Talk of the Town: "Peace protestors not always so peaceful"
Jim Edmunds gets a fat chunk of the op-ed page to whine about what nasty people these peaceniks really are.
Near as I can figure, he's referring to Randal's column here as the trigger for his irritation, but it has little to do with the events he recounts.
I wouldn't be surprised if his description of his experience is accurate as far as it goes. Many, many people saw what was coming with Bush's adventure in Iraq, and were (and remain) very angry about it. Most people haven't much experience in expressing themselves with force, and have to be given some benefit of the doubt if they don't handle it with perfect aplomb. That they refused to allow a PR flak to tell them how to express themselves about this impending disaster is no surprise. You're a flak, you get yelled at, that's your job, Jim.
And let's not neglect that the peaceniks were absolutely on the money about what was happening and how it would turn out.
The tell comes in Edmunds' final graph, pulling out the old canard that if you're anti-war, you're anti-veteran. This is desperate rhetoric that neatly kneecaps his credibility. The reader will be forgiven for inferring that Edmunds still speaks for Rick Renzi, as I have little doubt that our Congresscritter would make much the same speech.
5 comments:
Dude if you can get any of the stay the course crowd to admit that the "peaceniks"were on the money you should get a cookie .my problem with this is the headline ...did they beat anyone .. ?insult their patriotisim? come on from what I can see there were no cops involved the headline seems to infer violence of some kind
Good point. Kinda makes me think about my personal definition of 'peaceful.' Does it mean 'perfectly ordered,' does it mean 'without violence,' or is it somewhere between? The use of 'not so peaceful' will mean different things to different readers. It's code, in another words, aimed at your chosen audience. And let's not forget that the headline was more than likely written by one of our Courier editors.
anyone look at the responses to randal's piece? sheesh. it's dispiriting to run into the same stupid stuff -- conflating the war in Iraq with the so-called "war on terrorism" (< pet peeve> where is the declaration of war?< /pet peeve>), impugning the patriotism of anyone who disagrees, even (i love this!) a 21st century american restating of the old bolshevik slogan: the ends justify the means.
Ok, as a vet, I've got to say this "you must support the war or you don't support our troops BS" is annoying.
It allows our government to holds our troops hostage to their policies. You could simply invade a country you feel you'd like to invade for personal reasons and then if anyone complains, they aren't supporting our troops.
Which is annoying.
Go to Iraq, pull a few missions, get very,very bored, then freaked out, sweat a great deal in Kevlar, get mind-games for life, lose some of you body's functionality, become consumed with guilt and then tell me you're at war, you "I'm sorry I can't make it to drill" half-stepping ex-Texas Air Guard weenie.
Still a little angry about a few things,as you can tell.
know what you mean coyote ..am a vet whos has been sniped at by more that one chickenhawk over this middle east BS ..what I dont understand is the the vets who buy into the lies ..
Post a Comment