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ResidentSadist -> RE: online friends....can they ever be classed as real life friends? (10/4/2008 4:29:46 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: wandersalone
quote:
ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist
In my world:
…friends are your “tribe”
…your love(s) is/are your “family”
...online ?
another interesting division..... I am a little worried about the buried bodies though....hopefully they are not of subbies that have gone AWOL from here Those AWOLs died of embarrassment. That is natural causes in my book. I never touched them because they never made it here!
quote:
ORIGINAL: Roselaure
quote:
ORIGINAL: ResidentSadist
In my world:
…friends are your “tribe”
You exchange money & services freely with friends to help in the group’s mutual survival. By measure, a friend will help you burry the body and then bear false testimony in court to protect you.
…your love(s) is/are your “family”
You will risk more than your time, effort and money for your love or family, you will risk your life to protect them and insure the group’s survival. By measure, your love/family will help make the body in the first place
...online ?
If someone is only there for your fair weather emotional support, counseling, advice or even something as intimate as phone sex, it is still just free therapy. That is an acquaintance not a friend or a love in my book. If you are someone online that will share money, time, labor and maybe even hop a plane to help burry the body, then you are a friend indeed.
Goodness RS, you seem to mentioning bodies quite a bit here. Need a hand, Sir?
Ahhhh…. spoken like a true friend rose. No bodies yet but, if this one girl doesn’t straighten up, she may not make it to her 28th birthday! LOL
I grew up in Detroit. We just measure love and friendship that way I guess. I learned about stepping into harm’s way for someone you love when I was very young. It was reinforced to higher degree when I was12 years old during Detroit’s 12th Street race riots in 1967 when I stood guard at grandma's house. In the 70s I was in some hippy riots and political protests… I put my life at risk for my beliefs and had a friend die in my arms for his belief. I acquired a few scars on my face from a robber’s shotgun blast ricochet while defending my slave who went shopping in the wrong store at the wrong time… etc
I just measure things in a very, very tangible way. Like my perspective of breakfast and flowers, I guess I am always aware of the obscenity and violence around us. When counting love & friendship for a person like me, perhaps there has to be some violence or obscenity to make it a tangible from of measure.
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-=Detroit’s 12th Street Race Riots - 1967=-
I was 12 years old when I was posted downtown on my grandmother’s porch with a shotgun in my hand during the race riots. I am not prejudice*, but that didn’t mean the black rioters who were literally burning stores, killing each other and “whitey” at the end of street weren’t. Grandma was a white Russian and she lived just off 14th street. There is no 13th street so she was 1 block from 12th street and I could see columns of smoke and hear the gunshots ringing out. When the 5 day riot first started, the “call to arms” went out to our family who mostly lived in the suburbs. Grandma had 7 children and all the men in the family, be it the 5 blood brothers or the husbands like my dad, all showed up ready and armed. I had always been taught that you never let anyone know you are armed or you will end up the first one shot if something jumps off. However, my dad and the brothers agreed this called for a “show of arms”. Black luxury cars started showing up with trunks full of rifles, machine guns and shot guns. The street was lined from one end to the other with big shiny black Cadillac cars. It looked like a mafia convention had arrived.
They worked grandma’s house in shifts but the cars stayed parked as a show of force. One of the uncles was a cab driver and between him and other family, the active “guards” were shuttled in and out so they could leave their cars behind. I stayed there for several “shifts” and over a week long period I don’t remember anyone being allowed to sleep there. It was a constant shuttle of guards while grandma was cooking up a storm in the kitchen to “feed the troops”.
Over a period of 5 days, the results were forty-three dead, 467 injured, over 7,200 arrests more than 2,500 buildings and 380 homes burned down. Rioters were shoting at firefighters with some of the 2,498 rifles and 38 handguns that were stolen from local stores. Detroit and Michigan forces were unable to keep the peace.
President Johnson authorized use of Federal troops by using a law loophole from 1795, which stated that the President may call in armed forces whenever there is an insurrection in any state against the government. The 82nd Airborne at nearby Selfridge Air Force Base, along with National Guard troops were federalized. 8,000 National Guardsmen were deployed to quell the disorder, augmented with 4,700 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne, and 360 Michigan State Police. I took 2 more days for the armed force of 12,700 to end the riots.
Despite peeks of 231 incidents per hour of looting, shooting and arson, our barrage of crazy Armenians (& company) with guns was like a magic bubble for the whole street. Not one looter, not one fire, not one incident. Even the cops came there on break to “relax” once in a while. Notably, this “race riot” killed 33 black people and 10 white people. 6 of the 10 white people were killed by accident or by each other. Of the 4 white people killed in the supposed “race riot” 2 were uniformed servicemen on duty, one was a tourist shot by a sniper and the only white civilian killed in direct confrontation with the looters/rioters was a lone Armenian named Messerlian who died at the hands of rioters while defending his shoe store. Although he was no relation, it taught me a lot about the stubborn Middle Eastern blood that flows in my veins.
In watching a few thousand rioters wreak so much havoc that a military force of 12,700 could barely persuade them over 2 days to stop rioting, I learned about strength in large numbers. I learned about small numbers from the lone Armenian that failed to defend his store and died. I learned about mob psychology, image and how my large armed family succeeded in protecting not only grandma but the whole street by risking their brand new Cadillacs in a “show of force”. Watching grandma’s street go unscathed as family defended it taught me about value of family and I have never stopped wanting a large family for myself. I learned that the measure of your love is in your actions and what you will pay, risk or put on the line for those you love be they friend or family.
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*Note: I am not prejudice by most people’s measure of it but I bet you and I are both prejudice by my own understanding of it. But that is for another thread.
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