Well, I guess I may as well talk about the 10,000 pound elephant in the room.
As everyone knows, I am against the war in Iraq, and always have been. I didn’t believe there were WMDs in Iraq even before the war started, and I believed before the war started that we were attacking a country which had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on 9/11. By the way, where is Osama bin Laden? Strange that we haven’t found a human giant when our spy satellites can see a quarter on the sidewalk from space, don’t you think?
I therefore am completely against the war, and always have been. There are a lot of people completely against the war, though, so I’m hardly alone in that stance.
It is now being said that the bombing of the Times Square recruiting office was perpetrated by anti-war protesters. So let me say this, so there is no misunderstanding. I do not agree with violence of any type, and I do not support anyone or any organization which engages in violence of any type. It doesn’t matter whether they’re mugging an old lady, or bombing a recruiting office. Violence is always wrong, and the only time it is even marginally acceptable is in self-defense, and even then it is acceptable only if not excessive.
There is also some suggestion that the attack may have been made by anarchists. I am not an anarchist - far from it, in fact - but I know a lot of anarchists online through the libertarian movement.
There are two types of anarchist, incidentally. One simply wants the government to disappear, because they believe there is no use for the government. The other type of anarchist believes it is up to them to bring an end to government.
Even of the latter type of anarchist, the vast majority are all talk. Most don’t even hold down a job; they sit on their computer in their underwear in their mother’s basement, and spend hours typing anti-government propaganda in blogs and forums across the internet, as if they should be taken seriously. They are not well organized, and in fact aren’t really organized at all, except insofar as talking amongst themselves on the internet. Most people just chuckle at their angry missives and move on, and that’s what I do too.
However, I am also not naive, so I won’t completely rule out anarchists as the source of that explosive device. Then again, I think it’s pretty obvious that they are anarchists, since they are striking out with violence against the government. Duh.
The question is, do they self-identify as anarchists, or are they just garden-variety war protesters who are a bad influence on one another? Only time will tell. They may not even be from the US, since the Canadian border is not that far away from New York, and there is a strong anarchist movement there as well (though not affiliated with the US libertarian movement).
Something which bothers me personally is that news venues appear to be painting war protesters and anarchists with the same brush. However, they are not at all the same thing, not even close, and I suspect that the convenient mixing of the two is nothing but propaganda.
Personally, I hope the perpetrators are found, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. While I understand their viewpoint against the war, there is entirely too much chance that eventually one of their homemade bombs will kill someone. Besides, war protesters should be pacifistic, or else they are no better than the warmongers they oppose. Violence will get war protesters nowhere, because once they engage in violence, they have lost their moral high ground.
When the government is sending young men to a foreign country to die against their will in a draft, then maybe these people would have a point by bombing a recruiting office. But with an all-volunteer military, their only point is that they are ‘tards.
I just hope this was not staged by Bush and Company to discredit the anti-war movement and further erode our civil rights by using this as an excuse for more warrantless wiretaps and other nonsense. While I hate to sound like a paranoid, I also wouldn’t put it past the government to do that, given the present public opinion against such measures.
“….Violence will get war protesters nowhere, because once they engage in violence, they have lost their moral high ground. ….”
Well, they don’t see it that way…if they did, they wouldn’t do it.
There is alot of good news!!! Coming from Iraq and Afghanistan but the press who has taken political sides will not report it.
elfninosmom writes: “Most don’t even hold down a job; they sit on their computer in their underwear in their mother’s basement, and spend hours typing anti-government propaganda in blogs and forums across the internet,…”
Lets be clear on one thing, my Mom won’t let me out of the attic. The hell with the basement.
BB