Psychotic: this shotgun blast will scare away those pesky anti-war protesters...
Now, I can understand this dude being really really annoyed that a bunch of people are camping out around and possibly on his property, and setting up portable toilets and things like that, but somehow it seems, just maybe, that there's a more mature, less moronic way of dealing with the problem than ripping shotgun blasts in the air to scare the protesters away.
And of course, Cindy Sheehan's measured response:
"If the neighbor is tired of having us here, he should talk to his other neighbor, George Bush, and ask George Bush to come out and meet with me, and then we'll leave," she said.How typical of a protester.
Update: Slate's take on Cindy Sheehan's protest--that having a dead son doesn't make a quasi-anti-semitic conspiracy theory any more legitimate--seems right on target.
6 comments:
Or a kindergartener.
She already got to lodge her complaint with Bush, though of course not in a one-on-one situation.
The war sucks. Occupation sucks. Death sucks. But at this point, right or wrong, it doesn't really do any good for the Emperor to help every mother through her individual grieving process...
Oh believe me, I agree that the comment was absolutely asinine. But I can't help but crack a little bit of a smile over it. Because, hey, she lost a son. And damn, that's a big deal.
And that's one of the tricks of war. War is ugly and disgusting, independent of whether it is justified. The most justified war imagineable is still a disgusting exploitation of human decency, albeit perhaps a necessary one and maybe even the lesser of two disgusting exploitations.
Now, if she'd lost her son in Aruba...
If she'd lost her son in Aruba, and the son was white and young, then there would have been a new cable news network launched just to cover the story. I support her protesting and I don't support this war or what's going on. In fact, I generally don't like Pres. Bush. However, it does seem a little excessive to expect the President to personally respond to all grieving individuals. at this point, I have to wonder how all of the support and lionization of her affects the grieving process. Can you expect her to grieve if she's a public spectacle? Gosh, I'm not sure I know where I stand but she appears to be being used by both sides. Sucks to be an individual, I guess?
A couple of evidence-based quibbles:
1. You represent a rant by Christopher Hitchens, well-known apologist for the Iraq adventure, as "Slate's take."
2. You characterize Mrs. Sheehan's claim that the United States is acting, in part, in Israel's interest as "quasi-anti-semitic conspiracy theory."
Now, how evidence-based are those two assertions?
I didn't know that by linking from Slate that I was somehow misrepresenting somehow. It was a Slate article. Most people know what slate is. Most people do not know Christopher Hitchens. I think anybody beyond a seventh grade education can determine that Slate is a site for individual journalists of varied view points. What your point is, I'm not quite sure. Or I just think it's petty.
How evidence based is my assessment of Ms. Sheehan's theory? Well, I link directly from an article which quotes Ms. Sheehan speaking of the Iraq war as primarily a matter of US-Israeli relations. Why I realize it's 'cool' on the left to unilaterally root for Palestine, Ms. Sheehan's remarks are shallow. For all the bad (or even a handful of good) justifications for a war that I hate, I don't see any reason to think that our concerns with Israel is a primary motivating factor for the conflict. A factor, yes, but not one significant enough to demand Ms. Sheehan's assessment.
I certainly support Palestine trying to have their own peaceful nation. And I fully support the same of the Israelis. I simply caution those on the left who sometimes become pro-Palestinian to the point of being blatantly anti-Israel walk a fine line towards anti-semitism. And that sucks.
A very articulate and thoughtful response. Thanks. Petty? Probably, may go along with the definition of the word "quibble." My most recent post (jacklegthinktank.blogspot.com)references thinking on the Israel-Palestine-United States complexity. I am drawn to your ideal of evidence-based discourse, but I think you and I and everyone else who uses this sublime medium to think out loud are wise when we think and rethink our positions. Of course, if we think too long, we never get anything said and we lose the corrective feedback from others.
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