It bugs me that posts like these are possible because many of the people who attend Iraq war protests who act in an uncivilized manner are asshats.
But I wonder, does that make the point that some were making, that the Iraqi occupation was not such a hot idea, wrong?
I was in the big peace march downtown (and world wide) on march 15th, just before the start of the Iraqi war. It really pissed me off to see people imply that the crowd all felt the same way about all issues. There was such a range of people there - people that just wanted the US to wait for the UN inspectors to finish, to people who thought we should overthrow the US govt and grow sprouts. People focus on the fringe lunatics so they can discredit the entire group of people that marched on that day (11 million, world wide).
Art - You’re right in that many in the pro-war set are using guilt by association tactics on the anti’s. Your post here is part of what needs to happen if there’s to be a real dialogue, and hopefully some sort of mutual understanding (if not agreement) between folks on both sides of the issue. There _are_ nut jobs in both camps, but those on your side are more visible. The cause of the anti’s would be furthered if they would self-police this kind of idiocy. For better or worse, we are judged by the company we keep.
Guilt by association is not fair, and yet it’s where most discourse ends up going.
Are my choices really between EITHER Ann Coulter or Al Franken?
Additionally, it seems to me that reasonable people — people with opinions that can’t be expressed in a 30 second soundbite, don’t do protest marches. That frustrates me.
I want to be more active in protesting the War but have yet to find a website with information about when and where protests are being held…anybody know current updated websites which contain information about protests?