The Good, The Bad, and the Code Pink
In today’s Washington Post, there was an article about a bunch of anti-war pansies that decided to hurl their shoes at a big-headed effigy of Bush. The anti-war “activists” assembled yesterday on Pennsylvania Avenue. According to the article,
They assembled a pile of clogs, boots, flip-flops, slippers and pumps, and, in celebration of the journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush in a news conference Sunday in Iraq, they tossed the footwear at a man wearing a papier-mâché Bush mask and a prison uniform.
I think these sufferers of BDS were getting an early start on Festivus. Even the election of Barack Obama could not mask the crowd’s apoplexy
“Here’s my goodbye kiss, George!” shouted Medea Benjamin, coordinator of the Code Pink activist group, as she hurled a shoe, missing her target.
“See if you can dodge this, you draft dodger!” contributed veteran Jim Goodnow, launching a pair of boots toward the Bush character’s head.
What would public spectacle be without Code Pink and Medea Benjamin. I am surprised that Benjamin was able to free up time to come to Washington DC. She usually spends her time carrying the water of Hugo Chavez. She’s pink for a reason. Jim Goodnow complains that Bush is a draft dodger. I guess that Jim worships at the altar of Dan Rather and the proportional font IBM Selectric Composer of the early 1970’s. Wake up Jim! The government is not after you, and you can remove your hat now.
Earth to Jim, Come In Jim
And this later from Benjamin
“Take this one, George, on behalf of peace-loving Americans!” Benjamin shouted, missing the Bush character.
“Try again, little missy,” Bush taunted.
Benjamin missed again. “Sorry, bad aim,” she explained.
With each toss of a shoe, another accusation flew: “Torturing human beings! Aggressive war! One point two million dead! PTSD! Stem cell research!”
Aggressive war? I hope that every war we undertake is aggressive. What kind of moron complains about war being aggressive? Torturing human beings? Does this refer to waterboarding a couple of pieces of human debris such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaida? That’s not torture in my book. One point two million dead? This refers to the Opinion Research Business survey, in which about 1720 adults were surveyed. I have said many times that I think that pathological lying is a way of life in the Middle East, and I have a hard time believing anything that they say. On the flip side, there is the Iraq Body Count Project, which used the following sources to develop counts.
- 8,913 Mortuaries
- 4,846 Medics
- 4,376 Iraqi officials
- 3,794 Eyewitnesses
- 3,588 Police
- 2,780 Relatives
- 2,423 US-Coalition
- 1,976 Journalists
- 732 NGOs
- 596 Friends/Associates
- 196 Other
I don’t know. It seems like the IBC maybe has a slightly more diverse and more authoritative base of data with which to work. The IBC suggests a number of between 83,000 and 91,000 total deaths so far. I’m not celebrating innocent casualties, but 91,000 is much better than the 1.2 million figure that Benjamin professes. To provide some additional insight into the insanity, the ORB survey suggests that approximately 120,000 people - 30,000 more than the total of the IBCP - died as a result of our air strikes alone. So much for the quality of our precision guided munitions.
Stem cell research? I thought this was put to rest long ago. Adult stem cells have been shown to generate embryonic-like stem cell lines using a single-cell biopsy technique. Make no mistake, the stem cell research debate is a proxy for reproductive rights and the abortion debate. It is not really about advancing medicine per se. Private research was never banned. Bush was right on this one.
Something tells me that we are going to see more and more crackpots as we lead up to the Inauguration. It is pretty hard to see what these people are going to do once Obama gets in office. They say that they will stop at nothing short of a war crimes tribunal. I suspect that most of these twits are awfully close to a diagnosis of Dissocial Personality Disorder. A quick look at the ICD-10 of the World Health Organization fits these people like a glove. Interestingly, people with dissocial personality disorder are never treated by mental health professionals. Apparently they are considered untreatable, and no interventions have proven effective. Untreatable? Now that I believe.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:31 am
When I first read the comment about ‘aggressive war’ I had to do a double take as well. Then as I thought about it a little more, I think I know what they are talking about, assuming they aren’t jacked up on crack.
I believe they are talking about it being a war of aggression, one that we initiated for no legitimate reason. The concept of a ‘pre-emptive’ war, is disgusting and revolting on every level. It can be used so easily to justify just about any act of aggression.
Next, I would like to point out that while people with BDS are indeed a problem, and well totally nuts, there is also the opposite side of the coin. There are bushites that kiss the ground that he walks on and see him as the second coming. They see him as being perfect and the savior of the world, in essence - having no faults. I think these people are called the residents of Utah btw.
Finally, even if you somehow justify the concept of a ‘pre-emptive’ war, which you can’t, there is no way to fight the Terrorism on the battlefield. That ‘war’ will never be won with guns, missles, tanks,etc. Terrorism is an ideology. You don’t ‘defeat’ ideologies that way, they can only be ‘beat’ through change in how people perceive things, through education, and addressing other key issues such as social inequalities, social injustices and prejudices. To win a war on ‘terror’ as Bush initiated, you need to find and address the root causes of it, not kill people - even ones that participate in it.
Here is a great thread I participated in at a site that is now for all purposes, defunct that talks about BDS & the war on terror etc. It is a good read Bruce. Check it out.
http://www.earthcommcenter.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2092