The Sideshow tipped us off to this buyer's remorse blog post . Miss "I'm too cool to protest" is shocked that her boy, George, is turning out to be the asshole we all said he was.
So I blasted her for her craven and irresponsible takes and she responded by cutting short my comment, part of which included links to three different sources where she and her too-cool-to-protest friends could get a whole lot less ignorant. I've reproduced the part of my comment that Miss Too-cool-for-all-of-you has not cut (yet) from her site, and I've added back my guesstimation of the original:
This is the most ridiculous post, from someone who is apparently attempting to be serious, that I've ever read. All the whining is abhorrent:
* being over on the left was terrible
* i don't like john kerry
* this is not an apology, i'm in the middle!
what kind of garbage is this? this is why you voted for Bush? the u.s. military is raping the citizens of another country - figuratively and literally - and you vote for Bush because you don't 'like' Kerry? do you not know about Abu Ghraib? do you not?
how many innocents have to be killed? how many have to have their heads dunked in feces and urine before you say, 'You know what, I really don't think that's what I want to be a part of'?
Like Michael Moore said, you do owe people an apology - our troops, for starters. Just because you busied yourself watching Fox News doesn't mean you aren't culpable for the nightmare that is still unfolding. We are all responsible - even me - even Moore - but you owe a lot more. You've got some serious catching up to do.
Did you see today's cover of the USA Today? 2 years! 2 years! Still not enough body armor! You re-relected this guy! This information was available! You re-elected him! How do you sleep?!
And you still talk down about anti-war protesters. "I'll never be one of them," you say. Very big of you.
[admin note: I edited the rest of this post out because it was starting to annoy me. Too many exclamation points and too many links to blogs that I consider, how should I say this, irrational. ]
The red is Her Highness. Too cool to act overly concerned, of course, because this blogging thing is not my real thing, you know? As a voter, I helped start a war. Seriously!
Now, from memory, parts she cut from my comment:
Do you think we achieved some level of civil rights, women's rights, and the 40-hour work week because the government was feeling benificent one day? They only came about because citizens demanded it. You think the Vietnam war ended because our leaders were tired of making billions in helicopter sales? It ended because the anti-war protestors you despise demanded that it end.
How about ... stop sitting on your couch watching Fox News for a minute and say, read a book? Or maybe read some blogs? Or, shoot, even go see Fahrenheit 911 and try to comprehend what the movie is about? Go ahead. It won't hurt. I promise. Show at least as much bravery towards your lilly-livered combative keyboarding friends as our 18 YEAR OLD soldiers show every day in Iraq, and go see the movie.
It's time to earn your citizenship:
Lies My Teacher Told Me
link
Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/
Daily Kos
http://www.dailykos.com/
First, she mentions 'too many links to blogs'. Ummm ... what's French for ... 'LIAR'!? Only the 3rd link is a blog. She didn't know what the links were, and she didn't care. She was tired of getting berated. Good for her. She gets to cut my comment, turn off the computer, and go to bed. The troops she sent into the desert only wish they could turn off the hellacious physical and mental violence playing out in front of their domes right now.
Every blogger has the right to pull comments from their site which are inappropriate, have foul language, etc. I was purposely very careful not to use any foul language. I'm used to dealing with the left and occasionally libertarian side of the blogosphere where, more often than not, people accept criticism of all types. It's American. It's brave. It's responsible. It's proactive. It's open-minded. It's right.
On the other hand, to remove from oneself the possibility of true, meaningful, biting criticism, is to wallow in the cowardice that so exemplifies our ruling class. To cut a comment that is critical and hide behind the excuse that it was starting to annoy me is also blatantly dishonest. While Miss Cool may have been annoyed, this is not the reason she cut the links. She cut the links to keep herself from facing the horrible truth - that she is partly resopnsible for much death and horror. But she also wishes to salvage her good standing in the right blogosphere, where acting cool while sending others to die always takes precendence over admitting your faults and fuckups, and changing tack to do what's right by the country, and those you've sent to die.
Taking criticism is tough to do sometimes, especially when you're proven wrong. I've been there, as have many other brave Americans, yet this particular blogger - ASV - does not feel compelled to stand to post and accept that which is righteously being directed at her. This ASV blogger need only face 'incoming' in the form of electronic text, written on a page, flown across the internet, to a harmless, flickering screen in front of her face. No roadside bombs. No 360-degree attacks. No ambushes. No mortar rounds. No wounded, killed, armless, legless, sightless comrades. No coming face to face with dead, wounded, crying, screaming, starving Iraqi children, much less her 'enemy'. No packing up a comrade's belongings in a box to send home to his or her family. No lack of medical supplies. No lack of food and water. No lack of a secure place to sleep. And still ... still she just turns and says, "You know, this critical comment was bugging me. I've sent young men and women to their deaths. So? I still don't want to read this critical comment, and I sure as heck don't want anybody else to read it."
This is one of the most cowardly acts I can think of. Sitting at home, in front of the keyboard, afraid to take some criticism. Meanwhile, GI's you've sent to die, be maimed and/or traumatized are taking live fire, from real guns. As one American GI said, 'Someone must die. Someone must die." It's shameful in the extreme to push for war and then cower from criticism. Beneath contempt.
Maybe I'm only surprised because I don't know this ASV person to be one of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, but maybe that has changed.
You've sent kids to their deaths, ASV. Kids. American kids. White kids. Christian kids. And others, too. But don't sweat it...can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, eh?
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