Dan Froomkin at Huffington Post (yeah, but I respect Froomkin) brings news of another blast from the past:
Even as President Obama on Thursday attempts to put a good face on the war in Afghanistan, Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and several dozen other anti-war protesters will be chaining themselves to the White House fence, inviting arrest in the name of peace.
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“We are dedicated to exposing the true costs of war and militarism,” explained Mike Ferner, the president of Veterans for Peace, the group organizing Thursday’s Lafayette Square rally and civil disobedience.
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“We’ve killed well over a million people. We’ve orphaned and displaced five times that number at least. And here in our own country, we’ve managed to throw millions of people of out work and out of their homes,” Ferner told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “There is a connection there. That connection is the true cost of war.”
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Citing information available for every city and state in America on the Cost of War website, the former Navy hospital corpsman noted that his hometown of Toledo alone has sent almost a billion dollars into the war effort…
There’s more information at the Veterans for Peace link. But since these are DFHs, I doubt the media will give them anywhere near the same attention as those Very Serious People grifting under the No Label banner…
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
fxd
El Cid
All this will do is embolden Al Qa’ida’s #3 and get Nixon elected.
Mark S.
If I’ve learned anything from reading Very Serious People talk about foreign policy, it’s that the most important thing is to show resolve. It doesn’t matter how hopeless or unwinnable a war is, nothing impresses other countries more than blowing trillions of dollars and killing millions of people just to show you mean business.
Just Some Fuckhead
Truth is, this will get less play on our own side because nothing paints you like a fringe wacko quicker than opposition to the eternal war machine. We gotta be serious and compromise down to one good war.
Delia
Maybe if we all stick our fingers in our ears and sing “la la la, I can’t hear you!” really, really loud nothing bad will happen . . .
WyldPirate
But things are going really well in Afghanistan. General Petreus said so and those darned US Intelligence agencies are wrong! We have made great progress in the last six weeks.
Victory in the wars is at hand!
Corner Stone
The next six months are critical.
jwb
“I doubt the media will give them anywhere near the same attention as those Very Serious People grifting under the No Label banner…” This is hard to say. It depends on whether the corporate overlords deem that giving the antiwar protesters coverage will weaken the President more than it will cut into the warmongering. In any case, my completely cynical self believes the corporate overlords and VSP are oh so very tired of Afghanistan and recognize that we can’t start a war with Iran until we are basically out of Afghanistan. And the corporate overlords and VSP very, very much want a war with Iran… The antiwar protests in that sense serve the long term goal of war with Iran.
Mark S.
Senator Dipshit, R-SC:
What fucking Christian thinks Christmas is the most sacred holiday? Shit, anyone can come out of vagina. The rising from the dead is the hard part.
Delia
@jwb:
Also, according to Wikilinks, such a move would greatly please our good friends in Saudi Arabia. Although they would be forced to publicly denounce us as the Great Satan, naturally. And I expect it would please Al Qaida for rather different reasons.
Sly
@Mark S.:
Last year that “something” was the ACA. This year it’s Harry Reid’s dick.
Chris
See, when Sarah Palin tweets something, that’s breaking news on CNN. When Sarah Palin answers email, that’s a cover story in Time magazine. When conservatives protest something, that’s a sign that the government/Democrats have gone too far, because “everyone”/”real Americans” know(s) that conservatives don’t like protesting, because it’s unseemly (you know, because hippies do it), so that means that the conservative protesters are doing something even more meaningful, because they hate copying hippies (Bristol Palin’s love-child notwithstanding) (John Boehner’s feelings/crying notwithstanding) (Michael Steele’s “I’m sticking it to The Man!” shtick notwithstanding).
When anyone on the left protests something, it’s a sign that (1) the media should ignore both the protesters and the issue to show how serious the media is, (2) Obama should move to the center again/more, and (3) the media needs to find some other liberals to counter-protest, on TV/in print, by supporting points #1 and #2.
Delia
@Mark S.:
I think the ones who have decided the whole point of the occasion is buying lots and lots of crap. I mean, if money is your most sacred idol . . .
Oh wait, that would mean there’s something wrong with these guys, wouldn’t it?
freelancer
@Mark S.:
You can’t cradle Baby Jesus without nuclear arms.
Jewish Steel
@Sly:
I can see glimpses of why Reid has been an effective behind the scenes negotiator. I would dread having him patiently explain to me why I continually disappoint him.
“Yes, Mr. Reid. No, Mr. Reid. Yes, I will try harder Mr. Reid.”
Chris
@Sly: Boy, conservatives sure get off on that “shoving ___ down our throats” reference, don’t they? They just keeping whipping it out, pushing it out of their mouths, beating it like a dead horse, milking it,
shootingshouting it at everyone, spraying it around, pulling it out of their asses, and using it over and over again.Uloborus
I am on the ‘we had to go into Afghanistan, but it’s fucked now thanks to Bush’ team, and I completely support this protest and hope it gets coverage and attention. That much money and (much worse) that many lives should not be pissed away because it makes the armchair generals feel manly. I much prefer a reflexively isolationist public to a reflexively Jingoist public. Iraq is Exhibit A of why war should not be treated lightly.
fucen tarmal
@Mark S.:
if you have ever taken a drug more exciting than lipitor, that walking on water thing would be pretty cool, base a holiday around that.
to speak nothing of the water into wine thing, that could be an 8 day thing, like haunukah, except the candles go into empty bottles.
jwb
@Delia: Unfortunately, I’ve come to think it’s inevitable unless the US falls apart or Iran gets a working bomb before all the pieces can be put in place. The problems in this country are just so huge and there’s clearly little will to address them. What do you do when you have an unsolvable problem in a declining empire? Why, you launch a war to distract everyone, of course!
PPOG Penguin
@Mark S.: A major arms control treaty? Yes, that is “sacrilegious and disrespectful” to the season of peace on earth.
amk
Remember that birther nut of an army doctor, who said he wouldn’t deploy since he does not accept this Prez as his CO ? Well, …..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-us-canada-12005993
Oh, sweet schadenfreud.
handy
@Mark S.:
You’re right of course, but he doesn’t know any better since he himself is not actually a Christian. He and everyone of his RW mouthbreathing colleagues are panderers, and the people who continue to vote for them can’t be bothered to actually read that bible they continue to idolize.
handy
@amk:
This is the best part:
Funny how the prospects of jail time can put things into perspective for some people!
amk
@handy: Yup. That ‘doctor’ should cure himself first.
srv
The only voice that got any real attention focused on Bush was Sheehan, and all the John Cole’s of Left could do was punch her for it.
Fenster
(Because nothing else is on…)
Watching Paul Begala and Dana Loesch debate the whole “working during Christmas is sacrilege” meme on Anderson Cooper.
Like most of the other GOP cable news pundits, she’s obnoxious and full of empty rhetoric. She even gets smarmy at some points with the back-and-forth.
But dear God, she’s hot. Like an early 90’s Demi Moore. How on earth did she get mixed up with a huckster like Breitbart?
Brick Oven Bill
handy does not comprehend the historical role of government.
freelancer
@srv:
This is a joke, right?
handy
@Brick Oven Bill:
Ooh do enlighten me, Brick Oven Bill.
srv
@freelancer: I take it you missed it. One of the more amicable examples here.
You would know ppGaz today as Stuck.
Brick Oven Bill
Read your books, my friend.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@Mark S.: I would pay good money to see their reaction if Franken, Cardin &c complained about having to work during Yom Kippur.
cat48
Are they gay? because those protests always get rubbed in the president’s face so there’s still hope for you & Froomkin.
handy
@Brick Oven Bill:
Awww c’mon Bill. Don’t leave me hanging like this, my brother! You gotta give me something, anything. Just a little synopsis would do even.
freelancer
@srv:
I thought it was a joke because of your assertion that “The only voice that got any real attention focused on Bush was Sheehan” and that’s flatly untrue. She became a media spectacle sure, but from the very thread you quote John Cole as “punching her”, check this out (And keep in mind this is still self-identified Republican John Cole, about 6 months after Shiavo):
This is the same Cindy Sheehan that went on to protest alongside ineffectual goofballs like Code Pink, praise Hugo Chavez, and challenge Nancy Smash from the LEFT. In her grief she allowed opportunists of the activist fringe left exploit her story, and in doing so, she became a public figure. Criticizing what she says isn’t demeaning a grieving mom, nor is it defaming the loss of Casey Sheehan.
asiangrrlMN
@amk: Fuck, yeah! Nice way to torpedo your own fucking career, asshole.
srv
@freelancer:
It is absolutely true. Cindy started her own crusade and became a willing lightning rod and the media followed. Nobody against the war got any airtime outside of the faposphere until her. And as soon as she did, the John Cole’s and their ilk piled on trying to make it all about her, the evil fringe left, and not the message. From Day One.
I could care less what career she made out of it, or how silly she seems to you serious folks. Tens of millions of nightly news viewers had to see her camp every day, and nothing anyone else in the anti-war movement ever did holds a candle to to that
freelancer
@srv:
And Dan Choi was the catalyst to bring Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal to the forefront. Nevermind Victor Fehrenbach or any one of the tens who have bravely come forward or been interviewed while continuing to serve.
It’s not the same to say that NO ONE else was pursuing media strategies to bring the anti-war voice to the country’s attention. Iraq was so fuckered by 2005 that if it wasn’t Sheehan, it would have been someone else in the media that Summer. There were hundreds of thousands actively trying to make their voices heard against the war in Iraq. Don’t act like the media wouldn’t have been suckered by a circus of a different color.
Yutsano
No mas teef gnashing for me tonight. Gonna drink cocoa moo and debate getting up early to fix the car.
honus
@Brick Oven Bill: Books are for sissy elitist intellectuals. Tell us your bumper sticker.
Marc McKenzie
@Mark S.:
Your last two sentences are the funniest things I’ve read in weeks. Thanks for making me laugh out loud–I needed it.
Hell, I might as well put them up on a sign to display. Great stuff!
Mark S.
@Marc McKenzie:
It would look good on one of those church billboards.
Angry Black Lady
Oh! Another thoughtful black co-citizen!
Kumbaya mah lord
Kumbaya
You know the rest.