This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Antiwar crowd

  • IVAW’s big guns

    Of course, most of you know that I volunteered to cover the IVAW’s Winter Soldier II “hearings” next month. Well, apparently some of the members of IVAW are a little worried about that. I sent them my DD214 (redacted, of course) and they’ve pretty much ignored my application to blog their event. Until now.

    I received this email (I don’t usually post email I receive, but this one graphically illustrates the types that IVAW attracts) from this IVAW member named Jonathan DeWald;

    Hey bro,

    You know why I was a Sergeant after ten years? Blasting a loud-mouthed E7 in the mouth when I was a promotable Staff Sergeant. He had the same sour, b****y look you do in your DA photo… where you’re also an E7! What an amazing coincidence. Another sassy senior NCO stepping into my sector of fire. Anyway, luckily for me, everyone else in all of V Corps hated that fat pogue as well and I got off with just an Article 15. And my disability comp gets paid at the E6 rate!

    You’ll be providing “security escorts” to Gathering of Chickenshits members “counter-demonstrating” at IVAW events like Winter Soldier II? That’s a laugh. In response to your statement on Robin the Man-Thing’s page (I really had no idea she was considered a woman. I thought she was a dude with man-***s.), any “encounter” between us will go down however the **** I see fit.

    Though I truly do hope to see you and every other Gaggle**** of ****birds member in DC next March, I must advise you Winter Soldier is being held at a private college. The campus police have already been instructed to arrest any of you dip****s who attempt to trespass. I personally thought we had room to accommodate all 17 members of GoE, but with 100 vets testifying, another 700 in attendance, 100 members of the national and international media, an as-yet undetermined number of Iraqi and Afghan civilians (man, the government’s making it hard to get the travel visas!) and perhaps another 100 scholars, legislators and other guests, we simply have no room for you!

    But I’ll be at my favorite DC haunts every night I’m there: Hawk and Dove, Sign of the Whale and every bar in Adams Morgan. Come on in and see me. Unless you’re afraid to mouth off to me when there are no cameras or cops around to protect your b**** ass.

    At ease,

    Jon

    —
    KEEP IT NECRO.

    Whatever that “keep it necro” means unless he’s threatening to kill me or something.

    But, I got that at about 5:30 this morning (Zulu). Apparently he felt the need to address my offer to Robin at Chickenhawk Express to escort her to the IVAW “hearings” after he threatened her physically.

    Keeping in mind that the name of the organization is “Iraq Veterans Against the War”, I checked out Mr DeWald’s profile at IVAW;

    Branch of service: United States Army (USA)
    Unit: Rakkasan Regiment, 101st Airborne / 1st Tank, 2nd ID
    Rank: Sergeant (Retired)
    Home: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
    Served in: Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, USA: Fort Campbell, Kentucky, USA; Fort Polk, Louisiana; USA; Camp Casey, Republic of Korea; Babenhausen Kaserne, Federal Republic of Germany; Novy Mir Garrison, Sulęcin, Republic of Poland; Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.

    No mention of Iraq at all, well, unless they moved it to Poland and didn’t tell anyone. So I guess he’s just another wannabe phony soldier. As Thus Spake Ortner mentioned in his post at The Sniper, even Jessie MacBeth qualified for membership in the IVAW with his 42 days at the CCF barracks in Fort Benning.

    I may be stepping outside my area of expertise here, but I’ve never heard of “1st tank” outside of the Marine Corps. I know they have a 1st Tank Battalion at 29 Palms, but I’m not aware of any Army unit, anywhere called the “1st Tank” – the Army calls them armor battalions. And I’m not sure what an infantryman would be doing in an armor battalion unless he was working at a pogue staff job.

    Now, Mr. DeWald claims to be an Infantryman – but I only see three possible duty stations for an infantryman in his list. Campbell, Polk and Camp Casey. And eight duty stations in ten years (and he doesn’t mention basic or AIT stations). That’s a lot! Unless he’s counting the places he visited or trained.

    But back to DeWald’s email. He mentions disability comp “paid at an E-6 rate”. Now I get a disability check from the VA and I don’t get an E-grade rate. I get a flat percentage rating – the VA doesn’t care what a disabled veteran’s pay grade was, it pays everyone the same. Now, it’s possible that he’s talking about his Army retired pay (if he’s retired for medical reasons) and it’s impossible to retire at an “E-6 rate”. The Army computes retirement pay on your last three months’ pay on active duty – not on pay grade information. So I don’t know what this fellow is talking about.

    I’m assuming that DeWald is referring to the photo of me in uniform on my “About” page. But, as most career soldiers know, it’s not a DA photo. A DA photo is a full length shot of the whole uniform and it’s black-and-white (or at least it was the last time I took one). So I guess there’s something else this “retired” E-5 doesn’t know about military service.

    I’m not a member of the Gathering of Eagles, even though I fully support their activities. And if DeWald had ever been to a Gathering of Eagles, there are a few more than 17 members. There were thousands at their first counterprotest last March 17th and numbers have grown since. I know it bothers the Left and the IVAW that they are outnumbered, so the disingenuously deflate the numbers of their opponents.

    DeWald, though has a real hard-on for the GOE folks. He wrote about them at the IVAW site;

    Have you heard of these guys? Man, they blow my mind! I’ve never seen so much patriotism confined to one website: http://gatheringofeagles.org/. How do they contain all that kick-ass patriotism with such a small amount of bandwidth? I thought I was a patriot: driving my Ford all drunk, getting tattoos of naked chicks, beer mugs, bald eagles and Confederate battle flags, and then these guys come along and BOOM! I get to see, first-hand, what a real bad-ass American looks like. I thought I was supposed to go to the gym and get all muscular. Nope! To judge from the physiques and prêt-à -porter attire of the Eagles, all I need is regular access to a buffet and some straight-leg Wranglers to attain that patriotic chic.

    Well, that’s some real mature stuff, ain’t it? It’s real apparent that DeWald has some real “daddy issues” that he needs to deal with before he goes out in public.

    Well, after that first email, I replied to DeWald that he should step back and take a deep breath before he gets himself in trouble for what he’s writing to people. His reply;

    My man,

    I’ve taken a step back. I’ve breathed deeply. And I’ve never met a loudmouthed conservative/Republican/fascist whose ass I couldn’t kick in under 30 seconds. The challenge still stands, tough guy. If you or any of those other ****ing corny sham “patriots” want to double down on your laughable bull**** threats, I’m available. I told you where to find me in DC come March. You know where my boxing club is in Milwaukee.

    I really hope one of you pogues comes after me. I haven’t beaten the **** out of somebody in the street and outside of the ring in awhile. I especially hope; no, I pray that one of you ***heads pulls a weapon on me. Make it a good one, though, and not some bull**** like a Taurus or an M9. I really want a Springfield XD in .40 cal.

    Thanks dude,

    Jon

    Now, I never threatened him (except that I did threaten to expose him as a poser unless he got himself under control – which is what I’m doing here), but all of a sudden he has visions of me pulling a gun on him (hand guns are illegal for everybody in DC, so I figure he’ll be in the wrong place if he’s hoping for a confrontation involving firearms).

    So I guess this is IVAW’s way of trying to tell me that I won’t be blogging their Winter Soldier II “hearings”, since I’m the one DeWald chose to start sending emails. Pretty cowardly, actually. But predictable. IVAW attracts some pretty unsavory people. They have the Jesse MacBeth saga – the Pink Power Ranger, they have Adam Kokesh – the gun smuggler, and now this illiterate psychopath. Not to mention all of the other phony soldiers who’ve forced me to expose them as posers and sociopathic liars.

    Now, I almost like Army Sergeant, who seems to be the only decent guy in the bunch, although he’s somewhat confused. But the rest of these goofballs are really deranged.

    It’s easy to just declare that you oppose war. Hell, I oppose war. But it takes just a little bit of intellect to accept that sometimes war is necessary for our survival. Unfortunately all the theorists and academics don’t have to be right when they influence young immature minds to oppose war. They just have to sound smart.

    Fortunately, the rest of us are around to protect the theorists and academics while they commit mental pedophilia. But some of their victims are lost to the ages – mental midgets to begin with, they use the ideas that they’ve had crammed into their pointy heads to try to give themselves an aura of being half-way smart. The result is people like Mr DeWald; illiterate half-baked morons physically threatening anyone who disagrees with them.

    Maybe if his Daddy had hugged him more often…or a little less.

  • The legacy of Tet

    Arthur Herman writes in the Wall Street Journal today a fascinating piece entitled “The Lies of Tet” that rings strangely familiar in relation to the narrative we get from the Democrats and the media in relation to the current war against terror;

    …the desperate fury of the communist attacks including on Saigon, where most reporters lived and worked, caught the press by surprise. (Not the military: It had been expecting an attack and had been on full alert since Jan. 24.) It also put many reporters in physical danger for the first time. Braestrup, a former Marine, calculated that only 40 of 354 print and TV journalists covering the war at the time had seen any real fighting. Their own panic deeply colored their reportage, suggesting that the communist assault had flung Vietnam into chaos.

    Their editors at home, like CBS’s Walter Cronkite, seized on the distorted reporting to discredit the military’s version of events. The Viet Cong insurgency was in its death throes, just as U.S. military officials assured the American people at the time. Yet the press version painted a different picture.

    To quote Braestrup, “the media tended to leave the shock and confusion of early February, as then perceived, fixed as the final impression of Tet” and of Vietnam generally. “Drama was perpetuated at the expense of information,” and “the negative trend” of media reporting “added to the distortion of the real situation on the ground in Vietnam.”

    The North Vietnamese were delighted. On the heels of their devastating defeat, Hanoi increasingly shifted its propaganda efforts toward the media and the antiwar movement. Causing American (not South Vietnamese) casualties, even at heavy cost, became a battlefield objective in order to reinforce the American media’s narrative of a failing policy in Vietnam.

    Yet thanks to the success of Tet, the numbers of Americans dying in Vietnam steadily declined — from almost 15,000 in 1968 to 9,414 in 1969 and 4,221 in 1970 — by which time the Viet Cong had ceased to exist as a viable fighting force. One Vietnamese province after another witnessed new peace and stability. By the end of 1969 over 70% of South Vietnam’s population was under government control, compared to 42% at the beginning of 1968. In 1970 and 1971, American ambassador Ellsworth Bunker estimated that 90% of Vietnamese lived in zones under government control.

    Yesterday, I’d read one of the bloggers from our side (forgive me for forgetting whom) who’s plunged into the depths of the world of Leftism and read blog entries that called the homicide bombing attacks in the Baghdad pet market last week an indication that all was indeed not well in Iraq. Every death is seized upon as evidence that the Bush Administration and General Petreaus are liars.

    In fact you can do a Yahoo News search on “mass+graves” and see every news service seize upon the blood and gore being inflicted on the Iraqis by al Qaeda, but do a search on “Iraq+success” and see what you get. Apparently things that don’t fit the narrative are ignored. When’s the last time you read about an American hero in Iraq or Afgahnistan that wasn’t on a right-wing blog or a milblog?

    Democrats are fully invested in our failure and the media is manipulating the market for them.

  • Waterboarding wet dreams crushed

    Every protest event against the war on terror that I’ve attended, the big applause-getter has always been the speaker who can first condemn waterboarding. Countless Leftist discussion boards have had endless debates about whether waterboarding is torture and how the US routinely uses this technique. It’s almost accepted fact that every Muslim the US talks to gets waterboarded a few times.

    Well, it turns out it’s not true. CIA chief Michael Hayden testified to Congress yesterday that’s only happened to three terrorists – three proven and admitted terrorists, who had time-sensitive information. (LA Times link);

    He also testified that only three detainees were ever subjected to the method: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks; Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative tied to the Sept. 11 plot; and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi suspected of playing a key role in the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000.

    Three people – not thousands, or hundeds or even tens – three. And it hasn’t been used on anyone in the last five years. The Wall Street Journal’s Review and Outlook column “Tall Torture Tales” today goes a bit further;

    The waterboarding was conducted by intelligence professionals who understood they were operating not only with the approval of the Justice Department but also the informed consent of key Congressional leaders, including Democrat Jay Rockefeller, then the ranking minority Member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

    So that’s the extent of the whole thing. If waterboarding can be considered torture (which I don’t believe), out of the thousands of terrorists we’ve captured, only three – all admitted murderers and thugs – have had the distinct honor of being waterboarded – and Hayden banned the use of it in 2006.

    It must suck to be on the Left, today. Whatever are they going to do with all of those signs and displays they drag around with them? A recycling nightmare. It maybe true that more people in the US have been voluntarily waterboarded than have been actually tortured by our government extracting information.

    Of course, this news will get buried under the cacophony of the worthless Super-Tuesday news. Nonetheless, it’s here for all of Google Rangers to find.

  • Berkeley waves white flag

    Now that the Berkely City Council has witnessed the fruits of their ill-conceived move against the Marine recruiters in their city (Breitbart video of Marines being forcibly detained from reporting to work) they’re having second thoughts according to SFGate;

    Council members Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli on Monday proposed that Berkeley rescind its letter to the U.S. Marine Corps that stated that the downtown Berkeley recruiting center “is not welcome in our city,” and publicly declare that Berkeley is against the war but supports the troops.

    The City Council will vote on Olds’ and Capitelli’s two proposals at its meeting next Tuesday.

    “I think we shouldn’t be seen across the country as hating the Marines,” said Olds, who voted against last week’s proposals. “If you make a mistake, like we did, you should admit it and correct it and move on.”

    Naw, that was no mistake, you flea-bitten old bag, it was intentional. And anyone who thinks that our letters and emails and phonecalls influenced her change of “heart”, don’t bet on it. Those old hippies love the abuse – they think it makes them unique and American originals. It was Jim DeMint’s prposal to shut down the freeflow of taxpayer cash that did it (SF Chronicle link);

    Sen. Jim De Mint, R-S.C., had a tougher take. “If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer funded handouts,” De Mint wrote on his blog. De Mint has found some choice earmarks – $975,000 for the Cal Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation – that, while not city projects, made De Mint’s list.

    Some cling dearly to their so-called convictions;

    Councilwoman Dona Spring said the council should not be cowed by the volume of hate mail and threats.

    “I still oppose the Marines recruiting in Berkeley because it’s one way of protesting this wasteful war,” she said. “Our military policy is a shambles. But we’re not in opposition to the Marines; we oppose the policy that directs the Marines.”

    Michele Malkin responds;

    Riiight. When the mayor and the council are railing that the “Marines are the President’s own gangsters… they are trained killers” and that the Marines are known for “death and destruction…and maiming” and give America “horrible karma,” it’s the “policy” they oppose, you see.

    At Wake Up America, Spree says;

    Make no mistake, they meant to word the resolution the way they did and when city council member, Linda Maio claims that “”I don’t think any of us paid enough attention to it, and people want to rewrite it to more accurately portray our sentiments. We really do have a great deal of concern for the people in our military, and we don’t want to be critical of the sacrifices they are making,” she is full of it!!!!!!

    They knew exactly what they were passing, the resolution, as seen above wasn’t very long and it was VERY clear.

    Well, I’m warning the hippies who run Montgomery County, Maryland (in some quarters known as Berkeley East) – I will personally stand guard at my local recruiting station – Hell, I’ll even use my vacation time to “express myself” if you know what I mean. I’ll exercise my freedom of speech with all the volume and force this old infantry sergeant can muster – I’ve taught hippies to fly with the sound of my voice.

    One thing I won’t tolerate is the misinterpretation of the Constitution that will result the loss of freedom of others.

    Of course, Code Pink, the band of wrinkled political whores who got Berkeley into this mess in the first place are stretching their gums in anticipation;

    “I hope they’re not acting out of intimidation,” said Code Pink spokeswoman Medea Benjamin. “Berkeley is a city of peace, and a recruiting station does not fit Berkeley’s values.”

    You better keep that shit in Berkeley, Media. You bring it to my neighborhood, you’ll in for rude awakening – much like any guy who wakes up beside you.

  • Berkeley vs. US Marines (Updated)

    (Scroll for updates)

    I was really surprised yesterday when I read that the City of Berkeley actually used the whole weight of their legislative body to hamstring the Marines from effectively recruiting in the city. No, I really was surprised. I had no idea how much of a bunch of idiots occupied that town. Call me naive.

    Of course, Code Pink says it’s a real victory for free speech. I don’t know how they figure that. By harassing people at their jobs, they’ve characteristically ended the freedoms of not only those Marines, but their prospective recruits. I know it’s hard for Code Pink and the Berkelians to believe, but a whole shitload of us weren’t seduced by recruiters to join the military. Some of us felt it was our obligation and duty (of course, I shouldn’t expect any of you to understand those complicated terms, sorry)

    At An Old Broad’s Ramblings, I read that Jim DeMint wants to cut off the US government’s funding for the town. Makes sense to me. If they don’t like government operations in their city, they should not like all of the money the government spends there, too. Well, unless they’re hypocrites, of course.

    Big Dog’s Weblog says we should boycott. Well, I would but I’ve never been to that place and I wouldn’t know how to boycott a city which has as it’s only export idiots and morons, seein’s how I avoid idiots and morons as soon as I identify one. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from Berkeley, well, except David Horowitz.

    I guess I always took the advice that Baldilocks offers;

    It’s like having crazy family members: you stay away from them unless they’re hurting somebody or somebody is hurting them.

    Michele Malkin reports that one of the councilmembers is having voter’s remorse;

    One Berkeley City Councilwoman now says she’s “ashamed” of her vote. Idiot:

    “I’m ashamed of my vote,” said Councilwoman Betty Olds, who helped approve the parking spot but not the condemnation. “The protesters should have free speech – this is where Free Speech was born, after all – but to tell the Marines they are not welcome is shameful. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t even go for the parking spot.”

    Yep, the shame will come for them all eventually. I remember the “shame” Vietnam protesters felt when history was written about their escapades, and the grownups got to write the history of the ’60s. How ashamed they are now of their behavior towards the veterans of that war – especially now that the Vietnam veterans have banded against the current crop of US-hating hippies. The chickens came home to roost for the Vietnam veterans, they’ll come for the younger generation, too.

    And Berkeley is already covered in chickenshit.

    Oh, and in a steel cage death match, one squad of Marines could take on the whole city, in case anyone is wondering.

    Sign the petition at Move America Forward and if you missed the whole thing, get a recap at Yankee Mom.

    Updates

    Pam Meister at Blogmeister USA republishes an email from Move America Forward that announces their plans to counterprotest the protesters at the Berkeley recruiting station.

    And Zombietime (hat tip to Little Green Footballs) has photos of the protest. It’s pretty well gotten out of hand, as things usually do in Berkeley;

    Recruiting station, Berkeley

    Marooned in Marin reports that Barbara Boxer’s office has condemned Jim DeMint for suggesting that Berkeley should be hung out to to dry by the Federal government.

    Michele Malkin reports that the SFGate says we bloggers are unhinged. Have the SFGate folks taken a look at the lunatics that are protesting? Neptunus Lex says we should ignore tham. Yankee Mom has all of the relevant phone numbers and email addresses.
    Skye and the West Chester County folks are still holding the protesters near Philly back.

  • On that IVAW firebombed bus….

    Some of you may remember how the Iraq Veterans Against the War had a bus that burned and the whackosphere, naturally figured that it was some vast cabal of terrorist rightwingers who targeted their broken-down piece of shit bus for a firebombing.

    From OpEdNews.com;

    Jim saw, in retrospect, some suspicious activity outside the bus, and about 20 minutes later, the entire engine compartment, and back of the bus was engulfed in flames. Mr Goodnow speculates that the cause could have been anything from ARSON, to ATTEMPTED MURDER. He plans to notify the ATF Arson Squad on Saturday morning.

    See, I doubted this from the start because of the “Jim saw, in retrospect…” comment. How can a person see in retrospect? You either see or or you don’t see. And the “arson and attempted murder” seemed too good for the mainstream press to just ignore – if it were true.

    But the story of good ole Jim, the hippie-turned-bus-driver-turned-CSI-investigator struck a melodic note with the Leftosphere;

    I have no trouble believing that someone gave Jim’s bus trouble precisely because of what it was. Do I think it was part of a planned, organized, effort? I don’t know, and to be honest, I doubt it. I rather suspect this took place as a result of a couple people of violent political persuasions, who happened to see the target, said “That Ain’t Right” and decided to do something about it. Spontaneity explains why the fire was able to be put out, and why Jim was able to escape. I don’t think there was a deliberate attempt to murder Jim, but I suspect that the culprits, if in fact my theory is correct, likely didn’t give a thought to his presence either way.

    Well, Denis Keohane (who, himself, catalogs quite nicely some of the whackier mind-droppings from the Left) at Obiter Dictum (h/t to Robin at Chickenhawk Express) got tired of waiting for someone to tell him what happened and made a few calls;

    Photos of the bus being towed showed that the tow truck belonged to Riehl’s Towing & Maintenance, which I found out was in Clarksboro, NJ. Riehl’s told me that the responders were members of the Carney’s Point Fire Department. When I contacted them, the Deputy Chief told me that there was no arson investigation and would not be. The fire began in the closed engine department and burned outward, and was believed to have been caused by an equipment malfunction or failure. There was no indication of, much less evidence of arson.

    They knew that weeks ago. The day after the fire Riehl’s towed the truck to a salvage yard, not a facility where criminal evidence would be kept.

    So why has IVAW and others let the story and assumption of an intentional crime linger, when they could have cleared it up?

    Well, Denis, that’s because the truth is apparently too boring. It’s much more exciting when the insolent little children of IVAW pretend to be “raging against the machine” – but that machine turns out to be an ill-maintained bus.

    I suspect it’s the same kind of disingenuous crap that’ll come out of the Winter Soldier II “hearings”. Stuff that doesn’t fit the message won’t make it into the testimony. The Scott Thomas Beauchamp/New Republic template.

    Good detective work, Denis.

  • Brian Becker; behind A.N.S.W.E.R.

    Israel 013 003_0001.jpg

    This is a screen shot from the video I took Friday afternoon of the protest at the Israeli Embassy. The man in the picture is Brian Becker the national coordinator for ANSWER.

    ANSWER is;

    The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition formed on September 14, 2001. It is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and prominent individuals and scores of organizing centers in cities and towns across the country. Its national steering committee represents major national organizations that have campaigned against U.S. intervention in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, and organizations that have campaigned for civil rights and for social and economic justice for working and poor people inside the United States.

    Steering Committee:
    IFCO/Pastors for Peace
    Free Palestine Alliance – U.S.
    Haiti Support Network
    Partnership for Civil Justice – LDEF
    Nicaragua Network
    Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines
    Korea Truth Commission
    Muslim Student Association – National
    Kensington Welfare Rights Union
    Mexico Solidarity Network
    Party for Socialism and Liberation

    Well, I got interested in him because of the comment by BufordP on the original post IDing him. So I zipped around the internet looking up information on him. I dug up this story about Becker in the New York Times (in reference to the protest in DC last March that I also covered);

    Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the Answer Coalition and a member of the Party [for] Socialism and Liberation, said the group held out little hope of influencing either the president or Congress. “It is about radicalizing people,” Mr. Becker said in an interview. “You hook into a movement that exists. in this case the antiwar movement and channel people who care about that movement and bring them into political life, the life of political activism.”

    The Party for Socialism and Liberation states it’s goals;

    We are fighting for socialism, a system where the wealth of society belongs to those who produce it, the working class, and is used in a planned and sustainable way for the benefit of all. In place of greed, domination and exploitation, we stand for solidarity, friendship and cooperation between all peoples.

    Back in 2002, David Corn identified Becker with the Workers World Party;

    Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials, including spokesperson Brian Becker, are WWP members. Many local offices for ANSWER’s protest were housed in WWP offices. Earlier this year, when ANSWER conducted a press briefing, at least five of the 13 speakers were WWP activists. They were each identified, though, in other ways, including as members of the International Action Center.

    Workers World Party goals;

    Workers World fights for a socialist society, where the wealth is socially owned and production is planned to satisfy human need. That’s also what workers around the world, from Cuba to China, have been struggling for. The U.S. rulers have spent trillions of our tax dollars trying to stop them in a global class struggle. WWP promotes international working-class solidarity, the right of every nation to sovereignty and self-determination, and militant resistance at home to imperialist interventions and wars. Do you belong in such a party?

    So reading Becker’s statement to the NYT, and considering his membership in these organizations, it seems to me that he’s just organizing these demonstrations to recruit for the socialists and nothing more. The protests are nothing more than recruitment meetings.

    1404063780_53eed2b062.jpg

    From the September March on the Capitol

    It’s probably easy to recruit in the slammer, too.

  • Thoughts on counter protests

    This guy is an unashamed Leftist. He’s proudly chanting away with his friends in front of the Israeli Embassy on Friday afternoon. After a half hour of repeating “Liars, liars, occupiers” and “End Zionist apartheid”, he got sick of being harangued from fifty-feet away by counterprotesters. He marched his pudgy, pasty butt over to a poor policewoman and demanded that she take control of the situation.

    He told her she should moderate the protest – that first one side should get the opportunity to shout bumpersticker slogans, and then they’d shut up while the other side had their opportunity to be heard. It was really quite a pathetic request. He even went so far as to suggest that the counterprotesters were rude for interrupting the Jew haters’ protest. One of the Jewish students with whom I stood that frigid afternoon called him “their Jimmy Carter”.

    Before this princely fellow made his suggestion, someone had approached the counterprotesters and asked if they could turn down the volume on the bullhorn. Luckily there was only one volume setting – loud.

    Although counterprotests aren’t a new phenomena, they are more frequently attended these days. And the Left is having trouble dealing with that. Cindy Sheehan wouldn’t get out of her car last summer when faced with counterprotesters in Virginia, Code Pink demanded police protection in Miami when Cuban-American counterprotesters curtailed their little theater on Calle Ocho this month. The presence of Gathering of Eagles, Move America Forward and other organizations at ANSWER and IVAW protests, which have been relatively unopposed until recently, has driven the Left’s attendance numbers down.

    I know that Free Republic and Protest Warrior have always had a presence at these events, but turn out has been relatively low. The Left has always been able to laugh these groups off. But those groups have provided a catalyst for larger, more mainstream counterprotests and protesters are concerned that maybe they aren’t the voice of the majority after all. After having enjoyed sole proprietorship of the bullhorn for decades, they are facing extinction and irrelevance.

    I’ve been to many of the protests back to 1999 when I first moved to the DC area and I’ve seen the rise of attendance up until last January’s anti-war demonstration when they peaked. During that protest, there was a small crowd of counterprotesters at the National Archives building. The next protest was the “march on the Pentagon” in Marhc. the protesters were shocked that counter protesters probably equalled the number of protesters and lined both sides of the march route. In September, protesters denied there was a significant presence of counterprotesters, but bothsides of Pennsylvania AVeue was lined with counterprotesters from the White House to the Capitol. That’s pretty significant.

    I can say with some certainty, but no real evidence, that counterprotests have had an effect on the debate in this country and I hope they continue.