Monday, August 29, 2005

America's Greatest Fascists

Take a look at how America's Greatest generation have become the Fascists they once fought against.
The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, even though they are protected by the Bill of Rights.

"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.The delegates voted to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."
(thanx to the folks at Effect Measure.)
Astonishing, really. The Orwellian abilities of the BushCorp and their supporters never ceases to amaze (and depress) me. The Legion has, in effect said, "we fought hard to protect Freedom, which you people just seem to insist on using, so obviously to keep it safe from people like you we're going to have to take it away." I guess they think that Freedom of speech means being allowed to agree with those in charge. If this is the case, then I dont know what we're doing in Iraq, since they already had that. But maybe I should let Teddy Roosevelt say it better:
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president... or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong... is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." (thanks to J. Sommersby in the Dallas Morning News)
Obviously we are still suffering the madness of the Viet Nam war. During that war protesters took out much of their fury on the soldiers returning home from the war (which was not only cruel, but piss-poor thinking).
Now, our leaders tell us that by criticising the war effort we are guilty of damaging our troops (which is not only a lie, but piss-poor thinking). The problem that the protesters had then is the same one that those currently in charge would like for you to think is the problem now: that Anti-war protesters hate America's soldiers. But the problem the protesters have is not with the soldiers (that was the Viet Nam generation, which many of our current leaders, like Dubya, once belonged to), it is with the leaders who have put the soldiers in harm's way.
America has made a godawful mess over there, and simply running away before we've cleaned it up or been asked to leave (and who would blame them for that?) would be immoral. What protesters need to be focused on is making sure those responsible for these terrible decisions are called to account for them. Before the election of 2004 America may have been able to weasel out of responsibility by saying, "it was them!" and pointing fingers at BushCo. But now with Bush reelected the world will make us all shoulder the respondsibility for America's actions, and rightly so, because (barring the provable discovery of voter fraud) we let them stay in power (via the democracy - choice!- our administration goes on and on about).
We need to make sure that groups like the American Legion are not allowed to persuade anyone outside of their own fascist fantasy-land to believe these statements. We cant stop them from making them, and shouldnt be able to. The trick here is to make their statements seem to the majority of people to be no more reasonable than those of the KKK or the Flat Earthers.
This seems like it ought to be easy, but apparently it isnt. Personally, I can imagine bin Laden saying something like "we vow to use whatever means necessary to ensure the united backing of the Islamist peoples to support our fighters and the global war on the Infidel".
But I'll save any comments I have of the BushCorps ability to say things that "our" enemies could easily have said word for word for another time. In the meantime, go see your grandpa, thank him for helping to preserve our precious freedoms, then give a good dope slap. Not for me, but for the fight against global terrorism.

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