Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Carnival of the Infantile

Listening to: Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake/The Sleeping Beauty/Nutcracker Suite

What's a pro-War, pro-Bush, troop-supporting murken to do when confronted with crosses and American flags honoring fallen soldiers at an anti-war gathering?

MOW THEM DOWN WITH YOUR TRUCK!!!



In case you missed the story:
Larry Northern, has been charged with a felony criminal mischief count after allegedly driving his pickup truck over wooden crosses erected near the roadside campsite of Cindy Sheehan and her supporters—Camp Casey.

A row of the memorial crosses, which carry the names of U.S. soldiers killed during the Iraq war, were destroyed when Northern, a Waco resident is said to have driven his truck (dragging a pipe and chains) over them.

If you've ever wondered what the 59-year old equivalent of a 14-year old punk looks like:


Pathetic, simply pathetic. More pathetic is how freepers, fuckwits, and run-of-the-mill Bushies alike find this behavior not only acceptable but honorable. Desecrate crosses marked with the names of war heroes AND American flags? Quite alright, if all done in the service of Dear Leader.

Interestingly enough - no, sadly enough, given the moral degeneracy of these twits - mowing down a memorial to fallen soldiers (many crucifxes, nonetheless) garners nary a "Tut" from the guardians of all that is Right and deigned holy or patriotic. None of them can bring themselves to call Larry Northern an emotional adolescent or a lousy American. All they can do is continue to lockstep to the cavil and canard spewed by The Grand Lesser Mind that Cindy Sheehan is "exploiting" her son's death.

What bullshit. As the excellent SusanG answers:
By this analysis, Christopher Reeves was "exploiting" his injury by advocating for cures for spinal injuries. MADD members are "exploiting" the deaths of their children by pushing for stronger punishments and deterrents of drunk drivers. The Susan G. Komen Foundation is "exploiting" a sister's death by raising money for breast cancer research through its highly successful Race for the Cure series.

Likewise, I assume my own posting of Noble's story has me "exploiting" the death of my son?

If you don't know, shut the fuck up.

Advised by a cooler head that I ought not drag Jimmie B. into this, I went ahead and pulled the trigger because, as he accuses Sheehan of having a string pulled in the middle of her back he reveals his own talking box, with the string pulled from the right. If I didn't point out intellectual dishonesty I'd be guilty of, er, hmmmmm... the same.

Grace told me in an email that "Jimmie is one of the good guys". I don't see it. Rather than attacking a woman who lost her son in Iraq, I'd think he'd show us his high dudgeon regarding a 59-year old vandal and desecrater of crosses and flags. And he can't - he won't - show us that. So much for the culture of life, so much for supporting the troops. Nor will the rest of his ilk, the 39% who still support the war, mowing down crosses and American flags, and badmouthing troops as long as it makes Dubya look good.

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Tomorrow's the first day of school - for my entire brood - and my muse should be with the wee ones. Except, they're not exactly beside themselves with excitement at tomorrow's Big Event. Aside from the new clothes and backpacks and pencils, it doesn't seem to matter to them as much as it did when I was a child (then again, the snow was over my head, when I was young).

Regarding tonight's music selection, I bought this to send the girls on their way (considering their "princess fetish" and Marni's dedication to ballet). They've been familiar with the "Swan Lake" music due to a gawdawful Barbi video (rrrrrrrrrr) but Lilly was more interested in "The Sleeping Beauty". I told her that Sleeping Beauty began at track 7 then went into the room to find her watching her CD player, waiting for "The Sleeping Beauty".
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UPDATE: Yeah, I realize these posts should go on my defunct political blog but sending my kids to school makes me think about how eager Bush is to send other people's kids to war - but not his own (are you gonna' enlist, Jimmie? Show us all how dedicated you are to this war, eh?).

In light of that, a letter by an Iraq War vet to today's Infantile Asshole.

UPDATE: Jimmie B. gets snippy in the comments and sweetly smacked down by Trusty Getto. Jimmie shuffles his feet and clears his throat on the issue of one of his buddies desecrating a memorial to US soldiers but still can't bring himself to condemn the act. Pathetic, since he's spent three posts condemning Cindy Sheehan, calling her a liar, a phony, and a tool of the left. He can condemn the mother of of a fallen soldier with no problem. Support our troops - what?

Likewise pathetic is although Jimmie can call Cindy Sheehan a liar, he has no problem publishing lies on his site (even when the liar Jimmie cites comes clean) and accepting them as gospel.

You shoulda' left this one alone, Jimmie.

16 comments:

Panthergirl said...

I saw a brief clip of Ann Coulter commenting on the Cindy Sheehan story, and all I remember of it went something like this...

"She's not grieving anymore...she wants to drive foreign policy."

Gee! I had no idea that Ann Coulter was the arbiter of grief and mourning. I wonder how long she grieved after HER son was killed. Oh wait...

Anonymous said...

gah. This reminds me why I don't follow the news. These people are scary.

gah.

Jimmie said...

Ah, Jim, there you go reading my mind again. First, you have no way at all of knowing that I find Northern's behavior acceptable or honorable, since I've said nothing at all about what he did. You may draw no inference from my silence since you don't know me nor have you asked me about it.

I'm flattered that you are hopping up and down waiting for me to comment on him. I'm more flattered that you were so eager to know my opinion that you decided to invent one for me instead of doing the polite thing and asking me for it.

So here's your answer. Northern committed a run of the mill criminal act and got locked up for it. Forgive me for not getting up on me kitchen chair and shrieking about it but I don't find myself all that excited about someone running over a few crosses and, quite honestly, I'm surprised that you do. I wonder if you would care quite so much if the situation is reversed. If I summoned by righteous anger every time someone in this world desecrated a cross or a flag, I'd never have a moment's peace. You may call that hypocrisy but you'd be more accurate to call it acting like an adult.

Second, I can't believe that you've made the chickenhawk argument - again. You seemed like such a smart man at one point.

But I tell you what. If you're going to hold to that "you can't support the war unless you go fight in it" bargain, I'm going to assume that you will never, ever call for the services of a police officer or firefighter, since I don't see you joining your local police or fire department. Unless you are the same brand of hypocrite you accuse me of being.

By the by, I'm Jimmie B. It's on my left sidebar, pretty much the first thing you see.

spyderkl said...

Well said Jim - that was a great post.

The guy looks like a knuckle-dragger to me. I'm just saying.

True Jersey Girl said...

Great post. You are right on target - as usual.

trusty getto said...

Why, thank you Jim, for not only leading me here, but for your apropos post as well.

I did go over to check Jimmie B's site, and, well, your comments, Jim I mean, are on point. Though I don't wish to disparage anyone I don't know in cyberspace (and certainly not a conservative counterpart, without whom there would be no spirited debate), I did get the idea that there was an apparent, shall we say, overdeveloped sense of self-esteem influencing the content of some of the postings. That particular attribute can certainly be useful if you are, say, the lead singer of a rock band, or, say, POTUS. I'm not sure it works all that well in the blogosphere, though.

I was considerably perplexed by the "you may draw no inference from my silence comment" given the too-numerous-to-count inferences found on the blog. Though consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, inconsistency is the harbinger of intellectual dishonesty, in my humble view.

I would hesitate to predict that someone might or might not feel shame in the future based solely on *my* opinion, even if it were a view shared by others. To do so seems a tad self-righteous and more than a little crass. And can you imagine the embarrassment involved if the opinion turns out to be wrong!? :)

Well, once again, thank you kindly for the heads up. You're bookmarked and blogrolled now, assuming of course you have no objection to same.

BTW: My girls love that Swan Lake game, too! If you're interested in some levity, stop on by my blog and listen to a few spots from the "Real Men of Genius" campaign. It's a hoot!

SeeingDouble said...

I have mixed feelings on this. We don't support Bush or his objectives, but N is a soldier, and will serve in Iraq next month. I know that seems to contradict itself, but still... Anyway, Ms. Sheehan is greiving, and wants to know why her son died. Well, the short answer is that he enlisted as a memeber of the armed forces, and that means there is the possibility of death. Would she be outside the CEOs house if he had died in a job related accident in another profession? Still, her son signed up, but that doesn't mean she supports the war. She has the right to question something, this is America. The fact that some penis wrinkle of a man drove over a memorial is DISGUSTING, and the fact that people are ok with it shows you how brainwashed that side of the fence is.

Natsthename said...

No way this belongs in a defunct political blog, man. This is YOUR blog, and you call it as you see it. It helps that you're RIGHT, too.

This particular punk needs to atone for his sin. Perhaps his best punishment would be to have to reconstruct what he so casually mowed down.

not veronica said...

Sub-par, indeed!

Puck said...

Came on to see Jimmie had taken issue with my post (no surprise) but was blown away how well everyone (and escpecially Trusty) answered for me. :-D

Crystal, I think Sheehan's point is that this war is POINTLESS and I'm sure she's angry that her son and our country was lied to embark on this adventure. Very, very few of the anti-war folks (on the right and the left) believe Saddam was anything but a blood-thirsty tyrant and the world is better of without him. However, the pertinent question is whether Iraq is better off - and I don't think there's a quick answer to that.

The point of the post is the "penis wrinkle of a man" (LMAO at that!) and the sheep who bleet in unison, not on principle but out of blind devotion for a liar and a thief.

Sterfish said...

It takes a sick person to run over memorials and an even sicker person to run over memorials to fallen soldiers during wartime. Don't get me started on people who condone such behavior.

landismom said...

Great post. I am outraged by the right-wing folks who think that Sheehan has no right to 'politicize' her son's death. As if it weren't politicized by being caused by war!

Hank said...

I think that guy should whip out the Heny Hyde Defense (tm): It was just a youthful indiscretion.

Babette said...

Larry Northern has probably never listened to the exquisite Entr'Acte from Sleeping Beauty. Ballanchine lifted and placed this stunning interlude in his Nutcracker. It is heard as Marie walks through her darkened home to find her broken gift.

Sensibility and equanimity are wanting in our sorry world...

SeeingDouble said...

Jim,
I agree with the point that we as Americans were lied to, and that this war is something that shouldn't have happened. I know that sounds insane as I prepare to send my husband into it, but we both feel the military is now stuck there, and he's not going in to help the Iraqis, he's going to help his fellow soldiers. You know where I stand on party lines, and how I feel about Bush. (If you don't, im me, and we'll chat, since I don't feel comfortable blogging specifics about the administration) So, aside from the protest itself, I completely and totally agree that this (penis wrinkle, the hubs uses that term! LOL) man who destroyed the memorial is the lowest of creatures. The outrage would cross party lines if he destroyed a national memorial, but it seems that many are willing to accept his act because it was against a protesting mother. It's a sad day when a soldier's cross can be run over, we should now get to run dude over with his own truck. This is not about the republicans or the democrats, this is about a life, a soldier, a family's loss, and should be respected as such.

Mamacita (The REAL one) said...

Wanton, mean-spirited, vicious vandalism by any other name. . . .

Oh wait. There are no other names.

And it doesn't matter which side you're on. It was an act of violent disregard for humanity, and both sides should be horrified.

Oh, and Jimmie B. is a nimrod.

. . . closes eyes and pictures your sweet daughter dancing to Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. . . .

Now, see, THAT's peace.