4chan Gives 90-Year-Old Vet a Great Birthday 363
Posted
by
samzenpus
from the the-lighter-side-of-awful dept.
from the the-lighter-side-of-awful dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Members of 4chan aren't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming and when they decide to go after someone, it's typically to subject them to ridicule. But not this time. Someone at 4chan decided that the Internet should get together and wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday, and soon Lashua's local branch of the American Legion was deluged by birthday calls from people as far away as Sweden. The account someone set up for Mr. Lashua's birthday on Facebook had 3,956 'likes' and over 500 comments, most of which wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his military service. It's not clear how 4chan originally came across a photo of Lashua, but a member of the site posted a snapshot of a flyer that was on the bulletin board at a store in Ashburnham, Massachusetts asking for guests to attend the nonagenarian's birthday on at the American Legion hall and the post took off. In contrast to their usual behavior, 4chan members 'were giving him nice phone calls and sending him nice notes' and discouraging those who wanted to do something stupid or mean. 'They were all being.. well, shucks, awful nice.'"
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:5, Insightful)
He risked his life for your right to be an asshole.
Thank you (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you William J. Lashua.
Ugh. (Score:5, Insightful)
As an oldfag over at 4chan, let me tell you this:
Anonymous does whatever he fucking feels like, whether it is sending an old man birthday cards or bullying a child. There is no rhyme or reason to it because Anonymous is a disorganized swarm made up of people of all ages and cultures. "Anonymous" is a constantly rotating, relatively small sample of a large, global population.
Trying to predict Anonymous is pointless. There is no command structure, no ultimate goal. Most of the activities partaken that affect the outside world start as pet projects of individuals and gain traction through spamming and samefagging (because everyone posts anonymously, it is easy to pretend to be multiple people to take advantage of the group mentality there).
This particular incident was started by someone close to the man in question and spammed endlessly over the course of several days leading up to the event. It was a shameless abuse of /b/ as his personal army, but it succeeded because it was relatively novel and interesting.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ugh. (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Ugh. (Score:1, Insightful)
How is it a 'shameless' abuse to do something nice for an old veteran? Hint: it's not.
Comments like yours make me almost ashamed to be an 'old' geek. I would tell you to grow the fuck up but apparantly that ship already sailed.
Doesnt seem odd to me. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth is rarely popular.
Re:Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
everything the anonymous does is a shameless abuse of something.
Re:A drop of honey in a gallon of battery acid (Score:5, Insightful)
And now, every time someone rightly says that 4chan is nothing but a batch of juvenile asshats, they'll trot out this one story as a counterexample.
Well, this one and the ones where they tracked down animal abusers from Youtube videos. Further reading [pcworld.com] if you're interested.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you'll find pretty much all of Europe appreciates the US war effort, we consider them liberators. The countries of the Axis generally consider their part in WWII a dark chapter of their history. But some people bug me when they pretend the US valiantly and selflessly threw itself into battle for freedom and justice. The US only entered WWII after Pearl Harbor, it was forced into the war and it's all speculation what would have happened otherwise but it is far from certain the US would have come to our rescue. At the end of the war the allied forced rushed to take land just as much to not give it to the Soviet Union and communism as to liberate Europe. Certainly something we should be grateful for, but hardly selfless. Likewise when they speak of US losses, the US brought lots of military might that was crucial but it was Europeans doing most of the dying. Of course those people were dying for their country while the US forces were mostly dying for someone else's country, but it's also a bit like a person who lost his toes complaining to a guy who had to amputate both legs. But that beef is with all those that commentate in retrospect, full respect to each and every one of those who picked up a gun and went to fight for us. Each man has only one life and he put his on the line for us. A very happy 90th birthday to him.
Re:Ugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were an investment banker, and used your trusted position to deposit a ton of money in his account, it would be a shameless abuse of your authority. What you are doing is less relevant than how in this case.
That said, saying that a /b/ account comes with any level of trust or authority is laughable in itself.
Re:ummm.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:1, Insightful)
This isn't going to be popular to point out, but surviving citizens of each of the countries you mentioned has more freedom of speech and other rights as a direct result of people like William Lashua and the US military.
FTFY
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's not get off-track on what's being talked about. The GP was talking about Pre-war vs post-war. We won't discuss any kind of rights adjustments and such that have happened separate from that. Just to clarify though, if you are American, you have more rights now than you did in 1945 (the last year of the war). If you need them pointed out, you reallly need to re-examine that era.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know how old you are, but I currently have less freedom of speech and other rights than I did 30 years ago. And that's mostly on account of people born to William Lashua's generation and their misuse of the US military.
Ah, but you also forget that most of these people who have misused the military either "had other priorities" than serving their country and used their connections to get repeated deferments, [slate.com] claimed they had a boil on their asses that prevented them from serving, [snopes.com] or got a cushy air force position and then went AWOL when even that was too hard. [awolbush.com]
Mr. Lashua's a hero and deserving of respect. Save your (justified, right, correct, and intelligent) scorn for the clowns screaming "Support Our Troops" while running the military into the ground. [usatoday.com]
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how anyone could say we wouldn't have at least come to the aid of Britain, considering Americans were already dying coming to the aid of the Brits during the German first happy time [wikipedia.org] which was a full year and a half before Pearl. One could also argue that the Battle of Britain may have gone far differently if America wasn't keeping Britain supplied.
And while I have no doubt that more Europeans died than Americans (after all they were on BOTH sides so it would be kind of hard not to) talking to my relatives who actually fought in WWII when I was a kid I can tell you what the Americans faced, especially on the western front as we pushed towards the Rhine, was a fucking horror show. Our tanks were rolling coffins compared to the Tigers, the Nazis had MG42 nests all over the damned place cutting our guys into hamburger, and according to my grandfather and great uncle, may they rest in peace, many guys didn't even get IDed because they used the FLAK-88 as an antipersonnel weapon, which turned anyone in the blast zone into a "red mist" where even their boots were blown to pieces.
So while I got nothing but respect for anybody that fought in that hell, you have to admit that there were times the Americans got the shitty end of the stick, like the US bombers doing the daylight raids while the Brits went at night. One thing both my grandfather and great uncle could agree on though, they were damned glad to have to face the Krauts over being with Uncle Jerry fighting Japs in the Pacific. Like they said at least they weren't dealing with Malaria and leeches as well as the enemy.
It made me think of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Ferengi rule of acquisition #76 Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that's not to say the action was "selfless". Roosevelt understood, more than the public the importance of keeping Britain from being conquered. It is rare that any action in international relations is "selfless" (and when selfless acts are committed they are always minor and occasionally disasters), but the support the USA gave to Europe during WWII and the cold war is probably as close as you'll get.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:1, Insightful)
The US only entered WWII after Pearl Harbor, it was forced into the war and it's all speculation what would have happened otherwise but it is far from certain the US would have come to our rescue.
Those who bitch about how the U.S. operates today had damn well better remember what you said above.
Many people in the U.S. prior to WW2 wanted the U.S. to remain neutral, keep to itself, mind its own business. Look what that led to. Now many people in other countries want the U.S. to keep to itself, mind its own business. Any guess as to what that would lead to?
My personal guess is that it wouldn't lead to anything good for very long, certainly nothing better that what we have now, and almost certainly result in something worse over the long term.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ugh. (Score:4, Insightful)
As an oldfag over at 4chan, let me tell you this:
Anonymous does whatever he fucking feels like, whether it is sending an old man birthday cards or bullying a child. There is no rhyme or reason to it because Anonymous is a disorganized swarm made up of people of all ages and cultures. "Anonymous" is a constantly rotating, relatively small sample of a large, global population.
Trying to predict Anonymous is pointless. There is no command structure, no ultimate goal. Most of the activities partaken that affect the outside world start as pet projects of individuals and gain traction through spamming and samefagging (because everyone posts anonymously, it is easy to pretend to be multiple people to take advantage of the group mentality there).
This particular incident was started by someone close to the man in question and spammed endlessly over the course of several days leading up to the event. It was a shameless abuse of /b/ as his personal army, but it succeeded because it was relatively novel and interesting.
As someone who's been on the internet longer then any of you old or new fags, let me tell you this.
Get off my lawn.
Swear to god, you oldfags, newfags, are a bunch of little girls squabbling in a public message board. Yes, your the big fag, seeing as you can claim your old fag and preach how you, i mean, 4chan isn't this and that, and does what it wants, and no one tells it to do anything because it's not your personal army. yet, somehow, it does do things, because someone got creative on how to spam it in 4chan.
And notice how I'm not posting anonymous? unlike you, i'm not scared to stand behind what I say, right or wrong, i said it.
misled (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy did not need the handout, the poster was more or less a joke/notice to let the many people that do know him they should come to his party. The very fact he knows so many people was the reason for the notice, it was the most practical way to notify the large number of people he knows.
If the guy was a "lonely old man with no friends left", do you think he would book out a town hall to hold his party?
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/d9zmp/dear_internet_on_behalf_of_the_lashua_family_i/ [reddit.com]
"He has 7 children, many grandchildren, and even great grandchildren. In his younger years he was a foster parent to dozens of foster children."
I can't help but think these donations and effort could have been directed to people more in need.
Re:Doesnt seem odd to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hang out on
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
PS3 and XBox360? You mean there's no PC version of the iconic PC shooter?
Run, it's a scam!
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you'll find pretty much all of Europe appreciates the US war effort, we consider them liberators. The countries of the Axis generally consider their part in WWII a dark chapter of their history. But some people bug me when they pretend the US valiantly and selflessly threw itself into battle for freedom and justice. The US only entered WWII after Pearl Harbor, it was forced into the war and it's all speculation what would have happened otherwise but it is far from certain the US would have come to our rescue.
I think that it's very important to keep apart the U.S. (the country) motivation for its foreign policy and participation in WW2, and the effort of every individual American soldier who fought in that war. Politics may be dirty, but I very much doubt that Americans fighting on the ground and breaking open concentration camps really thought "we'd really leave these guys rot if Germans didn't attack us first, and we didn't have to hold back the Soviets". Maybe a few really did - you never know - but by default I'm going to assume that every person who served in that war, on his own, was truly a liberator.
By the way, the same goes for Soviets - Stalin's politics is one thing, soldiers on the ground is another.
Likewise when they speak of US losses, the US brought lots of military might that was crucial but it was Europeans doing most of the dying.
This one's interesting. If you look at military casualties for WW2, U.S. has 415k deaths, and actually ranks above any Allied European country except for the USSR and Yugoslavia. These are totals, but if you look by theater, then Americans have only lost ~100k dead fighting in the Pacific; so the remainder is mostly in Europe. Let's take that as 300k. Now the next European Allied country on the list, UK, lost 380k dead. Everyone else actually lags behind US losses in European theater alone. So the claim that "Europeans were doing most of the dying", while, perhaps, factually correct, is making a wrong point.
Which kinda makes sense when you remember the history of the war. The most massive losses on Allied side, by an extremely large margin, are the Soviets, because they bore the brunt of the war - the initial wearing out of German industry and manpower - and, ultimately, the victory in Europe. UK is high because it kept putting up the fight; US, because it intervened and kept going. Poland and France are also relatively high because they did put up some fight early on, and because they had significant military resistance to occupation afterwards. Yugoslavia is very high on the list mainly due to active guerrilla warfare against the occupying German forces (IIRC, the most active country in that regard of all occupied ones). Everyone else mostly just sat there waiting for the liberators after putting up some token resistance.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:3, Insightful)
Many people in the U.S. prior to WW2 wanted the U.S. to remain neutral, keep to itself, mind its own business. Look what that led to. Now many people in other countries want the U.S. to keep to itself, mind its own business.
Many people in other countries want the U.S. to keep invading countries. In WW2, it was reversed - many people wanted the US to stop one country from invading the other countries. It's a perfectly sensible position so long as you take it for granted that invading countries (except in response to another invasion) is a bad thing regardless of who does it.
Re:Thank you (Score:1, Insightful)
Not only American freedom. Special thanks from Germany, which he helped to free of some silly idiots, we couldn't get rid of on our own.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:4, Insightful)
he refers to nazi habits of firing to jews randomly. there are separate accounts of such scenes. If you however prefer shooting all deniers that's perfectly fine for his point.
As for denial, one victim is enough already. That settles it. Let them talk on the details as they want, they are details.
A society which makes you a culprit for giving your warped version of history instrad of the 99.99% likely warped official one is a fascist one. As long as you do not incite others to do crimes your speech oughta be free. In that regard your post is worse than holocaust denial.
Re:4chan gets it wrong again... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thanks from Italy (Score:3, Insightful)
> I live in Italy and if it wasn't for people like you I'd probably speak German or Russian now, and concepts like individuality, freedom of speech, personal rights might be alien or completely twisted in my mind/society.
While I agree with what you say, it seems odd that someone from Berlousconi-land would _speculate_ about how "concepts like freedom of speech, personal rights might be alien or completely twisted in my society."
Note that I removed "individuality" and "my mind" from the above. I know several Italians who are very nice people. But a country that elects the likes of Berlousconi has deeply rooted problems.