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G.I. Joe No Longer the Real American Hero?
Advocate123 writes "Clearly, Hollywood has forgotten the, 'Real American Hero.' G.I. Joe originally symbolized the American WWII soldier and a great generation. Now Hollywood celebrities are going to turn him into a international multicultural coed task force with no government affiliations. Isn't anything sacred to these people?"
Yeah because western governments would never resort to violence against Greenpeace, right?
"The Greatest Generation" did much more that just show up in the right place at the right time. It's easy to look back now and say how easy it was to make so many right decisions at such a critical time in history, but back then they struggled with overwhelming issues and yet managed to be united and purposeful - and therefore overcame.
Among other accomplishments, they:
All in all, not a bad days work IMHO.
(The "enormous debt habit" was not a product of The Greatest Generation, who were a uniformly thrifty and cash-based society except during WWII itself. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/pdf/hi st.pdf (PDF file, starting pp 126) for the data - but national debt relative to GDP declined every year from 1946 (end of WWII) until 1981. The "enormous debt habit" was my generation, Bucky - show a little respect! :-/)
I don't propose TGG were perfect by any means. Discrimination against certain classes of people were not eradicated (though they certainly didn't invent the concept!), although some of the worst abuses were indeed addressed (lynchings, for example, dropped out of popular acceptance, and the accomplishments of some Blacks were finally acknowledged and recognized, if only out of embarrassment for how much had gone unrecognized in the past). And the foundations for defeat were also laid, resulting most notably in the Vietnam war (where allied soldiers were required to bomb empty jungles lest we hurt any Russian advisors - idiots!).
But compared to the moral confusion and lack of clear and unified purpose in the current generation, I think they did pretty darned good against overwhelming odds, and are worthy of the title bestowed by the popular media. YMMV, of course.
G.I. Joe came in two flavors:
1) Older, barbie-doll size toys, with clothes you could change and such. These are probably what the antediluvians at Fox News are witnessing the corruption of. This toy line was produced from 1942-1982. While this toy line was a success, it predated the tendency of toy manufacturers to sell a storyline with their products, which began in earnest with He-man and the Masters of the Universe, circa 1981. As such, this version of G.I. Joe had no villains to contend against until around 1976, when a line of alien invaders villains, called "Intruders" was introduced in a tacked-on fashion. Since almost no one knows about the Intruders, I submit that a "G.I. Joe vs. The Intruders from Space Movie" would be rather unpopular.
Which leaves us with...
2) A line of toys produced from 1982 until the present day, with a few pauses. This toy line, unlike the original, was based upon the marvel comic book, and utilized a wide array of science-fiction and fantasy devices, such as mad scientists (Dr. Mindbender), masked villains (Cobra and Destro), and even went so far as to integrate Robert E. Howard's myth of a prehuman, reptilian civilization in the animated movie.
The second incarnation of G.I. Joe was inclusive by design (including both the token black and the token female in the original roster), and fought a war on terror that could never end, because Cobra was an undying hydra of a terrorist organization (sound familiar?)
The multiculturalization of G.I. Joe that the article complains about actually took place over 20 years ago. Why were there no protests then? Perhaps because we were in the midst of a cold war, and people had something better to do than piss and moan about a toy line/cartoon/movie. Or perhaps because we as a culture realized that if we made certain classes of citizens feel unwelcome in our military, we would:
a) Weaken the military.
b) Look like the "unfree", "antidemocratic" culture we were nominally opposing.
Just an idea. I rather lean towards the "better things to do" theory.
I probably got some trivial detail re: G.I. Joe incorrect. I feel I can reliably depend upon the legions of their fandom to correct me. For the most part, though, the above information is accurate, and the linked-to article is a bunch of jingoist hysteria.
Next week on slashdot: The global Zionist conspiracy forces Microsoft to keep its products closed-source!
Mr Bush went on: "And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And, by God, I'm gonna do it."
Mr Bush, who became a born-again Christian at 40, is one of the most overtly religious leaders to occupy the White House, a fact which brings him much support in middle America.
You can't take the sky from me...