Here's something the Code Pink bozos need to get through their thick-ass skulls -- your half-witted attempts at street theater are unwelcome, and indeed profoundly counterproductive. These antics are reminiscent of nothing so much as right-wing fringetards such as Operation Rescue and Fred Phelps' Caravan O' Incest. Standing outside with signs and slogans is one thing; chaining yourselves to the door is quite another. These idiots curiously seem to only hold their own rights to free speech sacred.
This is an unpopular war led by an unpopular preznit. And yes, recruiters have been known to use some fairly unscrupulous methods to make their sales quotas. Look, if you are somehow not adequately apprised of what exactly the Marines do, then maybe you deserve to get roped into action. In the meantime, a lot of serious people have made a lot of serious efforts to address this war in a coherent fashion.
I am not opposed to genuine revolutionary tactics, but this is just a sideshow that ends up minimizing serious, principled opposition to a tragically failed policy. It perpetuates useless hippie stereotypes, and further hardens the antidisestablishmentarian bent of the dead-end supporters. They don't have to support the war overtly; all they have to do is point at the Code Pink goofball chained to the door of a recruiting center, calling people "baby killers", and state their case against that. And it doesn't matter if there's only six or seven goofballs at any given moment. It might as well be a thousand, though if it actually were a thousand, someone who could actually do something might pay some attention.
Sometimes people need to think beyond their own individual antics and realize how they can galvanize the very people they're trying to oppose. I'm just saying.
I agree completely. I have thought for a long time that this is a replay of where the anti-war movement (of which I was a part) went wrong in the 60's. The cause was just, the sentiment was growing, it was the tactics of the fringe that turned people off; people who were inclined to agree with ending the war had little interest in supporting a movement that they saw as disruptive of the society in which they had a vested interest.
ReplyDeleteLooks like we're reliving not only an immoral and tragic war, but the inability to effectively put an end to it as well.
That's exactly it. The sentiment is pretty universal at this point -- everyone keeps saying they hate this war. It's the tactics that turn off a lot of people who might otherwise be persuaded eventually.
ReplyDeleteThe Marines could say "fuck it" and shut down the Shattuck recruiting center tomorrow, we'll still be dumping $2bn/week into a hole trying to keep China British, to paraphrase Monty Python.