But we support the troops

[BT]

Portland Peace Rally

[sirs]

 

[Universe Prince]

What is the context for that photo?

[BT]

http://linfield.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012088&page=1&l=c6305&id=65201211

[Michael Tee]

Interesting link.  The poster took sixty pictures of the demo.  Under the one BT posted, the original poster wrote "I don't support this.  I am not a part of this."

Who WAS a part of this?  Some of the other photos showed black-clad figures with their faces masked (I am not making this up, go to the blog!) in a crowd of otherwise openly identifiable peace activists.

Anyone who is old enough to recall the Nixon years immediately thinks of the "dirty tricks" squads and the FBI provocateurs preaching violence and "revolutionary" acts to the non-violent protestors.   Dirty tricks?  FBI provocateurs?  Under Bush??  You gotta be kidding!!

[BT]

Please Mikey,

The black masks are a trademark of ANSWER and other communist groups that are always present at these rallies.

I don't see the Bush Admin wasting one persons time on discrediting an already discredited organization. Besides, don't you think they would have done this much earlier when they still had majority support and it could have made a difference?

[Lanya]

I automatically think that anyone in ANSWER is an agent provocateur.  Anyone who does this certainly is. 

[BT]

I automatically think that anyone in ANSWER is an agent provocateur.  Anyone who does this certainly is. 

And yet ANSWER continues to hijack the antiwar movement and muddy the issues.

Why is that?

[Michael Tee]

<<And yet ANSWER continues to hijack the antiwar movement and muddy the issues.

<<Why is that?>>

Probably because the membership is split 80-20 between FBI infiltrators (80) and non-FBI militants.  Anybody who's old enough to remember the 60s would know that.

[BT]

Probably because the membership is split 80-20 between FBI infiltrators (80) and non-FBI militants.  Anybody who's old enough to remember the 60s would know that

I find it hard to believe that serious antiwarriors would give a prominent seat at the table to an organization suspected of being a front group for FBI agent provocateurs.

And yet they (ANSWER) are.

Makes no sense to me.

[Michael Tee]

<<I find it hard to believe that serious antiwarriors would give a prominent seat at the table to an organization suspected of being a front group for FBI agent provocateurs. >>

Yeah, better the left should start in-fighting amongst themselves sooner rather than later, eh?  Right now they need the numbers.  The "serious antiwarriors" can always turn the crazies to their advantage - - they'll look sane and moderate by comparison, in the eyes of the militarists and war-lovers.

[Michael Tee]

WOW!!!!!  Just checked out the A.N.S.W.E.R. website and these guys are AWESOME!  Sorry I even fell into the trap of calling them crazies.  These dudes are righteous - - here's a sample of where they're coming from.  If they're crazy, I wouldn't wanna be sane.

<<For their part, the Democrats in Congress are involved in a slightly more complicated dance. They want to posture as opponents of Bush's escalation and so-called surge without taking responsibility for bringing the war to a close. They could cut funding for the war which is their exclusive Constitutional prerogative. But they will absolutely refuse to take this responsibility. They are merely posturing for the 2008 elections hoping to take advantage of the well deserved public disgust for Bush and the Iraq war.


<<The issue right now for the anti-war movement can not simply be opposition to a surge or an escalation: the issue is the war itself. The troops must be brought home now. As in Vietnam, that is the only solution. Those who initiated the war and who funded the war should be held accountable for one of the great crimes of the modern era.

<<Everything that Bush has said about the Iraq war has proved to be a lie. This was always a war for Empire in a strategic area that possesses two thirds of the world's oil supply. He proclaimed tonight that, "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States."  If Bush fails in Iraq the people of the United States lose nothing. It is not our Empire.>>

It really speaks volumes for the state of the American mind that these guys are being labelled "crazy" and the war-lovers and death cultists are the so-called "normals."  Yikes.

[BT]

Well Mikey you are the one who called them crazies and agent provocateurs.

Still think they went a bit far burning a soldier in effigy. Might not do much to lure ratioanal thinking non haters to their cause.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Observe that the uniform burned in effigy (whether there was an effigy soldier inside is unclear from the photo) is jungle green camo, not desert tan camo.

Perhaps it does not represent a soldier, but American gung-ho militarism, which certainly deserves to be criticized.

I think that this was done by some pro-administration dirty trickster. This is the sort of thing done by the porcine Rove.

[Michael Tee]

Thinking it over, the effigy didn't have a human face and as XO points out was not wearing the Iraq War camouflage, so I also believe it was the Spirit of War and Fascism and/or American militarism that was being burned, not the American G.I.   

If it had been the work of Rove's dirty tricksters or the F.B.I., those bozos wouldn't have had the creative energy and artistic imagination to create an image in human form with the face of death - - they would have used a simple manikin with a human face dressed to LOOK like an American soldier - - "look, Ma, they're burnin' Billy Bob."

As far as calling them crazies, I unreservedly take that back.  I eat my words.  With pleasure.  Those guys are on the right track.  Calling them haters by implication ("lure the rational thinking non-haters") is a trick that will fool only the irrational and the non-thinking.  How many people have these "haters" killed or hurt?  How many people have been killed, maimed, tortured and "disappeared" due to the actions of the (presumably) "non-haters" Bush & Co.?   Very few people that I know would fall for that guff.  The right wing seems to have entered upon a dialogue between itself where normal English words have lost all meaning - - anti-War peace activists are "haters," those who initiate wars on false pretexts or (taking their own self-exculpatory best view of things) false and misleading evidence, are "non-haters" and "supporting the troops" means sending them to be maimed and killed in a war which, if it's NOT all about oil, serves no conceivable American interest whatsoever.