1 Ummm.... you realize that Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun is one of the classic anti-war books written? That is the movie they are using in their video.

2 Did you read what I wrote under the fold?

3 What the left doesn't understand is that the right doesn't want war. Anybody that has been there doesn't want war. The problem is that the left doesn't want war at any cost, while the right understands war is sometimes necessary. But like you said, perhaps we're just not nuanced enough...

4 I read the book on HS.  Great book I recommend it.  ER uh I'll give Vinnie that this video kicks ass.

5 After seeing this video as a kid, I read the book by Trumbo, and was really struck by it. I also watched the movie. That was probably grade 7 or 8. Too much too young, maybe. It always stuck with me.

While I do think it is a great book, and a great movie, I think that the anti-war crowd are the ones not quite nuanced enough. While this work does point out the absolute horrors of war, and how a person can be dead while alive as a result of war, I don't remember it ever nuancing things enough to address issues worth fighting for. As you can see in the video, the father says, "For democracy, any man would give his only begotten son." I see two things here - 1) the term "democracy" isn't nuanced at all. I believe the war referenced in the book (it has been a while) was WW1. There is much more to the causes and purposes of WW1 than "democracy." While that line is powerful and emotionally charged, it does not communicate the full extent of why we go to war. 2) That line links war/democracy with Christian religion. The "only begotten son," bit is lifted straight from Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, and Christ's death on the cross. While the book/film probably uses this for emotional effect, or, possibly (like I said, its been a while) to link war with religion (in America anyway), the effect is a very un-nuanced vision of what war is. It portrays people as unthinking sheep who go to war for a simple ideal. But there is much more to war than just that. Also, if I remember correctly, in the book the soldier is linked with Christ in a figurative way, so that he is seen as the vision of things to come for soldiers on the battlefield.

Finally, and this is getting too long, you have to reamamber that Trombu's book was written in 1939, in the midst of WW2, and the movie was produced in 1971, in the midst of Vietnam. So, there is bound to be echos of angst, especially in the film, about a war that was unpopular.

Casey

6 The only wars that the lefturds have ever opposed are those on behalf of liberty. They never have had a problem with violence conducted on behalf of totalitarian dictatorships.

7 IM... you will be surprised to know that even some Quakers supported attacking Afghanistan. Where you and the majority of America part company is at the right hand turn into Iraq.

8 Vinnie,
I missed the under the fold comment... as Casey points out the time of the book and movie were relevant. What is interesting is the book briefly was a hit and then disappeared after Pearl Harbor. Trumbo, a Communist, was blacklisted in the McCarthy era and didn't really enjoy much support outside of the radical circles he traveled in. However, as Casey points out, the resurgence of the book (1967) followed by the movie (1971) was due to the hugely unpopular Vietnam war. Especially following 68 with the lifting of student deferments. I am not surprised to see it reprised now as we close in on 3,000 dead and over 20,000 wounded with an Army and Marine Corps stretched thin and backdoor drafts foreshadowing a return to some form of national compulsory service (which I would not necessarily oppose).

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"I am not haunted by the fear that my brother will be sent to war. I believe there are beliefs and causes worth taking risks for, worth fighting and dying for. Rather, I am haunted by the fear that he will be sent to war thoughtlessly, carelessly... The ghost of Vietnam stares at me from a black granite wall that scars the Mall in Washington, and I am haunted by a fear of watching history repeat itself."
-- Cara Cannon Byington (1/15/03)

9 "There is much more to the causes and purposes of WW1 than "democracy." While that line is powerful and emotionally charged, it does not communicate the full extent of why we go to war."

I think they'tr addressing war propaganda. Not the actual causes of war.

10 Noise, I know you'll never be able to understand, since the study of warfare relies solely on logic and none at all on feelings, but Iraq has flushed out the jihadis and forced them to take action, which exposes them. This is the age of low-intensity warfare, and it's just not possible for wars to be as quick and neat as they once were, though they are certainly now much less bloody. The enemy has to be forced to come out and fight, and when he does, he loses. I know you can't stand the thought, but we will win, regardless of how bad the lefturds want us to lose.

11 Johnny Got His Gun was a decent book, regardless if it was anti-war. And this song (and its album) was alright, even if it marked the end of Metallica.