who is the "good guy" and who is the "bad guy"

[MoseyWalker]

we don't live in a John Wayne western shoot em up world anymore.

What are your thoughts?

[BigRudy]

1. Good Guy GW

God Bless The Patriot Act!

[annabanana]

4. hey Giuliani...

geddoutahere...

[Blue Fire]

5. And learn how to spell!

What did you do anyway? Play hookey with *?

[newyawker99]

10. Hi BigRudy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[MrSlayer]

2. Agreed. There are many shades of grey.

Somehow I doubt it was ever really that clear cut.

[jerry611]

7. But some are more darker shades of gray than others

Hezzbollah and Al-Queda are not good guys by any stretch of the imagination. And no, they are not freedom fighters. Freedom fighters are like our founding fathers. And our founding fathers NEVER targetted British civilians. They targetted the government of King George III specifically.

[MrSlayer]

9. Agreed, there are dark shades.

I don't think the founding fathers had much opportunity to attack the civilians way over in England, so I'm not sure how much water that holds. Would they if they could? Who knows? The Redcoats had no problem burning out civilians. I do know the Brits were rather upset with the revolutionaries' "dishonorable" tactics of targeting officers to disrupt the discipline of the army.

Hezzbollah aren't good guys but I don't think Israel is any better really. They certainly haven't acquitted themselves well so far. They're killing civilians at a much higher rate than Hezzbollah is. More shades of grey. I dont think there are good and bad guys in that one either, it depends on your perspective I guess. I just think that if the neo-cons are so gung ho for these actions, it can't be a good thing.

[Jade Fox]

3. I posted them here....

Well, actually they're someone else's thoughts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=228243&mesg_id=228243

[boobooday]

6. Goals, methods, motivations

Here is the problem. People have now come to accept that the Good Guy can use the same methods as the bad guy. It used to be, in those Westerns, that the good guy had different methods to get what he wanted -- that is, if he wanted to stop a bad guy, and he had no choice but to shoot, he shot the guy in the leg or something. That was the difference. The bad guy would do anything, hurt anyone (with exceptions to this as well) to get what he wanted, and the hero didn't want to hurt anyone, and only resorted to violence reluctantly (although decisively, of course).

Now we have "heroes" who kill people gleefully, playfully, with vengeance and great satisfaction -- in so many popular narratives the good guys use the same methods as the bad guy, and often with the same motivations (24).

Transfer this to the polticial arena and you get people who call themselves Christians becoming cheerleaders for the war machine, and you get Abu Grahib, etc. Because now they've boiled the hero down to "goals" only, and the goal is domination, because we are exceptional, and deserve to dominate, and we're superior, and God loves us more. The motivations (or at least what are publicly stated as motivations) can change with the seasons, and the methods . . . well . . . the methods have brought shame on us all.

They are not heroic.

Our national narrative is broken, at the moment. I think the only solution is for individuals to create their own heroic narratives of citizenship, which is what I think we are doing here.

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. If you find out for sure, be a dear and post the answers. n/t