The Loyal Opposition

I think this is a good time-- before we "bomb the DNC" as some right wing websites call for-- to remind everyone that unless you have proceded to the wide scale massacre of dissidents stage of what you'd like to see for your government, it is isn't a crime to think differently about politics.

"If the world were run by people like you, Saddam would still have his heel on Iraq" I was told by a friendly poster in another site. At the time the best retort I could come up with was "Then [you should]thank [your] God that it wasn't."

But self deprecation is for losers, and I'm not interested in wallowing in it. Because I'm pretty sure that if the world had been run by people like all along, Saddam never would have gotten his heel on Iraq. And I have seen both sides of the issue. Can everyone see it? A month ago people on every continent were putting up signs with George Bush wearing a Hitler mustache, now Iraqi people are kissing his photo and calling him "Hero of the Peace". What a tough month for a guy who had to watch the American media credibly ask him if wouldn't rather personally fight Saddam Hussein to the death or debate him on tv.

And yet if it weren't for people like me, or more accurately, the boisterous protesters who took to the streets, or the governments of France, Germany, Russia, China, and a vast coalition of the Unwilling that covered more than 2/3rds of the world's land mass, maybe things would be worse off even today. Maybe if Saddam had feared a coalition invasion rather than hoped that he would be saved by misapplied sympathy for his people, he would cooperated most fully with 1441. And he'd still be doing whatever horrible things he was doing that the UN and the US are usually powerless to protest in another country (at the very least, putting up grotesque art of himself everywhere).

I've seen two great miracles in the past month, where the right wing expansionists have seen only one. I saw a planet that had been about 90% pacified stand up for peace in a day when no one was killed. And I saw the world multilaterally restrain itself while the Uberpower (Hyperpower, Lone Superpower, whatever you like, it is the United States to me) went in and dissappeared the bad government of a relatively small sovereign nation.

I'm hoping for a third: I'm hoping for some subsidence of this vast tidal wave of power in the hands of one man who Time Magazine has suggested we need to return to the "Great Man" theory of History to account for, I'm talking about George W. Bush the Hero of the Peace. And if he and the eventually Iraqi Viceroy and Mohammed Karzai don't get the Nobel peace prize during the coming terrorism free times I don't know what the peace prize is for.

Now its time to thank the Peace Protesters, to thank the "Axis of Weasel" nations who are accused of serving their interests above those of the United States and Iraq, for making this whole turn of events possible. And it is time for anyone who says they were for Peace to intensify their hopes, their focus, and their work in the direction of Peace. For me, back to work on my end of it...

EDIT for spelling errors.

"rap rap rap"

(of a fist against your door at three in the morning...)


R.III

Thankyou peace protestors for believing that killing is not the answer. Your opposition to conflict is necessary to restrain the excesses of nations.

Being a peace keeper also means protesting by chaining yourselve up to stop traffic! People think you're so brave and stuff...what they don't know is that you've chained yourselve up to a hottie for a reason!

Sultan, every now and then you make a post like this, and it does nothing but inspire me .

Originally posted by xghost
Being a peace keeper also means protesting by chaining yourselve up to stop traffic! People think you're so brave and stuff...what they don't know is that you've chained yourselve up to a hottie for a reason!

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Quite. Some of the best hotties I ever met were in the anti-war movement way back when.

An incidental pleasure

People today have lost the ability to discern between opposition and VALID oppostion when protesting.

Protesting something you think is wrong is fine, it's NOT fine to damage property, attack shrines of others, attempt to sabotage government agencies, attempt to disrupt commerce and buisness, THESE things ARE NOT fine.

Unfortunately, the Anti-war movement in the USA was guilty of all of this.
This IS NOT the American way, we elect representatives, and they decide a course of action.
If we don't like it, we say so, than elect NEW leaders, NOT fabricate reasons the opposition is wrong, resort to personal attacks (IE "Dumya"), tear down memorials to the victims of 9/11, teach preschoolers to hate the military (this is happening, I have a 6 year old, I only just found this out).

The anti-war movement was an insult to every American, and to the what this country stands for, from it's organizers to the rediculous slogans and insults hurled, those protests had NOTHING but hatred of the USA and it's chief executive, and were the most hypocritical in history.

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae

..... teach preschoolers to hate the military (this is happening, I have a 6 year old, I only just found this out).

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I'm really sorry to hear that. That is way over the line. Teaching to hate is appalling - and that is a restrained choice of of word.

You also need to discern between extreme opposition and valid opposition. Everything you list are examples of extreme opposition.

"The Democrats" or "The French" do not equal valid substitutes for "the people who tore down that 9-11 memorial" or "spray painted British war dead graves". As for personal attacks on the president, there is a time and place for them (every night during comedy sketches), they only invoke at best humor, at worst bland hatred that went nowhere for protesters.

But I'm sorry it all got out of hand, I didn't really see your side of it until recently. At any rate, for a long time between elections there is nothing people can do but protest when they are discontent with leadership. This is the way to send the message to that leadership that they can't expect to keep their position if they betray the people they are charged to take care of.

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
Protesting something you think is wrong is fine, it's NOT fine to damage property, attack shrines of others, attempt to sabotage government agencies, attempt to disrupt commerce and buisness, THESE things ARE NOT fine.

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I have to agree with AoA on this one.

In democratic nations like his and mine we have the tools we need to make our point heard without disrupting our fellow citizens.

Communication with our elected representatives, (relatively) free press, and in fact the internet is another form of media in which we can make our points head

If one has a decent case for their point of view, they don't need to cause grief to their fellow citizen to get it across, and if anything, it only turns the undecided against them.

Though might I add that the war itself has been a great disruption to US commerce.

Here! Here! I think just about every body has made some good point or another on this thread (besides me )! So I'll try my best to come up with something reasonable memorable. Okay, how about this: Ahem

"War itself is a terrible thing and should never happen under any consequence. Those who protest war are sometimes do as terrible things when protesting as the people they are portesting do, though not normally. I believe these people should show some more maturity and set an example the rest of us can follow. As for those who commit war, want war, or support those who want either of these, should release war is the easy and simple answer to a problem, that after a time becomes more difficult than the solution that's hard to find."

After writing all that, I'm gonna need a bandaid. Ow!

As usual with politics the extremists shouted loudiest making it that much harder for the moderators to get their points across. There are two groups, as I see it, that need to shut the hell up and let the rest of us talk. They are the fierce anti-Americans and the fierce nationalist Americans. Both have already made up their mind regardless of facts and want to everyone else to agree with them without using reason or logic. If everyone would take a few minutes to hear the other side before going out on a protest waving a sign calling the other side's leader some kind of childish name then this would be a better world. Sadly however you can't have a democracy without giving the idiots the mic. I just wish the rest of us would get the chance to have a proper rational debate once in a while.

I think a lot of the anti-Americanism on this board is mispercieved, and the so-called "nationalist Americans" scream about it at the top of their lungs moreso than any Anti-Americans on this board.

I would probably agree Toasty, accept that there are instances where people go off Anti-American here, and it is as ugly as anything you see anti-French, anti-Arab etc.

On the other hand, a lot of times the "Homeland Nationalists" bring in things from the outside world- like various forms of protest, then try and force people of different mindsets to defend against these things here.

Most of that phase is largely behind the forums, I think (hope).

Antonius Block, I think you have maybe gone from one extreme to the other.
The invasion of Iraq was never about the freedom of its people, that was just a plus in a war that was waged on many levels.
Israel, oil, terrorism, Iraqi people (In whatever order) were a part of it, (and more beyond that I'm sure).

I think you have to sit back and try to look at both sides when it comes to politics, because at the end of the day you only know the half of it, if anything.
I don't think the most of those people on the street who were protesting had a clue about politics.

Its easy to get cought up in a media storm, but you have to ask your self, how much do I really know?

but you have to ask your self, how much do I really know?

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I agree with this to an extent. However I think that there must come a point where you made a decision regardless of whether you don't have all the facts. That is not to say you shouldn't look for further facts and change your opinion accordingly. It is just to say that constantly sitting on the fence is wrong and also slightly annoying.

I think a lot of the anti-Americanism on this board is mispercieved

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I disagree. In fact I would argue there is much more underground anti-Americanism in this forum and in the wider world. Though your comment about nationalist Americans is fairly accurate. Basically both sides are as bad as each other but will never admit that.

AoA - I still contend that those protestors which caused damage were a very small percentage of the overall protestors. I went to one protest in Boston and there was no property damage whatsoever. The only harm at all that was done ws when some rowdy pro-war "troop supporters" pushed their way through the crowd of protestors. Still, no injuries were reported. Remember, dissent is patriotic - its how this nation was started - and the vast majority of anti-war peoples, myself included, do not "hate the U.S.A." We love it, and we are excercising a constitutionally protected right.

You say that protets had nothing but hatred, well, I ask you: have we learned nothing form Vietnam? If it weren't for those "terrible" Vietnam War protestors, we would have been in that country a lot longer and lost many more lives. Americans' memories seem very short...

Originally posted by MrPresident
I disagree. In fact I would argue there is much more underground anti-Americanism in this forum and in the wider world.

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What's "underground anti-Americanism in this forum"? People sending hate messages about America as PMs?

If it weren't for those "terrible" Vietnam War protestors, we would have been in that country a lot longer and lost many more lives. Americans' memories seem very short...

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He ain't going to like that.

What's "underground anti-Americanism in this forum"? People sending hate messages about America as PMs?

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The constant Americans are stupid jokes are a good example of underground anti-Americanism.

Originally posted by MrPresident
The constant Americans are stupid jokes are a good example of underground anti-Americanism.

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Since when do you consider stereotype jokes examples of anti-whateverism?
If it's about smelling French it's alright (not that it wasn't) and if it's about stupid Americans it's an expression of more or less subliminal hatred?