The Effete Versus the Peons
When I was at the Eagles’ gathering last Saturday, I stood for a while with some of the Rolling Thunder guys while they screened people who wanted to enter the walkway that led to the Vietnam War Memorial.
The first time I saw one of the vets turn away a protester at the checkpoint, I asked him, “What are you doing, screening out the moonbats?”
“Well,” he replied, “let’s just say ‘the college-educated’.”
I thought about what he said when I went up to Moonbat Central a few minutes later to scope out the demonstrators. There were some veterans taking part in the demonstration up there, but not many. Besides the Aztlans and the Palestinians — who were out in force — the crowd consisted mainly of college students and aging boomers, hippies for whom the sixties never ended.
It was definitely an effete crowd, a bunch of people who had enough education to know that they were better than the vulgar flag-wavers down the hill, people who were sure that they had a truer knowledge of the world than all of the great unwashed with their repulsive patriotic display over by the Vietnam memorial.
By all rights I should have been with the protesters. I come from a solid middle-class background. I’m a college-educated man and an unabashed intellectual. I’ve read Chaucer and Schopenhauer. I listen to Bach. I even like to drink latte.
So why is it that I felt at home among those Rolling Thunder guys with their flags and their Harley-Davidsons? Why did those demonstrators seem to be aliens from Arcturus?
All I know is that the veterans are my people, and the ANSWER folks most assuredly are not.
The Party for Sedition and Treason
The major issue that keeps me out of the ranks of the moonbats is that I love my country. No matter what Nancy Pelosi and Hillary do when they’re running the place, I still love my country.
The same cannot be said of the demonstrators. They claim that they love America, but when you listen to what they have to say, there isn’t a single example of American history or culture of which they approve. They revere Cuba, Palestine, North Korea, and any other barbaric thug-state, so long as it’s an enemy of the United States.
And I don’t think electing Democrats is going to ease their dissatisfaction much — they are, after all, communists, and nothing short of the Revolution will cure their alienation from Amerikkka.
Take, for example, this paragraph from The Militant, whose members were among the demonstrators:
Here in Washington Democrats continue to posture in “opposition” to the war. Their latest charade is to attach amendments to a $100 billion supplemental bill on war spending that would also set Sept. 1, 2008—two months before the next U.S. presidential election—as the date for withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. As with previous proposals of this type, it faces substantial opposition from within both parties.
As far as these folks are concerned, the Democrats are taking their campaign donations and then acting like warmongering imperialist running dog lackeys! They’re no better than the Rethuglicans! You can bet they’ll be among the first up against the wall and blindfolded when the commissars finally take control.
Socialism is the Dream That Will Not Die. I picked up some literature from one of the groups and scanned it to present here for your edification.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) is a newly-formed working-class party of leaders and activists from many different struggles, founded to promote revolutionary change. Capitalism — the system where all wealth and power lies with a handful of big banks and corporations — is the source of the problems facing humanity today: “endless war,” poverty, exploitation, layoffs, unemployment, racism, sexism, LGBT oppression. Socialism is what we’re fighting for: a society where all wealth belongs to those who produce it, for the benefit of all, based on solidarity instead of greed and competition. Do you want to learn more about socialism and Marxism? Do you want to join us in struggle? Contact the PSL, check out our website, subscribe to our magazine, and get involved… The time is now!
“Working-class”? How many of those people at the Lincoln memorial were really working class? Do working-class people consider LGBT oppression to be among their highest priorities? How many in the Socialist Workers’ Party are really workers?
One of the notable features of the Socialist conglomeration was how splintered it was into different and distinct sub-groups and sects. Christine of the 910 Group was there, and had this to report:
Along Portapotty Walk — marked by a row of small Cuban flags on the south end, and a Palestinian flag at the north — there were pairs of people selling socialist newspapers, but each one was not only a different paper, it was from a different party. The Revolutionary Communists… Socialist Workers’ Party… Freedom Road Workers’ Party… several others, each anxiously and earnestly affirming that it was different from the others.
But on being asked exactly what the difference was, one person said, “Well, Cuba. We’re different from other groups on Cuba. Somehow…” Passersby seemed to welcome having all that reading material there given the proximity of the portapotties — though reading may not have been the intended use.
I’m reminded of Protestant denominations, of schisms over Predestination and the true nature of the Paraclete. Trotsky or Che? Lenin or Mao? Can the Dictatorship of the Proletariat wait, or must it be ushered in immediately?
And Socialism is not without its lighter moments. Take this St. Valentine’s Day treatise on Revolutionary Love, from Freedom Road (Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad):
I want to talk about love this month not because the corporate holiday is coming up but because it is a little summed-up experience that has a big impact on our movement. I draw here from both theory and practice. I am in no way an expert on dating or love, with my limited experience of it, but my mother always said that the people who struggle make the best teachers. She was talking about math as an example, not the struggle, but I think you can apply it to both. In either case, I think I might make a good teacher.Revolutionaries need love is the point here and we need to share love with other [sic] in our circle in good principled ways. Of course the conditions we live under — hegemony, oppression, patriarchy — affect all of this. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes, or Lenin’s if you prefer…
Revolutionaries need love! Have you hugged your Trotskyite today?
Watch out — those bomb belts really hurt your chest when you hug those righteous Hamas dudes.
