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March 15, 2004
Why We Fight
Fool that I am, I followed one of the many, many links to Lileks.
So what do I hope I'll tell my child? Simple. It's over. We won.
"We"?
And, other than savagely decimating straw men of your own devising, your contribution to the war effort would have been. . . what, precisely?
As one of the people dragged into the previous Gulf War by the previous President Bush, out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, while folks like you stayed home thinking what a sucker I was, gotta say, that first person plural kind'a gets on my nerves.
Just a wee bit.
I know, I know, you're too old to enlist, you have a bum leg, and who would take care of poor Cosette Gnat while you were away actually, you know, defending her liberty?
Being raised by wolves would be an improvement over you.
SIDS would have been an improvement over you.
Now, a bit ago, Michele wrote:
The left no longer have causes. They have anti-causes.Being anti-everything makes for bitterness and anger, and it is increasingly evident that all of those negative vibes the left has been surrounding themselves with have gotten in the way of clear thinking and reason.
This was later amended to "far left." Not much an improvement, I'm afraid.
Off the top of my head, little far left me is fighting for reproductive rights. That the right-wingers choose to define this as being anti "the rights of the unborn" is, quite simply, not my fucking problem. I'm fighting for equal rights for gays and lesbians. Again, the right-wingers choose to rephrase this as fighting against the institution of marriage that's served the Thousand Year Reich so very well over the millennia. And again, not my fucking problem.
Tired of playing games with word choice, tired of having beliefs and motivations ascribed to me rather than someone, you know, asking what I believe and why I do what I do. And this from Glenn Reynolds:
I wonder if either of the women dressed as suicide bombers in this photo from Madrid last year was within earshot of yesterday's blasts. [. . .] Those two women, like some of the other protesters, weren't antiwar. They were on the other side. I wonder if they still are?
What, if they're still alive, you mean?
Gosh, why didn't you and James pool your considerable resources, hop on a plane, and fly over to Spain to find out for yourselves? I'm confident the authorities would appreciate assistance from anyone willing to pull charred corpses out of the wreckage. Gotta tell you from experience, though, the smell of large amounts of burning human flesh? Gonna make you nauseous. But after the first day or two of puking your guts out, and then occasionally dry-heaving when it hits you particularly strongly, you get used to it.
No, I tell a lie. You never fucking get used to it.
Here's the short version: what the overwhelming majority of humanity would really appreciate is if you lot and Uncle Osama's merry band of fundamentalists would hurry up and kill each other, preferably without taking the rest of us with you, so we can get back to watching Buffy reruns and waiting for Joss Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men to start. Or reading something else, or listening to music, or dancing, or doing some productive, life-affirming work, or generally not having to listen to all-knowing assholes who Know God's Will dictating it to us at the point of a gun.
Any questions? Comments? Death wishes to express by posting stupid shit?
Director's Cut: And then there's that odd refrain of the right wing, "Now that you've experienced something traumatic, maybe you'll see things from out point of view." I mean, fuck, is that what it takes? Explains why you're such miserable bastards if it is.
Here's a clue for you: Everyone, with the possible exception of the people dwelling comfortably in a bubble of het white male privilege here in the US, has undergone something traumatic. Most of us choose not to let it define our lives. Not sure what the fuck is wrong with you that you do, and to be honest, not thrilled with learning enough about you to find out.
I would have put that in the actual entry, but am trying to be kind.
As usual, not trying very fucking hard.
Posted by Aaron at March 15, 2004 08:22 AM
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» Pro-or-Anti from Dru Blood - I believe in the inherent goodness of all beings.
Aaron makes the semantic argument about pro-versus-anti that I didn't bother to even attempt to make when responding to Michele: Off the top of my head, little far left me is fighting for reproductive rights. That the right-wingers choose to... [Read More]
Tracked on March 15, 2004 11:54 AM
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both aaron and kevin very effectively calls bullshit to this line of thinking, which is exactly what we in our [Read More]
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» Why Aaron gets more traffic and links than I do from Prometheus 6
You should read this. Why We Fight Fool that I am, I followed one of the many, many links to Lileks.So what do I hope I'll tell my child? Simple. It's over. We won."We"? And, other than savagely decimating straw... [Read More]
Tracked on March 15, 2004 08:29 PM
» why we fight on uppity-negro.com from nitecrawler
Wow. Way to go Aaron.... [Read More]
Tracked on March 15, 2004 09:22 PM
Comments
Saying the left (whatever "the left" is) is any more "anti" than any other political stripe is a pile of crap. People on the right tend to be anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-freedom, anti-rationality...OK, admittedly, I am a little steamed about that assertion, pardon me if I'm not trying to be civil either. But obviously, you can choose your language in a deliberate way to frame a group as being opposed to things, but any suggestion that things should be one way is also an assertion that things shouldn't be another, and vice versa. I mean, I advocate alternative economic systems, and I can explain concrete changes I recommend (as opposed to just criticizing our current system and not suggesting one, or more than one, to replace it), but you could also say that I'm anti-capitalist, and that would be true too.
Posted by: susan at March 15, 2004 09:50 AM
Oh, bless you. Some days I haven't the energy to scrape together the barrage of withering scorn one needs to respond to such garbage. Well done.
Posted by: garrity at March 15, 2004 11:07 AM
3 point shot my friend.
i think sometimes we write our best when we're pissed off.
people over the decades have accused me of being negative, paranoid, having authority problems, etc. usually because i find their own agenda to be insupportable, and their only argumentative recourse seems to be "you are ____ [adj.], therefore my argument is correct", which i'm sure you as well as i would find to be rhetorically wanting at best. in response i quote them a little live in concert johnny rotten: "i'm an abortion - what does that make yeeewwwww??!" it's an illogical response but it's the most honest i can be.
Posted by: r@d@r at March 15, 2004 12:45 PM
You don't remember the time Lileks parachuted into a nest of Taliban in the mountainous Northwest regions and took them all out with a Swiss Army knife and a roll of dental floss?
Oh wait, I guess he's "winning" in the same respect that someone "wins" when they get $1000 cash back on a Hyundai or, vicariously when their college basketball team is victorious.
I will admit that I'm surprised at the record speed that the warbloggers went from "today, we are all Spainards" to "Spain is a bunch of cowardly, craven, terrorist-loving assholes."
Posted by: Norbizness at March 15, 2004 01:07 PM