I think everybody has been pretty restrained about it, John. No "Commie Dupes!" except in your reaction to it.
Would that were the case, Bill. We got the "dupes", we got the "fuzzbrainers", we got any number of attempts to pick your favorite out-of-the-mainstream category and label all the marchers with it. I consider that a political strategy and responded as such.
Lets remember those here that are not happy about the marchers have to put up with "Cheney and his Friends," "Bush the Idiot," "Arrogant Neocons," etc, on a daily basis from some of our fellow posters.
I, obviously, don't see a problem with that because it's an attempt to balance the Krauthammer, Will, Kelly, Steyn, Warren, WSJ editorial page, etc. stuff, much of which starts, as I've said, with the template of Clinton fouled this up so we're going to fix it. Of course, I don't need to remind you that there is an argument here that Clinton is a psychopath. I do agree, however, there is a problem with this. But the problem is that we've all permitted the thread to become, among other things, a place for poster wars. As I said before, I don't see a way out of it. It's just who we are now. Well, to clear that up, I don't really mean to say that it's only who we are because we are a lot of better things as well.
The media's portrayal of the marchers as "Mr and Mrs Moderate, with kids, from flyover country" was a distortion in the other direction, IMO. Some of the signs in DC were, "USA Is #1 Terrorist," "Bush Is a Terrorist," "The NYPD Are Terrorists Too," and "Get the Terrorists Out of the White House." But if you went by the reporters, they were all patriots acting in the American tradition of dissent. Harmless old ladies, middle-American Republicans, and well-dressed students. Give me a break!
I fail to see why we can't live with the notion that all the marchers were acting in the great American tradition of dissent but definitely not harmless. At least I hope not. They seem to have struck a cord given the intense response in the conservative media. Sounds like they think it's more than harmless.
The point of protests like these is to underline the fact that a certain sector of the population is discontented with policies. That's certainly a fine old American tradition. And dissent does not carry the responsibility to offer a different way, as Nadine has insisted. It need only say, we ain't going your direction, to the administration, in hopes that, others will hear the protest, join the next one, and the next one, and the next one (whoops, I'm headed into a Tom Paxton song here.)
As for the line about "flyover country," tell me again what you make of a unanimous vote in the Chicago City Council against unilateral action in Iraq. Oh, forgot. There's another reason there. It's the Daily machine. Right? Always a category. Ah, but then Chicago is not the only midwestern city to do so. Whoops.
Bill, the position you take is a little as if in the next anti reproductive choice march in Washington, we should typify the marchers by those marchers who advocate physical violence against providers. There will be some such in the march but just a part of the mix. |
