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

Category: Iraq Veterans Against the War

  • March Forward make pests of themselves in Hollywood

    Someone sent me a link to this “action” in Hollywood, where March Forward!, the veteran wing of ANSWER jammed up military recruiting in Hollywood for a couple of hours;

    Leading the gaggle was Mike Prysner, who I wrote about last year.

    After shutting down the recruiting station, Prysner said, “To our brothers and sisters in the military: it’s time we stopped fighting for the profits of a tiny group of billionaires; instead, we should struggle together for what’s in our interests. But we’re not going to fight alone—we’re going to fight with students who are getting their tuition raised, with teachers who are getting pink slips, with families who are suffering layoffs and scraping to get by—because when we unite together, that’s when we win.”

    Ah, don’t you love the sound of class warfare in the morning? Prysner is a true class warrior. Also a member of the IVAW (he ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the IVAW board in the last election in an attempt to radicalize the IVAW), Prysner is one of the co-founders of the Maoist-founded ANSWER.

    I’m not sure how ending the wars will stop teachers from getting fired or tuition’s rise, but it sure sounds nice, doesn’t it? Tuition was going up by more than 7% per year through the Clinton years when there were no wars – so blaming the current increases on war is pretty vacuous.

    And, oh, yeah, in case you thought that the 100 or so demonstrators (according to the article – there were really about 25 by looking at the pictures) were veterans, allow me to disabuse of that fallacy;

    The demonstration consisted mostly of young students, who have faced massive tuition hikes over the past year.

    Poor babies. I’ll betcha that there students all over the world who wish that was their only problem. So students, led by a veteran, blocked a recruiting station. What sense does it make to close down a recruiting station because tuition costs are rising? They might as well shut down a florist shop for the same reason.

  • IVAW’s Bateman on Operation Recovery

    Someone sent us this video of IVAW’s Chantelle Bateman while she gets interviewed about the “Operation Recovery” protest the other day at Walter Reed

    Apparently there’s a “basic human right to heal”. But that’s a pretty abstract concept. I get the impression that we’re deploying soldiers with unhealed bullet holes and shrapnel in their bodies, But I’m pretty sure that’s not what they mean…the message isn’t clear.

    And what’s up with T-shirt? I know Chantelle went to Iraq with her reserve unit in Maryland (unlike most of IVAW members who haven’t set foot out of their hometowns except for basic training), so why does she need a shirt that says she knows someone who went to Afghanistan? Seems to me that she’s one of the few who can actually wear an Iraq Veterans Against the War shirt.

    They all seem so confused.

  • IVAW protests once again

    The new era of Iraq Veterans Against the War has begun. They are reborn as an essential part of the healing of wounded soldiers with their brand new program called “Operation Recovery”. This morning they began helping wounded soldiers by boldly, without fear, disregarding the danger, laying ten roses on a sign outside of Walter Reed Army medical Center. I know! It’s amazing isn’t it? I mean it’s just like all of the other useless shit they’ve done, only completely different, huh?

    But that’s not all. You think that’d be enough, but that wasn’t all. They “planned” to walk to the Capitol!!! Stupendous, huh? I’m surprised they didn’t heal every single person in the entire District of Columbia by their unselfish action – walking six miles!!!

    “The roses are to signify each year that we have been in Afghanistan,” said Spc. Zach Choate.

    The group of about 14 veterans planned to march six miles to Capitol Hill, where a news conference was scheduled for later in the day.

    Earlier, Ethan McCord, an Iraq war veteran, said, “I was denied treatment for the mental and physical wounds I sustained in battle, like so many others.”

    He added, “This campaign is critical for soldiers because we are asserting our right to heal. Now, the government has a choice — will it recognize our right to heal, or continue to deny it?”

    It’s funny how seemingly perfectly normal soldiers suddenly realize that have physical and mental wounds after they join IVAW. Not a word from Ethan McCord until he found his niche when the “Collateral Damage” video was released. Now he’s a healer by laying ten roses on a sign and walking six miles to the Capitol building.

    Let’s not do anything tangible, let’s do a bunch of symbolic shit that doesn’t really accomplish anything. Just like always…only this time we’ll say we’re serious. That’ll change shit.

  • Matthis and the Revolutionary Communist Party

    Matthis showed up on the inter-tubes again last week when he signed World Can’t Wait’s “Crimes are crimes” petition. At least he’s stripped most of the deceit out of his bio.

    Yeah, well, ya know how your mom always told you that you’re judged by the company you keep? Carl Dix, the former head of the Revolutionary Communist Party (distinguished from the regular old Communist Party by their Revolutionary aims). Now you can call me a “red-baiter”, but since the dude calls himself a communist, i don’t know how I’m baiting any-damn-body.

    I wrote about Dix and his connections to IVAW over a year ago. He was the national leader of the RCP a few years back, now he’s just a spokesman.

    So what does the RCP believe? This is from the RCP, USA Constitution – which, as you can imagine, is very long and tedious;

    The first stage of this movement [Communism] included three epic revolutions: the Paris Commune; the Soviet Revolution; and the Chinese Revolution, which included the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as its high point. These revolutions effected unprecedented and amazing changes; their vision and accomplishments inspired people around the globe. But world imperialism remained dominant, and these were new and beginning efforts; despite heroic struggles, each in turn was finally defeated by the forces of reaction. In the wake of those defeats, these revolutions have been endlessly slandered, and the truth about them suppressed and distorted. In actual fact, these revolutions proved that a better world really is possible, and through these revolutions humanity has accumulated invaluable experience and a whole new point of departure.

    Checkout the webpage of the Revolutionary Communist party of Charlottesville – Soviet Union imagery, lamentations over China straying from the teachings of bloodthirsty tyrant Mao Zedong, or whatever they’ve changed his name to today.

    There’s a call to celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution which brought the Soviet Union into being at the cost of millions of gallons of blood. If you refresh the page, the header banner changes to imagery of Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Marx along with some memorable passages from each.

    That’s quite different from what Victor Agosto told us a few weeks ago – that communists learned their lessons from China and the Soviet Union (and North Korea?) and that they won’t make the same mistakes next time. It looks to me that they don’t even realize that the Soviet Union split up under the weight of it’s own ideology.

    Of course, there were other lesser luminaries in the crowd who recorded their messages to the waiting masses like Cindy Shehan, Debra Sweet, David Swanson, Noam Chomsky and Ray McGovern.

    Nonetheless, it’s good to see Matthis keeping such good company over there at World Can’t Wait and the Veterans For Peace. Oh, by the way, he couldn’t make it to Washington, DC this past week end (that four hour bus ride was just too much for him) so he sent this message to his minions on Facebook;

    If anyone’s going to the ‘democrats can end the wars’ rally this weekend in D.C., please burn a flag! And roll a burning trashcan into the oval office, if ya get the chance!

    Peace out, ma brotha, peace out.

  • So what’s up with Alvin Greene

    We haven’t heard much about surprise Senate nominee Alvin Greene lately, so I went looking for new stories about him today. I guess he tried his hand at golf…once…last week;

    He was spotted wearing a T-shirt that read “South Carolina: We Don’t Make These Things Up!”

    The Associated Press finally chased down his military records;

    In July, the AP reported Greene received adequate marks for performing basic tasks and complying with training requirements. But reviewers marked Greene as an ineffective leader who lacked organization and received multiple disciplinary actions for failing to perform his duties.

    Yet, he’s the best candidate to represent South Carolina according to Democrat primary voters.

    Oh, one last thing. That thing that IVAW and Matthis and Bobby are always bitching about that the Army is always deploying “injured” soldiers? Well, they didn’t think that Greene was well enough to deploy when his unit left for the war last year. I guess the Army will deploy everyone except border-line retards, huh?

  • Glen Beck on One Nation Rally

    Someone sent me this link from last night’s Beck program that highlights some of the links I mentioned in my earlier post. I didn’t watch Beck last night, thankfully it’s on YouTube.

    If you want to jump through the 13 minute video and hear about the ISO (International Socialist Organization) which is taking over Iraq Veterans Against the War, through the efforts of willing dupes like Adrienne Kinne and Victor Agosto it’s at about 6:15 in the video.

    Of course, Beck does a much better job of tying all of these groups together and highlights the Administration’s support for these miscreants than I could do.

  • Strange bedfellows

    Saturday, 400 groups will converge on Washington, DC in what they call the “One Nation” rally. Of course, I’ve seen Leftist rallies which claimed 30 groups were represented and twenty people were there, so the number of groups isn’t really that important – it’s the types of groups that are showing up and intertwined for what they think make up the majority of Americans.

    Code Pink and the National Education Association? Really? Our teachers are proud to stand along side the post-op trannies of Code Pink? The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees standing alongside Maoist-inspired ANSWER? In fact, every anti-war group you can think of is included and every union organization is right there along with them. So if you’re in a union, your dues money was spent to send people to this political rally. What do I mean? Well, the unions and the NAACP are giving thousands a free bus ride to DC.

    And unlike Glen Beck’s rally earlier this month, this rally is purely political;

    Unlike Beck’s rally, in which overt politics took a back seat to religious and patriotic themes, the progressive groups will repeatedly remind attendees to vote in the midterm elections, said Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO.

    “We have heard a lot about frustration and anger leading to apathy. What we are finding is that anger is now turning into, ‘Okay, let’s act,’” she said. “We can either sit here and not move forward or we can go backward.”

    Holt Baker considers the rally a first step toward more closely unifying the progressive movement, which has often splintered into niche causes.

    Organizers told the Washington Post what their focus will be;

    Organizers say they are focusing on three unifying ideas: jobs, justice and education. They define those ideas in a set of principles that also lays out a list of causes largely supported by liberals, such as ending discrimination in the criminal justice system, protecting Social Security, spending federal money to create jobs and improving public education.

    “These are the bedrock issues that define who we are and why we march,” Jealous said.

    Oh, really? Then why is the anti-military recruiting organization Ya-Ya Network coming? Why are The Geezers For Sitting on Our Hands (otherwise known as Veterans For Peace) slated? The National Center for Transgender Equality? American Friends Service Committee (otherwise known as Quakers – big anti-war protesters). US Labor Against the War? AIDS Walk Washington? The Trans-Africa Forum? Iraq Veterans Against the War (of course there are many contradictions just in that 5-word title)? US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation?

    Many of those groups have come out against Obama and certain policies of his administration. Gays don’t like that he hasn’t used his bullypulpit to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Code Pink, Vets For Peace and IVAW have all criticized him for continuing Bush policies in Iraq and Afghanistan – their reason to exist as organizations. In fact many of the members of those organizations have told me that they didn’t vote for Obama in 2008 – yet here they are at what is essentially a rally to encourage people to vote for Democrats in November.

    This isn’t America. Maybe it’s Washington, DC’s perception of America, but no one I know out here, just the other side of the Beltway, belong to any of those groups. And maybe the union leaders think their membership’s dues are justly spent on carrying smelly busloads of hippies who want a free trip to DC, but I’m pretty sure many of you would disagree.

    If that rally is an accurate portrayal of America, Those of us who aren’t there ought to buy more ammo.

  • On the anti-war trail again

    Well, summer is over and it’s time for the rested and tanned anti-war crowd to take to the streets again. IVAW has begun it’s seasonal mental masturbation with their Operation Recovery to Stop the Deployment of Traumatized Troops – a worthy endeavor. Especially if the were a bit more specific about what is a “traumatized troop”.

    They say that Operation Recovery is “our effort to stop the deployment of troops suffering from PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, and Military Sexual Trauma. By signing our pledge, you agree to do what you can to help defend the rights of soldiers to heal and to hold accountable those who are responsible for deploying traumatized troops.”

    I’m pretty sure that the military doesn’t want those guys deployed either. But there’s some yelling fire in a crowded theater going on from some members of IVAW.

    Like Ethan McCord, the soldier from the Wikileaks video who carried one of the wounded children to an aid vehicle. Since he that video was released, he’s made a real pest of himself. Like in this article in which he said the military was engaged in something “reminiscent of ethnic cleansing“. Perhaps “reminiscent of Jengis Khan” was the phrase you were looking for, McCord?

    In another article, McCord tells an ugly hippie chick that after the incident recorded in the above mentioned video, he told his squad leader that he needed help and his squad leader told him to get the sand out of his pussy. He doesn’t mention the name of the squad leader or the date of the incident. So we’re left with just McCord’s word. The way we’re always left with these goofballs. But the headline of the article is “Mentally injured troops used to murder children and women daily“. Nothing left to figure out there.

    For one thing, the war that McCord left isn’t the same war. For another thing, unless he’s willing to name names and places about all of the mistreatment he endured from his commander, platoon leader, squad leader and whoever else he wants to implicate, I don’t place a bit of trust in a thing he says. And all of this non-specific tale-telling is going to get him in a bunch of trouble with those people someday.

    I’m positive there wasn’t an order to kill everyone in sight when an IED detonated on his convoy as he claims. I haven’t been to Iraq during the current war, but I’m pretty sure everyone in the world knows that when an IED explodes, everyone in your sight didn’t know it was going to explode, or they’d have taken cover before it did – so what’s the use in killing them?

    And if this unnamed squad leader did indeed tell him to get the sand out of his pussy, why hasn’t he done it yet?