I'm sorry but respect for the dead IS important

[HEyHEY]

Sorry but to all you people slamming Bob Hope on his death day, get some class. Hope was a good comedian who made people laugh without using vulgar toilet humour. Too bad there aren't more like him. The guy never did anything to anyone, especially you.

[ChillEB]

1. I agree...

Bob was an American Icon. He wasn't perfect, but then again, who is? Rest in peace, Mr. Hope. Ye will not be forgotten!

[DagmarK]

2. Thank you HeyHey.......

I hadn't heard about Bob Hope's passing before I got onto DU about 11am or so Eastern Time.

The first post I saw was an extremely wretched rant about what an awful person he was.

Then there was a post about what a pig he was.

And just the board was filled with some really horrible stuff. But I wasn't even SURE he had died! I was like.....what the heck did Bob Hope do today to piss everyone off? Did he donate $200,000 to Bush or something?

Finally figured out that this man.....an icon, a man who we grew up with (and he was with us ALL for all of my 41 years! And he covered my mother's entire life as well; she was born in 1937)) every step of the way. His purpose in life: To make people laugh (oh such a crime!). His other purpose in life: To make our soldiers laugh and give them a break.

How many entertainers are running over to Baghdad to give our boys a night to forget the hell they are in? NONE

But, gee, I hear a bunch of really top notch celebreties have been spending A LOT of time in the luxury resorts of Bahrain! Good for them!

And Bob Hope rallied soooooooo many entertainers to join him in bringing up the morale of our troops. I curse every single DUER who has the GALL to EVER comment on "gee, look at our troops in Iraq.....their morale is in the dumper. Damn the BFEE for putting them into that position!" Because if you pounce on Bob Hope......you have waived your right to EVER speak for the good of our troops. Just keep your mouths shut.

I was sooooo shocked this morning at the hatefulness that even I could not comment on it.

So I appreciate very much HeyHey's bringing this up tonight. Cause a lot of you kiddos need to go back home to mommy and daddy's house and start over! They obviously didn't teach you to respect what is golden and what is important and WHEN to keep your damn opinions to yourself. So you hate the guy? Fine. Let's hear about it in September or something. But dancing on his grave after his tour of duty for this country (which lasted 70 years)......man! If you had grown up in my family, my mother and my father would have backhanded you guys up the side of the mouth for insolence.

If anyone who participated in this like gang rape......you owe the board and Bob Hope an apology. A big one.

I mean, how old are the DUers who participated in this?

There......there's the only backhand I can deliver in the medium. Sorry to be such a witch, but GOSH, if you over 30 years old, where the hell have you been? Was Hope like a Nazi or something???????? Did he molest little girls? WTF did he do to garner such a visceral reaction. (Wait, don't answer that.....I know exactly who Bob Hope was and how much good he brought to this country).

[Rowdyboy]

4. Agree with every word...

nt

[anti_shrub]

22. I don't know about donating $200,000

...but he was golfing pals with grandpa Prescott "Nazi Money Source" Bush.

I know thats what keeps me from waxing nostalgic about the guy....

[Rowdyboy]

3. What a worthless day it is that we waste...

fighting over how to respond to a single man's death. This has been an unnecessarily ugly, ruined day on DU where friends have attacked friends over the death of a 100 year old man who earned fame by self-sacrifice, lame jokes and sophmoric humor...Are we not better than that?

Very sad...

[DagmarK]

5. I just would have preferred not to have been assaulted with such crap.....

I remember vividly the day that Lucille Ball died. God, I cried and cried. Not just because she was gone, but happy tears for all the good times. Makes me kind of weep now! eek.

And I would imagine that I would have felt the same way about today re Bob Hope. In this day and age (with the utter insanity in our society with the takeover of our country by the radical right,........and the killing and the scandal and corruption and the poverty of so many), it's kind of a sweet sorrow to remember what it was like to be a little kid in the 1960s and finding a Bob Hope movie on the tube. Such simple, simple times. It's very important to remember those times -- because I am frankly working and fretting and worrying about getting back to those days.

I do anything to transport myself back to the day I first saw Road to Rio with Carmen Miranda.

Those days.....when people were courteous to each other as a rule, not an exception. When dorky jokes were actually funny. Yes, those sophmoric jokes had whole families -- young and old -- rolling on the floor: TOGETHER! Look at our families today. What a disgrace.

And since those simple times.....we have gone through so much. Watergate; OPEC; the Iranian Hostage Crisis; S&L Scandals; divorce rates going sky high; etc. etc. and now, our situation......sheesh.

I guess I can try to go back in my mind and heart.....but you know, Bob Hope died TODAY, July 28th. Today was the day to really remember him. And what did we have? What really sucks is that THIS thread is going to spawn 25 Lounge posts that will be premised on "Fuck you! Freedom of Speech is my right, and I don't care what anyone thinks.....Bob Hope blah blah blah..." Oh, how charming! I guess I can only say screw the folks who think they can assault people's histories and warm memories because they think they are soooooo funny and cute. Well, take that kind of crap over to that other board next time.

[SweetZombieJesus]

6. The good times?

Yeah, I really long for the days when blacks, Latinos, women, gays, and everybody else who wasn't a white male was disenfranchised, if not completely persecuted. Add to that the threat of thermonuclear war, the government testing anthrax on citizens secretly, getting us into Vietnam, and the hundreds of secret regime changes we affected all over the world. Yep, those sure were simple, more gentle times.

Please spare me the Nick At Nite nostalgia for days gone past. The 60s were no better or worse than now just because more people say FUCK openly. Nostalgia for an age that never existed.

You know, when Joey Ramone died, people made jokes about it, but I didn't start coming over all self-righteous to them about it, because I don't give a shit what they think. No crass Joey Ramone joke is going to take away the fact that I respect his work and mourn his loss, and if some joke about Bob Hope sends you off into a crying jag, then you better not turn on the TV during the election, because any jab I might have for a guy who outlived MLK is NOTHING compared to what the people who golfed with Bobby will have in store for us.

We live in a world were good men are murdered, and mediocre hacks not only thrive, but I have to listen to every jagoff in existence talk about Bob Fucking Hope like he was the Second Coming. He wasn't funny, and if I have to hear one more retarded platitude about what a "loss" this is I'm going to kill myself just to see how many people care about a guy with his whole life ahead of him compared to some shitty old hack comedian who should have never left the Catskills.

[DagmarK]

8. I will personally arrange for not one, but maybe 100 more platitudes

about Hope........IF you keep your promise.

WTF is wrong with you?

Welcome to this place called earth, that seems to be ruled by HUMANS. That fact shall insure that we will always have injusice and aggression toward our species.

You bet there were some terrible things going on amongst and to the various races here during the 60s. You bet. But people were getting EMPOWERED through the turmoil. Which is a whole helluva lot more than I can say for the fucked up people in the modern day society. Today, racism is written off as another "gee, not more of that P.C. stuff again!!" The movement of the minority peoples has turned into a BIG JOKE by the ruling race/classes. I tell you what, the people of the 60's sure the hell had a lot more CONSCIENCE than what I see today.

WTF? Why don't you get your butt busy starting those threads that basically say, "Fuck you, I have freedom of speech, so Bob Hope blah blah blah" and shit all over your own thread.......

go on, get to it.........Let's see......you are under 35.......but over 28, right???

[SweetZombieJesus]

13. Egging on my suicide, huh?

So much for having "class" and taking the high moral road.

There's nothing funnier than a self-appointed morality watchdog hoisting themself on their own petard.

[DagmarK]

14. LOL........dude, I didn't have a thing to do with your suicide wish......

Good luck!

Hilarious.....you just issued me an almost word for word identical slam that you issued to some other kid on the thread playgrounds.

Recycled vitriol -- Nice. Hope you aren't in advertising.

[Norbert]

11. What are the good old days then

Do you think today is a picnic compared to the sixties?

Maybe I rpefer Robin Williams over Bob Hope anyday but the fact is Hope did bring some humor in this crazy world. The world needs all the comics it can get for no other reason than to offset the stupidity of the leqadership of the free world.

Rest in peace Bob. You did okay.

[bloom]

15. you sound like someone who needs to turn off your TV & radio -n/t

!

[nini]

18. Some of us were kids back then - so the times were good for us.

We were simply kids - we didn't know all of what was going on back then. We were concerned with how late our moms would let us stay out and play in the evening, or whether we'd be able to go to the matinee on Saturday. Part of those memories are seeing those 'old hack comedians' you hate on TV at night.. this is why we remember them fondly. Yes we have all grown up and see things differently.. but if remembering ones childhood fondly is wrong.. then I'm guilty.

So, it's nostalgia for us.. it was our childhoods - to us they were good times.

[catpower2000]

21. You don't understand...

I'm not sure about the other poster, but I was born in 1972, the year of Watergate. There IS no nostalgia for our generation, and even less so for the generations after ours. I have NO PATIENCE with older folks who are nostalgic for their childhoods, because it was all FALSE. It didn't exist!

We were simply kids - we didn't know all of what was going on back then. We were concerned with how late our moms would let us stay out and play in the evening, or whether we'd be able to go to the matinee on Saturday. Part of those memories are seeing those old hack comedians you hate on TV at night

And while you were playing on the tire swing, Rome was burning. Our government because incontrovertedly corrupted, nukes proliferated, the environment was nearly destroyed, blacks were oppressed, women were treated like chattel, and gays were MURDERED for even HINTING at their lifestyle choice.

Don't you see? It's fake! It's bullshit! It didn't exist! And the generations who came after yours, like mine, are pretty pissed off that you people fucked it up as badly as you did and then have the NERVE to look back and say, "Oh, but we had such a nice time!" We'll be cleaning up your NICE TIME long after you're dead and gone.

I'm sorry, I'm not angry at you personally, but this topic really pisses me off. Don't take offense, I didn't mean it against you directly, but rather against "the greatest generation" in general.

Cat

[nini]

23. From a political standpoint - I agree with you.

and I know what you mean.. however it's not that Black and White for 'my' life back then.

I'm just talking about a KID'S memories - which are why it was good to us. ... I guess the point may be that since we were kids at that time and pretty much oblivious to all the ills of the world.. that made it a good memory. My Grandma and Grandpa were still alive.. things like that all play into why I look back and can smile about some of it.

As we got older we realized what was wrong and what needed to change.. hence the protests against the vietnam war, volunteering for Bobby Kennedy's campaign etc..

So, as a kid I did have a good time. If I was an adult then - yep it sucked, especially as a woman.

And the really sad thing is it sucks today too which is why I am at this board trying to stay informed and active by fighting 'the man'
:-) I don't think anyone on this board implies things were hunky dory back then in every single aspect. If we did we'd be fundies.. not the kind of people who hang out at this board to learn.

on edit: just so you realize I am 46.. not really an adult back then .. people my age also blame those who were adults during the 50s and 60s for screwing things up in the country. When I was coming of age is when the huge antiwar rallys were beginning, the Black Panthers kicked in etc.. At the age of 11 I volunteered for Bobby Kennedy's campaign.. So, I hate all the things you do. It was the beginning of standing up to the facade you describe.. so while I can say I had a good childhood in spite of it, I can also say I did not keep my eyes closed as I grew up and lived through the days when the myth you describe began to be exposed.

[catpower2000]

24. Of course it sucks today, it has always sucked...

I think maybe it's jealousy on my part, because I've never known a time that I DIDN'T know that it sucked. And that goes doubly for people who are younger than I am. We didn't have an idyllic childhood to look back on and say, "Oh, to go back to that innocent time when we were careless and free..."

I of course applaud your activism, and your willingness to stay informed into your adulthood, rather than sink into the morass of denial and apathy that most of America lives in. :)

Cat

[nini]

27. Denial and Apathy .. that's the biggest problem in this country today

which is why I keep sending info I find on this board to everyone I know to educate them.


Something else I remembered.. Kids weren't told ANYTHING back in those days. We had no freaking clue what was going on as we weren't told and we didn't watch much tv etc.. My parents divorced when I was 3, we were dirt poor, but I never realized it as it was just normal to us then. My siblings talk about that as we now realize how poor we really were and we had no clue.

Damn, I sound like I was stoned for the first 10-12 years of my life or something :-)

I know how you feel and do agree with you - just don't forget to find the good stuff when you can or you'll go nuts. I feel like I need to give you a hug.. :-) dont' know if it's more for me or you :loveya:

[catpower2000]

28. Hugs for everyone! :)

I'll try to find the good stuff--it's hard, these days. I'm getting more cynical the older I get--and I was cynical since birth, I think! :)

Cat :loveya:

[Interrobang]

26. Amen, SZJ!

I couldn't care less either way. He's alive; he's dead, it's all the same to me. I'm sorry that people feel so strongly about it either way, because it's making a mess.

[Pert_UK]

7. People don't automatically earn respect simply by being dead....

After all, anyone who is born will die, and that would entail that everybody is entitled to respect....which I don't agree with.

Personally, I think that unless you've got very good reasons for doing otherwise, you shouldn't show disrespect to someone who has died - for example, I wouldn't object to a total lack of respect towards Hitler. However, I consider it bizarre when people feel obliged to gate-crash someone else's grief / respect and object to their expressions of respect - you make not have been Hope's biggest fan, but unless you've got a HUGE problem with him then there's no need to start shouting "Oh, he wasn't that great" - why not remain silent?

However........I'd rather have wholesome disrespect than a nauseating and hypocritical expression of respect for the dead when you've shown them nothing but contempt when they were alive.

For example, I will continue to suggest that Princess Diana wasn't actually an angel sent from heaven, but that's neither here nor there....

[SOteric]

20. Nicely said, Pert

Most of the individuals who comprise humanity have more than one facet to their personality. The rat-bastard of a boss you had who's just been laid to rest may have been the most wonderful 'Dad' on the planet, and a sweet and dear old grandfather. "Why not remain silent?" - indeed. This is one occasion when insisting the truth be known to all is tyrannical, cruel and self-serving. There's no need to compound the pain and loss a genuine mourner feels by disrespectful or vitriolic statements.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. On the contrary, Bob Hope did do something to someone, and I

was one of the people he did it to. He used his position as a celebrity to denigrate everyone who took part in the peace movement, everyone who was part of the counterculture in any way. I don't hate him for it but I I think it's important to remember the past honestly. If some people went overboard criticizing him today, that's unfortunate.

I do wonder: if Dennis Miller died tonight, would those who are preaching "respect for the dead" post eulogies about him? Bob Hope was a divisive personality during the Viet Nam war, just as Miller has been since the "War on Terrorism" began after 9/11.

[ima_sinnic]

10. people earn respect while they're living, not after they're dead

Death does not automatically confer respectability on someone. If by some miracle Donald Rumsfilled were to die today would you be eulogizing him, being "respectful"?

People have a right to their own reasons NOT to feel respect for Bob Hope--I'm old enough to associate him with my childhood memories of the late 50s but I don't feel one way or the other about the guy.

[bowens43]

12. Why is it important to respect the dead?

This isn't about Bob Hope but just a general question/comment. If we do not respect a person in life why should we respect them when they're dead? For instance I had no respect for strom when he was alive and I sure as hell don't have respect for the right wing lunatic now that he's dead. To respect someone in death when you didn't respect them in life is hypocritical. That being said, I would not do anything to prolong or increase the grief of those who did respect or love the deceased.

[DagmarK]

16. They why weren't people grilling the man BEFORE his death?

And maybe when MILLIONS of your neighbors and community members respected the deceased,it might be more decent to remain quiet?

Let's say you hated your boss. Boss kicks the bucket. Do you go to the funeral to dance on his grave? No? Why? Cause that would be DISRESPECTFUL, perhaps?

Hell, according to a few in this thread ("you earn respect while you are alive"), I supposed while this boss person is in the hospital getting the bypass that his detractors should show up there and let ALL their feelings known right then and there. The ole bastard is still alive and all.....that's when ya gotta show what you feel.

Democracy -- founded on Freedom of Speech. That does not mean that every single individual in society is free to be a total asshole and in the face of every other person. I am, for the first time, starting to see what the FLACK is about liberals......maybe we are a bunch of low class, uncivilized jerks?

[catpower2000]

17. Oh, for gawd's sake, go ahead and convert then...

I for one think that deciding ALL LIBERALS SUCK over something as stupid as a random (lame) comedian dying, and how we have to have respect for someone who never respected anything that WE as LIBERALS stand for, like PEACE, is a SLIGHT overreaction. WHO CARES? He died, some of us liked him, some of us didn't, some of us had respect for him, some of us didn't and still don't. GET OVER IT.

Cat

[Benevolent_Rabbit]

29. I agree completely

and, being considered uncivilized by a group that can't think without being told WHAT to think is a badge of honor in my book. One is free to remain quiet and respectful, or one is free to say they don't give a damn. Free. What a concept.

[LynneSin]

19. Does this mean I have to find something nice about Strom Thurmond?

:(

[Raenelle]

25. He may have been a nice man, but he WAS NOT FUNNY.

Patriot, husband, friend, OK. But if you use the word comedian to describe him, you need an adjective like poor, inferior, lousy, etc. in front of it.