My friends Rona and Mark went to DC and took photos of the pro-soldier counter-protest and the antiwar protest. Many inventive signs and t-shirts.
Not that evident from the DC event is that the antiwar coalition is beginning to fray at the edges just a bit.
First we have some Kos Kidz getting a mite peeved at Mother Cindy's megalomania. She was upset that Hurricane Rita coverage was stealing eyeballs from her umpteenth moment in the sun, and even Kossites without relatives in the storm path took exception.
Then we have a few protestors in San Diego fed up with the megalomania of an A.N.S.W.E.R.-bot and Kossites concerned about the credibility of the antiwar movement:
. . . a supporter of Israel unhappy with all the pro-Palestinian agitprop, posted a comment entitled, "I'm On the Verge of Saying Screw the Anti-War Rally." "We Democrats have an opening right now," he wrote. "Let's not squander it. Let's focus on the one issue that unites us and unites a clear majority of the American people. Skip the subsidiary bulls**t." The post prompted more than 500 comments, many of them along these lines: "Amen!! All I saw was a bunch of self-indulgent splinter-fringe wackos clinging to a bigger stage than their causes deserved. . . ."
Even some Democratic Underground habitues are pissed at A.N.S.W.E.R.'s takeover of the DC demo. When DU thinks you're too fringey, that's saying something.
However, the slightly more moderate lefties have been complaining about A.N.S.W.E.R. taking over demos for years. Yet they continue to let A.N.S.W.E.R. take over their demos. Grow a spine, guys! What is new is that in many of these cases the frustration came to a head over rabid Palestinian A.N.S.W.E.R.-bots shouting "Death to Israel" and similar sentiments.
Think about that for a minute: even DU is getting embarrassed by anti-Israel propagandizing. I don't think they have done a sudden U-turn on the right of Israel to exist or its human rights record. But they are figuring out that they don't win friends and influence people this way.
It remains to be seen whether they will marginalize A.N.S.W.E.R. once and for all. My guess is no, because that would require ruthlessness and coordination and leadership that they just don't have.
Wow.
Linking to a blog that links to comments on another blog.
WOC is fast becoming LGF. And that's extremely sad.
Then again, with the American public turning ten kinds of sour on your Iraq fiasco what options do you have really?
The American public has already turned ten kinds of sour on the pro-Chavez, anti-Democracy slightly-to-the-left of Stalin "peace" movement. These wheezing, aged hippies with their tie-dyed shirts and their walkers ran out of options a long time ago.
Of course, as Christopher Hitchens notes, the story of these wheezing Stalinists is one you'll never read in the press:
The name of the reporter on this story was Michael Janofsky. I suppose that it is possible that he has never before come across "International ANSWER," the group run by the "Worker's World" party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda. Quite a "wide range of progressive political objectives" indeed, if that's the sort of thing you like. However, a dip into any database could have furnished Janofsky with well-researched and well-written articles by David Corn and Marc Cooper—to mention only two radical left journalists—who have exposed "International ANSWER" as a front for (depending on the day of the week) fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism.
Lately, blogs have become more reliable than the media. Sad but true.
SPLITTER! SPLITTER!
LMAO, Mark! You beat me to the punch!
REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f**king Judean People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah...
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters...
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!
LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
REG: People's Front! C-huh.
FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
REG: He's over there.
P.F.J.: Splitter!
It does appear that the anti-war groups, the left in general and possibly also the national Democrats, have "jumped the shark" with Cindy Sheehan.
The MSM over-hyped her for its own reasons, and then her being a lefty air-head with the attention span of a gerbil did the rest. She lacked a handler capable of controlling her message such that her gerbil-like tendencies overwhelmed the message the MSM was trying to send through her.
It also helped a lot that Roberts is photogenic compared to Bork having the beard and glare to be cast as a villain.
Even the attempt to use Hurricane Katrina against Bush died with the photos of rows of abandoned, flooded-out, New Orleans school buses.
Getting back to the anti-war sthick, the lefties lumped it together with so much other anti-American crap that all those messages just blurred together.
Right at the time that the Democrats in general were signing onto Cindy Sheehan and her air time. All them folks now occupy the same place in the public's eye.
It couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of people.
ANSWER is typical of the modern international leftist. You may consider them caricatures of the left but they are the mainstream of the left. Now if you really want to see some fringees, some of the posters her could probably point the way, or just track them to their lair.
If you want to read about the stoppers in the UK a great place to go is Harry's Place who are keen to keep a close eye on the nastiness of the "Stoppers". ANSWER is just yet another front for Trots and Marxists to cause a ruckus.
The thing is, I dont remember the last time I ran into an honest to god pacifist. It would be refreshing, at least their position is consistant (if morally bankrupt). As has been noted, these 'anti-war' protesters arent anti-war at all. They simply dont support our side in wars.
ANSWER is typical of the modern international leftist.
So the "modern international leftist" is a wheezy totalitarian wannabe who openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I figured as much.
Like "modern international" communist architecture, the crumbling remains of the anti-war Left are now a gray, hideously ugly blight on the world's landscape.
Mark Buehner: "The thing is, I dont remember the last time I ran into an honest to god pacifist. It would be refreshing, at least their position is consistant (if morally bankrupt). As has been noted, these 'anti-war' protesters arent anti-war at all. They simply dont support our side in wars."
Most Americans are pacifist, by my reckoning. Including the ones who send their loved ones into battle - in fact, especially them. It's just that pacifism has had several generations to cook in, and lead to some interesting conclusions: if you're going to avoid war, you have to (a) intimidate the hell out of warmongers, and scare them into not starting wars, and (b) if one of them get so hardheaded that war is inevitable, then we should make sure it goes quickly and ends quickly, so we can get back to peace.
To me, this newer pacifism is simply a movement of people who've forgotten the motivations behind this Jacksonian approach to war, or never learned them.
Excuse me if I am wrong but Yehudit I thought this post was your coverage of the FEMA hearings taking place in DC this week. Have I done the time warp again?
Paul,
There is a difference between true, pretty much religiously-based, pacifism, and what has become a popular misconception of it. I explained the difference 30 months ago in the link below (guest blog at the Reverend Donald Sensing's web site), with excerpts from the longer post:
http://www.donaldsensing.com/2003/02/american-christian-pacifism-by-thomas.html
However, the slightly more moderate lefties have been complaining about A.N.S.W.E.R. taking over demos for years.
More and more not-so-moderate leftists are making that complaint. Though their complaints about American imperialism shake the rafters, their criticisms of A.N.S.W.E.R. sound like squeaky dog toys.
I can picture the Italian Communist Party, circa 1920: "I don't want to criticize a comrade, but how come Mussolini gets to make all the speeches? It's not fair."
I guess you do have to define Pacifism to discuss it. Buddhist pacifism certainly isnt designed to save ones soul nor to better the world, as both are illusions, but rather to be avoided as doing violence betrays a passion for the physical world. Christian pacifism has generally been seperated between the individual (turn the other cheek) and the state (onward Christian soldiers). Pacifism as a philosophy in general can either be founded on the belief that violence always begets violence and hence is always counterproductive (demonstrably false), or that violence is simply morally wrong no matter the consequences.
I wouldnt define any belief system that justifies violence even in self-defense as pure pacifism, and hence I would say that the vast, vast majority of the American public reject it.
As a matter of fact, Harry is stopping blogging today and has written an interesting farewell post in which he offers a good appreciation of leftist moral bankruptcy. Since he's an ex-communist, you'll be getting it straight from the horse's mouth.
Mark Buehner: Christian pacifism has generally been seperated between the individual (turn the other cheek) and the state (onward Christian soldiers).
The last attempt at true pacifism by a mass Christian movement was the so-called Anabaptist movement of the 16th century, and it demonstrates one of the many fatal paradoxes of political pacifism.
Anabaptist pacifism, based on fundmentalist biblical interpretations, required that the Anabaptists withdraw themselves from society, and alienate themselves from it. It also required, of course, that they peacefully endure every kind of persecution.
This pacificism eventually morphed into a new militancy. Having renounced the world, some Anabaptists decided that they were superior to it, and destined to "cleanse" it. Their separatism turned into belligerent paranoia, as it usually does. Having decided that the world and everybody in it (except themselves, of course) was evil, it only made sense that Anabaptist legions should issue forth from a New Jerusalem and slaughter the infidels.
In 1534, they tried it out. Munster was chosen as the New Jerusalem, and an Anabaptist mob overthrew the city fathers (not by peaceful means), expelled or killed all the Catholics and Lutherans, and prepared for the apocalypse in which 144,000 "saints" would conquer the world.
The New Jerusalem lasted just long enough to make "Anabaptist" a dirty word, before the neighboring towns mobilized and drove them out.
I just read something which puts the 'anti-war movement' protests into a bit of context:
"Despite sweltering morning heat, leather-clad minions mixed with fully nude street revelers as an estimated 400,000 people flocked to Folsom Street on Sunday for the 22nd annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco."
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3063044
So.... the extreme gay sub-culture rally dwarfed the 'anti-war movement' rally.
My suggestion is, next time, rather than ally themselves with the Stalinists of A.N.S.W.E.R., they should ally themselves with the leathermen and ponyboys of San Fransisco. They'll get better turnout.
As someone who's been anti-OIF since pretty much the beginning, I've been ranting about the idiocy of most anti-war rallies in this country since 2003.
My belief as to the reason why the modern Left can't put on a good protest, comes down to two basic problems:
1) One of the core values of the Left, one of the ways it tends to define itself in opposition to the Right, is "tolerance". You don't have to be white, or straight, or Judeo-Christian, or middle/upper class. In fact, if you're none of these things, could you please stand up front here, by the camera?
Unfortunately, this also means that, during an event like an anti-OIF rally (when there's tremendous pressure to conform to what one perceives as the values of the group), the smelly idiot with a Palestinian flag gets to wave it as much as he likes, because nobody wants to be "intolerant". Jeez.
2) Americans are, increasingly, lazy and apathetic about policy issues. The people that tend to show up to protests are already probably a bit more crazy than the average American. Combine this with (1), and you get puppets.
Interesting note: my parents decided not to march in the DC rally this weekend, even though they're firmly anti-OIF and many of their neighbors were going. According to my mom, it's because they believe the protests are "too little, too late".
Doh, "this weekend" -> "last weekend"
So the "modern international leftist" is a wheezy totalitarian wannabe who openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hmmmmm, how about
So the "Grand ol Party member" is a wheezy totalitarian wannabe who openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Makes sense. Fidel is in power because of our sanctions. He'd of been out long ago if we'd opened Cuba like we opened China.
Bush put Kim J back on the road to confrontation with his "tough" talk.
Milosevic is on trial where he should be.
And terror in Iraq and Afghanistan is most definitly supported by the unbelievable incompentant and corrupt Bush administration.
Then add it the fact that your average GOPista is against free people making their own choices about marriage and for filling up the #1 prison state in the world with "free" people making their own choices about intoxication...
I see it. Any GOP hero is really an "American Taliban".
Freedom now.
hithat -
Maybe we'll legalize pot someday. But for now, I think you've already got more of it than you can handle.