All You Angry Veterans
By Mitch Berg
Remember like 25 years ago,when Hollywood was portraying Vietnam Veterans as one of three things; homeless bums, psychos and dangerous psychos (with the sole exceptions of “The A Team” and “Rambo”)?
Vietnam vets’ groups complained; the vast majority of ‘nam vets were adjusted to civilian life just fine at that remove, and they were not especially more likely to have crippling psychological problems than the general population.
You’d think the left would learn from their mis…
…er, never mind:
The US Homeland Security Department, under fire for saying US forces returning from the Iraq and Afghan wars were potential right-wing extremist recruits, said Wednesday it honors US veterans.
Honor, slander – tomayto tomahto.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to douse anger among conservatives and veterans groups like the American Legion over a report from her department warning of a rising threat of right-wing extremism.
“We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not — nor will we ever — monitor ideology or political beliefs,” Napolitano said in a statement amid charges that the department had done just that.
Well, to be fair to Napolitano’s critics, the anger is more about the report’s rolling slinky of casual defamation, covering virtually every conservative constituent in the United States, not about allegations of monitoring.
Yet.
American Legion chief David Rehbein on Tuesday blasted the report as “incomplete, and, I fear, politically-biased” and took special aim at its warning that returning veterans having difficulties reintegrating society could be recruited by right-wing groups for possible terrorist attacks.
In a letter to Napolitano, Rehbein underlined the document’s mention of Oklahoma City bombing author Timothy McVeigh’s US Army background and called it “as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam.”
And it’s not just veterans, of course; the DHS report slanders the gun, life, tax and property rights movements.
Indeed, it follows tacitly through on the campaign-era slur that voting against Obama was a sign of racism.
There is no way a responsible Administration would let Napolitano survive this.
Well, there’s your answer, I guess.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:08 am
McVeigh, Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman… McVeigh’s politics weren’t any kookier than half the nuts commenting on this blog. I’d be surprised to see Kermit blow somebody up, but I have a Google News alert set for when Shiftee does.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:34 am
We’ll see your McVeigh, Oswald and Whitman and raise you Bill Ayers and his Weathermen pals, Kathy Soliah and her SLA pals, the Unabomber and Dwight and Karleton Armstrong. And would you like to own ELF and ALF? Because you do.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:55 am
They’re far-right wing Soviet Communists like you guys. Liberals believe in democracy.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:58 am
LHO was a commie. Don’t let the facts confuse you, AssClown.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Clown is beginning to play the game where he simply asserts that his fellow socialists who do things he does not like are somehow right wing. American socialists back in the 80’s did the same thing — they called Russia a ‘conservative’ communist country. I think Christopher Hitchens still does this.
Won’t work AC. Not only didn’t the people the clown calls ‘far-right wing communists’ actually seek to conserve any social institution, they endorse the idea of eternal revolution.
Try a new trope, AC, your ideas are not just threadbare, they are wrong.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Not worth arguing, Terry. Sometimes I forget, too, like I did when I posted earlier on this thread (my coffee hadn’t kicked in, yet). But it’s axiomatic — Clown is good, we are wingnuts. Doesn’t matter the topic or the evidence presented. Clown doesn’t endorse the idea of eternal revolution, he endorses the idea of eternal mockery.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:25 am
It’s nonsense, of course, Terry. But if you far-right kooks are going to assert that liberals are fascists, then Angryclown will assert that you are Soviet Communists. You’re anti-American, you brook no dissent, you send people to secret prison without due process of law and you seek to control every aspect of people’s lives. Close enough for jazz. Sure, Angryclown is being a little aggressive in stretching – one might say perverting – the language. But no more so than you kooks. And Angryclown is not the sort to bring a knife to a gun fight. Clean up your rhetorical acts, Angryclown might follow. Until then, you’re all teabagging Soviet Communists.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:31 am
you seek to control every aspect of people’s lives.
Especially the part of Scarlett Johannson’s life where she decides what kinda guys she digs.
Because I’m totally gonna overhaul that when we take over.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:33 am
angryclown said:
“Sure, Angryclown is being a little aggressive in stretching – one might say perverting – the language.”
It’s very nice of you to admit that, but you can probably stuff whatever you’re admitting “for” me.
Please keep talking the crazy talk until you convince someone. *snicker*
April 16th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
The only chain AssClown is yanking is Prince Albert’s.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Liberal fascists is just the proper word. I know someone wha was was born in Manzanar. It weren’t the GOP that sent her parents there. Nor did FDR suddenly become a conservative when he issued the order to intern the Japanese.
You’re anti-American, you brook no dissent, you send people to secret prison without due process of law and you seek to control every aspect of people’s lives.
I live on an Island that has a strong sovereignty movement. The members of this movement are quite open about hating America. They aren’t conservatives. Look up Mililani Trask & Haunani Trask in the Wikipedia sometime.
A regular commenter on this blog, RickDFL supports card check — he wants the law to dictate that a worker can find him or herself in a union they never had a chance to vote for or against working under a contract that they never had a chance to vote for or against. Is he a conservative?
When did Guantanamo become a secret prison? Or are you talking about the extraordinary rendition program that Clinton started?
Here’s Richard Clarke:
And an unnamed Obama administration official:
As for controlling every aspect of people’s lives, it is your side that is trying to tell people what light bulbs to buy, what kind of car to buy, how big a house they should have, where they should send their kids to school and what they should learn there. When the government starts paying your medical bills, you will see controls that you would not believe.
The ‘you guys are authoritarian’ argument is silly. Both conservatives and liberals try to control people’s behavior. Bringing the behavior of individuals into line with the social good is an important purpose of government. Left & Right just disagree on what that social good is.
In America conservatives tend to be individualists and free-marketers. In America the left tends to be central government centric.
You have people who want the right to arm themselves and want to keep the yoke of government as light as possible and you have people who want to decide how many plys your toilet paper may have. You side with the latter.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
“I’d be surprised to see Kermit blow somebody up, but I have a Google News alert set for when Shiftee does.”
Pfft.
If you don’t get the hint after I cram a half dozen sticks of TNT up your ass, a Google News alert isn’t going to help.
Dolt.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
“The only chain AssClown is yanking is Prince Albert’s.”
Right, and that doesn’t come with the standard “AssClown & Son Sphincter Polishing Package” either, bub. Teabagging the Clown is thrown in for free (can’t really help it), but tuggin’ your hardwear is gonna cost you extra!
HAHAHAHAHAHAaaaaaaa!
April 16th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
“Liberals believe in Democracy” ACORN must not have received the message yet.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Terry blathered: “Liberal fascists is just the proper word.”
OK, if we’re playing by the Marquis de Wingnutbury rules, you’re all right-wing Soviets. It’s just the proper word.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:40 am
McVeigh, Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Whitman…
Om, Oswald WAS a “left-wing” extremist. He lived in Moscow.
Whitman wasn’t affiliated with any politics at all. His motivations were purely psychiatric.
And McVeigh was into an area of politics where extreme right and extreme left are basically indistinguishable. There are historical, ideological links between Hitler and Lenin…
…but talking history with liberals is like going to a wine-tasting with Larry the Cable Guy.