On Aug 16, 2005, at 11:46 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
--- Warren Ockrassa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Aug 16, 2005, at 9:34 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote:
What I would ask also is, has the anti-war
movement no
sense of decency, using this poor woman as a prop
in
its attempts to attack the President? How do you
feel
rallying to someone supported by David Duke
(http://www.davidduke.com/index_print.php?p=350) -
it
seems to me that people willing to exploit a poor,
bereaved woman as she lashes out to assuage her
grief
should be comfortable in his company.
That's also pathetic, Gautam -- or are you happy
rallying behind a
president supported by a porn star?
By this logic, you are on the side of the rednecks
who decided to
"protest" Sheehan by destroying some of the crosses
left near her vigil
point (vandalism is illegal, last time I checked),
No, of course not. You're an editor, Warren, you can
do better than this.
We both can; my point was that equating one group with another because
someone in Group A has offered unsolicited support to someone in Group
B is, at best, difficult to support.
Furthermore, the Sheehan quote has not been proved to originate with
her. If it is hers then we can debate meanings about Israel vis a vis
Jewish people; but if it's not even her statement (actually, whether
it's hers or not), it doesn't matter at all whether David Duke or Osama
Bin Laden support what Sheehan's trying to do, any more than it would
matter if Michael Moore repudiated it.
My point is (obviously) that
this person has made claims that draw the specific
support of anti-semites, and according to our list's
self-apponted arbiters of all that is good and
compassionate, we're supposed to defer to her moral
judgemnt, blah blah blah.
I don't see such assertions being made, though.
But, of course, it's not a
coincidence that the David Duke's of this world have
rallied particularly to her claims. They agree with
them. This tells us something. Now I think this is
just "no enemies to my left." Anti-semitism (lots of
people), anti-Americanism (Michael Moore, for
example), and actually wanting the Iraqi "insurgents"
to win (George Galloway) are all fine, as long as
these people oppose the war.
Galloway's a kook. So is Duke and his ilk. Moore's a curmudgeon, but
from his perspective it's someone like Rumsfeld who is really
anti-American. The least useful thing that can be done in a debate is
attempting to paint one's rivals as being anti-American -- I believe
that in itself is very anti-American; it's about attempting to
marginalize, demonize and possibly even suppress someone's viewpoint
just because one doesn't share it. That is *not* what America is
supposed to be about. Furthermore, it's not conducive to rational
discourse; it's name-calling -- the rhetoric of the playground.
So while I'll agree that all three of those men have been foolish and
probably wrong on a lot of things, I won't try to stick any of them
with a label that I find personally distasteful and worse than useless.
So here we've got a case
where this poor woman has, under the influence of
far-left figures, made claims that echo the
traditional anti-semitic slanders, and been supported
in those claims by some of the most prominent
anti-semites in the United States.
Again, the provenance of statements attributed to her is in question;
and while you've made the assertion several times that Sheehan has been
"influenced" by some kind of leftist action, you have failed to offer
an iota of evidence to support the assertion.
You're using wild and unfounded speculation to support innuendo. Would
you expect that to succeed in any graduate courses you're taking?
And guess what?
We find out that very prominent members of the
anti-war movement - and even ones on the list - are
just fine with those statements and the people who
make them.
I believe we've found no such thing.
This doesn't surprise me, of course. But
when someone makes _exactly_ the same statements that
David Duke would make _on the traditional topics of
anti-semitic slander_, it is, to put it mildly, highly
significant, and it tells us something about the
people who are willing to exploit her grief for their cause.
If it's true, then sure -- but that has yet to be proved.
--
Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books
http://books.nightwares.com/
Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror"
http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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