Walk Away, Rene

(Via TigerHawk.) Rene Gonzalez wrote an OpEd in the The Daily Collegian titled "Pat Tillman is not a hero: He got what was coming to him." Rene didn't know Pat Tillman but makes a lot of assumptions about Tillman's life. I don't know Rene so I figure I can do the same. What follows is a quasi-fisking. Everything in regular print are Rene's words, the italicized words are mine.

When the death of Pat Tillman occurred, Rene turned to his friend who was watching the news with him and said, "How much you want to bet they start talking about him as a 'hero' in about two hours?" Of course, Rene’s friend did not want to make that bet. He'd lose. Rene was right because he’s a grad student and also because the country knew Pat Tillman was hero the moment he left the NFL to enlist with the Rangers. Rene felt that in this self-critical incapable nation, nothing but a knee-jerk "He's a hero" response is to be expected.

Rene has been mystified at the absolute nonsense of being in "awe" of Tillman's "sacrifice" that has been the American response. Mystified, but not surprised. True, it's not everyday that you forgo a $3.6 million contract for joining the military. And, not just the regular army, but the elite Army Rangers. Rene just knows he was a real Rambo, who wanted to be in the "real" thick of things. Rene could tell he was that type of macho guy, from his scowling, beefy face on the CNN pictures. Rene probably never saw Pat Tillman’s last interview when he said "My great grandfather was at Pearl Harbor and a lot of my family has gone and fought in wars and I really haven't done a damn thing as far as laying myself on the line like that," he said. "And so I have a great deal of respect for those that have and what the flag stands for." Tillman comes from a long line of "macho guys." Well, he got his wish. Even Rambo got shot in the third movie, but in real life, you die as a result of being shot. They should call Pat Tillman's army life "Rambo 4: Rambo Attempts to Strike Back at His Former Rambo 3 Taliban Friends, and Gets Killed." Everything Rene knows about American culture he learned from Rambo 3.

Rene wonders, “But, does that make him a hero?” Being a grad student Rene naturally feels that it's a matter of perspective. For people in the United States, who seem to be unable to admit the stupidity of both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, such a trade-off in life standards (if not expectancy) is nothing short of heroic. Obviously, the man must be made of "stronger stuff" to have had decided to "serve" his country rather than take from it. Rene finds this to be a foreign concept, but then remembers America's long history of jingoism, it's the old JFK exhortation to citizen service to the nation, and it seems to strike an emotional chord. So, it's understandable why Americans automatically knee-jerk into hero worship. Rene can be very condescending towards people and things he can’t quite wrap his grad student head around.

However, in Rene's neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a "pendejo," an idiot. What would Rene be called in your neighborhood? Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. Rene doesn’t remember what happened one Tuesday a couple of years ago. This was not "Ramon or Tyrone," who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. Rene is using stereotypical Latin and Black names to remind us that there are no poor white kids or patriotic minorities in Amerikkka. This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him. That was not heroism, it was prophetic idiocy. That was a poorly constructed sentence.

Tillman, probably acting out his nationalist-patriotic fantasies forged in years of exposure to Clint Eastwood and Rambo movies, decided to insert himself into a conflict he didn't need to insert himself into. Did I mention that Rene is a grad student? It wasn't like he was defending the East coast from an invasion of a foreign power. Hey, didn't there used to be two very tall buildings somehere on the East coast? THAT would have been heroic and laudable. Rene’s been meaning of replacing that faded Che Guevara poster in his dorm with one of Todd Beamer any day now. What he did was make himself useful to a foreign invading army, and he paid for it. It's hard to say I have any sympathy for his death because I don't feel like his "service" was necessary. It's hard to have the common decency to have sympathy for a man how leaves behind a young wife. He wasn't defending me, nor was he defending the Afghani people. The Afghan women preferred their old way of life to all this new participatory government bullshit and stuff. He was acting out his macho, patriotic crap and I guess someone with a bigger gun did him in. It doesn’t occur to Rene that Pat Tillman was killed acting heroically after being ambushed.

Perhaps it's the old, dreamy American thought process that forces them to put sports greats and "larger than life" sacrificial lambs on the pedestal of heroism, no matter what they've done. Like the way we’ve done with O.J. Simpson and Rae Carruth. After all, the American nation has no other role to play but to be the cheerleaders of the home team; a sad role to have to play during conflicts that suffer from severe legitimacy and credibility problems. Rene bought latest Michael Moore book instead of donating to the Spirit of America.

Matters are a little clearer for those living outside the American borders. Tillman got himself killed in a country other than his own without having been forced to go over to that country to kill its people. Rene can’t phathom that Tillman died for what he believed in. After all, whether we like them or not, the Taliban is more Afghani than we are. You can't argue with Rene's analysis here. “The Taliban is more Afghani than we are” and that’s “whether we like it or not.” Their resistance is more legitimate than our invasion, regardless of the fact that our social values are probably more enlightened than theirs. Rene’s no longer even feigning honesty at this point. He’s claiming that it’s an open question whether universal suffrage, freedom of religion, consensual government, the rule of law, private property, etc., are better than religious police beating women in the streets, honor killings, public executions for adultery (women only), pushing walls on top of homosexuals, etc. Hey, Rene’s has a point, the Taliban kept the poppy fields from blossoming. For that, he shouldn't be hailed as a hero, he should be used as a poster boy for the dangerous consequences of too much "America is #1," frat boy, propaganda bull. I thought the poster boy for all that was Bushitler. It might just make a regular man irrationally drop $3.6 million to go fight in a conflict that was anything but "self-defense." The same could be said of the unusual belief of 50 percent of the American nation that thinks Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11. One must indeed stand in awe of the amazing success of the American propaganda machine. It works wonders. Rene’s going to stay in the world of academia so as not to bump up against the real world. He much prefers the progressive propaganda machine. It’s much nicer.

Al-Qaeda won't be defeated in Afghanistan, even if we did kill all their operatives there. Now Rene’s just talking all crazy. Only through careful and logical changing of the underlying conditions that allow for the ideology to foster will Al-Qaeda be defeated. Rene’s a neo-con! I knew it! Ask the Israelis if 50 years of blunt force have eradicated the Palestinian resistance. Ask Palestinians if they want their own state or if they want Israel wiped off the map. Or better yet read the Hamas charter. For that reason, Tillman's service, along with that of thousands of American soldiers, has been wrongly utilized. He did die in vain, because in the years to come, we will realize the irrationality of the War on Terror and the American reaction to Sept. 11. Thankfully, it only took the first paragraph of this piece of crap to realize the irrationality of Rene. The sad part is that we won't realize it before we send more people like Pat Tillman over to their deaths. No, Rene the “sad part” is that Pat Tillman left a wife and family and friends behind fighting for what he and a lot of other Americans believe in and we are all indebted to him and all the others who have fallen and you just pissed on them.

To be fair to the Daily Collegian, they also printed a laudatory article on Pat Tillman. The editors also distance themselves from Rene's opinion citing the First Amendment. Of course, Rene can say whatever he wants, no quibble there, but he's still a dick.

UPDATE
I actually wasted a second post on this clown.

Comments

[Jack]

Outstanding work.

[Rob A.]

Thanks, Jack.

[Drew]

Great job, Jack. You correctly pointed out that the Daily Collegian is citing the First Amendment as its reason for allowing this utter garbage to be published. However, the First Amendment provides freedom from government prosecution, not an author's unfettered right to have complete trash published in a school newspaper. Shame on Rene Gonzalez, and shame on the "Daily Collegian" for including such offensive filth in its newspaper.