Smearing military vets in a partisan fight is not a new thing for the people who slandered the Swift Boat Vets.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) June 3, 2014
This is sub tweet is good too.
@baseballcrank Or Democrats in general. Remember spitting on nam vets??
— CJN 54 (@cjn54) June 3, 2014
(via)
Joel
Baseball crank was once a pretty good baseball analyst, but he’s been lapped by Fangraphs and sucks in every other arena.
Svensker
This whole thing has me so upset. I just can’t believe they’re doing it. And criticizing the father for “looking like the Taliban”? The guy is an Idaho fundamentalist Calvinist Christian homeschooler FFS.
Every time I think they can’t go lower…
raven
“The only ones who ever spit on me were cops.”
My buddy Karlos, door gunner, 1st Cav 68-69
flukebucket
@raven: I hope you don’t mind if I tuck this away for future reference and use
Eric U.
I don’t think there really are any credible reports of spitting on vets. I recall a major party convention where purple heart bandaids were worn though
Shakezula
To encapsulate the MCM you need a tweet that links to a video of a monkey flinging shit.
Suffern ACE
@Eric U.: Saxby Chambliss. And that’s the last I want to hear from these conservative republican vets groups on the issue.
max
Translation: conservative mistreatment of vets is REQUIRED. Rumoured liberal mistreatment of vets mandates that we invade Iraq.
max
[‘Third time’s the charm!’]
Seanly
Who slandered the Swift Boat Vets? Weren’t they the people slandering John Kerry?
Also, isn’t Bergdahl’s former regiment members slandering him? I’m sure 90% of them didn’t even know the guy but can definitively state the circumstances under which he was captured. I haven’t seen anyone attacking the talkative vets.
Bubblegum Tate
If only our poor little conservatives didn’t “know” so many things that are outright lies….
japa21
Being around during the Nam years, I remember all the Dem politicians going around spitting on vets, calling them names, besmirching them… Oh wait, no they didn’t.
From a political point of view, it seems only Republicans do that.
SFAW
I’m confused: is he saying that people who called out a bunch of Koch (or equivalent) shills slandered said shills?
What a moron. Or a liar. Or both.
Suffern ACE
Also, Chuck Hagel is unfit to be DoD Secretary because he was a common soldier, not an officer. Again, I’m pretty certain I don’t want to hear about whining conservative vet fee-fees.
dmsilev
Yes, I remember one Swift Boat veteran in particular who was slandered.
His name is John Kerry.
scav
Ohthesweetdears. They assume “Swift Boat”s definition in the wider world is “Height of Nonpartisan Patriotism”.
RSA
@Svensker:
Really? I look at Phil Robertson and I’m not seeing a huge difference.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So are they arguing that Bergdahl should have been left to die? or that the powerful Deatheaters released from Azkatanamo will find Osama bin Voldermort’s horcruces and take over the Ministry?
Brian R.
@RSA:
My thoughts exactly.
I guess he can tell that the Duck Dynasty beard is truly Murican because fuck you, that’s why.
Hunter Gathers
@Svensker:
Seriously? Have you not been paying attention the past 6 years? Anything, and I do mean anything that is even remotely associated with Obama must be denigrated and destroyed. White people have completely flipped their collective shit. The White Tribe’s madness might just get us all killed.
dmsilev
@Suffern ACE:
Unfortunately for all of us, despite what we want this won’t be the last that we will hear from these groups. I doubt anyone will be able to predict what new Shiny Object will next attract their attention, but it’s dead certain that there will be another Shiny Object. There’s always another Shiny Object.
Roger That
If there’s anything the right despises it’s people who look like the taliban. For reference, here’s a pic one of the actual taliban we just swapped for Bowe.
Edit: had the same thought as RSA
danimal
Ummmm, even if the spitting on vets accusation is true (which I doubt except in very rare cases), it can only be true for people in their late 50’s and older at this point. FFS, if that’s the best they got, it may work with the geriatric Fox crowd but no one else.
Can we get over Vietnam already?
SFAW
@japa21:
Yes, they did. There’s INCONTROVERTIBLE proof that a Recih-winger heard a rumor that someone who was probably a hippie might have spit on someone who was a ‘Nam vet at some point, somewhere, under unknown circumstances — and the sort-of rumor “had the ring of truth” in a way.
Plus, Benghazi.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Little-known fact: ‘Guantanamo’ translates into English as ‘Arkham Asylum’. They’re worried about releasing the Joker and Lex Luthor.
Frankensteinbeck
@Hunter Gathers:
Yep. This is what’s different from the Clinton years. Sure, they hated Clinton, and were assholes to him. They weren’t bugfuck insane about it.
jenn
Man, I am so pissed off about all this I could spit. Let the kid come back home and recover. God, I hope he is firewalled up the wazoo from any contact with this shit, because if I was feeling pretty precarious, and experienced this much hate being flung at me … I don’t have any idea how I’d react, but it wouldn’t be well.
Tractarian
Fixed!
Brian R.
I like how the Baseball Crank guy is spreading the myth that dirty hippies spat on Vietnam Vets when they returned home.
BC was born in the early ’70s, and so he has no personal memories of that time at all, but he marches in lockstep with his masters like a good little doggie.
Bubblegum Tate
@Seanly:
Nobody did. But people did point out that the Swift Boat Vets were lying. And that, in the realm of oh-so-tender conservative tough guys, is “slander.”
big ole hound
@Eric U.: I was spit on while in USN uniform in 1965 in the train station in Providence RI. I punched and broke his nose and while his friends screamed I got on the train and left.
Svensker
@Hunter Gathers:
I have been, but I guess a part of me is still naive and thinks there must be SOME decency left inside a few of them.
TerryC
@danimal: The spitting isn’t true as any sort of general rule. I returned home after 4.5 years and three Vietnam tours, to parties and greeting cards sent by relatives and classmates. IMO what happened post-war was that many “conservative” veterans started to learn, over time, how they were lied to and used. Feeling like a victim, and unable to handle having been lied to by authorioty figures, then they substitute hippies for the politicians and military leaders in their projection of blame. (Also ties in with having to learn things.)
Tractarian
@SFAW:
That wasn’t a hippie, it was Roger McDowell.
TaMara (BHF)
This whole thing has me so angry at the world in general. But, I’m praying, as seems to be Pres. Obama’s gift, that this comes around to bite both the MSM and the Rethugs in the ass hard.
Support our troops, except of course if the President is for it, then we’re against it.
“Merika, fuck ya!”
Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)
@RSA:
I’d guess Bob Bergdahl’s personal hygiene is superior – and I see no sign that he approves of marrying underage girls.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: I knew a guy who was absolutely positive that “Klinton” had had Ron Brown’s plane sabotaged on the basis of a facial expression that Clinton showed in a few frames of the raw satellite feed of the memorial service.
AliceBlue
Even some of the commenters at Kos are all “But, but, but there’s this mountain of evidence that he’s a deserter and maybe was planning to join the Taliban!!!”
I really should have started drinking first thing this morning.
Lurking Canadian
@dmsilev: not dangerous enough. They’re convinced we’ve got Magneto and Doctor Doom in there. Possibly Galactus.
Kristin
@Suffern ACE: I’ve met Max Cleland, and he is the sweetest person imaginable. Needless to day, I hate Saxby Chambliss.
Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)
@AliceBlue:
I sense a new tagline in the Force.
Kristin
@Frankensteinbeck: I mean, they accused them of murdering people. They were pretty bugfuck insane. That said, I still think their Obama hate exceeds their Clinton hate.
Belafon
@AliceBlue: There’s also a diary there that says sometimes it’s best not to read the comments.
Raven
@SFAW: pat lang
KG
guys, guys, guys… you’re forgetting the basic rules of this game. first, you can’t use anything wingnuts have said in the past against them (support for Romneycare or the alternative to Hillarycare that were the same thing as Obamacare doesn’t count, same for deficits mattering when Clinton was in the White House, or that the POW in Afghanistan should be brought home at any cost). second, calling them liars is like calling them child molesters, it is slander per se and the truth is not a defense (because SHUT UP THAT’S WHY). third, anecdotes are sufficient if it proves the wingnuts’ point, data is irrelevant if it disproves the wingnuts’ point. fourth, history starts anew whenever they say it does.
basically, it’s political Calvinball, only without the tiger (for now).
GregB
This and the draconian carbon rules will the Democratic Party. At least that is what Msnbc was saying earlier. Only a war hero like Ted Cruz can save the Republic.
Trollhattan
O/T, good gawd.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27684258
My daughter is…12.
Suffern ACE
So for those of you keeping score over the last week, we need to fight for the release of a vet who was arrested in Mexico because patriotism, but weren’t supposed to do anything about an actual soldier being held hostage.
AliceBlue
@Belafon:
Good advice!
Bobby Thomson
@AliceBlue: So the fuck what? Thousands of people comment at the GOS, including people who are right wing and Republicans posing as purity trolls.
Raven
@TerryC: And some of us went to DC and told them to shove their fucking war up their asses.
Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers)
@Trollhattan:
I am almost afraid to ask but… is Slenderman a devotee of blood sacrifice? How does any of this make sense?
Villago Delenda Est
Guys who actually served with Kerry stood by him, in public.
The utter vermin that are “Swift Boat Vets” attacked from the shadows, as their cowardly, craven lot is inclined to.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kristin:
They spread whackjob smear theories. There’s a big, big difference between that and trying to default on the debt because they don’t like a law Obama passed, vetoing their own laws again and again, and this beautiful example of painting a freed POW as a traitor because Obama did it. Parroting some damn fool ‘He’s evil, I tell you!’ meme is very easy. Launching primary campaigns against congressmen who used to be considered dangerously extremist because they didn’t destroy the country to spite one black man requires passion. It requires pathology, cutting off your own nose to spite your face. They are worlds apart.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE: Well, that guy was arrested on a gun charge. How dare Mexico have any laws that violate the sacred later clauses of the 2nd Amendment?
Hunter Gathers
@Svensker
Decency requires empathy. Most white people lack empathy for those outside their tribe. Why bother possessing any empathy when expressing said empathy can get you kicked out of your tribe? Being called a racist isn’t the biggest fear white people have. It’s being called a nigger lover.
Trollhattan
@Suffern ACE:
Hmmm, maybe Sgt Bergdahl’s “crime” was not adequately protecting his gun…er…rifle?
chopper
@Svensker:
the amazing thing is the dad looks like he’s straight out of duck dynasty.
ETA: others got there first. fuck you, internet!
Culture of Truth
“Shaka, when the walls fell!!”
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Trollhattan: Think of Waukesha as the Mos Eisley of Wisconsin.
Kay
@AliceBlue:
But then what? Where do they go after “treason”, etc.? Leave him there forever? I listened to a military lawyer on the radio and there’s about 20 shades of gray even within any potential charge or punishment. AWOL depends on how long he was gone before he was captured, etc.
I still don’t know what that has to do with whether to go get him or not. Really, if they want him charged (assuming he did something wrong) don’t we have to go get him?
I just keep coming back to this brick wall with all these complaints. If they’re mad that the prisoners were released in exchange, if that makes their service less meaningful, well, what the plan there? Hold the prisoners in Cuba forever?
The soldier stays with the Taliban forever and the prisoners in Cuba stay there forever and then everyone is happy.
drkrick
The last time I looked into this, the only documented case of someone spitting on any Vietnam vets was an aggrieved WWII vet who would show up at the San Francisco airport to abuse returning Vietnam soldiers because they weren’t winning like he did. It was pretty clearly not a common practice outside of some overactive imaginations.
AliceBlue
@Bobby Thomson:
I know, I know. Why did I even bother?
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: No, they were bugfuck insane then, just as they’re bugfuck insane now.
Clinton supposedly had people killed, ran a vast illicit cocaine operation out of Mena, Arkansas, made millions on Whitewater (as did Hillary on cattle futures) and so forth.
The insanity was as intense then as it is now.
Trollhattan
@Morzer (0th of His PseudoName and Founder of the Walter Sobchak Peacekeepers):
As a typical clueless parent I, naturally, have not heard of this character. Will cautiously ask at dinner whether he ever shows up in Minecraft–kid #1’s prime time-waster.
Villago Delenda Est
@drkrick: The most likely place for a Vietnam vet to be spat upon was an American Legion hall.
scav
@Hunter Gathers: I’m most likely to punch someone if they called me a Mississippi supporter. (Geographic alternatives exist). Listening right now to the passionate and widespead use of voter fraud by the brave defenders of states rights! in the past.
i’m skipping around a bit in my listening to David Blight.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan: Weapon. It’s a weapon.
NEVER call it a gun anywhere within ear shot of a drill sergeant, or you will regret it.
Trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Heh. Only the sand is frozen solid most of the year.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Villago Delenda Est: It is okay to refer to this a gun.
Hunter Gathers
@Culture of Truth: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Mike in NC
For clarification, the scum who slandered Kerry called themselves ‘Swift Boat Veterans for The Truth’, even though they were in fact liars.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Well, yes, that and its smaller 155mm and 105mm cousins.
That are still big honkin’ guns.
Did I mention I was once the 9th ID DIVARTY signal officer?
scav
ah, quick OT Question in re Civil War ranks as the crowd is likely here. I’m running accross a few apparent Sgt to Pvt demotions (incoming v. outgoing ranks). Is this a hint of anything going wrong or is this sort of churn normal at these lower levels over a three-year period of battling across grumpy fields?
Patrick
@AliceBlue:
People on the left can be just as dumb as people on the right. The whole “Obama failed to close Gitmo” garbage is evidence of that.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
Everything I know about boot camp I learned from “Full Metal Jacket.” In real life I might could have become “Pyle”; hopefully, would have been one or two rungs above in the pecking order.
Belafon
@Trollhattan: All three of my sons, 19,14,9, all know about Slenderman, and none of them would attempt to do that kind of thing. But, then again, mine also don’t feel a need to have to follow someone else.
BGinCHI
@scav: Where are you seeing these? There could be lots of reasons. North, South, or both?
One reason could be the early short enlistments (6-9 months) that were chaotic, followed by the longer hitches after 1861.
Maybe others have more technical knowledge.
Ash Can
The fastest way to turn Tahmooressi from a hero into a gun runner, drug runner and Iranian sleeper agent is for Obama to arrange his release and return. Take it to the bank.
eric
You have to wonder if Obama did not arrange for his capture 5 years ago just so that he had this marvelous get of jail card for when his presidency was collapsing as it is now with the failure of Obamacare and VA controversy. This is right out of the Alinsky Playbook.
Trollhattan
@Ash Can:
I like the way you think.
KG
@Hunter Gathers: Tembra, his arms wide
SFAW
@Culture of Truth:
Mrs. SFAW’s favorite TNG episode. I keep telling her it’s kinda ridiculous for an entire race/planet to speak only
in anagramspalindromesSpoonerismsthat manner.Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Villago Delenda Est:
[email protected]scav: I would guess that is was fairly common. During WWII, my grandfather went from E-1 to E-7 down to E-1 and back up to E-6 between 1943 and 1946. Never did get the full story of why he got busted.
Culture of Truth
@Hunter Gathers:
“Hillary and Vince Foster on the ocean… the left together”
Hunter Gathers
@KG: Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel
Sublime33
I have a hard time believing that spitting on a Vietnam vet was anything but an isolated incident. The common form of contempt was flipping the bird, not spitting. As time goes on, the urban legend is that men in uniform had to run a gauntlet spitting hippies in airports. No reports of getting flipped off, just spitting. Call me skeptical.
SFAW
@eric:
This.
Except it’s “Alinksy” in Wingnuttia.
Suffern ACE
@Kay:
Yes. Guantanamo is victory somehow. Guantamo is something that kind of intenally happened that is central to what the war was about and lots of people don’t want to give it up.
scav
@BGinCHI: Three year regiment (62-65) Union, figthing in the western theater and then through GA. As they may have been be-sgted before they ever saw battle and then rearranged later I was assuming no biggie, but I thought I’d ask on a whim.
KG
@SFAW: why? that’s basically how the wingnuts communicate. if they win long term, that’s how we’ll all talk.
SFAW
@Hunter Gathers:
… in the Study with the Candlestick.
xenos
@big ole hound:
This is before my time, but was that not the pre-hippy period?
Not that it relates to your point, which is that some spitting took place. I don’t doubt that. Do you have an idea of who was doing the spitting, and why?
scav
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Thanks, that sounds extremely yo-yo-ie but the gradations may be finer!
BGinCHI
@scav: Not an easy question to answer. Lots of vagaries there. Could have a look at the Billy Yank and/or Johnny Reb books to see if there is anything in there. Mine are in my office and I can look later if you’d like.
You could also email the President of Harvard. I bet she’d email you back. I had a question for Eric Foner a few years ago for a project and he got right back to me.
Hill Dweller
@Villago Delenda Est: The difference now is the procedural extremism in congress. Since Obama became president, they’ve tried to shut congress down. Even non-controversial nominees for non cabinet level positions are taking months to get approved. The wingnuts have tried to shut down the government and/or default on our debt repeatedly since Jan. 2011.
For example, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was approved 96-3 for the SC. What do you think would happen if Obama nominated her today? No President since Lincoln has faced this level of obstructionism.
The Other Chuck
@SFAW: I believe the explanation was that their language was so foreign to the universal translator that only the allusions got through. Once you’re talking about universal translators, you kind of have to suspend your disbelief anyway.
ranchandsyrup
i thought this was next level trolling when i first saw it.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@scav: My grand father was extremely competent. I think the drop in rank was intended to be temporary punishment for some bad deed and the promotions back up to E-6 came pretty quickly.
mouse tolliver
And as it turns out some of the same people who now want to whack off to a Bowe Bergdahl decapitation video over at LiveLeak supported his release “by any means necessary” as recently as last January.
Flashback! 1/2014: PJ Media Encourages Readers to Sign Petition to Free Bergdahl “By Any Means Necessary”
scav
@BGinCHI: I think an .edu gets you a bit further than the mere .gmail I can muster, but who knows! Thanks.
Mandalay
@Suffern ACE:
Alternatively:
– Obama failed us and should be impeached because he didn’t rescue diplomats in Libya.
– Obama failed us and should be impeached because he rescued a soldier in Afghanistan.
I hope that clarifies the situation.
eric
@mouse tolliver: Unpossible!
Mnemosyne
@mouse tolliver:
I guess “by any means necessary” means “any means that allow Republicans to take all the credit.”
The Other Chuck
@mouse tolliver: “By any means necessary” really meant “With as much violence as possible”. Namby-pamby things like prisoner exchanges are in fact the complete opposite of what these shitheels want.
piratedan
@eric: that was some very delicious snark there, so well done, all I would have added was that Bergdahl had previously served in Benghazi where he was there to hide Obama’s original Kenyan birth certificate.
The Other Chuck
Please proceed, conservative movement.
eric
@piratedan: except Benghazi was itself a false flag to direct the investigations away from the Fast and the Furious and IRS abuses of power. Free Cuba!
sharl
Like others upthread, I suspect there actually were a few returning Vietnam War vets who were spit upon in the manner fantasized about by wingnuts seeking to preserve their illusions. But most such instances were most likely the product of frustration, time, and rage-inspired fantasizing.
Kevin Baker wrote about the more general ‘we were stabbed in the back’ phenomenon (Dolchstoßlegende) a few years ago* (its post-WWI origins are discussed here, though I suspect it goes back much further), and Baker in turn referenced Jerry Lembcke’s book The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, where this legend of spitting anti-war activists was explained – and if your fevered male imagination invoked young hippie girls doing the alleged spitting, the rage-making was all the more intense apparently.
*June 2006 HARPERS magazine, available by subscription only (and .pdf only, 10pp).
SFAW
@mouse tolliver:
The dishonesty (both “general” and intellectual [sic]) exhibited by Bridget Johnson in that exchange was breathtaking.
max
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I would guess that is was fairly common. During WWII, my grandfather went from E-1 to E-7 down to E-1 and back up to E-6 between 1943 and 1946. Never did get the full story of why he got busted.
Was he discharged in ’46? Lots and lots of guys who were in the service pre-war (pick a war – Civil War, Spanish-American War, WWI, WWII, Korea) got promoted quickly when the war broke out, and then when it was over got demoted (although usually not to their original rank).
max
[‘Otherwise, you’d have more 1st L. running around than privates.’]
SFAW
@piratedan:
Actually, he was there to “take care of” Amb. Stevens, who was about to release both Osamabama’s Kenyan birth cert, AND the “Whitey” tape.
Culture of Truth
@Mandalay:
Obama must not use force in Syria
Obama should use force in Ukraine
Obama is weak for not using force in Syria
GOP would not use force in Ukraine
Repeat as needed. Hope this clarifies.
Culture of Truth
— Obama is reluctant to use force, making America look weak
— Four dead Americans!!!
repeat as needed
jl
Over at TPM, I see the Fox News meme of the day is that Bergdahl’s dad looks like a Taliban, because, beard!
I feel like I am in grade school again, watching old farts fuss about these damn kids tidee, with ther dang long heer, dammitall.
Well, I guess those people back in the day who used to yell about them damn hippies, and take out on every kid who came after for the next twenty years (yes, I am still bitter about that) are the main Fox News demographic now. So, it figures.
Paul in KY
@Lurking Canadian: I don’t think they could hold Galactus in there. For the record…
Ash Can
@jl: As opposed to the beards on the Duck Dynasty guys, which are totally okay.
Brian R.
Wow, just checked in and the Baseball Cock is still at it.
He has a thirteen-part chain of tweets that will really educate you about the Truth™ behind the Swift-Boat Veterans Who Totally Didn’t Lie.
I encourage everyone to read them, or simply smash their frontal lobe with a rock. The results will be the same.
Cacti
Sarah Palin on Bowe Bergdahl prior to yesterday:
max
@jl: Well, I guess those people back in the day who used to yell about them damn hippies, and take out on every kid who came after for the next twenty years (yes, I am still bitter about that) are the main Fox News demographic now.
Yup. We gotta stay in ‘Nam not because we were winning but to prove our determination lest the Communists sense an opening and steal all the wimmens and liquor.
max
[‘The next sentence would probably be something involving black people and welfare. And communism.’]
kindness
I was around during Vietnam. I’m don’t think of myself as an old but I am an end boomer. During the war those who were against the war and those who supported the war really did physically fight. It wasn’t all that unoften. You’ve seen the old news footage of demonstrations and the fights. That happened, a lot. I have no doubt that sometimes in leading up to those fights ugly things happened from both sides.
I never spit on any vets I came across or knew. I never fought with them. Most vets coming back from Nam thought Nam was wrong. My cousin married a West Point Cadet at West Point (it was a really nice ceremony & place to get married) who was a gung ho crazy war hawk came back completely disillusioned about the army & the war.
The right is doing the same things now they did then. Anyone who isn’t on their side is automatically the enemy and traitors. Don’t buy into their trash but don’t discount that fists, words and spit were no doubt used by all sides.
Patrick
@Cacti:
Great catch! I wonder if anybody is going to ask her about her hypocrisy. Before yesterday she prayed for Bergdahl. But yesterday after Obama engineered his release, she slandered him as anti-American. I couldn’t think any lower of her as a person. But what in the world will it take for the media to bring it up?
Suffern ACE
@jl: Yep. The hippy haters have been old for at least 40 years now. They may have been born old.
jayjaybear
@Trollhattan: Slender Man at Wikipedia
Slender Man is largely an internet creation. There’s a genre of online stories/vignettes/textual “found footage” type of fiction that creates creepy monsters in a kind of X Files way. Creepypasta and SCP Foundation are two sites that collect this kind of thing. SCP is almost a Warehouse 13 type of site…purporting to be an organization whose purpose is to contain the objects/beings that are described and protect humanity from them.
They’re both kind of fun in a squirmy way, as long as the person reading doesn’t have something wrong upstairs already.
D58826
@Villago Delenda Est: Jesse Helms told Clinton to stay away from Fort Bragg because he would be assassinated. There were lists kept of all the people the Clintons killed, even thought it looked like the simply copied the obits from the Little Rock rag. What was missing is the 24 hour talk cycle/faux news and the internet.
Mnemosyne
@D58826:
Ironically, though, I think the internet is what has managed to prevent the conspiracy theories from really spinning out of control like they did in the Clinton years. It’s much easier to debunk things right away than when everything was being published in right-wing rags and had to be debunked in print. Now you can link your crazy uncle and his entire email list to the Snopes.com article that shows he’s wrong, and even if your uncle keeps emailing you, at least a few of the people on his email list may get the truth.
EriktheRed
@SFAW: pretty soon they’re going to bring back “Al Gore is fat”, too.
liberal
@xenos:
It’s before my time, but my reading of history is that mass resistance to the war didn’t really start until 1968 or so.
RaflW
@Villago Delenda Est: The insanity was as intense then as it is now.
I think this is largely true, but what has changed is blogs, Twitter, 24/7 Foxrage, etc.
catclub
@Hill Dweller:
Once the southern democrats decamped for the war, Lincoln faced almost zero opposition.
Lots of good things -like landgrant colleges and railroads, were passed.
RaflW
@Mike in NC: ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Republican Hegemony’ didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW: The internet is a lot more “organized”, if you will, than it was in the ’90s. Blogs make it easier to fight the sort of shit that was propagated on USENET back then. The Clinton hate was all over the place at sewers like Free Republic, which was a chat board much like it is today, but the sane have tools available to fight the insanity.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@max: Yeah, discharged in early ’46.
TG Chicago
Here’s a twitter conversation I had with @baseballcrank a few months ago:
Jonah Goldberg: You know, I’m kinda amazed feminists haven’t complained about the clearly phallocentric male nature of the “Oscar” award itself.
Dan McLaughlin: I’m pretty sure they have. Also everything else.
TG Chicago: LOL feminazis are so stupid! But it’s the Democrats who wage a war on women, amirite?
DM: So, if I disagree with some men, I am at war with all men? [TG: impressive how he anticipated the stupid #NotAllMen thing by a few months]
TG: You just said that anybody who fights for equal rights for women is a constant complainer.
DM: I deny your privilege to use your personal definition of the word “feminists” to mean something other than its common meaning.
TG: adjective 1. advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/feminist?s=t&path=/ …
TG (again): Typical conservative. Thinks the world ends at the edge of the rightwing bubble even when actual facts are outside.
DM: So: Sarah Palin is a feminist, correct?
TG: Example?
DM: Hahaha, I knew you’d balk at defining the term to include dissenters from left-wing orthodoxy.
TG: All I did was ask for an example of her advocating for equal rights for women. You seem unable to prove it.
I asked again the next day and he still didn’t respond. Yet I imagine he still doesn’t understand what it means to be a “feminist”, even when it has been spelled out for him.
Even having seen it for so long, it’s still stunning to me to see people whose minds are so impervious to facts.
Villago Delenda Est
@TG Chicago: Jeeze. The stupid. It burns!
Howard Beale IV
@Culture of Truth: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.
Ex Regis
@big ole hound: You’re probably relating a false memory that may have started as an exaggeration to show how uncaring the American public was and the story became true as the “memory” was recalled and recreated each time. You might say, I know what happened to me. But many studies have shown that just the suggestion of a story is enough to create false memories — the most famous one is of people remembering being lost in a mall as a kid (with those people proving all sorts of details) when the experimenter made the whole thing up.
One reporter, whose name escapes me, investigated every report of a spitting he could find and found exactly one claimant, whose veracity he seriously doubted when the reporter could find none of the corroboration the claimant provided. The reporter wrote a book about it, widely reviewed at the time. I’m 71 and never read a single account of any spitting during the many years soldiers came home. But the that’s MY memory, which could be faulty.