Rhetoric 101 - Down & Out in Texas (Sheehan) Part 2

Politics International Politics
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IP Co-Mod Angrily Stamping Foot Note:

On MaPoSquid’s comment, we agree; he goes too far.

To suggest that the people involved in the thread who are critical of Sheehan are lying, also goes too far.
Assume the best, or back it up.
Big, angry frown. grrrl snarl

Seriously, so far there has been a reasonable discussion on this. Keep it reasonable.[/color][/quote]
I notice that the poster abbreviatedly known as MFGG has as usual managed to eliminate important sections of what was written to form a “quote” – a process known as “dowdification” thanks to Maureen Dowd’s habit of deleting key words and phrases to twist quotes around – in order to portray it in a negative light. This is a longterm habit of his (or hers – I am not sure which he/she/it is, as he/she/it has made a habit of remaining anonymous) which I and most other civilized people who attempt to engage in reasoned debate find particularly deplorable.

The quote was:

In other words, if she really feels that the soldiers are “spreading the cancer of Pax Americana”, then she should be glad that her son, who was one of the volunteers who was helping to spread what she feels is an evil ideology, is now rotting in hell (per her apparent wishes).

If she does not feel that way, then she is free to regret her son’s untimely death, as most sane and reasonable people such as myself do.

If she simply felt as some of the antiwar people do – if she felt that the war was simply a tragic waste of lives – then she could fairly grieve for the loss of her son. But her rants against the entirety of American policy – the “cancer of Pax Americana” – indicate that her feelings go far beyond mere opposition to the war and instead are fanatical opposition to the entirety of U.S. policy and actions.

So the crux of the matter is, was Casey Sheehan a war criminal or an honorable soldier? His mom seems to feel that he and other soldiers are war criminals “spreading the cancer of Pax Americana”. I personally don’t, which is why I mourn the loss of someone I believe to have been one of our finest.

I am wondering what website link Jaboney refers to. If it was the photo of the “antiwar” protest banner which suggested fragging officers, Tainan Cowboy already posted it.

Other images (as well as the one that TC posted) can be found at Zombietime dot com (deliberately not hotlinked). The “hall of shame” has some particularly lovely ones, such as one evil-looking hag holding a yellow sign saying “Support our mutineers! Free Hasan Akbar!” – Hasan Akbar was the Muslim sergeant who, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, threw fragmentation grenades into a tent of soldiers and then opened fire with his rifle, killing two and wounding fourteen more.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_Akbar

Then of course there is the ever popular “death to america!” and “I (heart) NY Even More Without The World Trade Center”. (I suppose the latter could be spun as merely supporting ultrarapid urban renewal.)

I look forward to MFGG’s next pathetic attempt at spin and Jaboney’s continued use of green text to, hmm, whatever.

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So much for “Kumbaya.” [quote=“MaPoSquid”]I am wondering what website link Jaboney refers to. If it was the photo of the “antiwar” protest banner which suggested fragging officers, Tainan Cowboy already posted it.[/quote]Nope, I don’t think that was it. Mofangongren mentioned that it was a link that you had posted. More than that, I do not know. Assuming the best of intentions on his behalf, I’m inclined to believe that he was being sincere.

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]I look forward to MFGG’s next pathetic attempt at spin and Jaboney’s continued use of green text to, hmm, whatever.[/quote] There’s enough spin in this place to make us all dizzy, and it comes from all direction. The quote in question comes from [url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/rhetoric-101-down-out-in-texas-sheehan-part-2/20506/3 post[/url], and its abbreviation doesn’t substantially alter it: [quote=“MaPoSquid”]She can’t have it selectively. if what she is protesting is how she really feels, then she should be happy that her son got blown into small bloody shreds to atone for his crimes against humanity. He volunteered, after all.[/quote] Either way, you’re suggesting that given her political beliefs, this mother ought to celebrate the violent death of her son. The first time I read that, I found it rather revolting, but I didn’t say so in so many words.[quote=“Jaboney”] Uhm, that’s really a bit much, don’t you think?[/quote] Even assuming the best of intentions on your behalf, I still find it revolting. Your initial response basically stated that if folks on the otherside of the fence can make tasteless, crass declarations, so can you. Doesn’t make much sense to me, but then, if I see someone wallowing in dung, I feel neither desire nor compulsion to join in the fun.

The green text? I came across somebody else using it and thought it an appropriate means for mods to bringing attention to particular points. So, if it’s in green, or blue, or red, I’m probably just trying to ensure that you read it. (I tend to be long winded, and things–quite understandably–get lost. I’d like to adopt jdsmith’s four liners as my own, but he’s a bit possessive of that particularly beautiful art form.) And if it’s in bold green, that’s just me wearing my mod hat: it’s still less than two weeks old… let me break it in a bit and I may drop it as rookie silliness. Or not.

23

Could the mysterious link being discussed be Adopt a Sniper?

Good site. A shame it’s needed.

During the Viet Nam era protesters said schools should be funded with billions and the Air Force should hold bake sales to raise money to buy bombers.

Since then, we have/are spent/spending billions on education with little to show except declining scores.

Meanwhile, we hold bake sales to buy bulletproof vests for supply truck drivers and run web sites to solicit funds for necessary state of art weaponry for special forces.

OOC

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“MFGG”? Perhaps you need to fix the “R” key on your computer…

What “important” sections? You wrote an “if … then” construction. I find it disgusting that you think it would ever be acceptable for a person to be “happy” about an American soldier being blown to bits. I guess you and I are different sorts of people.

To clear up any confusion, I think that Maureen Dowd writes her column under her actual name. Unlike Janet Reno and Paul Wolfowitz, there has never been any questioning of her actual gender.

I still find it strange that you would take the time to write it as a possibility that an American should be “happy” about the deaths of any of our troops. All evidence is that she is very unhappy about the deaths of all of our troops and puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the president who put them in harm’s way. In today’s Taipei Times, the AFP wrote up the results of a recent poll showing that 57% of Americans believe the war has made the US more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Sounds like a solid majority of Americans are not that far off from Sheehan.

Excellent! You’re right that she does not blame our troops or her son. She puts the blame squarely on the guy who lied to put U.S. troops into danger. Keep in mind that she’s not railing against all U.S. policy, however – I haven’t seen any quotes on Bush’s rampant deficit spending, unfunded “No Child Left Behind” malarkey, his huge tax giveaways to the top 1%, nor his bizarre efforts to explain social security issues to party loyalists at public taxpayer-funded “town hall” events. She is quite focussed in her complaints about the guys running the White House.

Why would you ask this question when Sheehan clearly puts the blame on Bush lying to send American troops into a war that a majority of Americans see as making the U.S. less secure? It would appear you are setting up a strawman of Ray Bolgerian proportions.

Must have more brains…

His mom does not think her son is a “war criminal”. You’ve already mentioned that she is railing against policy, so why on earth would she expect that our soldiers are setting that policy? Despite it being very clear that she blames Bush and his administration members for the war, you are being inconsistent when you try to take cheap shots at her like this.

Then why don’t you go send her a sympathy card or arrange for an appropriate way to mourn the loss of her son? Do you think Casey would have wanted you making cheap shots at his mom?

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The left is incapable of coming up with new ideas—they even have to recycle old 1960s protest singers.
:smiling_imp:

In the first march I went to (opposing Vietnam) there were 10 of us. This is huge,

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Joan Baez at Camp Cindy dreaming about Joe Hill to a packed tent of 150± people…Woo Hoo…this thang got legs!!!

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I think they may want another leader soon. Sheehan’s previously unreported protesting speeches may come back to huant her in a big way.

lewrockwell.com/orig6/sheehan5.html

A quote or two:

[quote]Is there anyone in America who cannot yet see that Donald Rumsfeld is a liar…that he, as with Hitler and Stalin…will say anything so long as he thinks it will help shape the world to his own liking? Is there even one, sane adult among us who cannot see that Donald Rumsfeld is a threat to our nation

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jdsmith – Well, she is unlikely to be invited to any Rumsfeld family Christmas parties, but other than that what else can be done to the poor lady? Her son has already been killed, she’s already being smearboated … what else??

Regarding her wanting to meet Bush, I figure she wants to tell him off now that further information has come out that the Iraq invasion was more a matter of Bush’s personal obsessions rather than an urgent issue of national security.

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Gutierrez is a story right out of the “How to be Successful” books. The guy has an amazing story. And he’s a Repulican.

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Au contraire; truncating it does alter it substantially. It changes it from a conditional statement, which is contingent upon the beliefs she has been publicly espousing, to an invariant.

If she doesn’t really believe the crap she’s spouting, then it doesn’t apply.

More immediately, it changes the statement from one in which I am challenging her outrageous statements into one in which I appear to have been personally maligning Casey Sheehan’s service. As I ALSO wrote, The rest of us can mourn the passing of an honorable young man who died trying to rescue fellow soldiers, in a war that toppled a brutal dictator.

Do you think that the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer should mourn their son’s imprisonment and subsequent death? Or be glad that he was stopped from butchering and eating more innocents?

In the 1970’s, the antiwar left spat on returning troops and assaulted them. The same crowd today has decided it is more productive to feign sympathy with the lower level troops while attacking only the leadership – including suggesting murdering said leaders.

By the way, it appears that the website MFGG is referring to is indeed AdoptASniper as OOC suggested, although I am fairly sure that MFGG is doing so sarcastically, not sincerely, no matter how much the lady doth protest too much.

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[quote=“MaPoSquid”]Au contraire; truncating it does alter it substantially. It changes it from a conditional statement, which is contingent upon the beliefs she has been publicly espousing, to an invariant.[/quote] True enough, and yet, still a vile message to send.

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]Do you think that the parents of Jeffrey Dahmer should mourn their son’s imprisonment and subsequent death? Or be glad that he was stopped from butchering and eating more innocents?[/quote] Excellent example. My answer? Both. Be glad that the murderous psychopath is off the street; be sorry to see their son in jail. Which is exactly the apparently-yet-not-at-all contradictory pair of emotions they expressed when he was imprisoned, and again after he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate.

[quote=“MaPoSquid”]In the 1970’s, the antiwar left spat on returning troops and assaulted them. The same crowd today has decided it is more productive to feign sympathy with the lower level troops while attacking only the leadership – including suggesting murdering said leaders.[/quote] What makes you think it’s feigned? Ideas and emotions grow and mature. The '70’s blame-the-baby-killers mentality was immature and unworthy of the movement. The contemporary crowd recognizes that–save a few bozos, but then there are bozos everywhere.

I found his statement to be sincere. But then, assuming the best on your behalf, I’ll just have to walk away thinking that you much be older and wiser than I.

32

Oddly, Sheehan is out of the picture for two days and the story seems to have died. I feel the lack of new news is the reason for the off topic, and oft repeated discussion of “Was the war worth the costs?”

Anyway, in the spirit of being on topic, I found this little blurb:
suntimes.com/output/steyn/cs … eyn21.html

[quote]They’re not children in Iraq; they’re grown-ups who made their own decision to join the military. That seems to be difficult for the left to grasp. Ever since America’s all-adult, all-volunteer army went into Iraq, the anti-war crowd have made a sustained effort to characterize them as “children.” If a 13-year-old wants to have an abortion, that’s her decision and her parents shouldn’t get a look-in. If a 21-year-old wants to drop to the broadloom in Bill Clinton’s Oval Office, she’s a grown woman and free to do what she wants. But, if a 22- or 25- or 37-year-old is serving his country overseas, he’s a wee “child” who isn’t really old enough to know what he’s doing.

I get many e-mails from soldiers in Iraq, and they sound a lot more grown-up than most Ivy League professors and certainly than Maureen Dowd, who writes like she’s auditioning for a minor supporting role in ‘‘Sex And The City.’’

The infantilization of the military promoted by the left is deeply insulting to America’s warriors but it suits the anti-war crowd’s purposes. It enables them to drone ceaselessly that “of course” they “support our troops,” because they want to stop these poor confused moppets from being exploited by the Bush war machine.[/quote]

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[quote=“Jaboney”]I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve given up following this closely.

[color=green]I hereby object to Jaboney (note correct spelling) calling me “MoPoSquid” in his above quote, and I demand that he send himself a snippy little note informing himself that this is an unfriendly warning and that if he persists he will be banned.[/color]

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[quote=“MaPoSquid”]I hereby object to Jaboney (note correct spelling) calling me “MoPoSquid” in his above quote, and I demand that he send himself a snippy little note informing himself that this is an unfriendly warning and that if he persists he will be banned.[/quote] Done. :unamused: When did I sign up for the funny farm???

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Welcome to Moderatorhoodshipness. :loco:

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If Bush had invited her in for a cup of coffee on Day 1, this story would have died as well. Sometimes, I really love that guy.

As it is, while a Crawford paper is running a nasty editorial about his leadership, our President is running off to Redder-Than-Thou Idaho and Utah, and guess what? He’s going to be met by protestors there. Salt Lake City’s Mayor has been encouraging people to protest the Commander-in-Chief. Even the good folks (ie. the Valley County Citizens for Peace) in little Donnelly, Idaho have organized a vigil to coincide with W’s visit, because they think Mrs. Sheehan deserves to have her questions answered.

First Texas, now Idaho and Utah? Nowhere is safe. I wonder if some paragraph of a future history book won’t begin “It started in the reddest states…”

Whatever else Sheehan has done, it looks like she has made people feel safer to express dissent to this war and re-ignited the peace movement, at least for now. (Now if only MoveOn would follow Cindy and call for an end to this bloody war.)

I think we’ll have a slightly better picture of any Sheehan-effect (somewhere I read about my favorite new demographic–Peace Moms) after the Sept. 23-26 protests in D.C.

37

Another anti-war song – this time by Barbara Streisand and the Bee Gees. :smiling_imp: Blare this “shite” song from the speakers loud enough and even the anti-war protesters will go home.

Streisand’s Stranger in a Strange Land debuted Tuesday on a notable parcel of Internet real estate – it’s spending one week as an exclusive (and free) streaming video on the home page of Amazon.com. It is culled from Guilty Pleasures, the singer’s upcoming collaboration album with Bee Gees singer Barry Gibb, who wrote and produced all the songs for the project, slated for a Sept. 30 release.

The video shows Streisand, wearing an evening gown and an intense expression, singing lyrics that include “You may be someone else’s sweetheart/Fighting someone else’s war,/And if you suffer for the millions/Then it’s what you’re fighting for.” The video intercuts her studio performance with footage of American troops shipping off to theaters of war past and present.

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Sheehan still out of the picture, Bush speaks:

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050823/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

[quote]DONNELLY, Idaho - President Bush took on the California mother who has been defiantly protesting outside his Texas home, saying Tuesday that Cindy Sheehan doesn’t represent the views of most military families and that fulfilling demands like hers for withdrawal from Iraq would weaken the United States.

Bush said he understood the anguish of the woman whose son was killed in Iraq last year. But he said he disagreed with her assertion that U.S. troops should be brought home before more die in a "senseless war."

“I think those who advocate immediate withdrawal from not only Iraq but the Middle East are advocating a policy that would weaken the United States,” Bush said.

The president said U.S. troops in Iraq are keeping Americans safe and that Iraqis are making progress toward democracy. He urged patience as officials in Baghdad struggle to complete a constitution.

“The fact that they’re even writing a constitution is vastly different from living under the iron hand of a dictator,” Bush said.[/quote]

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Sheehan has done a brilliant job of forcing the American people to get back to the basic assumptions underlying this war. Frankly, the Bush administration has done a better job shutting down the discussion of the war than it has done in fighting the actual war. The fact that you three moderators are spending this much time off-topic and focused on begging me to share and “understand” bogus assumptions behind the war is a sign that you don’t understand the position of a growing number of Americans.

Sheehan has been far from silent:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/08/22/joe.klein.tm/index.html

The danger of yellow ribbon patriotism: Why Cindy Sheehan’s Crawford war vigil spurned a long-awaited dialogue on Iraq.

[quote]More than a few officers told me they were concerned by what was happening back home.

They sensed that public support for the war was waning and feared that once again they had been sent into a difficult situation with less than a total commitment from the country’s political leaders, including the Commander in Chief.

They echoed a question that the battalion commander who had lost five of his lieutenants had asked me. “Why hasn’t the President issued a national call to service? I don’t mean a draft,” he said. “But if the President called on people to serve, they would. And not just in the military. My mother mentioned this the other day: ‘Why aren’t there the war-bond drives we had in World War II? Why aren’t we being asked to collect clothing for the children of Iraq?’”

Other officers wondered why the American public was never asked to share in their grief, why the President never attended the funerals of the fallen. One general, who had presided over 162 memorial services in Iraq, told me how it worked: "There’s no coffin, just the inverted rifle, boots and helmet of the fallen. We call the roll, up to the name of the missing trooper. We call his name: Specialist Doe.[/quote]

Does she have a right to be pissed off? Check out the MSNBC poll in which 94% think Bush misled Americans in order to go to war with Iraq:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969/

Here’s Sheehan’s response to Bush’s latest rants:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/23/141740/140

[quote]"Bush said that two high-ranking members of his staff already met with her earlier this month and that he met with her last year. "

I didn’t go to Crawford to meet with Steven “Yellow cake uranium liar” Hadley or the other “high ranking” official they sent out. I went to meet with George. Does he get that yet? I did meet with him 10 weeks after his insane and arrogant Iraq war policies killed Casey and 9 weeks after I buried my oldest child. George: things are different between you and I now.

“I’ve met with a lot of families,” Bush said. “She doesn’t represent the view of a lot of families I have met with.”

I never said I did. I want one answer: What is the “noble cause” MY son died for. There are also dozens, if not hundreds of families from all over the country who want to know the same thing.

“The Sunnis have got to make a choice,” Bush said. “Do they want to live in a society that’s free? Or do they want to live in violence?”

Too bad George didn’t give them that option before he invaded and occupied their country resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. I bet they would choose to live in a peaceful country free of foreign occupiers.

“He said he thought that most mothers, regardless of their religion, would prefer to live in peace rather than violence.”

Amen to that George. You got one thing right. Thanks to you and your lies the people of Iraq are suffering from a tragic and unnecessary war and my son was violently killed and ripped out of the heart of our family.[/quote]

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[quote=“MFGR”]Here’s Sheehan’s response to Bush’s latest rants:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/23/141740/140

[quote]“The Sunnis have got to make a choice,” Bush said. “Do they want to live in a society that’s free? Or do they want to live in violence?”

Too bad George didn’t give them that option before he invaded and occupied their country resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. I bet they would choose to live in a peaceful country free of foreign occupiers.[/quote][/quote]

That demonstrates a stunning and appalling level of ignorance, IMO.

Bush is giving them a choice. They are currently negotiating their constitution.

It was Saddam who refused to give the Iraqi people a choice in how they lived.

And while it is horrifying that tens of thousands of people have died to give the Iraqis this opportunity to choose how to live, then certainly it was even more horrifying when many hundreds of thousands died under the boot heel of Saddam’s brutal rule.

This woman is entitled to grieve the loss of her son. And she is entitled to express her political opinion.

I, however, am also entitled to disagree strongly with her nonsensical statements re the politics of the war.