Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Opinion rundown
There are a lot of interesting opinions today on the We Love the Rapist Troops topic.
Corporal Sean Thomas Stutzman delivers what I think is a pretty effective disemboweling of the "we support the troops but oppose recruitment" meme.
It is a great insult to me and all the men and women in uniform, because what you are saying is that we made the wrong decision with our lives. I refuse to believe that. You are saying to the youth, "Don't make the same mistake these people made." Some other stuff is included, too.
Instead of talking about all the ways in which the protesters are being hypocritical, though, I'll leave it to Justin DeFritas. DeFritas is the Daily Planet's editorial cartoonist. While I typically disagree with him, he's an effective communicator through those cartoons. He delivers a killer today.
Kenneth Thiesen, of World Can't Wait, decides to narrow the definition of violence so it doesn't apply to him.
Protesters from World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime! were arrested after chaining themselves to the door of the recruiting station and refusing to leave in an act of non-violent civil resistance. The protesters were also refusing to allow people to pass. It could be done, but only through a bunch of shoving with a risk of injury. Preventing the free movement of people is also an act of violence, even if you don't want it to be one when you feel like doing it. Thiesen admits as much in the very same paragraph:
Berkeley police officers in riot formation blocked and violently cleared the street before arresting the orange jumpsuited protesters. You can actually tell that he is using various moral self-justifications because he lacks the courage to actually stand for a position.
Whatever it takes to stop the Bush regime and drive it from power is justified. I do not mind preventing the recruitment of Marines any more than I would have minded stopping the recruitment of soldiers for the Nazis during World War II. If the Bush wars are immoral, it is moral to do what we can to stop them by acts of civil resistance. Why only acts of civil resistance? Why not violent resistance? Whatever it takes, right? But a line has been arbitrarily drawn here not based on a morally coherent philosophy, but because Thiesen is a moral child who decides what to do and then draws the lines of right and wrong to neatly surround him on the side of "justice."
On to the letters: Norma Harrison works on a different system of reality than I do:
Marine recruiting in order to defend our country is like calling fire in a crowded theater, knowing there's no fire. Both are against the law. When did this happen? I thought recruiting was legal.
Pinko Cynthia Papermaster says:
Steven Donaldson wrote "many of the protesters are not from Berkeley." What bearing does that have on the issue of Marine recruiting in Berkeley? The war affects all of us. Cynthia Papermaster disagrees, though:
As if the right-wing false patriots coming from outside of Berkeley, who spew hatred and jingoism and attack our City Council and peaceful Berkeley values should be dictating how Berkeleyans should act and think.
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