Just got home and fired up the internets to see whazzup. bouncing off the link from Atrios, I find this:
The American Legion, which has 2.7 million members, has declared war on antiwar protestors, and the media could be next. Speaking at its national convention in Honolulu, the group's national commander called for an end to all “public protests” and “media events” against the war, constitutional protections be damned.
"The American Legion will stand against anyone and any group that would demoralize our troops, or worse, endanger their lives by encouraging terrorists to continue their cowardly attacks against freedom-loving peoples," Thomas Cadmus, national commander, told delegates at the group's national convention in Honolulu.
The delegates vowed to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."
Well, that's pretty interesting, "use whatever means necessary" to ensure that everyone just shuts the fuck up. Then Mr. "Fuck the First Amendment" American Legionnaire tries to cover a skosh for his eliminationist rhetoric, and make no mistake that's what this is.
Cadmus explained, "No one respects the right to protest more than one who has fought for it, but we hope that Americans will present their views in correspondence to their elected officials rather than by public media events guaranteed to be picked up and used as tools of encouragement by our enemies…
First, if my elected officials happen to be a bought-and-paid-for members of the Delay Fascism Society, I doubt they're going to give a pig fart whether or not I support the GSAVE/GWOT/Phenomenal Contractor Boondoggle from Hell. They're not going to express my views, or any that are not approved by their party leadership on the floor of the House or Senate any more than Cindy Sheehan is going to learn what the "Noble Cause" her son died for is from the lips of Preznit Horse Fluffer in this or any other lifetime.
Second, isn't threatening violence and creating fear among the populace, well, sort of Terroristic Behavior? I mean when this guy tells me, that he's going to "use whatever means necessary" to silence my and others First Amendment protected objections to this Neo-Con Fantasy War, is he planning to come to my house, burn it down and kill me and my family? Or maybe just something a little less direct, like having a sympathetic AL member who's in law enforcement, picking up my kids at school and taking them for a ride and calling me up and asking where the kids are, and I'd better shut the fuck up now.
I certainly don't think that anyone in the 1600 Crew will gainsay this guy. Not after Trent Duffy threatened the press corpse again yesterday with another "yer with us, or agin us". Members of the American Legion who think this thing is over the top and believe that this reflects poorly on the Legion and it's history and principles, will you speak out?
Will any Democrats and/or republicans in politics ditch their American Legion Membership immediately as repudiation for these remarks and do so publicly and with some fanfare to point out that this is as Un-American as it gets?
You know what, this all sounds like an irrational conspiracy rant, something my commenters and correspondants accuse me of with regularity. But I have one question: how did we get to this point today?
posted by Jo Fish on 08.24.05 at 04:40 PM
Comments:
Jo,
just drips with irony, doesn't it? I've printed out the Editor & Publisher article to hand to my uncles who have been after me to join the American Legion for the past 20 years: and this kind of crap is why I wouldn't. The unAmerican Legion is a completely ReTHUGlican organization, which doesn't give a damn about America, American values (free speech? Right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances? Constitution 101, anyone?), but only takes marching orders from the craziest of the right wingnut brigades.
It's time the American Legion was FORCIBLY disbanded. I won't join any veteran's organization because of this. Bill Mauldin explains rather pungently in his book "Back Home" the way the American Legion manipulated returning WWII vets into lending their numbers to the lobbying group. I see with some satisfaction that out of around 18 million or so vets, only 2.7 million of them are in the ReTHUG Legion.
Damn them all. Forever.
posted by: smaug on 08.24.05 at 05:19 PM [permalink]
"Declare war"? Jeez, is goosestepping required? Do they have classes? Yikes!
See, I knew there was a reason I should have joined the legion. Dammit, I can't quit.
posted by: majkia on 08.24.05 at 07:14 PM [permalink]
These poor ol' boogers won't quit, will they? I remember the American Legion's and VFW's remarks 35 years or so ago about how those of us who went to Vietnam "hadn't fought a man's war like they did in WWII" and I've despised them ever since. Say, I wonder what their current recruiting and retention rates are like now that they've found so resonant a message. And don't you just want to join so you can run around in one of their pin-bedecked hats?
posted by: Mike on 08.25.05 at 08:29 AM [permalink]
Any moron with a DD214 can join the AL. This bunch of "super patriots" don't have to have served in combat to join the club. Perhaps if they had they would be a little more ready to question the government and its motives. I've been a lifetime member of the VFW for longer than I can remember and I can't remember the VFW ever coming up with this kind of garbage. Is the AL all repugs? Or is their membership as divided as the general population. If it is as evenly divided then I am sure more than half of its membership disagrees with this latest proclamation. I wouldn't want to be associated with the AL and I am sure they will loose members after this bullshit.
posted by: Lowell on 08.25.05 at 09:45 AM [permalink]
A number of years after I left the Navy, I began to get letters from the Legion soliciting my membership. I declined at the time, thinking that the Legion and I were not a marriage made in heaven.
A classic Pavlov's Dog of War: brain washed and brain dead. Still thinks the president is HIS commander-in-chief. A neo-Prussian, considers America to exist for the purpose of supporting a military. Believes war is good.
In other words, an idiot.
Commander Jeff Huber, US Navy (Retired) Pen and Sword
I can hear them now. Stern faced little old men bedecked in pin adorned hats goose-stepping down the street with their right arms out at 45 degrees in a fixed salute to their "fearless" leader. That same guy who was too cowardly to serve like so many others did.
So much for the defenders of freedom.
posted by: MmichaelAK on 08.25.05 at 05:21 PM [permalink]
Yesterday I wrote an open letter to the Komandant of the American Legion.
See my scathing "how dare you" letter at http://www.dennismansker.com/misc/legionletter.htm
along with a copy of the 1999 letter the hypocritical bastards wrote to Clinton.
Would I be out of line if I were to call for some protests of American Legion functions and gatherings, as well as a general call for the rank and file to condemn this attack on free speech by the Reich Wing American Legion elite basking in Hawaii. Perhaps some references to the eerie similarity between their current statements and the statements and actions of their enemies in WWII would cause some of them to rethink their stand...
