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A Response To The Pro-war AmeriKKKans |
Current rating: 6 |
by Bill Gorrell
(No verified email address) |
07 Apr 2003
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BROADCAST ON THE ILLINOIS LABOR HOUR ,WEFT 90.1 FM, APRIL 5, 2003.
I broke one of my rules Saturday night after most people left the north Prospect demonstrations and it came down to me, 3 pro-war men, and 1 pro-war woman --- I tried to talk to them. What happened proved that my rule about not trying to converse with fanatics is a good rule. Moreover it demonstrated how deluded and dangerous these people appear to be.
This story is a little embarrassing for me to relate, since it shows that I'm as fanatic in my own way as these particular warmongers are. However, I think it's an important story to tell because I was shocked by these people's ideas. I though we were dealing with the usual rah - rah yahoos who jump on the bandwagon whenever troops are committed. Instead, I found out that these people are deeply into bigotry, red baiting, and some warped form of far-right KKKristian fundamentalism modeled more after the wrathful Old Testament god instead of Jesus. These people are KKKrusaders on a KKKristian Jihad. They are AmeriKKKan Ayatollahs. They are the AmeriKKKan Taliban. They are John McVey driving his truck to the Oklahoma City federal building. We are sinners on the highway to hell.
Some of you know that it's been my goal to be the last demonstrator on north Prospect the last couple of Saturdays. I'm not noble, I'm just real stubborn. Four warmongers remained last week, a thirty-five year-old union electrician, another guy about the same age and a woman that I took to be his wife, and an older chemistry professor. I was trying to speak to four people about as fanatic as I am, so I didn't get to say much. However, I got several earfuls of their reasons why I am wrong.
The Nutty Professor's favorite criticism was that I'm currently unemployed. He kept going on and on about it and I finally yelled, "I'll be out here pouring concrete for these sidewalks you walk on, while your sitting on your ass in your ivory tower!" I was pretty much in the guy's face about it and that angry outburst aroused the electrician who told me that he would demonstrate his Tae Kwon Do skills on me by putting his boot up my ass if I didn't back off. He also suggested that I leave. I stood and stared at him as he stalked around and told him that I can stand anywhere on that sidewalk that I want. They decided to retreat into the magical protective power of private property to escape being contaminated by my sinful politics.
Things calmed down, and after a while, I apologized to them for my outburst and they agreed that they'd been a little too personal in their attacks on me. I told them that I was hanging it up and I left. It took me a few minutes to get to my truck and they were still there when I went by. I went to Kmart to got some groceries and they were gone when I drove by their spot on the way home.
I also got to hear a spiel from Mark Thompson, pro-war demonstration organizer and owner of neighboring a business, himself about the "puppetmasters'" foreign-financed propaganda machine.
Here are reasons why I'm wrong and the war is right:
The war is right because I'm stupid.
I'm stupid because I'm a Laborer and not a chemistry professor, or electrician, or an unspecified businessman who could "get a Laborer's job tomorrow" through his connections at the contractor where his wife works. Several supporters of the old corrupt regime at Laborers' Local 703 work there and he thinks they can get him a job. A true KKKristian hypoKKKrite stealing a job through corrupt connections. By the way, I'm supposed to be impressed because this guy's dad was a union electrician.
Laborers are scabs who are stealing all of the other trades' work.
I'm even more stupid because I'm currently out of work.
I'm out of work because I'm lazy, stupid, and radical.
I'm lazy even though my work is some of the hardest in the building trades and I spent thousands of hours of my childhood working on the family farm for free and I completed graduate school with an M.S. in Communication.
I'm against the war because I'm the dupe of the foreign-funded propaganda machine "puppetmasters" who are socialists, communists, and anarchists bent on destroying AmeriKKKa.
They assume that I hope we lose the war and have massive casualties.
They assume that I can't be against war, without being for Saddam Hussein.
They claim to personally know Vietnam veterans who were called "baby killers" and who were spit on in airports.
All the other members of Laborers' Local 703 would be ashamed of my pro-peace protesting.
My family should be ashamed of me.
Immigrants who are supported by our tax money that is also used to bring them here and provide them with college educations cause all of our problems. I haven't heard of this government program but this idea is common among construction workers.
The Middle Eastern-looking couple who drove by could be terrorists who might blow up my house.
They are true believers in all of the right wing cliches about the 1960s that I've heard for over thirty years.
I'm wrong because I've never been outside of the United States.
I'm wrong because I've never served in the military.
I'm not a good union member, although they couldn't tell me where they were when I was breathing pepper gas in Decatur while standing with the locked-out Staley workers during the "Illinois Labor War Zone" days.
I'm going to Hell because God wants this war.
The bible says that there will always be wars and poverty, so why help poor people and why not have a war now?
I can't be right because I'm not a KKKristian.
It's all right for Israelis to kill Palestinians and bulldoze their houses because the Romans kicked the Jews out of Palestine a thousand years ago. Somehow, the gentiles who stayed on in Palestine for a thousand years are equivalent to people who move into my house if I go on vacation for a couple of weeks. When I get home from vacation I would have the right to kill the squatters. I'd like to see them use this rationale in am argument with an Indigenous American.
I'm wrong because 80% of the world's people agree with me. They told me that I should leave the country and go live with those people.
I'm wrong because I don't want to nuke the Middle East and south Asia into, as the good KKKristian union brother put it, "a glass parking lot with oil wells."
I've occasionally run into construction workers who attend some far-right churches around here where the preachers talk more about black helicopters and the New World Order than they preach about Jesus. The KKKristians act out of fear and hatred unlike real Christians who act out of love and courage. The KKKristians can't stand the thought that someone may think differently than they do. It scares them. They can sing "Onward Christian soldiers" all they want, but they are cowards who need a big daddy in the sky to smite all the people they don't like. Perhaps they believe that George W. is the Second Coming who will rain down death and destruction on all of the non-white, non-AmeriKKKans.
I think you get the point by now. These hypoKKKrites are racists prone to violence who dress their fascism in the flag and the cross. They are an affront to real Christians who actually follow Jesus' teaching. AmeriKKKans' beliefs are an insult to real American patriots who are fighting for peace, justice, freedom, equality, and the true American way. They claim to support the troops while they undermine everything that the troops are supposed to be fighting for. They are almost laughable as they spew out every right wing cliche I've heard for over thirty years. They have no ability to use logic or consider uncomfortable facts. They are liars who will say anything to justify their warmongering racism, lust for oil, and religious bigotry.
These "good AmeriKKKans" follow Bush like the "good Germans" followed Hitler. This war is an excuse for them to bring out all of the bigoted hatred that they've bottled up for years. Hatred for immigrants, foreigners, other religions, and, it appears, Laborers.
BILL GORRELL
MEMBER, LABORERS' LOCAL 703 |
Comments
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Re: A Response To The Pro-war AmeriKKKans |
by Joe Futrelle
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 14
07 Apr 2003
Modified: 11:48:52 AM |
That list of "reasons you're wrong and the war is right" demonstrates what we need to respond to, and makes it clear that, for instance, a geopolitical argument that war is bad for the region because it will create such and such a geopolitical situation is going to fall on deaf ears with this element of the pro-war faction.
This kind of debate is easier if you're a pacifist like me -- in that case, war is simply morally wrong, and this war is no different from any other in that respect. No need to quibble over details.
If you're not a pacifist, responding to the kind of crap you list here is still pretty straightforward, since most of it is completely irrelevant to the war (like all the ad hominem crap about your work history).
But let me get some other responses off my chest:
- "You're wrong because you're a dupe of foreign powers" -- which powers should I be a dupe of? We have our own propoganda machine and ideology here. Is it better? Why?
- "You want us to lose the war" -- The pacifist position: I want both sides to lose the war. I don't want war to be vindicated as a means of achieving political ends.
- "If you're against war, you support Saddam" -- hmm. Saddam is someone who engaged in a bloody war with Iran, invaded Kuwait, shot missiles at Israel, and has oppressed Iraqi Kurds and Shiites with military force. Anyone who opposes war should be appalled by this record. The U.S. also has engaged in war repeatedly, so it's pretty much in the same category as Iraq for people opposed to war.
- "Vietnam veterans were insulted" -- that's unacceptable; no one should be insulted, especially vets who were there because they were drafted. But people complicit in the decision to kill should be respectfully criticized. Anti-war protestors are regularly being insulted, too. Is that right?
- "People should be ashamed of you" -- ask them if they are.
- "Immigrants ..." -- irrelevant; they didn't cause the war, right?
- "All middle eastern people are potential terrorists" -- again, not relevant to the war, but consider this: of the most deadly terrorist acts committed on U.S. soil, the second most deadly one was carried out by a white man. Other notable terrorists on U.S. soil include the Unabomber and the perpetrators of the shooting at Columbine. The enemy's within.
- "You're just a 1960's nostalgia act" -- there were no global days of protest in the 1960's that featured people from every walk of life. The days of pigeonholing protestors as hippies are over.
- "You've never left the U.S." -- have you? where did you go? Iraq?
- "You've never served in the military" -- this is a democracy, not a military government. Everyone gets a voice, not just people in the military.
- "God wants the war" -- claiming to speak for God is a sin, right? I'm gonna go with Jesus on this one, who said we should love our enemies and practice forgiveness.
- "The bible says there will always be wars and poverty" -- the bible says a lot of things. Who does the bible say will be causing these wars and perpetuating poverty? Good guys or bad guys?
- "You're not Christian" -- lots of Christians are against the war.
- "It's right for Israelis to kill Palestinians because the bible says ..." -- again, the bible says to love your neighbor. last time I checked, bulldozing someone's house was not a way to love them.
- "If you don't agree with us, leave the country" -- again, we're a democracy, which includes the idea that people might disagree and still live together ...
- "Let's make the middle east into a parking lot with oil wells" -- this is obviously not a real point but merely a provocation, so the correct response is to not respond. |
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One Woman Enrages War Rally With Her Heartfelt Message: 'I Love My Country But...' |
by Roy MacGregor
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 6
07 Apr 2003
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WHEELING, W. VA. -- If Jessica Lynch is the bravest woman in America, the second-bravest may well be Angelica Amaya.
Or, as some will say -- for various reasons, including ones of her own personal safety -- the most foolish.
Certainly the several hundred people gathered Saturday morning at the Veterans Amphitheater in a Valley Rally for America think she is dead wrong and ignorant.
Or, as one angry veteran puts it, standing less than an arm's length away from her, "She's sick -- mentally disturbed."
Yet Angelica Amaya stands her ground, tears rolling down her cheeks and her entire body shaking in the cold wind that pounds in off the Ohio River.
"I'm scared," the 33-year-old office worker admits.
"But I have to do this."
She has come, one person out of 1,000 or more, to the banks of the Ohio to raise her hand against the war in Iraq. The others have come -- many of them veterans wearing their original uniforms -- to raise the flag, sing the national anthem, pray to God for swift victory, listen to politicians wrap themselves in the story of Lynch -- the 19-year-old private from West Virginia who was so dramatically rescued this past week -- and stand, cheering, while a local performer sings God Bless the U.S.A.
They have come carrying flags, wearing patriotic caps and jackets and sweatshirts -- one family in a minivan plastered with praise for President George W. Bush and a bumper sticker that says "If 90% of you are for military strikes, the other 10% should be tried for treason."
Angelica Amaya carries a simple homemade sign that says "I love my country but . . . "
She has pasted a photograph of a young Iraqi woman on the sign and written below: "Are you willing to kill her to get to Saddam? "
The answer, unequivocally, is "Yes -- if that's what's required."
She stands, shaking and often tearful, as politician after politician takes to the podium, the event carried live on far-reaching WWVA radio.
"Only God can forgive Saddam," shouts local politician Jack Yost. "We will arrange that meeting."
U.S. Representative Bob Ney, a Republican from across the river in Ohio, talks about the bravery of Jessica Lynch and the sacrifices of the soldiers and even about those who oppose this war.
"Those who think otherwise," he says to cheers, "better get it firm in their minds -- they might not support the war, but they'd better support the troops."
"I do, I do," says a tearful Amaya to the small group beginning to gather around her, "but this isn't about the troops. Innocent people are dying! "
"Don't," thunders another politician into the microphone, "listen to the shrill voices of the few who hate America."
But some of them do listen to a woman who is neither shrill nor hateful of her country. They listen to her talk about United Nations inspections and dubious reporting, and while a few debate reasonably with her, a few others cannot hold their outrage.
"Go down to Palestine and talk to the Lynches! " an angry man says, referring to the local family that is off to Germany to be with their injured daughter. "They'll tell you about Saddam Hussein! "
"Did you hear what happened in New York City a year and a half ago? " asks one man who shakes in fury. "Do you know about 9/11 -- or did you just crawl out from under a rock? "
The tears are rolling now down Amaya's face. "Maybe I didn't think this through," she confesses in a moment of regret. "But I'm only here because of my conscience. I'm a strong Christian and I had to come."
Her local peace group has been threatened over the telephone with "execution" but no one here is that harsh, though the gap has clearly widened between the majority who believe this war necessary and those who do not.
The people attending this rally are sincere in their belief that the war is just and that, while Amaya has the right to her opinion, she is simply, profoundly wrong.
Two 12-year-old boys, Matthew Clark and Steven Logdon, have come to raise the flag with the Young Marines, and both stand firmly with the President on the necessity of going to war with Iraq.
"I'll do anything for my country," says Logdon.
"We're going to make a difference in the world," says Clark.
That, too, is what Amaya hoped to do, but after two hours of standing in the bitter cold, no one has warmed to her message.
Until suddenly an older man, Bill Milan from nearby Martins Ferry, his little granddaughter in tow, breaks through the small circle gathered around Amaya and says, "Listen to her -- she's right, you know."
A veteran of the Korean War, Milan says it makes no sense that "so many innocents have to die to get one man.
"There are other ways to do this."
"Thank you," says Amaya. "Thank you."
Milan nods once before leaving.
"You're brave, young woman."
© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc
http://www.globeandmail.com/ |
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Re: A Response To The Pro-war AmeriKKKans |
by me
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 5
07 Apr 2003
Modified: 02:09:42 PM |
if you have any interest in changing ANYBODY'S mind about this war, calling people who disagree with you KKKristians probably isn't going to do it. These people are wrong, but they're not evil.
i would say that in your won way you're just as bad as "jack ryan," except you're worse, because he demonstrates a little bit of a sense of humor, which is evidence of a slightly open mind |
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Haiku For Pro-War Christians |
by Paul Kotheimer
herringb (nospam) prairienet.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
07 Apr 2003
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What part of "Thou shalt
not kill" don't you understand?
--Must be the "not" part. |
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And Another Thing |
by Joe Futrelle
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 6
08 Apr 2003
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Another point about "You've never been in the military ...": lots of veterans are against this war. |
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