Tuesday, April 03, 2007

One Last Time for Geoffrey

I'm not sure it's worth it to continue this, but in order to leave a record for posterity, I will revisit my experience in Geoffrey-land.

In his post, "Pathetic Gathering of Pseudo-Patriots" and in the comments that followed, Geoffrey called into question and otherwise ridiculed a group of counter protesters that call themselves Gathering of Eagles. When faced with the various facts that I presented, rather than debunk, dispute, engage or even aknowledge them, Geoffrey retreated to his I Hate Republicans cacoon.

In response to my blog post on the encounter, he proclaims that it is I that have ignored facts. Of course, the facts he offers have nothing whatever to do with the Gathering of Eagles. They are simply his excuses for his continuing hatred of Republicans.

Now, just who are the Gathering of Eagles? According to their website, they are:
We are wholly and forever committed to our brothers and sisters in uniform. As veterans, we understand their incredible and noble sacrifices, made of their own accord for a nation they love more than life itself. As family members, we stand by them, and as Americans, we thank God for them.

We believe that the war memorials are sacred ground; as such, we will not allow them to be desecrated, used as props for political statements, or treated with anything less than the solemn and heartfelt respect they–and the heroes they honor–deserve.


Then there is the blogger Indepundit who was at the protest and mingled with both sides. He took pictures and wrote a commentary on the Gathering of Eagles group.

In his latest comment on my last blog post on the topic, Geoffrey asserts that he has not belittled anyone. Let's review the original post in question so we can verify his claim.

His first sentence is not too promising:
I am going to belittle a group with whom I disagree.

Geoffrey keeps his promise by following up with these gems:
a bunch of out-of-shape, military-wannabes pretending to be a part of something that would destroy them if they actually were there

chest-bearing, pseudo-macho, pseudo-patriotic nonsense spewers

These people are the very embodiment of pathetic

And, of course, the title of the post is "Gathering of Pathetic Pseudo-Patriots".

Someone, somewhere, perhaps even in Geoffrey-land, has got to admit that those statements amount to belittling. Since the Eagles are comprised of many veterans, Geoffrey therefore has belittled veterans. That's the truth. Period.

Now, on to my "ignoring the facts" assertion that has him so flustered. In his original post, Geoffrey posed the question,
what, exactly, were they protecting and why?

Geoffrey cannot fathom why peace protesters would want to harm war memorials in any way. I often ask myself the same question. And yet it continues to happen:

Vietnam memorial in Corpus Christi, Texas
September 11 memorial in Emmett, Idaho
September 11 memorial in Naperville, Illinois
Medal of Honor monument in Indianapolis, Indiana
Veterans memorial in Irving, Texas
The Capitol steps spray painted during January protest march
And, of course, the flag and soldier burning in Portland.

Is it still so hard to understand why veterans would want to rally in order to protect the monuments that were erected to honor their sacrifice? Is it hard to understand why anyone would want to? Is it still so hard to understand why some may have become emotional-even angry-at the sight of anti-democracy, anti-soldier protesters and placards? Is it still so hard to understand that for most of these veterans this had little to do with Republicanism or President Bush?

Not for me.

2 comments:

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford said...

You keep bringing up the Gathering of Eagles (or as TRex at Fire Dog Lake calls it, Cluster Hump of Weasels) as if it existed in a vacuum. I keep insisting it does not, and you refuse to engage that point, because, quite simply, you cannot.
Yes, I belittled the Gathering of Eagles, but they did nothing, accomplished nothing, protected nothing (the National Park Service does a great job protecting our national monuments, thank you very much), and proved nothing. I stand by my description of them as a bunch of pseudo-macho pathetic pseudo-patriots, because nothing written about them, by them or in reference to them, pro or con, has shown me anything differently. Because you refuse to engage the question of the relationship between this gaggle of nincompoops and the Bush Administration use and abuse of real veterans (and the GoE labeling of war-protestors in uniform as cowards) I am going to assume the subject is now closed once and for all.

Cameron said...

"as if it existed in a vacuum" is code for "they must be Republicans and therefore I am compelled to ridicule them no matter what."

(Side Note: The officials that are in charge of protecting our monuments do their best. However, monuments are still consistently defaced. By their own admission, the spray painting that occured in last January's march happened because the police didn't have the manpower to prevent it.)

If one were to sift through all of your 4th Grade name calling, besides there not being much left to read, one would see that the fundamental difference between us is that you have given yourself a rationale to hate and ridicule a section of society and I refuse to do so. Ironically, your rhetoric is quite Rovian.