I believe it was Gore Vidal who wrote that four of his favorite words in the English language were, "I told you so." And so I did, back on October 6, 2005 on the beginning pages of this photoblog (click here for a trip into the time machine).
The Blue Angels were performing their annual Fleet Week aerial displays in October, and I wrote the following: "Quite a few people LOVE the Blue Angels and their acrobatics and I've always tried to respect that, but frankly right now their "demonstration" is nothing less than obscene. It's an obscene use of our taxpayer dollars, an obscene waste of oil-based energy, and it's ridiculously dangerous to be practicing at low altitudes over a city."
And continued: "I wonder how many Americans would be quite so enthusiastic about this demonstration of military might and drill-team displays if murderous foreigners regularly flew over their cities and bombed the hell out of them, as we currently do with our FA18 Hornets in Iraq. Their "weapon load" is pictured above."
I even went to the trouble to write letters to each of the Board of Supervisors members pleading with them to prevent a San Francisco neighborhood from being turned into a fireball in the event of an "accident" such as happened yesterday in South Carolina. (Click here to get to the whole post, with lots of interesting comments from, well, everyone.)
But does anybody listen? Nooooooo. Please do me a favor, readers, and get hold of your local supervisor's offices and call the mayor's office and tell them it's finally time to politely disinvite the Blue Angels from endangering the entire city every year.
Go back to your hole you liberal mutt..we don'tneed your comment's !!
ReplyDeleteRight you are! We've always agreed on this.
ReplyDeleteha. i immediately thought of you when i read about that accident.
ReplyDeleteit's not the first though, is it? seems like i can remember other similar catastrophes.
i just don't get this glorification of war and war machines.
wouldn't we rather have a world in which begal tigers and polar bears thrive? condors and tunas and whales and sharks. rather than ear splitting death bringing spirit crushing.
i think i'm channeling kurt vonnegut.
love,
ellen
my mom hated the blue angels too.
I'm with you on this one! Consider the letters written.
ReplyDeleteYes, this was bound to happen - think of the carnage if the crash were in downtown San Francisco instead of rural South Carolina. I think it's time for the Blue Angels to return to the 'nest' for good. There are so many better uses for the money spent on the Blue Angels I can't even start to list them.
ReplyDeleteA Blue Angels performance reminds us that military might and the willingness to use it are intrinsic to American prosperity, a fact many of us don't much like.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments everyone, except for the anonymous right-wing troll.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's quite a provocative remark, sfwillie, but I don't agree with it. American "prosperity" is not necessarily linked to the bombing of furreners all over the world, though it certainly has looked that way during our lifetimes.
Again, my objections to the Blue Angels are strictly survival-oriented. They come so close to my fourth-floor apartment on Franklin Street, particularly on their practice days, that my windows rattle outrageously right next to where I'm working. It feels just like a matter of time before the windows break and a slice of glass comes hurtling at me.
This reminds me. It's time to ask the various Supervisors what their reaction will be to families whose relatives perish in a Blue Angel "accident." Sorry, Charlie, nothing we could do?