The vote is in, we send George Hutton packing. But not without a good eulogy.
Colonel George, as we liked to chide him, was known to the local peace community as a regular attendee, who usually near the end of a meeting stood up to tell us all we were wrong, and misguided, and a disgrace, we were giving aid and comfort to the enemy, etc, then he’d sit down. After long he didn’t need to say anything because his scorn, if ever soft spoken, hung over every discussion.
I recommended uninviting Mr. Hutton from the PPJPC (the planning sessions of all things!) and returning his membership fee for the benefit of un-muddling our energies, but well intended pious Netties lobbied to keep the door open, hoping someday he’d see the light. They didn’t see how their faith in George’s salvation was meanwhile sabotaging our otherwise elevated team spirit.
At a protest, I saw George, participating with us in his uniform, step toward the TV cameras and volunteer for an interview. Then, instead of speaking for us, he spoke against our pacifist message and characterized us as throwback hippie loons.
On another occasion, I saw George reduce a very gentle-hearted peace activist to tears with his spite toward anyone who would so insult the boys in uniform. Many of us tried to engage George, thinking his persistence at our events betrayed a guilty conscience about what he did in Vietnam, but George never did blink from his icy disapproving stare.
When online discussion on the PPJPC website commenced in earnest, George eventually stumbled across it and began spamming the comments with his passive aggressive vitriol. This resulted in indignant exchanges and led the goodness-gracious Nellies of the organization to ponder whether we needed such an uncivil thing as a blog forum at all. Sooner than have the disagreement-averse older crew scuttle the project I advocated banning George Hutton from the blog and we did.
But George petitioned and bent every ear, and now the PPJPC staff has overruled the board and so the pernicious troll returned. For some odd reason however, Major Hutton took the decision to mean he was sanctioned to comment on Not My Tribe too. At first I thought it best to draw his fire here, sooner than at the nascent J&P site. To his credit, despite his boorish admonitions about our “neg vibes,” George prompted wonderfully heated rebuttals. Until we became simply bothered.
Tony has stated the case plainly enough. Paid or not, George’s mission was to defend American Imperialism, re-justify Vietnam, and disrupt any antiwar talk. And frankly, he was doing quite well. Look at me, I’ve been lured into writing him a God-damned send-off!
George, this is not about Freedom of Speech. No one is entitled to disrupt the speech of others for the sake of his own. What you are doing is simply interference jamming. That’s not protected expression. You’re not interested in discussion, only keeping your opponent covered. Go find your own soapbox. Send us a link. If you make it interesting, we might check in on you.
No eulogy would be complete without a tribute. Here I excerpt George Hutton in his own nutshell:
Just so you know I had a TS, NATO, CRYPTO, ATOMIC, NSA-SI clearance. So know a bit. Was in the ASA too.
I was in the Army & Texas Guard.
I was in the Rangers (airborn) too. 3 full tours too. From 1964 – 66 & 70-71.
As for the trip to Cambodia, I was there. It failed due to comminist within the South Viet-nam military.
I went to OCS after 20 years as an enlistedman. Was E1 to E7 & O2 & finished as O4 with my military service. Skipped 2LT as I was #2 in my class. Was a NCO most of my service so I know about &*&%$# Officers too.
I did 2/3 of my time “in the field” traing Turkish & Greek military folk to advisor in Viet nam. So, do try to understand me, been there – done that.
What pearls of wisdom did Mr. Hutton offer NMT? How about this chestnut about the Greek isle of Lesbos (Lesbos is the origin of the word “lesbian,” having been home to the ancient poet Sappho who wrote about love between women.) But in George’s account:
Having been stationed in Turkey & going to Greece & islands the rumer is these folks did not like males very much. Ran the island & used the males then killed them keeping girl babies to keep the island going. Just bit of history.
Bye George.
FYI readers, I — one of the founders of the blog — wasn’t asked my opinion about censoring George, so when Eric claims that the vote is in, he’s referring to his vote.
You can add me to the list of votes solicited.
Oh, okay. Eric and someone who has absolutely nothing to do with the blog. Even better.
I stand by my opinion.
Blogs are considered “intellectual property” and considered as such can be appropriately monitored, flagged for abuses, or changed by the owner of said blog. George has every right to publish his views and opinions in any other form he wishes. That’s not censorship, it’s protecting the viability and inherent purpose, mission or whatever you wish to call it, of the owner and their property.
Reluctantly, we have to turn the spam filter on to stop harassment by cops and wannabe cops.
George, is either a cop or a man possessed with harassing those he has political disagreements with. In either case, he has amply shown no desire to hold any rational discussions with those he disagrees with on this site. It is not censorship to stop this harassment, but merely a logical way to keep the site going at a functional level.
George can be allowed an occasional comment when it meets some minimal standards of decent conduct on his part, and when his post has something to actually say on the theme he is responding to. Good luck, George! Keep sending your stuff in, and we will review it beforehand, simply to keep the volume of your crap thrown at us at a more manageable level. Sorry, but you have forced this on us.
Dude did say he’s only free on Sundays.
Which, umm.. how does somebody working all day every day, 6 days a week, have that much time on his hands? Unless that is his actual job.
Although the Professional Provocateurs would do something like post bomb-making instructions or links to kiddie porn sites, something that would get ICE or HSA or FBI or some other groovie initials involved.
Just goes to prove what I’ve always known…..liberals are tolerant of everything except an opposing viewpoint. Can’t be “functional” without some sort of censorship, can we?
As commented under blog “discredited” – why is it that an editorial decision, made after several warnings, is being considered censorship? Like other comments, George has every right to open his own blog – and has received many suggestions and much advice.
If a person wants to play basketball with a hockey stick that’s their right – but it’s not something you’d allow in a professional game. Is that liberal or conservative, Mr. Slivka??
If a filter is a censor then turn off your cable tv, your internet, and all airwave radio. Some filters help us tune in – not tune out.
I rather enjoyed engaging him, but then, it did take up a lot of bandwidth.
Why is it that “conservatives” practice blatant censorship, such as “Free Speech Zones”, enforced by heavily armed and armored Goon Squads, and a tame judiciary who rubber-stamp any police action (like the recent “trial” of the pigs who murdered a man on his wedding day, how long a sentence did the cops get? I thought so…) then whine like itty bitty titty babies when it comes back around on them?
George is not an honest voice for any Conservative point of view at all. Michael Slivka, on the other hand, is. What is the difference between the two of you, Michael? I think the answer is rather obvious to all of us at this point.
We all have different learning curves. so his cop or cop-like presence here has been partially tolerated for those who simply needed some extra time to check George out for themselves.
Cop infiltrators, or those playing at this role for whatever personal reason they might have???, most often play on people´s shared desire to be fair and not judge others negatively without ample data, simply that they might be
better able to split and divide others up amongst themselves, and from any commonalities of political purpose liberal minded people might share.
George, I hope you continue to write occasionally to us, it´s just that you will not be allowed to continue to spam the site like you currently are doing at the PPJP blog once again. There, you will certainly succeed for a while in messing that blog up, simply because there are those at the PPJP who want their blog to not get much off the ground. They will love what you are doing and will use you as an excuse to try to teminate having a blog.
Meanwhile, here at NMT, we will continue to tolerate discussion and dialog, including with any Conservatives that might particpate with us with their usual disagreements. We lilke Conservatives who want to disagree with us to feel free to do so. We don´t want people to act like cop disruptors, of which there are billions of dollars paid out in government monies for this express political purpose.
I’ve opined about many trolls, if they’re being paid to do it, their employers are getting ripped the hell off.
Oh, yeah, speaking of… There was a brief flurry of excitement last month (?) pretty recently at any rate, where the Pentagoons were trying to recruit bloggers to put a nice face on their big stinky pile of bullpoopoo.
Maybe I should be offended that they haven’t asked me. Or maybe joyful that they’ve read my voluminous extraordinarily verbose (but not quite Pompous, you understand) compendium of writings and somebody at the Pentagoon grew a couple of extra brain cells, and decided there was no way in Hell they would get me to do it so they don’t bother.
It seems George Hutton is at Common Dreams trolling around.