I'm happy you mentioned that the young women who come to these marches are beautiful. Most conservatives tell you that the women protesting this insanity are all ugly, and that the protesters of either gender are slovenly and unwashed. Thank you for telling us some truth.[/QUOTE}
I just called it as I saw it. The photographer seemed quite taken with a certain auburn-haired lass to the extent that he put her on the cover as well as in several interior shots. I thought she was quite fetching myself, or at least supposed she would have been had her face not been contorted into a rictus of rage the whole time.
I don't know how it is in Philadelphia, but here in Cleveland the majority of marchers against this dirty little war are middle age. College boys? There are a few, but I did not see any with a "Grand Theft Auto" T-shirt, or any other references to violence. Nice try, but have you actually been to a peace march, or just take the word of a right-wing fishwrap?
This is priceless. Two Points.
A.) You accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about because I have not been to your peace march to see it first-hand
in the very same paragraph that you confidently dismiss the possibility of any young people joining the march for selfish or shallow reasons on the grounds that you haven't seen such a thing first-hand. Excuse me while I crack open a window to let out some of the irony filling the room.
B.) The Philadalphia Daily News is indeed a fishwrap (it's 50%+ Sports, the only reason my brother brings it in the house), but hardly a Right-wing one. The article I quoted was generally favorable to the protesters, and seemed to mention the Romance-minded Revolutionary just to laugh at
him. The PDN is usually quite sympathetic to the Left; indeed, its opinion page features a regular strip by their staff editorial cartoonist called Shrubbery, in which she repeats daily that Bush is a fool and Cheney is a crook, in the apparent belief that drawing them as plants makes it a witty observation. I fully expect you'd love it, based your posting history. Again, I am filled with mirth over your admonition not to believe things I read in a newspaper that you've never read.
Looks like the right wing has dusted off the old "I'm here just to pick up girls" nonsense. Some fool in the Pentagon said during the height of the opposition to the Vietnam War that the marchers only wanted to get on TV and say, "Hi mom!" That has always been one on which the forces of reaction have fallen back. Trust me, sincerity reigns supreme at the marches.
Again, Stephen wants us to believe that everyone not opposing military action in Iraq are mindless thralls and soul-drinking blackguards to a man, yet he denounces as slander the notion that even one person agreeing with him could be anything less than the most altruistic of saints. Of course.
But, you know something folks? I think Stephen really
is sincere in his motives.
I think he's sincere in his raw, visceral hatred of George W. Bush that makes David Duke look like Leo Buscaglia.
I think he's sincere in his unshakable conviction that his man could not have lost the 2000 Election on his own merits (or lack thereof), but must have fallen prey to a nefarious conspiricy so diabolical that even Professor Moriarity and the Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu would be envious.
I think he's sincere in his refusal to permit any action, no matter how much it might benefit the Iraqi people or his own countrymen, if it means that Bush will look competent or, Heaven forfend, successful as a result.
I think he's sincere in his belief that, because he faces no immediately visible threat in Cleveland, there cannot be
any threat. And I think we've firmly established Steve-o's credentials on the matter of his perceptions vs. reality above.
A bit harsh, I know, but Stephen can prove me wrong easily. All he has to do is offer one reasoned, emotion-free argument against the war,
just one, that doesn't revolve around accusing the Bush administration of comic-book level super-villainy. All he has to do is show me
one sign at his protest march asking Saddam Hussein to abandon his WMD program in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441 and thus prevent war with absolute certainty. Just One. If he can show me one, I'll believe he might really be interested in peace and not just taking advantage of the situation to flog the equine cadaver of his resentment over Election 2000. He'd even be able to throw all my snarky commentary about his refusing to believe in what he hasn't seen right back at me. But he won't, and we all know it. He'll just call me a Nazi, or accuse me of homoerotic devotion to Rush Limbaugh. In fact, I'll bet he uses this mention of El Rushbo to go off on a completely unrelated screed about conservatives demonizing people who disagree with them (providing yet another hilarious display of unintended irony), rather than answer the challenge.
"Stripping for peace?" Have you been outside lately? That would be more like dying of pneumonia for peace. What do you think this is, a Philadelphia Eagles game, where idiots take off their shirts in December so they can get on television? I have never heard of this fad.
Oh right, I keep forgetting. If Stephen hasn't seen it, it isn't real. I've seen newscasts/heard radio reports/read newspaper stories/seen web coverage of it happening at least three or four times in the past few months: At least once in San Francisco, Berkeley IIRC, Australia, Columbia, and possibly some other locations in California. Generally sunnier, warmer climes more conducive to such behavior, no? I didn't keep detailed notes because I didn't know there would be a quiz later. If you want proof, do a web search (if you have the patience to sift through the porn sites that clog any list involving the seach terms "naked" or "nude"), but I know what I've seen, heard, and read. Of course, we shouldn't believe the mainstream media, lapdog of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that it is. Besides, Steveroonie can vouch for the selfless intentions of all 11 million anti-war marchers worldwide, so he's the final authority on what methods they are and aren't really using, right?
[B}Where are my 72 virgins? Of course, with my luck, one of them will be you.[/B]
That one was funny, I'll grant you that. I also note that you, with your claim to monopoly on the moral high ground, made the first personal attack, which makes it even funnier.
😉
So when are you going to sign up and go fight this war? Wait. Let me answer that question. Let's see..ahhhh, um..never?
Two Points:
A.) I don't have to join up. The United States Military is an all-volunteer force. It does not currently have a draft, need a draft, or want a draft. I know that rains all over your dream of protesting the draft again and recapturing the thrill of your lost youth, but it also means that we have soldiers who are there because they
want to be there, which gives us an inestimable morale advantage over the consripted peasants we will be facing. To ensure and maximize this advantage, our military need only accept
the best of the best. I am nowhere near so arrogant or vain as to imagine myself worthy of being counted among that category. As a Conservative, I believe that realism in means and results are just as important as idealism in ends and intentions. As a 300+ lb diabetic with an astigmatism and bad ankles, I recognize that I would be a liability to any unit to which I might be assigned, I would therefore not be accepted, and that would make my enlisting a futile gesture, accomplishing nothing.
BTW, your suggestion that U.S. Troops will be shipped home in body bags by the thousands when facing a dispirited rabble with a proven track record of surrendering to the first Westerner they encounter is more than a little insulting to our people in uniform, more of whom than you would care to admit frequent these boards. The fact that such dire predictions were so abysmally wrong when they were first made about Afghanistan only serves to reinforce my faith that the majority of casualties taken in the coming fight will be from friendly fire and vehicular accidents, not enemy activity.
B.) The question works both ways, Stevikins. If you believe in your cause so much, when are you going to Baghdad to make the noble sacrifice of being a Human Shield against the specter of U.S. Imperialist Terrorism? Oh, wait, that's right... Even the Human Shields, especially their paranoid and delusional leader Ken O'Keeffe, are
leaving Iraq, after having discovered that the brutal dicator wanted to put them in front of real military targets like army bases and oil refineries, not the schools and hospitals and orphanages that they were just so sure we were salivating to incinerate. When people on your side that fanatical start to admit they were wrong, do you question your own judgement, or do you dismiss them as heretics for lack of revolutionary zeal?
Funny you should mention Israel. Let's discuss Moloch, the demon of war who eats children.
Oh, I can just sense the 31 Flavors of Ugly lurking behind that thought like the smell from a Coney Island garbage dumpster in July. Tell you what, I don't call you an Anti-Semite for criticizing Israel, you don't call me a Zionist Stooge for criticizing the Palestinians, and we both call it even.
Although, I am compelled to point out that Saddam Hussein is the one offering Palestinian families $25,000 or more per head if they turn their children into living torpedoes aimed at killing as many civillian non-combatants, especially Jewish children, as possible.
Yes, we have used Vietnam Era "gimmicks," because most of us in the marches are old enough to remember the madness that was the Vietnam War. Because Shrub and his evil cabal haven't learned their lessons from the Vietnam debacle, it's only fitting that we fight these new warmongers with the same fire we fought Nixon, Johnson, Kissinger, McNamara, Westmorerland et al. ... If you truly believe this impending war is justified and morally defensable, it is you who are shallow and easily manipulated, by an unelected president and his goon squad who care only about their own careers and will send young Americans to die to advance themselves.
If you're old enough to remember, you're old enough to know better. Several Points:
A.) It may please you to believe that Bush is the Most Evil Man Alive, that the Presidency was stolen for him by his Masonic Lodge brothers, that he masturbates himself to sleep every night at the thought of all those dead Iraqi babies, and that he has stage-managed the current crisis as a distraction from his Blofeld-scheme to turn America into a brutal police state even as we speak. I find it to be utterly hilarious, given your repeated denials above that something could be true if you have no first-hand evidence, that you treat such unfounded accusations as the divinely-revealed Word of God. I mean, if Bush were really the power-crazed loon you insist he is, how could you and your fellow peace marchers engage in such open dissent? (Not that what you're doing is dissent. You're just exercising your 1st Amendment Free Spech rights, and as such all your slogans are as courageous as writing a movie review. Try it somewhere like China or Cuba, where failure to praise the government at all times is met with summary arrest, imprisonment, and execution.
That's brave dissent.) Where were the jackbooted stormtroopers dragging you out of your home when you first addressed the Great Leader as Shrub? Where are the re-education camps? Where are the firing squads? Why weren't your wife and children raped to death in front of you as punishment for your treason? Could it be that such things aren't happening, and our civil liberties aren't being thrown away like Martha Stewart's Imclone stock? Maybe that's because it isn't happening. Maybe Bush doesn't have a Red Skull costume in his closet.
Such abuses of power are happening daily... in Iraq. Not that you care about that, unless you can find a way to blame Bush for it.
B.) Your narcissistic Baby-Boomer (the generation that invented instant gratification, btw) fantasy that a bunch of teenagers shouting platitudes, waving placards, and most of all indulging in nauseating amounts of responsibility-free sex and narcotics somehow managed to change the world by wishing away the bad things and wishing good things into place notwithstanding, your protests will accomplish nothing. Go ahead, wave your mass-produced signs in spontaneous demonstrations, shout your libelous canards, sign your e-mail petitions; none of it will bring a single U.S. soldier home before their job is a stunning success. The war has already begun; your marches and celebrity spokesmen will not stop it any more than some restauranteur in Duluth taking French fries off his menu and pouring his French wine down the toilet will convince Jacques Chirac to approve the latest U.N. resolution. Bush
has learned the most important lesson from Vietnam: The greatest nation this world has ever seen will not allow spoiled children with too much time on their hands to dictate policy decisions best left to the grown-ups.
C.) There is no basis for comparing this current situation to Vietnam. The debate over the morality of that conflict aside, the biggest reason the Vietnam comparison is utterly baseless is that we have been attacked first. You
do remember that nasty business September before last, don't you? Planes crashing, buildings collapsing, 3,000 innocent men, women, and children targeted for execution by Islamofascist murderers? Yes, ringing some bells now? This is not some political shell game. We have been attacked by a culture locked in the Middle Ages and determined to drag the rest of Humanity down with it. It views attempts at peaceful negotiation as weakness and an open invitation to strike again with impunity. Now, you may be protesting this war in the same way you protested Vietnam because you think that all wars are as unjustifiable as Vietnam out of a deep moral conviction to non-violence, or because it helps you to relive a time when you were young, thin, and had a full head of hair. Either way, it's irrelevant. I'm concerened with the results of your actions, not their motives. To pretend we are not threatened is to invite further massacres. Time to convince you of the facts is a luxury we can no longer afford.
Let me tell you my sincere motives.
I sincerely believe that war is a horrible thing, never to be asked for, never to be glorified, never to be initiated rashly. But it has been initated against us, and I sincerely belive that we have no choice in evading it any longer.
I sincerely believe that, in a culture where killing outsiders is rewarded with status and prestige, if Hussein obtains a nuclear weapon, he will hesitate no longer than it takes to flip a coin to decide if it is sent to New York via terrorist suitcase, or dangled over the Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields in a global extortion racket.
I sincerely believe that, living as they do in a totalitarian state, the Iraqi people cannot overthrow Saddam on their own (If it wre as simple as Stephen and Augie seem to think it is, wouldn't they, or China or Cuba for that matter, have done it by now?), and the direct intervention of U.S. military force is the only option left to disarm and depose him.
I sincerely believe that allowing the people of Iraq to form a free, democratic government, the first of its kind in the Arab world, will be a turning point in history. I sincerely believe that it will be the keystone event that allows the ousting of Arafat, the Iranian Mullahs, the Saudi Royals, and all the other tyrants and despots currently maintaining a deathgrip on their power; allows the modernization and revitalization of a part of the world kept shackled to its past; eventually culminating in real and lasting peace in the Middle East, something no amount of appeasement or protection of the status quo can achieve.
And I sincerely believe that if History deigns to look upon the protestors of this war at all, it will remember them as petty, selfish people who tried to stand in the way of the liberation of close to a billion souls who had never before known freedom rather than set aside their infantile grudges.
