is a weapon of mass destruction. Mines are a nasty business and have taken many military and civilian lives.
"It's an awful thing and needs to be moved from the High Street."
But Montrose SNP councillor Sandy West hit back: "To describe this mine as a weapon of mass destruction is a load of codswallop.
"The mine serves as a reminder of the effort by the local population during the war. It has sat there since the war and it is ridiculous to think of it as offensive to anyone.
"These protesters would be far better to direct their anger at Gordon Brown's weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde."
The SFMS, who own the military relic, say it is a visual reminder of the dangers faced by seamen in the darkest days of war.
Darryl White, who served 33 years as a coastguard in Montrose, said: "Across the UK there are many retired fishermen who served during the war, using their boats to look for and destroy enemy mines. And many merchant seamen risked their lives to bring in goods during the war years despite the threat from torpedoes, guns and mines.
"Some of them and their families now require assistance from the SFMS charity. Many depend on our grants to enable them to buy coal to heat their homes or to provide a little more joy at Christmas.
"We would ask that the public remember how much they owe for their wealth and freedom today and pop a few coppers in."
'It's bizarre these mines are being used'
Jan Melichar, peace campaigner
I realise sea mines caused a lot of deaths during both World Wars, but to classify them as WMD's seems downright....retarded. It's doubly so when you think the purpose of these inactive mines is to raise funds. While I don't think all peace campaigners are like these idiots I do think this is fundamentalist type that really know squat.
Don't Move you're surrounded by Armed Bastards - Gene Hunt's attempt at Diplomacy
I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own - Number 6
The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.
Thread title changed to reflect reality. Just because they are idiots don't feed the idiocy.
The best thing to do for these fellows is to publicly call them on their shit. For example,
Dear Peace Activists of Montrose
We here at the US military spent a good bit of the 50s and 60's developing various Weapons of Mass Destruction and we were distressed to hear you describing what sounds like a two hundred kilogram contact mine as a "WMD". Note that bombs dropped by the RAF every day in Iraq and Afghanistan are several times as destructive as the mines you so errounusly apply the term WMD to.
In the interests of public education we are willing to provide Montrose with a life fire demonstration of either a ten kilogram nuclear weapon, a full barrage of Anthrax dispersal rockets or a rolling barrage of Mustard Gas shells as you prefer to compare and contrast what an actual WMD would do to Montrose. And further what a WMD actually looks like. We look forward to see which of our three exciting options you take up.
Regards
Commander in Chief, United States Armed Forces
B.H Obama
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
The SFMS, who own the military relic, say it is a visual reminder of the dangers faced by seamen in the darkest days of war.
I'd say that's as good a reason as any to keep using the mines. They're eye-catchers with a beautiful symbolic meaning and oh yes, they have been defused and taken out of the water. That makes them not-weapons-of-war pretty much by default.
What's next, these pacifists will campaign to secede from Scotland and its "barbaric and downright save history" (see what Wallace did to the English in Braveheart) to join France? California? Marvel Comics and their stoned out of their fucking mind liberal extremists (see Captain America refusing to kill even one Nazi, considering the Bombing of Dresden a war crime, and opposing the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima)?
Mr Bean wrote:Dear Peace Activists of Montrose
We here at the US military spent a good bit of the 50s and 60's developing various Weapons of Mass Destruction and we were distressed to hear you describing what sounds like a two hundred kilogram contact mine as a "WMD". Note that bombs dropped by the RAF every day in Iraq and Afghanistan are several times as destructive as the mines you so errounusly apply the term WMD to.
In the interests of public education we are willing to provide Montrose with a life fire demonstration of either a ten kilogram nuclear weapon, a full barrage of Anthrax dispersal rockets or a rolling barrage of Mustard Gas shells as you prefer to compare and contrast what an actual WMD would do to Montrose. And further what a WMD actually looks like. We look forward to see which of our three exciting options you take up.
Regards
Commander in Chief, United States Armed Forces
B.H Obama
This will make the American right-wingers send love letters to Obama through Soldier of Fortune, instead of what they're sending now (bullshit about "Surrender-crats" and Obama's "ban all guns!" agenda).
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Jade Falcon wrote:... but to classify them as WMD's seems downright....retarded.
Yeah, but fundies are retarded no matter what religion they are hooked on. A fellow on our block have one in his garden - converted to a scary looking grill. Burgers of mass destruction?
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Mr Bean wrote:Dear Peace Activists of Montrose
We here at the US military spent a good bit of the 50s and 60's developing various Weapons of Mass Destruction and we were distressed to hear you describing what sounds like a two hundred kilogram contact mine as a "WMD". Note that bombs dropped by the RAF every day in Iraq and Afghanistan are several times as destructive as the mines you so errounusly apply the term WMD to.
In the interests of public education we are willing to provide Montrose with a life fire demonstration of either a ten kilogram nuclear weapon, a full barrage of Anthrax dispersal rockets or a rolling barrage of Mustard Gas shells as you prefer to compare and contrast what an actual WMD would do to Montrose. And further what a WMD actually looks like. We look forward to see which of our three exciting options you take up.
Regards
Commander in Chief, United States Armed Forces
So about that 2020 Presidential run...
Joining the chorus here, this organization's masterful command of prioritization is quite impressive, odd as it is that their doubtless extensive efforts protesting UK involvement in actual shooting wars overseas and possession of actual 'WMDs' doesn't seem to have made the news. Actually, I wonder where they found the time to protest old disarmed sea mines amid their doubtless more pertinent efforts.
...They can't be stupid and lazy, can they? Say it ain't so!
I wish to propose for the reader's favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true. I must, of course, admit that if such an opinion became common it would completely transform our social life and our political system; since both are at present faultless, this must weigh against it. -Bertrand Russell
-"Too low they build, who build beneath the stars."
Joining the chorus here, this organization's masterful command of prioritization is quite impressive, odd as it is that their doubtless extensive efforts protesting UK involvement in actual shooting wars overseas and possession of actual 'WMDs' doesn't seem to have made the news. Actually, I wonder where they found the time to protest old disarmed sea mines amid their doubtless more pertinent efforts.
...They can't be stupid and lazy, can they? Say it ain't so!
To be honest, when I read the thread title I thought it was about those idiots camped outside the Faslane SSBN base. Wouldn't be surprised if they're affiliated though, even though this town is on the other side of Scotland.
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HAB: Crew-Served Weapons Specialist
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." --P.J. O'Rourke
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --J.S. Mill
With real people being killed by real weapons right now it's just surreal that these 'peace activists' are focused upon demobbed mines being used to collect charity, rather than on, say, anyone or anything actually killing people right this very moment.
Assholes.
I find myself endlessly fascinated by your career - Stark, in a fit of Nerd-Validation, November 3, 2011
Kanastrous wrote:With real people being killed by real weapons right now it's just surreal that these 'peace activists' are focused upon demobbed mines being used to collect charity, rather than on, say, anyone or anything actually killing people right this very moment.
Assholes.
Stock answer: Because that would involve some real hard work, not to mention dangers if they happen to go anywhere near to a current or former warzone.
You know the joke, why animal rights activists fight against the fur industry but not the leather industry?
A. Because it's safer to harrass old ladies than the Hell's Angels.
It's basically an anti-mine activist thought taken to ridiculous extremes. Mines do tend to get a lot of attention from various peace groups (IIRC didn't the late, lamented Princess Di get a Noble prize for leading an effort to get anti-mine treaties signed?), so their being called "WMDs" by the less-bright pacifists isn't a stretch. It's all about getting attention and potential support.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Steve wrote:It's basically an anti-mine activist thought taken to ridiculous extremes. Mines do tend to get a lot of attention from various peace groups (IIRC didn't the late, lamented Princess Di get a Noble prize for leading an effort to get anti-mine treaties signed?), so their being called "WMDs" by the less-bright pacifists isn't a stretch. It's all about getting attention and potential support.
I don't know about the Nobel prize, and the charity she work with specifically targetted anti-personnel mines as that area in Angola was littered with them, anti-ship and anti vehicle mines were never mentioned, at least by the Halo Trust which was the charity she got involved in if I remember right.
Don't Move you're surrounded by Armed Bastards - Gene Hunt's attempt at Diplomacy
I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own - Number 6
The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.
Mines do tend to get a lot of attention from various peace groups (IIRC didn't the late, lamented Princess Di get a Noble prize for leading an effort to get anti-mine treaties signed?)
That would be land mines, since they're the ones that tend to explode when kids play with them long after the war is over. Charities trying to clean those up and ban the nastier variants are not something that's objectionable, I'd think.
EDIT: wait, that's what you're saying - that they're taking the "mine" concept too far. Sorry, carry on.
Yeah, exactly. Some people are stupid, and some activists are stupid, so when they hear "mine" they think of EVIL WEAPONS (or "Eviler" weapons in some cases) that MAIM LITTLE CHILDREN, at which time they take leave of whatever bit of sense they possess.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
