Fascism: Still In The Closet

Dream on. Dream on. Dream on. Dream on.

Aah-aah-aah-aah-ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh……

/steven tyler

Question for ya Mitch… I know there were veterans there today in the anti-war crowd. Did you go up to them and call then anti-American like you insinuated in the previous post?

“…conservatives, veterans and other pro-Americans to go out to Washington next week to counterprotest the big lefty demonstrations”

You see Mitch. The point is that you broadbrushed every anti-war protester as anti-American – even the veterans. Do you still stand by that big guy?

billhedrick

Gee, Doug it is pithy comments like that that we missed today. I would say that my observation was tghat there were no vets in the crowd, mostly teenagers, 20somethings and old line protestors. Did your car break down? It isn’t like a lefty to not fulfill his promises.

Mitch

Oh, Doug. You big lug you.

So you think calling one group “pro-American” means everyone who’s not in the group is “Anti-American?”

Did you learn logic off the Jerry Springer show?

What is the Lakota word for “Drama Queen?”

Terry

You guys are great. It takes a lot of guts to go in-your-face when the numbers are so lopsided. I won’t use the word heroes to describe you though.
Two years ago a blackhawk crew from the army base down the road showed up at our facility and asked for a tour. We did our best to accommodate them. I don’t think any one of them was more than 25 years old. A very serious, very intelligent group of young men and women, not at all like the post-adolescents you see hanging out at the UH Hilo campus.
Those soldiers are heroes.
But anyhoo, to get back on topic, I wonder why IPAC didn’t specifically call their rally both pro-American and anti-war? I guess that’s too much to expect from a group that holds their meetings at a place called the May Day Bookstore.

BradC

With these protests, I notice the media white-washes the caliber of the kook protesters. We’re led to believe that they’re run-of-the-mill folks who merely want to express their dissent. That would be fine but a good number of the anti-war crowd come up with some of the most vile rhetoric I’ve heard. Some even resort to violence. In March 2005, I was at a similar venue in Loring Park. Just because I expressed support for Israel I was spat on and called a racist f—ing pig.

I sure wish I could have been there today.

Mitch said,

“So you think calling one group “pro-American” means everyone who’s not in the group is “Anti-American?””

No Mitch I don’t but I do think your implication was pretty clear.

Interestingly though I did see quite a number of guys in uniform on the news and a friend that was there reported a number of guys with DAV and vietnam veterans insignias. And on channel nine they talked to a father of a guy serving in Iraq and a woman who was probably in her 70’s.

Ooooh the radicals…

billhedrick

Well, Doug, if you had been there LIKE YOU PROMISED you’d know who was here.

“if you had been there LIKE YOU PROMISED”

Gosh bill, show me where I promised to be there?

Kermit

“I did see quite a number of guys in uniform on the news and a friend that was there reported a number of guys with DAV and vietnam veterans insignias.”

John Lennon loved parading around in a wartime coat. John F Kerry threw his (whose?) medals over the White House fence. Most impressive.
Vietnam should be capitalized, by the way.

Wait Kermit. I thought Mitch was the spelling hallway monitor now?

And there should be a period after the F in John F. Kerry.

Lassie

What is the Lakota word for “Drama Queen?”

“Waeco Winyan Yatapi”

Great work today, Mitch and all. You’ve got Chief at FreedomDogs fired up to start a section on count-protesting – and building a coalition to cover the convention next fall.

We’ll keep our eye out for goatee man — he may be at the Capitol tomorrow for the “eyes wide shut” Quaker boot display: http://www.mppeace.org/march19/

Terry

No way! That’s privileging ‘v’ over the other letters. Fascist.

This is great. The “spokesperson” for the dim six says on the news,

“They have a right to their opinions and, a, the very people they are over there protesting are the ones that give them the rights to do that.” Doug Daggett

The people that are protesting are protesting the war. They’re protesting flawed policy and they are protesting this failure of an administration.

What gives us the right to do that is the Constitution. It’s not the administration and it’s not the military.

You counter protesters look like complete idiots especially when you spew this kind of nonsense.

And Mitch, good lord. Cut back on the fried butter. You look like a heart attack waiting to happen.

Terry

The constitution owes its existence to the continental army. It’s not the other way around.

Mitch

No Mitch I don’t but I do think your implication was pretty clear.

No, it’s pretty much a product of Doug’s imagination.

You are, in short (heh heh) wrong.

Mitch

You look like a heart attack waiting to happen.

Yeah. Stress is a killer.

Hence I’m working out 4x a week.

Anyway, in a year I’ll be in pretty decent shape. And you’ll still be an asshole.

Mitch

To sum up, Doug:

1. Calling protesters “pro-American” makes their opponents “anti-American” only in the most paranoid, self-victimization-mongering fantasies of “Waeco Winyan Yatapi”s.

2. You openly fantasize about committing violence (through proxies who may or may not exist) on those who disagree with you. The word for that is “authoritarian”, or “fascist”.

I think we’re done here.

Kermit

“And there should be a period after the F in John F. Kerry.”

I didn’y intend it to be his middle name, genius. Try another word starting with F.

billhedrick

closed the italics tag. First let me state the perfunctory support for free speech. That done I have to say Doug, you have no cred for criticizing people who went to an event you promised to go to and didn’t. You are compounding your cowardice with foolishness to do so.

Mitch

Well, to be fair to Doug, I don’t think he “promised” to go. Merely implied that if he HAD, he’d sure enough show us what for, sho nuff.

Didn’t apparently feel the need to prove it.

I doubt he’d have done any better than his pals on the street.

billhedrick

Ahhh a point well made Mitch. I went back and the weasel word “try” was in his post. Nonetheless, if it is illegitimate for us who did not serve to support the war, his support/criticism for the protest/counterprotest is equally moot.

phaedrus

I would say that my observation was tghat there were no vets in the crowd, mostly teenagers, 20somethings and old line protestors. Did your car break down? It isn’t like a lefty to not fulfill his promises.

I don’t know that it was a high percentage but you’re wrong on this. A friend of mine who just got back in the country on leave last Friday asked me to go with him. For the most part I feel that my decision not to support the “pull out now” effort is the right one but its still hard to say no to a friend who will be returning to the war. He is a soldier and a patriot, he went to Afganistan and will serve his duty but does believe this war is wrong. I also believe this war was the wrong thing to do but as I’ve detailed in one of the other threads, I think pulling out at this moment is not the right decision.

The constitution owes its existence to the continental army. It’s not the other way around.

The Continental army was largely disbanded in 1783 and ceased to exist in 1784. Our nation certainly owes them its very existence and I think much of humanity can thank them for allowing the Constitution to be created and put into place as a beacon for freedom. I’d take a step further and agree that if it were not for the United States Army, the nation (and thereby the constitution) may have been lost in the early 1800s. I am not aware of a time since that it was seriously threatened by someone with both the intent and the ability to carry out that threat. Even during the cold war, they never seriously threatened invasion (although we would have been very hurt if they had). If the United States is ever invaded or attacked by a force capable of taking and holding part or all of the nation, I think you will see many people who would never ever consider fighting in Iraq or Iran volunteering to do their part.

I do not believe the Constitution to be or to have ever been under any real threat from Al Qaeda, Iraq, Iran, or North Korea. They can hurt us. They can kill some of us. They have no chance of destroying us. None. If it ever came close, we’d have many millions of civilians stepping up to fight and doing whatever they could to support the struggle.

If China chose to engage us, we could be in real danger. The Soviet Union was once a potential threat and its remnants could be again in the future. If the Middle East were to ever coalesce into a unified region under militant Islamic fundamentalist leadership, we could have a real problem. (IMO, we’ve done much to encourage that to happen but I still don’t think it will)

What we should fear is our own willingness to turn our back on the Consititution. You may, and probably will, think me a fool for it, but I believe that the greatest threat our Constitution faces today is from an Attorney General who believes that Habeus Corpus is not a right, that American citizens should be able to be taken and held indefinately without charges and even tortured, and that the Constitution is an “outdated document”. We should be very concerned when our President states that the document is “just a god damned piece of paper”.

The actions of our own government – whether with good will or malign interest – and the general apathy or fear of our own citizenship is the greatest threat our Constitution has faced in recent decades, now, and most likely, for the forseeable future.

bill said,

Nonetheless, if it is illegitimate for us who did not serve to support the war, his support/criticism for the protest/counterprotest is equally moot.

Another misrepresentation.

I never said your support for the war was illegitimate because you didn’t serve.

I have however said in this blog that I thought it was craven to continually boast about supporting the troops while in the next breath finding excuses for why you don’t have your butt in a humvee patrolling Baghdad.

I also have said that I think supporters are confusing support for the President with support for the troops. There is no other way to explain why you guys weren’t in the streets with torches and pitchforks when we found out that the troops were in Iraq without adequate armor protection two years into the war.

Then you had Rumsfeld justifying the lack of proper protection by saying “you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you wish to have”, which should have sent you war supporters into low earth orbit but no, it was us liberals screaming the loudest and demanding that something be done. You guys did nothing because highlighting it and talking about it made the White House look bad.

And Mitch, maybe you or someone who was there can explain Daggets comment that, “the very people they are over there protesting are the ones that give them the rights to do that.”

Who exactly are you guys referring to? Who are the ones?

I’d be really interested in knowing because it reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. I had a bumper sticker that said Mission Accomplished on my car and Mission was crossed out and “Nothing” was written in its place. An older guy came up to me and said I should be ashamed to have that sticker on my car because it was a slam to the same troops that were in Iraq giving me the right to say what I believed. I asked him what he felt I should do and he said I should take it off my car. I said, just so I understand you, I should relinquish my right to free speech because it might offend the guys are dying to defend my right to free speech. He got pissed, told me to shut the hell up and walked away mumbling.

So, again Mitch et al, I’d really like to know. Who do you believe are the ones that are giving us the right to protest?

Mitch

Nothing like a target-rich environment:

I also have said that I think supporters are confusing support for the President with support for the troops. There is no other way to explain why you guys weren’t in the streets with torches and pitchforks when we found out that the troops were in Iraq without adequate armor protection two years into the war.

Of course, the left protesteth too much about the whole issue. The left didn’t care about armor in any form until it because a cudgel to use against Bush. What did the left spend the defense budget on, when they ran things?

Then you had Rumsfeld justifying the lack of proper protection by saying “you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you wish to have”, which should have sent you war supporters into low earth orbit but no, it was us liberals screaming the loudest and demanding that something be done. You guys did nothing because highlighting it and talking about it made the White House look bad.

Two separate issues – and a logical fallacy in trying to connect them.

The fact is, when a war begins one does use the Army you have. Poland in 1939 had big plans to modernize the Polish Army – by 1945. It might have held out against the Nazis – after 1945. But it was 1939…

We had the military we had; trained and equipped to fight the Cold War, somewhat atrophied after eight years of Democrat rule, with 2/3 of the combat divisions we had in 1986.

Modernizing the military was a main push of the Bush Administration from the moment they were elected – repairing the damage of the Clinton years. After eight months, the job was barely getting started.

And then the war, and the insurgency, started, and suddenly the Armored Humvee – a vehicle like the US military had never needed and only passingly planned for (as a light reconnaissance vehicle) and that only a thin film of Democrats could pick out on the floor of the Car Show – was suddenly the topic of the day?

Nope. No politics there.

But just to shut down your absurd claim, I’ve always favored spending more on defense, preferably by cutting entitlements – and spending that money on training and equipment.

And Mitch, maybe you or someone who was there can explain Daggets comment that, “the very people they are over there protesting are the ones that give them the rights to do that.”

Who exactly are you guys referring to? Who are the ones?

Surely even you aren’t that obtuse.

I’d be really interested in knowing because it reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. I had a bumper sticker that said Mission Accomplished on my car and Mission was crossed out and “Nothing” was written in its place. An older guy came up to me and said I should be ashamed to have that sticker on my car because it was a slam to the same troops that were in Iraq giving me the right to say what I believed. I asked him what he felt I should do and he said I should take it off my car. I said, just so I understand you, I should relinquish my right to free speech because it might offend the guys are dying to defend my right to free speech. He got pissed, told me to shut the hell up and walked away mumbling.

Well, the guy was either dumb or emotional. Big whoop.

But that IS a deeply, abidingly stupid sticker, one that only shows the very shallow understanding that the bearer brings to the situation.

So, again Mitch et al, I’d really like to know. Who do you believe are the ones that are giving us the right to protest?

Duh. The Christian God. Silly fella.

Doug, you bristle – not entirely unjustifiably, although your bristling is frequently petty and graceless – at people parsing what you write unreasonably closely or anal-retentively. And yet that’s exactly what you’re doing with Daggett – who, doyy, was referring to the troops who defend our civil liberties from our uncivil enemies, and always have, and on whom the left has, broadly, piddled for the last 35 years.

It’s really not that complicated.

Terry

Doug you seem to have no ability to imagine how supporters of this war could look at the same facts you do and come to a different conclusion. That’s called self-righteousness and it’s no prettier in liberals than it is in conservatives.

Donald Rumsfield engineered the toppling of the Taliban in six weeks while you lefties were shrieking “Quagmire!”
Rumsfield engineered the longest, fastest armored drive in the history of the planet in the race to Baghdad.

How many American soldier’s lives did Rumsfield save by his competence? A thousand? Ten thousand? The Taliban fought the Soviets to a standstill. The Russians lost almost 15,000 KIA and withdrew from Afghanistan in disgrace in 1989. I guess I missed those liberal marches and op-ed pieces thanking the secdef for the remarkably low number of casualties in his campaign against the Pushtan, or in not allowing Baghdad to become a 2nd Leningrad. Remember that Leningrad reference? Heard it a lot in April of 2003.
The casualties in this war have been remarkably low. We’ve been occupying a country full of heavily armed, suicidally inclined religious maniacs for four years and loss less than 4,000 soldier’s lives.
Yet you think that any informed person should have gone berserk over the fact that the secdef didn’t make armored humvees a higher priority.
Armies do not exist to save soldiers lives. Armies exist to fight and win wars, and wars are fought in the context of national and international politics that the secdef and the army have no control over. Rumsfield’s remark “you go to war with the Army you have, not the one you wish to have” was just right.

Your complaint about conservatives being insincere or hypocritical in there support of the troops is silly. Reasonable people don’t say that people who vocally support public education are hypocrites because they won’t give up their careers to teach in the inner city.

Terry

Oops. Should have written ‘Stalingrad’, not Leningrad.

Mitch said,

“The left didn’t care about armor in any form until it because a cudgel to use against Bush.”

That’s flat out wrong and it’s has zero basis in fact. If I had made such a declarative statement, you’d be all over it. It’s your opinion and it suffers from the exact same broad generalization that always makes you apoplectic when someone on my side does it. I’m a member of the “left” and my purpose for writing my Representatives about the armor was to get something done. Period.

Two separate issues – and a logical fallacy in trying to connect them.

They are two separate issues but they are connected. It illustrates the inconsistency on the Right in saying you care about the troops while doing nothing to hold their bosses accountable for a string of utter miscalculations and blunders.

And blaming Clinton? Come on Mitch. If you couldn’t up armor the vehicles before sending them over to Iraq, you could at least send appropriate helmets and vests which were abundantly available but expensive. If you couldn’t get them the proper body protection, you can figure out other ways to get the job done without sending them into the streets unprotected. I’d hate to think that this is all due to a lack of creative problem solving from the mighty American military.

You know this was a major f*ck up and trying to shift the blame onto the last administration is cowardly.

Surely even you aren’t that obtuse.

doyy, was referring to the troops who defend our civil liberties from our uncivil enemies, and always have, and on whom the left has, broadly, piddled for the last 35 years.

The protesters weren’t protesting the troops. They were protesting the policy. Can you grasp that concept Mitch?

I think you can and I think you do but you get more mileage and activism when you frame this whole event as a protest against the troops.

And then there’s the whole Gathering of Eagles fabrication.

You know there’s going to be protests in Washington so your side floats the turd that the “left” is going to desecrate the Vietnam memorial and wha-laa, the making of another “the left hates the troops” myth.

When the “left” doesn’t vandalize the war memorial, it’s because the brave men and women from GOE where there to protect it.

It’s truely Orwellian

It’s all manufactured angst and you Mitch are a prime participant in nothing more than slick and effective marketing campaign. Fortunately, the American public isn’t buying it anymore.

billhedrick

Doug you really are a piece of work when you can assert you know the hearts and inner feelings of people you have never met. Contempt is too good an emotion for you.