Davidi like school.
sometimes it’s fun.
but especially when you are the teacher.
why do the protesters protest?
what do they hope to accomplish?
they will commonly state that their goal is to ‘raise awareness’ or some other half truth. well, it may not be a half truth, they just may not know themselves.
wasn’t the goal of the vietnam war protesters the end of the vietnam war? weren’t they actually trying to incite movement? trying to change decision makers minds? force them to withdraw american troops?
and didn’t they succeed?
so again. why do people protest publicly some perceived injustice? because they want a day off of work? they really need some starbucks? they need the exercise?
maybe some actually do just enjoy the social interaction with other like minded protesters. it always looks kind of like a carnival to me.
it is my claim that protesters have a goal in mind when they demonstrate.
specifically, they protest the iraq war to end the iraq war.
am i wrong?
cindy sheehan says all she wants is to meet with the president. he met her and still she demonstrates. you know why? she didn’t achieve her goal of affecting her desired outcome for the iraq war. withdrawl. so now she has adjusted her stated goal to wanting to meet with the president for an hour. how convenient. that’s not her real goal.
her goal remains the same.
these are the real questions i’m asking here.
1. do demonstraters believe their protests work? that they can actually influence people in positions of authority?
2. are they so naive as to believe ONLY the people in authority are watching?
if demonstraters actually believed their little protests accomplished nothing, they would quit and look for something else. some other new tactic. very possibly like the ELF, or the WTO protestors who have turned to violence.
but back on subject. the moonbats of the left demonstrate because they think it works. whether it does or not is irrespective of their belief.
they think they can, they think they can!
so now for the second question.
who else is watching.
JIHADIS ARE WATCHING YOU, YOU STUPID MF’s! (i only maintained composure and didn’t type out the entire ‘motherfucker’, because some of you lefties are decent.)
and you know who i’m talking to here.
how can you even deign to sit there smug in a false belief that you are influencing dubya, but ayman alzawahiri, osama bin laden, and abu musab alzarqawi aren’t watching you too? you are actually going to try and LIE in a public forum and claim that you are NOT giving confidence to our enemy? that you are not telling him he is winning? that his efforts are not in vain?
aid and succour to the enemy. how many times have i heard a lefty claim that our troops’ morale is low?
well, no doubt the jihadis morale is high. they just have to watch your dumbasses dancing in the streets claiming the freely elected leader of the free world should be jailed.
still don’t believe me?
when tiananmen square happened (HELLO GOOGLE FILTERS!), did you lend some sort of aid to the chinese students? if you didn’t, you’re young, or an asshole.
if you did, and you don’t demonstarte against iraq, then we are right together. and if you did, and do demonstrate, you’re an asshole.
NEWSFLASH: The left doesn’t like jihadis any more than you do.
I supported going into Afghanistan. Iraq, however, is not where bin Laden & the Taliban lived.
Here’s how to understand us forever and ever: We’re big humanistic sentimentalists– we don’t want any *innocent* people getting hurt or killed, whether civilians or our troops. That’s all you have to know! Whether over Viet Nam or Iraq or whatever, demonstrations are a cry of grief over innocent people’s blood spilled, in support of more positive emotions and peaceful means. It isn’t even necessarily to affect administration policy– that would be great, but we have no illusions about our power in that regard– but merely to come together (as John Lennon sang) as humans and citizens who disagree. Sure, we know the whole world is watching, so what? That’s the point. Wars are won and lost *on the ground*, so you flatter us to a ridiculous degree by suggesting that we give the enemy some sort of special powers over the most advanced military juggernaut the universe has ever known (and by the same token, insult our troops’ hard work and know-how in doing so). And our Dear Leaders know that we’re gonna squeal when the dead start piling up anyway, so they must have taken that into account before starting out, or are you calling them stupid, too? So quit whining, ya whiner!
P.S. With our all-volunteer armed forces nowadays, the troops know what they’re getting into, too, and that not everybody is gonna like what they are called to do, so if they say their morale is low because of US protests, then they’re worse surrender monkeys than the French!! Waaaaah!
“[Liberals] don’t want any *innocent* people getting hurt or killed, whether civilians or our troops.”
And Conservatives just LOOOOOOVE bloodshed of women and children.
ANYWAYS The thing that I wanted to say is that protesting IS to raise awareness. It just depends on who is doing the protestors that makes it annoying or not. heh. I HATE PETA. HATE! Did you know that they have links to the domestic terrorist group, ALF? VEGAN POWER! But things like teachers getting pay cuts SHOULD be protested outside of the schools (which incidentally occurred my senior year in high school) and it raised enough awareness to get something done.
One could argue “for good causes only” protests are justified, but everyone who protests thinks their cause is good and worthy. All we can do is just make fun of the ones we don’t like. They have a right/liberty to peacefully protest might as well just see what they’re about, and then toss ’em out if you don’t agree with their platform. (OR just run away in disgust like I do)
Dubya.
O, verily, the great Philosopher King has spoken! What a self-serving hunk of horse puckey. He just wants us to shut the hell up so his polling numbers will stop their ever-downward spiral into the toilet. Prepare for mid-term election slaughter, Rethuglicans!
what? you mean your communing in the streets has a purpose? and an effect? but only on americans of course!
you tard. you just made my case for me.
now, get out of the street and get back to work so you can pay for those social programs you espouse. commie pinko. oh, i’m sorry. wrong cause to hate america on.
you greenie jihadi!
Boy, you’re getting comical. Downright slapstick!
The burden of proof remains on you to demonstrate any plausible negative effect of US demonstrations on operational effectiveness in the dayum field, sailor.
Plausible negative effect? So Osama bi Laden, that public enemy sans par, parroting your key points against the military and the administration, those same slogans you run through the streets shouting in your denunciation of our country, that isn’t a plausible negative effect? You have effectively provided the words with which the terror master speaks, and you don’t see a problem with that?
You proly woulda been happy as Hitler’s speech writer too, huh? As long as he parroted your agitprop against your own country.
maybe they are just bored…
“sans par”?! Ooh, Yup speaks Franglais, how charmingly pseudo-intellectual of you. Did you mean “sans pareil”?
And haven’t you got the memo (that has gone to both the Right and the Left) about not relating things indiscriminately to Hitler? Serious “foe pah” now, dude, FYI.
As for bin Laden, we already know where the man stands. Now if W, Inc. could only figure out where the man stands, literally…
“Plausible negative effect…on operational effectiveness in the dayum field” from internal US dissent– yes, I’m still waiting for someone to provide that, Mr. Yup. S’eel vouz play.
🙂 Gus is sooo wrapped up in his intellectual “superiority” that he fails to acknowledge anyone not speaking his own language of hatred and insufferable guilt. (Against himself and his country, that is. After all, that’s the root of liberal angst these days.) Reminds me of those liberal pundits who said, after they lost the 2000 election, that at least they won in the cultural and intellectual centers (like Hollywood, Sun Valley and NYC). How often, Gus, have you pulled your fat lilly white ass away from your computer to travel abroad and see some of the world? How many times have you visited the shrines sacred to other cultures? Or are you a typical lib elitist snob who thinks that all you need do is worship at the feet of your favorite anti-US pro-death and destruction (of our society) intellectual and you’ve achieved the cultural superiority you crave in order to make your own insecurities disappear?
Gus refuses to acknowledge that his scripting of bin Laden’s talking points in any way constitutes aiding and abetting. I find it hilarious that Gus cries foul when I throw out an association between him and Hitler when he and his lib buddies are so quick to paint their ‘ideological enemies’ the conservatives and Republicans as Nazis (suppose that makes Gus a Stalinist?). Hoo whee.
Gus, you go on over to DU and ask them about Hitler. You’ll have Bush as a word-association response faster than you can swallow. And DU are the driving force behind the DNC these days, all you have to do is look at Dean.
The point was, all the anti-war protesting is being used as fodder by the enemies of our country. Back in the day, the anti-war protests were used as psychological torture to show how nobody in the US cared about our prisoners in Hanoi, that we all thought of them as criminals (never mind that many of the protest groups were funded by the USSR and its minions. Today’s protests are often organized by the CPUSA and affiliates, btw). They were given wide media play around the world (with the not-too-subtle encouragement of our Soviet friends) to show how the US will was failing in its imperialistic foray into South East Asia in the face of widespread citizen uprisings (and this may have been largely true, because our leadership appeared to be playing the war-by-opinion-poll game, but don’t forget that the Soviets themselves were behind many of the protests). Today these images are being played over and over in the Muslim societies to show just how evil and wicked America is, that its own citizenry stands up in massive numbers against its military and president. (In other words, the American people themselves are with the citizens of the Arab Street, those who spontaneously filled the streets in jubilation when the WTC fell crashing to the ground.) These images are being used to fuel the fervor of the insurgency, who have no doubt studied the causes of loss of American will back in ‘Nam (show the body count, popularize the anti-war protests) and are using these tactics against us now for recruiting, for sustaining the morale of their fighters, and for doing the whole “hearts and minds” thing.
Gus,you will never be deterred from your thoughts on this topic, you will never be convinced that any of the viewpoints of Mlah or myself are even slightly worth consideration, so why should I bother to continue to debate you? Show me the proof that continued dialogue will have any measure of meaningfulness, else why bother continuing? Show me any proof! I want proof!
It’s a little thing called _PATRIOTISM_ jackasses. For those who have forgotten, it’s the supporting of your own native land, not a bunch of terrorists.
What Mlah says is true: every time you guys go out there and scream for Bush to be jailed, or that he’s a war criminal, or draw a little Hitler mustache on him, you’re agreeing with the terrorists.
Personally, I don’t care about the collateral damage in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think the US showed an extreme amount of restraint in not going for all-out war and crushing them, but for going for a “war on terrorism.” Are Yup and I the only ones who remember those monkeys dancing in the streets after 9/11? Or desecrating the bodies of soldiers in Somalia? All they ever do is attack our innocent bystanders with their cheap cowardly tactics, but if we so much as bitchslap some random Iraqi, the whole world comes down on us for being evil. I say screw them.
But that’s not what’s going to happen, because the people in charge are either more humane than me, or they know that they can’t get away with it. So I ask you this: What is the cost/benefit ratio of your protests? Hmm? I’ll take a stab at it, since I just started economics, this’ll be good practice:
Cons:
Raise enemy morale
Lower soldier morale
Lower opinion of the US in the world’s eyes
Put more pressure on a man who’s proabably got enough on his mind, seeing as how he’s running the country and all
Pros:
“raise awareness”
Get another hobby guys.
(was that a good post or what, mlah?) 😀
i remember those asshats in el diffat el gharbiyah (sorry gus, my arabic is real) (and by the way, i’d be willing to bet yup speaks more languages than you too) celebrating on 9-11. then yasser got on the batphone and had the streets cleared in minutes.
funny how he kept saying he couldn’t control anyone when he was negotiating with israel.
Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem to be referring to bin Laden’s rhetoric without exactly saying his name, yes? Here’s the transcript of his latest tape:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.phpcontext=viewArticle&code=20060121&articleId=1769
He’s NOT talking about US protests at all, muthafuckas.
He mentions POLLS that say a majority of Americans want us to withdraw from Iraq. “The sensible people realize that Bush does not have a plan to make his alleged victory in Iraq come true.”
He mentions PENTAGON STATS on the costs we’ve incurred in dead, wounded and suicided (supposedly from low morale) soldiers, as well as in money.
He mentions Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo & the bombing of Al-Jazeera.
He mentions things that are in every major newspaper in the world, common knowledge.
He mentions the book “Rogue State” which details the not-nice deeds our gov’t has done in our name (“well-intentioned policies which went awry”, in one kindly reviewer’s words).
He is actually addressing the American populace, not firing up jihadis.
You guys are talking out of your arseholes when you try to frame this issue as having anything to do with W’s domestic opposition.
I had said: “[Liberals] don’t want any *innocent* people getting hurt or killed, whether civilians or our troops.”
Jeanna sarcastically retorted: “And Conservatives just LOOOOOOVE bloodshed of women and children.”
Then ‘ole Medium John really stepped in it: “Personally, I don’t care about the collateral damage in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Dude, those people are as innocent as you and your grandma, why don’t you care about them? Did they drop you on your head when you were little?
MJ further pontificated:”every time you guys go out there and scream… you’re agreeing with the terrorists.”
You stupid little piece of shit, it’s more like every time you wish dissenters would just shut the hell up, YOU are agreeing with the terrorists, who “hate our freedom”, right? Free societies allow political dissent; dictatorships and such do not. Don’t you frickin dare question my patriotism, you masturbating little spaz. Patriotism is a hell of a lot more than blind, deaf and dumb flag-waving. To me, it’s about living up to the ideals that the country was founded on. Thus, if it says “All men are created equal”, but some are only being counted as 3/5ths of a human being, that’s a problem that needs to be corrected by internal dissent. If truth is an important quality you look for in your leaders, then what do you do when you find out they lied? Stuff like that. Use your frickin head, kid. I dunno, maybe you don’t think that blacks and women should be able to vote, in which case, carry on, young fascist.
you’re facts are entirely wrong and made up by you.
please recheck your link. it’s a fake. because you faked your facts.
oh, enlightened Gus, thou learned seer of global truth, speak to us! give us a glimpse of the enlightenment you possess that we may have a path upon which to stumble through our meagre existence on this corporeal plane!
you chastise me for drawing an association between you and ol’ Adolph, yet turn around and label young John a fascist. Why don’t you just come clean, join your pal Julian, and openly declare your belief that anyone opposed to your political view, anyone who supports Bush or his goals, is a Nazi? Oh, and a closeted KKK member, as well, since you insist on pulling out that 3/5 thing which was settled by the blood of so many thousands nearly 150 years ago. Not to mention a taliban supporter of that evil christianity disease, since obviously we would all love to turn back the clock 80 years to deprive women of the vote, and go even further in the regression to force them to remain barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
your specious generalizations are so over the top they turn you into a parody of your movement. your pronouncements on the brotherhood of man are so naive that you make Jimmy the Georgian seem like the wisest of international statesmen. go out and see some of the real world, you ignorant peon. and stop getting all your “knowledge” from Noam and Juan. go out and see some of the reality of this world and then tell me your methods will keep us all safe and ensure whirled peas.
and if you really, truly, deep-down-in-your-heart believe that this latest message from bin Laden to the world, which as you note has as a primary audience the American people, if you really think that is NOT crafted to embolden the opponents of Bush, the street rioters who chant silly slogans like “I’d rather live under the Taliban than George Bush’s Nazi Empire” while sipping their double tall frappalattes in downtown San Francisco, in an effort to further sap the public will to carry on with this fight, then I say you are even more ignorant than I gave you credit for being. End sum as noted above: further agitate the American masses (or at least, those who have no jobs to worry about or families to feed, ala students, Mikey Moore and Mama Sheehan) so that their counterpoint is splashed even more prominently on the television screens, provide fuel to the insurgency by showing how their efforts are having the desired effect on America, sapping the political will to fight, so that they can force an embarrased withdrawal akin to 1974’s Saigon curtain call (or 1993’s cowardly Mogadishu retreat).
Cheney, I don’t care about them because they’re sand monkeys. They don’t care about human life, so I don’t consider them human and are therefore unworthy of my mercy or my compassion.
Also, just a thought, but if you want people to take you and your arguments seriously, you have to stop acting like a 13-year-old and calling people names. If you have valid points then they’ll do all the insulting you need.
“To me, it’s about living up to the ideals that the country was founded on.” That’s an excellent definition of patriotism, and I know that you’re doing our founding fathers proud when you run around calling people a “piece of shit” and “facist,” oh, and don’t forget my personal favorite, “masturbating little spaz.”
“please recheck your link. it’s a fake. because you faked your facts.”
Um, are you on drugs, Mlah? Seriously. Is that really all you can say? Do you have an alternate translation hiding somewhere in your fevered brain that you’d like to share with the class? Everyone else seems to be happy with the AP version:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4628932.stm
Yup: “you chastise me for drawing an association between you and ol’ Adolph, yet turn around and label young John a fascist.”
Yup, the moratorium on calling non-Nazi people Nazis was suggested to those on both the Right and the Left by our Jewish friends around the 2004 elections. I see their point, why don’t you?
As I clearly said, he’s only a fascist IF he doesn’t think blacks and women should have the vote. Well, how about it, MJ? Do ya, punk? Because they wouldn’t have those rights unless people demonstrated about it, which was the only point I was making, not that any of you are responsible for the past, duh. BTW, is anyone else going to give John a smack for saying that all victims of collateral damage are non-human “sand monkeys”? Or is that not part of Family Values and the Culture of Life, you sickening sleezebags? You military dudes can at least educate him on the Geneva Conventions, right? Right?! John, my arguments are easy to see for those who’ve got eyes. You are a worm not worthy of my disgust.
“join your pal Julian”
Say, who?!
“stop getting all your “knowledge” from Noam and Juan”
Chomsky is booooooooring, can’t stand him. What’s your problem with Juan Cole? I don’t read him much anymore, but I think you’d be hard-pressed to rebut his arguments successfully. His website takes comments now, so give it a try! If you can truly teach him something, I’m sure he’d appreciate it. But you won’t, cuz you’re full of shit.
“if you really…believe that this latest message from bin Laden…is NOT crafted to embolden the opponents of Bush, the street rioters… in an effort to further sap the public will to carry on with this fight, then I say you are even more ignorant than I gave you credit for being”
Is UBL trying to ratchet internal US opinion against the GWOT? Yes. Is that somehow the fault of me and my fellow protesters? No. Will any Americans who now support W read UBL’s speech and change their mind? I honestly cannot imagine a single person doing so. How would they justify that to themselves and their friends– “Well, if UBL says so, then it much be true!!”?? If someone is so easily swayed by our obvious enemy, well, could we ever rely on them? (Cf: Monkey, Surrender).
you tool gus. osama even recognizes you as a boob!
man, i can’t believe i had to stoop to quoting UBL. but read it and weep. osama knows that you don’t care about the troops. no matter how you say ‘we support the troops’, he knows you’re a liar.
cause he ain’t talking about us. when was the last time you sent someone over there a care package? did you send a christmas card?
i have. they know some of us care. they know some they see on tv protesting the military as murderers don’t
and our enemy knows your just a boob too.
ummm, you only honor the Jewish wishes when they fit your purpose? you have no problems labeling your ideological enemies as nazis or fascists, but get all touchy about it when you yourself get associated with that ideal. you have no respect for the Jewish state (because they are so mean to those poor defenseless little palestinians, ya know), so why should you suddenly go all soft on honoring jewish wishes? the point is that you show an affinity with Osama when it comes to your vocal demands for our surrender in Iraq.
(And as I did more than a year ago, I once again challenge you to visit the US national Holocaust Museum and read some of the presidential proclamations engraved on its walls — particularly those from Bubba and other Democrats — and tell me how the Iraq campaign does not fit into those statements of national purpose.)
wrt educating MJ, show me where the geneva convention has been dishonored (and spare me abu graibhisms, as the perpetrators are being held criminally liable for their illegal actions)? are collateral damages prohibited? unfortunately in a war there will always be collateral damage. even more unfortunately, in this GWOT, the enemy is hiding amongst the civilian population, their cowardice being proclaimed to the world as they are shielded behind the skirts of women and children. the enemy WANTS us to go after them in the civilian populace, because that only increases collateral damage and raises ire against us. (would that the human shields were still comprised of the likes of Sean Penn……) But I have to wonder how unwilling and innocent the human shield population is, after all the little children rush out to desecrate the corpses of western noncombatants being dragged through the streets, while their mothers look on beaming in pride, until the grown ups take the bodies to hang from a bridge. the mothers dress their children up as martyrs to partake in demonstrations against our forces. gee, they’re just sooooo darned innocent. I believe that’s the sort of collateral damages that MJ is showing a distinct lack of sympathy for. and why shouldn’t young John call these people “sand monkeys” when you so readily label him a fascist, or a nazi? it’s only OK for you libs to call people names?
Julian. As in Bond. The caricature of a civil rights spokesman who is rabidly socialist, just like you Gus, and who, like you, has no problems publicly proclaiming his political enemies to be fascists and nazis. Then demanding an explanation of why those same people he demeans aren’t rushing up to kiss his ass and fawn all over him, decrying their -ist (racist, fascist, eletist, whatever -ist you care to insert) tendencies exhibited in that failure to fawn.
And why should I go to Juan Cole’s website when I have his acolyte coming to Mlah’s? I can easily mock you here – and him by extension – without bothering to go to his house.
well gus,
“Moreover, his people are careless about him. So, he has no choice but to commit suicide.” -UBL
“man, i can’t believe i had to stoop to quoting UBL” -Mlah
Oh, so now you’re the one parroting UBL! Or is he parroting the Right’s talking points? You’re such a freaking fool to leave yourself open to my turning the tables on you like this. HA HA!
The troops are great– I love them, love them, love them– and you can’t take that away from me no matter how hard you try. They’re just doing their jobs (except for the Abu Ghraib folks, etc.). The architects of the invasion of Iraq, however, are a-holes.
I found UBL’s rationale for why one of our guys or gals would commit suicide to be hamhandedly overdramatic. I’d imagine most of them come about from getting a Dear John letter…
“you have no problems labeling your ideological enemies as nazis or fascists”
Must we go thru this again? Jeez, in one ear out the other. I don’t call anyone non-Nazi a Nazi, because it trivializes the Holocaust, and I will only call someone a Fascist if they exhibit Fascist tendencies, not simply for disagreeing with me.
“you have no respect for the Jewish state”
I have oodles of respect for the Jewish state. Their policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians, however, is regrettable, and many Israelis agree with me, so kiss my gentile ass.
“unfortunately in a war there will always be collateral damage.”
Unfortunately MJ does not apparently find this unfortunate! He made no distinction between human shields and wedding parties– did you mean to imply one, MJ? Ought he to, Yup and Mlah?
“Julian. As in Bond.”
I have honestly never heard of him.
“And why should I go to Juan Cole’s website when I have his acolyte coming to Mlah’s? I can easily mock you here – and him by extension – without bothering to go to his house.”
A classic coward’s excuse!!! Yup’s a pussy, Yup’s a pussy, nyah nyah!!! As I said, I don’t read him much anymore, and we in no way represent each other, period. BTW on what specific points do you disagree with him? (I ask because I’m sure you can’t even answer the question.) Step right up, kids: http://www.juancole.com !
“YES! it is your fault. if you didn’t listen to him [UBL] and perpetrate acts contra to the us’nayional good, he wouldn’t be appealing to your rioting asses.”
Now you’re saying that the Left takes its marching orders from UBL? That’s fantastic! I had no idea who was really running me! The terrorists and the Communists! Thanks for clearing that up, dipshit.
Yup,
Do you know who really *was* a Noam Chomsky fan? Pat Tillman, the dude who quit the NFL to get killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan (though his family wasn’t told of the circumstances until after Dumbya and various other pols jerked-off over the casket at his funeral). There were plans in the works for the 2 of them to meet up when he finished his tour of duty, isn’t that cute?
And I’m supposed to think less of Tillman? At least he got into a uniform and did his citizen’s duty (unlike certain people who troll at Mlah’s place) and didn’t just sit back and take notes in a lecture or read a book. And I really doubt that Bush or Cheney sat there and reviewed the circumstances of his death and decided to lie to the American public about it. It usually takes weeks and months to go through eyewitness reports and reconstruct such an event. As happened with the Tillman thing. And the people who tried to stop the revelation of the circumstances were mid-level Army bureaucrats, not the national decision makers.