Swanson still whining about the Left
Last year, I caught mighty communist David Swanson whining about MoveOn and TrueMajority, Leftist organizations which had previously opposed the Republican war, now they were silent while Democrats occupied both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Well today, on War Is A Crime he expands his list of organizations who previously opposed the war but no longer;
1. Organizations that opposed wars when Bush was president but don’t now:
Campaign for America’s Future, the Center for American Progress, DailyKos, Democracy for America, Moveon.org, National Organization for Women, Open Left, the Out of Iraq Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, Talking Points Memo, True Majority.2. Organizations that still opposed war funding in 2009 but not now:
Alternet, The American Friends Service Committee, The Backbone Campaign, Calitics, Declaration of Peace, Docudharma, FireDogLake, The Hip Hop Caucus, Humanists for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, The Nation, The Out of Iraq Blogger Caucus, Peace No War, The Urban Journal, The Young Turks.
Now, first of all, War Is A Crime.org changed their name from After Downing Street.org – that was clearly a reference to the Downing Street Memo which was supposed to be proof of some sort malfeasance on the part of the Bush Administration. Last i checked, we’re still in a time that is after the Downing Street memo, so why the name change, Dave, since you’re a founder?
Notice in his list #2 Swanson includes the IVAW probably because he recognizes that IVAW is an impotent group of non-war veterans who are more concerned with getting out of debt than any real opposition to the war. Well, other than hanging a banner in an empty building in Detroit or alienating most of the real veterans in this country by burning a flag without apologies.
Winter Soldier was the closest thing to an effective campaign IVAW has assembled. What do they have now? Matthis on a cross-country bus tour talking with high school kids about things he knows nothing.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War
I think Matthis calling real Iraq vets rapists and stating we shouldn’t support our troops is a bit worse than the flag burning… just saying.
Oh yeah, it’s pretty bad. IVAW, committing fraud and disrespects Troops one day at a time.
“There’s Wrong. The there’s IVAW Wrong. Found out how you can be Iraq Veteran without ever having to deploy at IVAW.org”
I think Swanson proves a good point though. Most of the pre-Obama antiwar crowd was only antiwar because of partisan politics. Bush was dumb, therefore the war was dumb!
Now that Obama’s President, “Oh, he’s doing the right things. It’s all Bush’s fault, but we should let Obama continue, etc.”
When I told some liberal woman I was antiwar, she asked me what I thought of the Bush doctrine. When I told her it was the same as the Obama doctrine, she suddenly began defending the war. She then stated that “It’s different when soldiers die” as I began to compare death counts. That’s one of the most offensive sentiments I seem to hear all too often. The pro-war liberals are becoming worse than the pro-war conservatives – who at least use fear mongering as their main justification.
As far as I’m concerned, if you enjoy war, you’re an asshole. If you only enjoy it when your guy is in charge, you’re a stupid asshole.
Paul-
It’s a fallacy to assume that just because one supports war that it’s like sport, er, something to be enjoyed. And that lady is just an ignorant loser with no idea about how things really work.
Fear mongering has nothing to do with how people justify war, at least nor for me.
Why are you antiwar? Do you not believe in defending this country against those who would seek to destroy our way of life? Or do you actually think that terrorism isn’t an issue, That support has been peddled based on fear of attack?
Don’t qualify your answers using the oil or dead civilians arguments, please.
lol defendUSA, I see you’re not above ad hominem attacks to make a point. So, I’ll pull from my hat of antiwar quotes made by famous army generals. “It is painful enough to discover with what unconcern they speak of war and threaten it. I have seen enough of it to make me look upon it as the sum of all evils.” –General Stonewall Jackson Not implying that I have seen quite the tragedy that Gen. Jackson has seen, but simply put, I’ve lost too many friends. I’ve seen too many people die because in Iraq, both Americans and Iraqis. And yes, the civilian deaths do matter. Your ability to easily dismiss civilian deaths is quite sad and shows quite clearly the level at which you are able to dehumanize those with whom you cannot easily relate. To directly answer your other questions, I do believe we should defend this country from all enemies to the point of taking an oath and serving six years to that regard (one of those years was in Iraq). If people attack us, they should be brought to justice and further attacks should be prevented, period. Let’s recap what we’ve done instead: Osama bin Laden, a Saudi, attacks us. No Afghanis were hijackers on 9/11: We invade Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden. (We never found Osama bin Laden.) We claim there are WMD in Iraq. We invade Iraq. (We never found WMDs in Iraq.) “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” forms, an organization that previously did not exist, as a direct result of our actions. Almost nine years later, we’re still in Afghanistan no closer to our goal of catching Osama bin Laden and ultimately no safer. More Americans have died since 9/11 (We’re at 5,521 troops, not including veteran suicides or injuries.) as a direct result of these wars than actually at 9/11, or really from “terrorism” in general. We’re in the longest war America has ever been engaged in. What have we accomplished? As far as the fear mongering goes, yes, I do believe people are so scared about their personal security that they… Read more »