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Originally Posted by ladelfina
I think I agreed it's bad form (esp. for us idlers and the Keyboard Kommandos) to bandy about what people should or shouldn't have done in X or Y extreme circumstance, especially to score political points on the backs of those who have suffered and sacrificed. BUT I think it's unfair of you to hold a civilian journalist (male or female) to the same extenuating standards as a highly-trained and sworn soldier.
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Agreed. But some journalist do escape, just like some kidnapped little girls figure out ways of escaping from their captors.
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clifp, you indicate that holding out for "weeks" is no biggie, but "months" would be laudatory. Not knowing the conditions.. care to put a number on it? Where's the "hero" threshold? Six weeks? Eight? Twelve?
If you want to continue nit-picking.. why are escapees more courageous than 'regular' non-escapees? Perhaps (as you indicate about being shot down) it's just a matter of good/bad timing, or of luck and what the circumstances permit. As you say.. McCain, who stayed when he might have left, might be braver (but not necessarily more 'ingenious') than Churchill or Yeager...
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To be clear anybody who survives any off these situations without ratting out his friends ,or turning into a catatonic zombie after they are freed has my respect. That certainly includes Ms. Carroll and Ms. Lynch.
As for myself I am reasonably sure that I am cocky enough that I'd tell my captors to go screw themselves, and also know my pain threshold is low enough that after 10 minutes of beating, I'd say where is the camera, can I help you distribute the video etc.
My point is that heroism/bravery/self-sacrifice like most human attributes is on a bell curve. Kidnap victims, POWs, concentration camp victims, and political prisoners around the world have the misfortune of having their bravery tested. On one end you have the Jews who collaborated with the Nazi in the concentration camps, the Vichy French, East Germans who helped out the Stasis (state secret police), the Korean war POW who stayed in China and the American POW, who collaborated with the North Vietnamese. Now I am very glad I wasn't in any of these situations, cause truthfully I don't what I would do, but I like to think I do better.
In the middle are the vast majority of people, who resist when the can,help others even at some risk to there own safety. We give these people medals if they are soldiers, or TV appearances/book deals if they are journalist or their stories extraordinary. In the case of Vietnam POW the length of captive and level of torture makes them special. In WWII, Germans treated American POWs well, and Japanese simply shot or beheaded POWs who resisted.
At the other end of the bell curve, is the courage of men like Admiral Stockdale and John McCain and handful of other POWs. The Vietnamese nickname for McCain was Crown Prince and they treated him especially viciously. There isn't a Vietnam POW for truth organization because there isn't another side to McCain's behavior.
The simple fact is Senator McCain is extraordinarily brave. I have yet to met a man (or woman) who given the choice between door #1 which features daily torture sessions, with Frankenstein, the Bug, and Slopehead, and Door #2 which is freedom, thinks they'd choose door #1. Now considering one of the men who told me this received a Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam.... Gloria statement is insulting in the extreme.
I also completely reject her premise: courage isn't restricted just to one gender, yes men because of their military service get tested more often. But, if Joan McCain did what John McCain did, I won't care if she was Satan worshiping, communist, who thinks men should be replaced with sperm banks, I'd still respect her courage. In the same way that fair mind Democrats say I don't agree with McCain's politics but I respect the man.
A recent example is courage Benazir Bhutto, she went to Pakistan knowing that people including soldiers in the Army want to see her dead. She went it anyway. It seems to me she was correctly praised for her courage to return to Pakistan and run for president, both before and after death. If there was a backlash because she was a woman I missed it. Say what you want about the Pakistan leaders and their government, but courage is a requirement to run for president of that place, since they virtually all get assassinated
Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma is another brave woman, and she's never tried to hurt anybody in her life. If anything I think her heroism is more respected and honored because she is a woman.
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The point is not to drag down anyone's military accomplishments or sacrifices. The point is completely another: that women often find their actions second-guessed more often than men, from my experience. Women themselves are definitely not immune from perpetuating the cattiness and second-guessing, BTW!!! Sometimes they can be worse!
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I mostly agree, but I fail to see how Gloria nasty comments help make that point. I understand that Hillary behavior which would be called toughness by a man means she is called a bitch cause she is woman.
On the other hand physical courage is not expected of woman, so when they do exhibit it they earn even more praise. More importantly, the courage of ones convictions is extremely important trait in a political leader. I think that this mental toughness isn't gender specific. Maggie Thatcher earned her title Iron Lady by sticking to her guns despite intense criticism and opposition by the public. The knock on Hillary is exactly the opposite, she doesn't seem to have any conviction other than that she should be the first woman president. (I had the same trouble with Mitt on the Republican side). So sure she is tough fighter/"a bitch" but to what end?
At the end of the day reasonable people can disagree about how much character and courage matter in a President. But to claim as Gloria does that McCain's extraordinary decision to place his country's best interest over his own, is irrelevant to being a President is absurd.
Including Jill Carroll along with other, countless, un-named men and women. Steinem threw a stone, but it was by no means the first stone in the gender conflict, and I doubt it will be the last.
Hybrid Mode
