As MNF-I Commander General David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker prepare to give their post-surge report to a joint session of Congress the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations Committees for tomorrow (dramatically, in front of Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama), I am reminded of the publicity stunt which heralded their pre-surge appearance before that same body.
Helping to jar my memory of that example of gutter politics was the fact that, this weekend, Tantor marked the third anniversary of another push-back--the one against CODE PINK's efforts to demoralize injured troops at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC.
It was the spring of 2005 when CODEPINK, Veterans for Peace, Plymouth UCC, Military Families, Newspaper Guild, Gray Panthers, and OPEIU Local 2 began protesting every Friday night from 8 to 10 PM. They called it a vigil, not a protest, but sh*t by any other name still stinks the same.The details of that propaganda battle are sweet, but a nagging thought stays in my mind. Yes, I’m still trying to comprehend how the decision makers of either CODE PINK or MoveOn.org—the latter with their “General Betray-Us” advertisement in the New York Times—believed that these types of tactics would sway those on the fence about war, Iraq and the troops to their ideological side. I’m also less than impressed with their abilities to predict how the target (the fence-sitters) and how the enemy (the pro-victory right and supporters of the troops) would react to such salvos.The DC Chapter of the Free Republic, outraged at the insensitive and insulting choice of locations and sentiments for this obnoxious protest, decided in March 2005 to counter-protest the Code Pink protest. [SNIP]
The one thing protestors hate is being protested. The Free Republic, "Freeper," counter-protestors have now been out there 154 Friday nights, steadily gaining the advantage over protestors who suffered from disorganization, poor morale, and a bad cause. Code Pink tried the usual radical lefty tricks to counter the Freepers. They screamed in outrage at the dissenters, villified and demonized them, tried to infiltrate them, tried to get the police to suppress them, tried to get the neighborhood to call in complaints against them, et cetera. As usual, the lefties try to throttle the free speech of political opponents in their typical heavy-handed, un-American fashion. None of it worked.
But then Ed Kaitz’s Doublethink and the Liberal Mind reminded me that there is a certain method of thinking with which holding up signs inscribed with things like “Maimed for a Lie” in front of the temporary home of grievously injured warriors is called “supporting the troops.” And referring to a decorated, accomplished and loyal general as “General Betray-Us” before he comes home from a war zone to report to his commander—as ordered—can be deemed as “patriotic” or “pro-troop” under that same cast of mind.
Kaitz reminds us Blair/Orwell pegged this mindset in his classics.
George Orwell claimed that there was something more calculated at work when politicians begin to claim for example that "Slavery is Freedom" or that "Hate is Love," or in Mao Tse Tung's words, that "Compulsion is Voluntary." The new and improved Democratic Party version seems to be that "Diversity is Unity." Orwell called this "doublethink" and he claimed that it was a condition endemic to the totalitarian mind. It meant the ability "to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory" and "to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies.Before Orwell, there was, of course, Saul of Tarsus aka St. Paul.
With that in mind I’ll try not to squint in horror the next time some anti-war individual/entity claims that by calling the troops “baby killers,” by ousting US Marines from an American city or some other such shizam, they’re “supporting the troops.” I’ll just remember that to the decision-makers of CODE PINK and MoveOn.org such tactics were sound because they had benefit of being the "truth." Seriously, Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church is less dangerous, if not less twisted. At least they're honest about their hatred.
Go buy popcorn for tomorrow.
Backstory: Dissecting Code Pink/Walter Reed Protestors
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