I am constantly amazed at the way bullshit gets spread via e-mail, and people just completely buy into it. I am on an old listserv, and this one just came down the tubes:
PO2 (EOD2) Mike Monsoor, a Navy EOD Technician, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously for jumping on a grenade in Iraq, giving his life to save his fellow Seals.
During Mike Monsoor’s funeral in San Diego, as his coffin was being moved from the hearse to the grave site at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery, SEALs were lined up on both sides of the pallbearers route forming a column of two’s, with the coffin moving up the center. As Mike’s coffin passed, each SEAL, having removed his gold Trident from his uniform, slapped it down embedding the Trident in the wooden coffin.
The slaps were audible from across the cemetery; by the time the coffin arrived grave side, it looked as though it had a gold inlay from all the Tridents pinned to it. This was a fitting send-off for a warrior hero.
This should be front-page news instead of the crap we see everyday.
Since the media won’t make this news, I choose to make it news by forwarding it onto you guys. I am damn proud of our military. If you are proud too, please pass this on. If not then rest assured that these fine men and women of our military will continue to serve and protect.
The snopes link does confirm it, but two things:
1.) The media did cover it.
2.) To the extent the media did not provide footage, there is a reason for this:
When Gina Gray took over as the public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery about three months ago, she discovered that cemetery officials were attempting to impose new limits on media coverage of funerals of the Iraq war dead — even after the fallen warriors’ families granted permission for the coverage. She said that the new restrictions were wrong and that Army regulations didn’t call for such limitations.
Six weeks after The Washington Post reported her efforts to restore media coverage of funerals, Gray was demoted. Twelve days ago, the Army fired her.
Just saying.
calipygian
So the question is:
Is the White House more concerned with
a) Protecting the privacy of servicemen, even servicemen that request media coverage of their funerals, or
b) Making sure that the resentment levels against the librul press is kept pegged at 11?
Just Some Fuckhead
God knows America wants to see it’s war dead paraded around like so much war propaganda. America is shameless like that.
Just Some Fuckhead
Maybe these folks would like a series on the military channel called “Pimp My Death”.
Joshua Norton
What? No DFH’s showed up to spit on everyone? Lame.
NYT
Interesting how the Washington Post uses government approved euphemisms nowadays.
“Fallen warriors” for dead soldiers (if American), harsh interrogation techniques (waterboarding) etc.
The Grand Panjandrum
Doesn’t almost 20% of the American population still believe Saddam was directly involved in 9/11? What percentage of people believe Obama is a Muslim? Isn’t Elvis now living in a senior care center and sharing a room with a Black man who was disguised to hide the fact that he’s really JFK? (I know that’s true. I saw the movie. BTW I want Bruce Campbell to play me in the movies after I die.)
Jesus! We have almost half of all Americans who DO NOT believe the science of evolution. We have a signigicant percentage of Americans who believe the Earth was created one thousand years AFTER the Sumerians invented ink.
Say, read, and repeat something enough and it becomes the truth in many peoples minds. Technology doesn’t make us any smarter. It just allows us access to more information. Most people don’t know how to separate fact from fiction.
P.T. Barnum was right.
Zifnab
But it’s all so fucking brilliant!
Bush Administration: No coverage of dead troops.
Media: We’ll sue you over it and cover everything we can in the meantime!
Meanwhile…
Wingnut’o’sphere: Why aren’t we seeing any troops in coffins? I’ve been watching FOX News for the last eight weeks and I ain’t seen nothin’! It must be because the liberal media hates our troops! Rabble rabble rabble! I’m canceling my non-existent NYT subscription right now!
Fin.
MobiusKlein
In high school, one of my good friends had a swimming pool at a military base named after his dad, for the very same kind of thing, but in Vietnam.
Never knew his dad, ever.
It was a waste then, and it’s a damn waste now too.
Do you think he would rather have his dad or the pool?
Balconesfault
I’m always amazed how much stuff that takes a 15 second google search to debunk (80% of the time through Snopes) constantly flies around the internets.
I tend to reply to whoever sent it a link to the contraverting evidence, along with the charge: “doesn’t it make you mad to be lied to that way? Do you now feel like someone has made an idiot out of you by getting you to forward such obvious trash that’s so easy to disprove?”
I rarely get thanks. But it does tend to get me off certain distribution lists.
nightjar
Well, it should be obvious to every sensible American that we can’t have the media lurking about War Dead Funerals during the peak tourist season. And how will shoppers react to TV scenes with weeping widows of heroes and little Susie so sad watching daddy put in a hole.
Things are bad enough for business as it is, without reminding folks of service men throwing themselves on live grenades to save their buddies. It’s so last year, and the year before the one before that.
JL
Balconesfault, I actually feel honored because I once received an e-mail that took me three separate search sites. Somebody is getting clever by combining all their crap.
John S.
Coincidentally, the arrows for “This Way to the Egress” and “This Way to Victory in Iraq” point in the same direction.
Just Some Fuckhead
Even more effective when used in conjunction with Reply All. Fastest computer concept my old rightwing mom picked up was BCC after such an episode.
Leo
calipygian: Seems to me that the obvious reason to prevent funeral coverage is because most funeral coverage is anti-war, or at least fuels anti-war sentiment.
In other words, protecting soldiers and their families has nothing to do with it. And the chance to accuse the librul media of bias is just a side benefit. The real point is to make sure we can have a war without visible casualties.
Halteclere
Once again you can’t disprove a negative. How do you disprove to someone who says “the media is purposely not showing what I think it should show, because they are against what I think is right”?
And speaking of people passing along lying e-mails, a coworker passed along last week to several people including me the e-mail purposely misrepresenting what Obama said in his books. My response to her was:
Though we work together I never received a response. But I’ve also not received any more e-mails!
By the way, I have never seen a chain e-mail that smears a conservative. Has anyone else ever seen such a mythical thing?
Incertus
We don’t need to smear them–when it’s the truth, it’s not a smear.
JL
What is really interesting is going to Snopes and looking up Obama and then look up McCain. You won’t be surprised about the resulsts.
mapaghimagsik
Remember, there’s warrior heroes, and then there’s you.
Davis X. Machina
Gray forgot that the organs of the State exist to serve the needs of the Party, and not the other way round, for the Party, not the State, is the Vanguard of the Glorious Revolution.
Correctly oriented cadres do not make this error, and I am not surprised to hear that she has gone to be re-educated.
Oh, and Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman.
Jake
I’m watching Campbell Brown’s CNN show. Boy is she in the tank for McCain. She led with the NYT non-story about McCain’s op-ed getting denied, complete with clips from the article. She’s practically reciting the McCain campaign’s talking points. Jesus.
Piles of stupid.
myiq2xu
McCain = 4 more years of Bush
Obama = 4 more years of Bush
Too bad we don’t have any better options left
nightjar
Obama or MCcain = 4 more years of myiq2xu pining over Hillary.
Laertes
Pet peeve: Petty Officer Monsoor was awarded the Medal of Honor. The word “Congressional” isn’t part of its’ name.
(Apropos of nothing: The Chicago Bears play in Soldier Field. There is no “Soldier’s Field” in Chicago.)
Liberal Masochist
TGP – Nice pull on Bubba Ho-Tep. Fantastic movie.
Also, I thought negativeinfinity+1iq was an Edwards supporter. It is so hard to keep track. I am still missing the embedded link in her name like the old days. Friendless and now homeless. So sad.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Drop a 16-ton weight on me if this isn’t too fncking true. There are times when I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over what a bunch of goddamn reincarnated Bolsheviks and Maoists the Bushistas have turned out to be.
You can make a parlor game out of matching them up: which one is Molotov, which one is Bukharin, which one is Kaganovich, who gets to play Lin Biao, etc.?
And not one single Peng Dehuai in the whole damn bunch.
Woodrowfan
I went to check Snopes earlier today to compare emails about McCain and those about Obama. Here is what I found…
Total emailed rumors filed under “Obama”: 26.
Number of negative: 25 (and the one positive is really about RFK as much as it is about Obama.)
OK, that’s 25 negative emails. So, how true are they?
Totally False: 16
Partly False : 5
Unknown: 3
True: 1 (which lacks context which would have made it less negative)
Wow, out of 22 emails with verifiable facts, 21 are either total or partial LIES.
Now, how does McCain compare?
Total Emails: 4 (!?!)
Positive 3
Negative 1
A big, big difference. How many are of the 4 are true? Three (3), some of which lack context which would have made them less favorable. For example, the email about how great Cindy McCain is, neglects her stealing drugs given to her charity. An oversight I’m sure.
The only one ranked as unknown is the one negative.
So, out of 3 emails about McCain with verifiable facts, NONE are lies.
So, which side, left or right, relies on lies and smears in their campaigns? I think it’s clear that the RW “wins”, hands-down.
Feel free to use this in any response to the RW smear emails you receive.
(stats as of 21 July 2008)
Halteclere
Kind of like the 1941 Harper’s Magazine article “Who Goes [Godwin’s Law].”
Halteclere
Dammit – the link didn’t imbed.
Bill
Here’s another one, even more blatantly fraudulent.
And even more obvious, complete with references to “GI’s” (on an Air Force base, no less) and “kinfolk,” and a PAO keeping count as a reporter supposedly asks 60 — 60! — service members who they plan to vote for.
But the wingnuts are buying it.
AnneLaurie
I tend to reply to whoever sent it a link to the contraverting evidence, along with the charge: “doesn’t it make you mad to be lied to that way?”… I rarely get thanks. But it does tend to get me off certain distribution lists.
On the other hand, you have a *prime* spot on Der Homeland Security’s “DFHs Due for A Good Disappearing” list…
Martin
Oh noes! Imaginary military voters are gonna get McCain elected!
Republicans really do need to feed their fictional world-view a bit more than usual, don’t they?
reid
So, John, did you respond to the message and tell them to check out your post here?
jrg
Libruls is big gubberment. gubberment is big. liburuls control gubberment and teh mediuh. gorge bush is awsume!
r€nato
Hey… that sounds familiar… where have I heard that before?
How’d that one work out for us, anyway?
Liz
I remember seeing this on the news, complete with links to YouTube videos of the service. It crossed Fark, I think.
OriGuy
There’s another entry at Snopes about proposed tax changes that are total fiction. As you would expect, it claims that Obama would raise everyone’s taxes by a huge amount.
bago
Generation Kill, ep2, 27:21. That track they are talking about was my brothers. Man that’s weird.
Xenos
I am setting up a wingnut email account to test this. I will sign some McCain petitions to see if they are sending addresses out to the smear merchants.
whocoodanode
“Gore or Bush – not a dime’s worth of difference between them” – Ralph Nader in 2000
How’d that one work out for us, anyway?”
* * * * *
If you mean how did it work out to have a flock of Dem partisans scapegoat and smear a real Progressive leader and then start calling themselves “progressive” while endlessly supporting the Dem Party’s leadership as it enabled every element of the Republican con agenda … I have to ask, how DID that work out?
Are you saying you STILL can not realize what Ralph Nader was trying to warn the nation about? Are you still under the colossal illusion that the Democratic Party leadership represents The People?
Then you must be a “big tent” “reform” Democrat. Clueless. Dry while swimming in the clue pool during a clue downpour.
Frankly, if you can’t recognize the message that Nader was trying to communicate, and you aren’t willing to hear it, then you are not Progressive. If you will smear and slander an actual Progressive champion of the Middle Class who had the courage to stand up to tell America that the Dems had sold out, you are not Progressive.
It has been quite a spectacle to watch the Righteous Indignation of the Dem Tools as they have scapegoated the man who put seatbelts in cars. It is not Nader’s credibility that the Dem little-p “progressives” have diminished, but their own. And this isn’t over; the Dems have more perfidy to serve.
It is time for Nader-blaming willfully ignorant Party tools to quit using the label Progressive.
PeterJ
About myiq0.8xu, he does offer some good insight about why he’s trolling and how we should deal with him:
Georgette Orwell
Media coverage of flag-draped coffins arriving at Dover AFB and footage of the horrors of combat brought the war in Vietnam home to people, who began to get an idea of the reality, true cost, and waste of that misguided nightmare. Then we began to take to the streets. From the beginning, this administration has prevented all such coverage–knowledge–and silenced people like Ms. Gray.
Coverage of funerals isn’t pimping or commercial exploitation of solders’ deaths; it’s actual fairly good journalism. It also does honor those who died, because Bushco is pretending they don’t exist. If indeed the wingnuts are pushing for more coverage, I hope they get it, for they’ll find out that it focuses attention on the true results of this debacle. To a degree, it might balance out the right-wing talking heads and show just how glorious is McCain’s idea of “success.”
I agree with nightjar.
scarshapedstar
Shorter whocoodanode:
“Why, no, I’ve never heard the old adage ‘The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.'”
4tehlulz
BWAAAAHAAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA Is that how you sleep at night, oh great tool of the GOP?
cleek
it is time for Nader supporters to face the reality that their candidate will not win, ever.
Neal
Hey, I may not agree with the gist of the post, but damn, that is a fun analogy.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
You know who else was pushing the theme that Obama was just like Bush?
The Moar You Know
The Green party is not about winning elections. Even Ralph Nader, publicity whore that he is, doesn’t give two shits about winning an election.
To my shame, it took me years to figure this out – well after the 2000 debacle.
The Green party is the same kind of entity as the kids in high school who sat out in the parking lot, smoking pot and listening to Metallica – too cool for anyone, but facing a miserable future due to their failure to assimilate. Same kind of mentality going on in the Green party, but with a malign twist:
They’re going to teach all us stupid mundanes a lesson.
Like I said, I didn’t figure this out for a long time, until the news started coming out about how the Greens had taken GOP funding for a contest in Pennsylvania. Oh, they threw around a lot of fine-sounding rhetoric about how they didn’t care where the money came from, they weren’t beholden to anybody and would use it for their own ends – but that they were colluding with the GOP to defeat Democrats in order to elect Republicans told anyone who was willing to look at the ugly truth what was going on.
The Greens are the ultimate purity trolls, and just as slobberingly in love with authority as the 28 percenters on the right. Hell, the extreme left invented the Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist purge, amirite? The extreme left knows how to elevate party over country just as well as the extreme right does.
So they’re going to teach us a lesson, and frankly, they are going to be able to keep teaching it for a long time as there is no shortage of geniunely frustrated folks on the left to be taken advantage of by these folks.
Zifnab
Nader is, was, and always will be a protest vote. When every other Presidential Candidate takes a swan dive to the right during election season, Nader is the only guy on a ticket that isn’t pimping Big Oil subsidies, new wars, and another round of crackdowns on drug users. He is inevitably the most progressive voice in the election, when he is allowed to speak.
I like to think he drags the discourse to the left as much as he is able. And – in a red state – he gives me someone to vote for when I know my vote isn’t going to get counted anyway (dear electoral college: fuck you).
In 2000, Al Gore was coming out of the Clinton school and didn’t look in the least like the progressive he does today. I can absolutely understand why Gore lost votes to Nader, and Gore has no one to blame but himself. In 2004, Kerry lost votes to Nader for the same reasons.
Nader is a positive force in this country, even if he is often misguided. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, fuck it. We’re there already. At least we can have nice streets.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Never considered voting Libertarian?
Cassidy
Considering that the MOH is a our Nation’s highest award for heroism, I’m not sure I see the problem with a public funeral for a national hero. You don’t have to agree with the war to appreciate what he did for his fellow warriors.
Speaking of warrior, the Spec Ops community has been referred to that way for many years. The Army has lately (last 5 years) made a transfer to that kind of language, for its regular Soldiers, but it makes a lot of sense. With today’s generation(s) coming in, they have no direction, so connecting them to the warrior societies of the past helps to form the identity necessary to be a combat troop.
roo roo
Having served in the Navy and during boot camp, endured Seal physical training, I have had nothing but awe for these chaps. They are the truly elite. They are the stoic silent sailors I feared and respected. That story is just unreal.
Makes me sad.
roo roo
This just makes me sad. In bootcamp in San Diego I was killed by these guys in PT. I saw how they were. They are elite and bound to each other. Each loss they suffer in their ranks is felt tremendously.
I can imagine no better farewell.
Just an awesome parting.
Brachiator
The problem is that many “progressives,” like most libertarians, care more about cultivating their ideological purity than they care about actually winning elections.
binzinerator
Makes absolutely no sense for a democracy to promote a “warrior society” anywhere.
I’m not surprised the army has adopted this bullshit. It’s a symptom of the increased militarization of this nation’s culture, a sign of the disease of permanent war that kills democracies.
binzinerator
I believe Nader merely practices another form of disaster capitalism. He really does need to be the spoiler, because he won’t ever get enough votes to win anything as things are now.
so he wants a chance to clean up the shit. But we know he’s not going to be allowed to. However, if you can’t bring about the emptying of the half-full barrel of shit yourself, you can accelerate the filling so when the seams burst and cover everyone with shit, you can be there to offer a clean towel and a new barrel.
So if people lack the will for change by progressive ideas, then the goal is to create the will for change as a reaction to catastrophic collapse.
He wants both parties to fail, but it is better that the Dems fail because some of their policies actually help mitigate some of the misery. And that is the problem.
If you see a smattering of successful policies as band-aids that only pretend to heal but in reality delay the recovery, you want a full-blown septic shit infection so you can administer previously rejected antibiotics to utterly stamp out the pathogens.
George W. Bush is exactly what Nader wanted, which is why Nader also wants McCain.
In catastrophe he sees his opportunity. The bigger the catastrophe, the better the opportunity.
For that reason he’ll try to be a spoiler for Obama too. But unlike Gore or Kerry, it won’t be close enough for it to matter.
scarshapedstar
I’m gonna have to go ahead and second that. We are supposed to have citizen soldiers, not samurai. If that’s not studly enough to provide cohesion, too fucking bad. There are no low-self-esteem sufferers in foxholes.
Cassidy
And you both would be idiots. But then I guess you’re also part of that 70% of the US who hasn’t had to sacrifice anything beyond your morning donut, if traffic is too rough.
Regardless of what you think or feel, the facts are simple: every freedom this country enjoys, every tenet of the Constitution (that you espouse knowledge of)…has been bought and paid for with someone’s blood. Instead of being self-righteous, ignorant little shits, you should think about what others have done for you.