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September 24, 2005
The DC anti-war anti-American rally
Click for larger image
Lovely sentiment and so, er, intellectually based.
In the background is the Stalinist/Anti-Semitic group ANSWER's banner. Need we say more?
Every single adult at this rally cannot claim innocence of ANSWER's raison d'etre. It is there, bold as brass, on the banner. ANSWER is morally equivalent to the KKK or Neo-Nazis and that makes Mommy Sheehan, Jesse Jackson and the rest of the Leftist jihadists on the speaking tour no better than the ugliest, robe-wearing Kluxer decrying the government allowing "mud people" rights.
I dare any one to apologize for these contemptible excuses for human beings.
Picture by Michelle Malkin. More at the link.
UPDATE: Some more fun pics at Davids Medienkritik
Posted by Darleen at September 24, 2005 04:17 PM
Comments
ANSWER is morally equivalent to the KKK or Neo-Nazis
umm, would you mind explaining HOW they are "morally equivalent" Darleen?
I was there today and I didn't see anyone getting lynched....
Posted by: Brad at September 25, 2005 10:20 AM
Yeah, I'm pretty creeped out by those guys too. As is most of the left, including the vast majority of the dKos community.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at September 25, 2005 10:22 AM
Brad, most of their founders are either Maoists or Stalinists.
For what it's worth, I don't buy Darleen's moral equivalence claims either. To my knowledge, ANSWER hasn't ever actually gone out and killed anyone. They express support for terrorist groups like Hamas, though, which is pretty bad stuff.
If you're interested in the broader left community's reaction, check out this dKos diary, which was on top of the Recommended list for a while.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at September 25, 2005 10:25 AM
ANSWER explicitly supports the killing of Americans overseas. They support the "insurgency", they support Islamist terrorist groups.
The Church of Christian Identity hasn't lynched anyone, the Neo-Nazi movement hasn't lynched anyone, the old American Bund didn't lynch anyone but they have the same philosophy and I would consider them the moral equivalents of the KKK.
Brad, if you went there, saw these kind of signs and banners and STILL support these people who are blatantly anti-American and anti-Semitic, you are morally tainted. HOW can you support a group that calls for destruction of the state of Israel?
Posted by: Darleen at September 25, 2005 10:26 AM
I've never heard of the Church of Christian Identity, but Neo-Nazis have killed people. I do make a distinction between the degree of badness in supporting the deaths of good people, as ANSWER does, and actually killing good people, like Neo-Nazis do.
But all this is really tangential to the central issue. The ANSWER folks really are very bad, and more respectable antiwar types are right to be upset with them.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at September 25, 2005 04:26 PM
I'll answer Darleen's question with a question:
How can you use one organization's extreme views as a way of smearing a diverse and peaceful march, and by extension smearing the entire anti-war movement?
Posted by: Brad at September 25, 2005 06:06 PM
Brad, you are not that stupid.
International ANSWER has been THE driving force and organization that has coordinated, funded and run this march, just like it did the marches in 2003.
If the KKK were the driving force organizing a "civil rights" coalition of a "diverse" people peacefully marching against affirmative action, I'd still find all those "peaceful" people morally tainted.
One question, Brad.
Do you believe we are fighting evil people in Iraq?
Posted by: Darleen at September 25, 2005 10:06 PM
Darleen, the converse question should have been:
If there were to be a massive "pro-war" march, organised by an organisation on the far right who support the KKK, segregation etc, what would you say to those who join the march without looking into the finer points of those who run it?
I do not believe you are fighting fundamentally "evil" people in Iraq, anymore so than the Allies fought "evil" Hitler youth. Brainwashed, yep. Evil, their leaders yes, the 'grunts' on the ground, probably not. By your argument you are also puting forward the hypothesis that those fighting against your view of 'evil' are inherently good. Would you apply that equally to all involved in the war?
Posted by: jufemaiz at September 26, 2005 02:41 AM
Interesting argument. ANSWER is despicable and only the tiniest minority of the hundreds of thousands who went to DC had ever heard of them, let alone understood their asinine agenda. Yet, all those average people who gave up their time and money to participate in their government are supposed to feel invalidated because of the involvement of this stupid fringe group.
ANSWER might as well be a rightwing recruitment organiztion, for all the damage they do the agenda of the left in America. But Americans have a right, a responsibility, to protest this war if they so believe. Trying to tar them with the brush of ANSWER is only another intimidation tactic. Although I notice only the most strident and obsessive blogs are doing it - freepers, little football folk and darleenies.
The rational right recognizes that the movement against the war in America right now has become a profound tidal force, comprised of disparate average folk who would never attend a DC rally, but who feel nonetheless repelled by the waste of our resources in this ill defined conflict and the gross ineptitude of the incompetent idealogues who so recklessly put our soldiers into this hellfire. They know there is a legitimate political discussion that needs to be had, and I respect those who are willing to keep the focus on the true issues, rather than be diverted by ANSWER's freakshow into taking cheap potshots at what was otherwise an entirely legitimate protest.
Posted by: Marathoner at September 26, 2005 03:24 AM
First off, Marathoner, if you want to disown ANSWER, go right ahead. But please don't try and fudge with the facts. It is NOT an tiny fringe group with no influence on the march in DC -- as in 2003, ANSWER was the MAIN organizer. They are the umbrella under which many other "peace" organizations (some just as leftist and hatefilled like Code Pink) gathered. So if the THOUSANDS (not hundreds of thousands... lord, can we stop with the inflation?) marched but were unaware of their host, then they are just plain stupid on top of having their moral compass out of whack.
The Left has let the veil drop on its base hostility towards America and Israel, so it doesn't need any "help" from the right of center people who are pro-victory. I'd remind you that the far right Buchannanite fringies hate a non-isolationist America and Israel as much of the Left and have made common cause with it in this regard. Totalitarianist attracts Totalitarianist.
Posted by: Darleen at September 26, 2005 09:17 AM
I do not believe you are fighting fundamentally "evil" people in Iraq.
Then we have very different concepts of evil and our dialoguing is going to go past each other. The people we are fighting in Iraq -- that target Iraqi civilians, behead civilian captives, want a return of Saddam as dictator -- are evil. No blinking on my part.
It's as if I asked you "do you think white people who lynch blacks are evil?" and you equivocate by saying "well, certainly maybe the guy with his hand on the rope was evil, but not all those brainwashed people in the mob that helped him."
I suggest you go back and check your moral compass.
Posted by: Darleen at September 26, 2005 09:23 AM
The minimum estimate for the march attendance was 100,000. Minimum, many estimates are higher. The press doesn't inflate these numbers, it deflates them.
The Sunday prowar rally did not need estimates, as there were fewer than 400 there.
The men who founded this country understood the vital importance of anti government protest. It is a fundamentally pro-American activity on its face.
Posted by: AB at September 26, 2005 12:15 PM
There were at a minimum 100,000 marchers at the anti war rally (unlike the paltry 400 or so at the prowar rally the next day). Darlene is probably confused because of right wing blogaganda which tends to just get digested without any consideration.
[DarlEEn says: AB, give me an authoritative source of "hundreds of thousands" of anti-American marchers, then we can talk. It only makes me sad so many morally tainted people were there to support the defeat of America.]
Posted by: AB at September 26, 2005 12:27 PM
Too tipsy to go beyond the first page of Google News, but the Bangor Daily News of Bangor, Maine claims 100K-300K marchers. Certainly not anti-American marchers, but that was your addition and not AB's.
Darleen, if you attended a march to protest Hillary's health care plan in 1994, and you were surprised to discover that the march was organized by Neo-Nazis with lots of Neo-Nazi propaganda at the march, there would be no reason to regard you as morally tainted for attending it, as long as you got pissed off at the Neo-Nazi propaganda. Similarly, the folks at the ANSWER-run march aren't morally tainted people if they got angry at ANSWER, which many of them (read the Kos diaries upthread) did.
Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at September 29, 2005 12:59 AM
I photoblogged the rally and posted it all here:
http://conprotantor.blogspot.com/2005/09/marching-with-moonbats-in-dc.html
Cheers,
Tantor
Posted by: Tantor at September 30, 2005 07:58 AM