SAN FRANCISCO - A San Francisco gallery owner bears a painful reminder of the nation's unresolved anguish over the incidents at the Abu Ghraib prison — a black eye delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to a painting that depicts U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners.
The assault outside the Capobianco gallery in the city's North Beach district Thursday night was the worst in a string of verbal and physical attacks directed at Lori Haigh since the artwork was installed at her gallery on May 16.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
If you don't like the art, fine.
You're entitled to your opinion.
You're also entitled to express it to the gallery owner by telling her just what you think.
You're not entitled to assault the gallery owner over it.
It takes a brave patriot indeed to punch an unsuspecting woman in the face.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Clearly a triumph in the War on Terror by patriot citizens, pay it no mind.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
What causes people to behave this way? What makes them think that they are somehow defending their country by assaulting people who dare criticize the actions of its government? And at the risk of offending the American members of this board, why does this attitude seem to be more common in the US? The only Canadian I know who acts like that is a WW2 veteran.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:What causes people to behave this way? What makes them think that they are somehow defending their country by assaulting people who dare criticize the actions of its government? And at the risk of offending the American members of this board, why does this attitude seem to be more common in the US? The only Canadian I know who acts like that is a WW2 veteran.
I honestly don't have the foggiest, but there is definitely a segment of the population that thinks it needs to "patriotically" do stuff like this. I remember directly after 9/11, there were a group of fratters in Oakland (the neighbor in Pittsburgh, not the CA city) who were messing with anyone who they even thought looked Muslim, including a clearly Indian girl who they attempted to steal her headdress. I'd say it has to do with the fact that American culture has far more of the flag-thumping "my country, right or wrong" nationalism baked into it than Canada and just as many thugs per population.
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
Who says there's any thought behind these kinds of actions? America for some reason raises religion and patriotism to emotional fever-pitches without much thought behind it.
And religion and patriotism are the same thing to far too many in this country.
It's not a recent development, either. Look at the anti-German hysteria during WWI; for instance my grandmother was chased home everyday from school because her family was German, or more German than most. Hamilton was and is largely of German descent to put that in perspective.
Why "it's how I feel" is such an excuse for stupidity here is beyond me.
Frank Hipper wrote:Who says there's any thought behind these kinds of actions?
No thought behind it? I was at the movies the other night and I saw the new recruitment video for the Army. I turned to my friend at that point and said "do you feel like we're having patriotism programmed into us" and all he could do was nod, then shake his head is disgust. I assure you, there is a very conscious effort behind this.
Frank Hipper wrote:Who says there's any thought behind these kinds of actions?
No thought behind it? I was at the movies the other night and I saw the new recruitment video for the Army. I turned to my friend at that point and said "do you feel like we're having patriotism programmed into us" and all he could do was nod, then shake his head is disgust. I assure you, there is a very conscious effort behind this.
I was talking about the perpetrator of the Gallery thing...
Shortly after September 11th, a sikh man was murdered in Mesa Az by a "patriot"; sikh turbans have zero resemblance to Arab headresses (the turban was what made this guy a target).
How much thought was behind his murder?
I'm not sure why America cranks out so many jingoists. I leaned in that direction when I was a kid. But it was more out of ignorance than anything else and I certainly would not have approved of punching someone in the face over an art exhibit.
I'm slowly gettting through to someone at work his is a bit to the far right. He leans towards the "my country, right or wrong" attitude and hates peace protestors. I'm trying to figure out where this idea comes from that your gov't is never wrong and never lies.
I went to an airshow yesterday and while you expect a certain amount of patriotism at a show it seemed to me to border more on nationalism.
Frank Hipper wrote:I was talking about the perpetrator of the Gallery thing...
Ahh, sorry, misunderstood you.
I think you're right, there probably isn't much thought behind this sort of partriotism induced violence. People simply see on TV our soldiers dying and they think it is their God given duty to fight the war at home.
Let this be a lesson to you all. San Francisco may be the 2nd most liberal city in the United States right behind Berkley, complete with enormous anti-war protests, abortion clinics, the HQ of the gay rights movement in the US,but even we have our own little crop of knee-jerk 'Patriots'.
As for the cause of the attack, my guess is that it's been building up in the assailant for a while. Seeing the gallery was probably the straw the broke the camel's back.
Seems to be the same batshit insane mentality that football hooligans have in thinking they're actually helping their country's image by destroying property and injuring others.
Frank Hipper wrote:Who says there's any thought behind these kinds of actions?
No thought behind it? I was at the movies the other night and I saw the new recruitment video for the Army. I turned to my friend at that point and said "do you feel like we're having patriotism programmed into us" and all he could do was nod, then shake his head is disgust. I assure you, there is a very conscious effort behind this.
If anything the army recruitment video is designed to appeal to those who are already very patroitic.
To say that "patriotism programmed into us" is stretching it IMO.
evilcat4000 wrote:This is outrageous. It is hard to believe that someone finds US priosner abuse just and would punch someone for thinking otherwise.
I know people who are upset by the photographs because they feel it indangers our soldiers. Not because they think the prisoner abuse is just. Everything is not so black and white as you think.
Kamakazie Sith wrote:I know people who are upset by the photographs because they feel it indangers our soldiers. Not because they think the prisoner abuse is just. Everything is not so black and white as you think.
So they're angry at the photographs and the media for releasing them, not at Donald Rumsfeld and his henchmen for loudly repudiating the Geneva Convention and thus getting the nation into this mess?
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
I hope this shitstain is dumb enough to brag to his friends about being the one who punched her,and that after this one of them call the police to arrest his retarded ass.
Jerry Orbach 1935 2004 Admiral Valdemar~You know you've fucked up when Wacky Races has more realistic looking vehicles than your own.
Kamakazie Sith wrote:I know people who are upset by the photographs because they feel it indangers our soldiers. Not because they think the prisoner abuse is just. Everything is not so black and white as you think.
So they're angry at the photographs and the media for releasing them, not at Donald Rumsfeld and his henchmen for loudly repudiating the Geneva Convention and thus getting the nation into this mess?
Alot of the people I know were mad about the photographs, not for their actual content, but because they made the Army look bad. One of them was going on about how the soldiers should be cashiered because now the liberals have more excuses to bitch about Iraq. When I asked him why they didn't think that the soldiers should be cashiered because they tortured prisoners, he stared at me blankly and then rolled his eyes.
It just goes to prove my buddy Max's axiom: "Some people are idiots."
"Show me an angel and I will paint you one." - Gustav Courbet
"Quetzalcoatl, plumed serpent of the Aztecs... you are a pussy." - Stephen Colbert
"Really, I'm jealous of how much smarter than me he is. I'm not an expert on anything and he's an expert on things he knows nothing about." - Me, concerning a bullshitter
This is why we hold the Constitution and the Founding Fathers in such high esteem, Mike. They've somehow kept our clearly insane population from going full-on Nazi. You have to admit that's impressive.
If Religion and Politics were characters on a soap opera, Religion would be the one that goes insane with jealousy over Politics' intimate relationship with Reality, and secretly murder Politics in the night, skin the corpse, and run around its apartment wearing the skin like a cape shouting "My votes now! All votes for me! Wheeee!" -- Lagmonster
Kamakazie Sith wrote:I know people who are upset by the photographs because they feel it indangers our soldiers. Not because they think the prisoner abuse is just. Everything is not so black and white as you think.
So they're angry at the photographs and the media for releasing them, not at Donald Rumsfeld and his henchmen for loudly repudiating the Geneva Convention and thus getting the nation into this mess?
No, they're angry at them too. Like I said it's not so black and white, I was just addressing the issue at hand. We really don't know why that person punched the gallery owner, however, the reason is inexusable. When family is involved some people tend to get a bit out of control and that might be a reason why.
There is actually a lot of random violence in SF, like the hobo who tried to throw a 2 year old onto the BART (train) tracks. (He got thrashed by the witnessing bystanders.) There are plenty of random beatings and fights. Just a lot of crazy people there, I guess.
"Gunslinger indeed. Quick draw, Bob. Quick draw." --Count Chocula
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"Like...are we canonical?" --Aaron Dembski-Bowden to Dan Abnett
evilcat4000 wrote:This is outrageous. It is hard to believe that someone finds US priosner abuse just and would punch someone for thinking otherwise.
You'd be suprised at how messed up so of those idiots thinking process can be.
What thinking process?
I don't know about the rest of the country, but the biggest knee-jerk jingoists that I've known have also been fundamentalist/evangalist types. The mindless obedience from the latter along with its simplistic tunnel vision of life and human existance is simply transferred to everything else, including their patriotism. For them, it's easy and quite natural to just say "My country, right or wrong!" and shut their brains down, since their brains are usually turned off anyway.
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