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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! --Greyhawk | Main | SLEAZEBALLS ON THE WARPATH »April 21, 2003 DESPERATELY SEEKING RELEVANCEBy GreyhawkOR: Worse then just denial: It's "You did it too!" I ran an internet search for "lying sleazebag morons" and of course the first page on the list (After "Buy Lying Sleazebag Morons from Amazon") was the Democratic National Comittee homepage. My first instinct was to back out quickly and wipe any residual slime from the monitor, then I remembered the inside of the screen couldn't be reached without a lot of work and that equals down time. So I figured since the damage was done why not look around in sleazeville a bit and report back to the right thinkers? I mean, I'm saving you serious damage to the inside of your monitors here people. But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for my fellow freedom lovers. But oh what I found... In the on-line rant: GOP Hypocrisy: Republicans Fail their own Standards of Patriotism the party of the left tries desperately and sometimes hilariously to establish themselves as more patriotic then the Republicans. That this appears on the DNC homepage leads me to wonder exactly who is the target audience? Then comes the frightening thought; there are people out there who will believe this stuff hook line and sinker. Obviously the die-hard "I don't even think about it, I'm just a Democrat!" crowd will drool enough over this stuff to cause permanent keyboard damage. But can they really convert the masses? Are there people whose opinions can be swayed by this stuff? I hope not. I will give the American public more credit then the DNC will. I will let you make up your own minds. Read the following two lines, and think how you might characterize the statements: "Those comments may not undermine the President as he leads us into war, and they may not give comfort to our adversaries, but they come mighty close." --Dennis Hastert, 3/18/02 "This destructive rhetoric does nothing more than demoralize our troops and second-guess our commander in chief." The Dems call these quotes "attacks," as in "With countless attacks like these on Democratic leaders, Republicans set a very high standard for patriotism..." Attacks? If those were attacks, then what would you call Sep 11? We need a much stronger word! In fact, much ado has been made of non-existant "attacks" by Republicans and their "right wing media cronies" on the leaders of the Democrativc Party. It's not happening people. No suporting evidence of any substantial "attacks" has yet been offered. Still no one of any intelligence whatsoever would be surprised to find the Dems crying over their victimhood. But could the DNC be doing what they think is a pre-emptive strike? Insisting they've been attacked? Who says they can't strategerize with the best of 'em? The first DNC cruise missiles are launching from the DNC home page in the form of quotes by Republican leaders from the Kosovo campaign. However, these missiles are duds. An opinion from House Leader Tom DeLay best describes the main points in Republican questioning of the Kosovo war effort: "I cannot support a failed foreign policy... But before we get deeper embroiled into this Balkan quagmire, I think that an assessment has to be made of the Kosovo policy so far. President Clinton has never explained to the American people why he was involving the U.S. military in a civil war in a sovereign nation, other than to say it is for humanitarian reasons, a new military/foreign policy precedent." [Congressional Record, "Removal of United States Armed Forces from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia," 4/28/99] And there is the fundamental difference between the two events. Iraq was a response to Clear and Present Danger to the United States; Kosovo was arguably "humanitarian," but it was above all else a mission primarily undertaken to build a legacy for President Clinton. A feeb could see the difference. There is nothing aproaching "moral equivalance" here. Especially comparing the tone of Mr DeLays remarks to Sen Tom Daschle's now infamous "I am saddened, saddened that this president failed so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war" Or how about this 180 (that I've noted here previously): What great life changing event occured between then and now to lead Mr Bonior to visit Iraq? There are numerous such well documented 180s from Kosovo to Iraq, on both sides of the aisle. I don't have a problem with questioning the need for Americans to die in Europe, especially for an administration with a track record for cutting and running at the first sign of blood (Somolia) thus rendering near-pointless that ultimate sacrifice. The "shocked and saddened" comment went well beyond that. Likewise "I won't support military action at all" None of those Republican comments from '99 approach aidding and abetting the enemy ala a few Dem leaders this past season. "Politicking" Iraq was at least inexcusable and unforgivable, and likely treasonous as well. And OBTW, while I thought this was a dead-horse issue, it's front and center on the DNC web page today. So on a final note, most military people are tired of hearing about how well loved they are by the Democrats. Few are so short-sighted to have forgotten the attempted disenfranchisement of Florida's military voters during the Democrat's attack on the Constitution after the 2000 elections. Military members took an oath to uphold and defend that document and the ideals contained within, take that oath quite seriously, and wish everyone who takes that oath would also. Posted by Greyhawk / April 21, 2003 4:32 PM | Permalink |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
