prole

Yeah, apart from photoshopping out all babies strapped to the protesters chests, the inconvenienced commuters, the old lady in the ambulance that couldn't get to the hospital, and digitally removing the majority of bandannas, I'd say these were pretty good.

Not a very good one either. Despite your own wavering declarations, you ventured down to this event with an agenda. I don't subscribe to the idea that opinion-reporting is inherently wrong, but I do believe in disclosure. Don't try to pretend you're just a neutral observer who, once on site, had some kind of epiphany. Where's the part where he/she is pretending?

Ohhh, that's right, you supported the war from the beginning. Is that you with the God Loves Israeli Bulldozers sign? Too bad there won't be any grief centers for you and the thugs you run with to process your guilt for being on the wrong side of history again. But then again being a bastard means never having to say you're sorry.

Shot in the face with rubber bullets?

Ever been beat up by a cop?

Here, here. (-Mildly impressed with the protesters myself, just still can't figure out why they're blocking them from coming back.) From the originally linked article: "The reasoning was that the military equipment was part of the ongoing war against the Iraqi people, that is was being refurbished and repaired at Ft. Lewis to be used again in Iraq, that it was part of a revolving door of war materials coming from and going back to Iraq."

Ha. This seems a fundamental oversight in the discourse surrounding home ownership and the freedom it supposedly provides. Most home "owners" are just rent payers with interest.

Using the word mob is over the top. These were peaceful protestors (minus the several assholes). In the past if folks blocked traffic they were simply hauled off and arrested, which is the risk you take for any civil disobedience. Fair enough. But now there seems to be an increase in mace first ask questions later. Why mace a 20-year-old who is just sitting in the street, then chase after them with batons once they do start fleeing the mace? Maybe the cops are getting less training on how to deal with protestors, or they see it as easier to mace folks that are peacefully protestors. Don't know. But it's an apparant trend. The use of the term "mob", "mob rule", etc. has a long history in anti-democratic thought. Here's a classic in the literature that explores this history.

Looks like quite a few of the kids on the front lines of Iraq are making a significant contribution to ending this war: Army desertion rate highest since 1980 By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 47 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam war, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year. According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.--from AP 11/16/07

But what about this guy? New boss same as the old boss?

Thanks for the eyewitness accounts. Dannible, when you post your pictures, be sure to include the ones of the babies being used as human-shields as was slanderously accused by a previous poster. I didn't see any in the video footage.

hard to argue against common sense, isn't it prole? what's the difference, seriously? the difference is the ends justify the means, when you agree with the ends. Interesting. Thanks KK. I'd be interested in people's ideas of contemporary scenarios in which "extra-legal" tactics might be justified. JayB said in liberal democracies those cases would be few. Elaborations?

They seem to be doing a helluva job! Let me know when the country's hit rock bottom and I'll join you for a martini on the barricades!

What have YOU done for me lately?

A response I would expect from KK or FW. The company you keep is rubbing off on you. Try harder.

Git'ner done. "For 10 days, anti-war activists in Olympia, Washington have slowed down and for two different periods of 12 hours or more, stopped the flow of military weapons and military cargo that were unloaded from a Navy ship that had returned from Iraq. For 24 hours a day, we have used a variety of tactics and actions. They have included sitting in front of trucks carrying Stryker vehicles and other military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia, building barricades on the roads where these military vehicles were traveling, anti-war demonstrations through the streets of Olympia and vigils, downtown. A hearing was held at City Hall, last Sunday, November 11th, 2007 to document the excessive police force used against people who participated in these actions. We testified at the Olympia City Council and at a hearing of the elected Port Commissioners demanding that they take a stand opposing the U.S. war against Iraq by not letting our Port be used to transport war supplies. About 500 people have taken part in some or all of these protests... It is very likely the military will not use the Port of Olympia again for military shipments during the duration of the occupation of Iraq. This is a victory. A bigger victory and ongoing task is for PMR to educate ourselves and others about how Olympia is being militarized, e.g., by challenging military recruiters in the schools and the deployment of the National Guard to Iraq. It also means working with the Longshore Union, and other communities in Washington State and nationally and with military resisters to raise the social cost of this war and make it impossible to wage. Now is the time to increase militant and dramatic action against this war as well as more traditional demonstrations where 70% of U.S. residents oppose the war while those in power continue to wage it and most of the Democratic Party leadership acquiesces to it. NOT IN OUR NAME!!"--more here

The economic/educational backgrounds of individual terrorists from the 9/11 hijackers to Osama have been discussed ad nauseum.

What might be more enlightening than looking at the demographic of individuals that actually carry out terrorist acts would be to trace the relationship between "terrorist groups", poverty, popular support, and the provision of social services that the state is either unwilling or unable to provide. But again, this ground has been covered before.

Yes, this is quite old news.

When linked to patriarchy, yes. But given your previous posts condemning such systems in Muslim societies, you'd know that already.

Sounds like an interesting book. Here's an exert from an interview with the author: "Tell us what the Terror Dream [susan Faludi's new book] is about? Well, I sat down to write this book because I wanted to try and understand what had happened to us after 9/11 because when you go back and look at our reaction, you see something really strange. So much of our response didn't seem to be a reaction to the actual threat; it was as if we had fallen into some kind of fever dream where our politicians were re-enacting wild west dramas and spouting vigilante cowboy rhetoric and our pundits were saying that the war on terror was back to our frontier wars fighting Indians. We had the media hailing the return of John Wayne masculinity, and there was all this talk about scared housewives, you know, wanting protection and men defending family homes from attack, and all of this was quite mystifying on several fronts. And here you have hijackers who had aimed their planes at the monuments of military and financial power, yet our culture as a whole was reacting as if our home and hearth was under attack. And here you have an attack by men who hate western women's liberation, yet the rhetoric and the culture was all about how we needed to return traditional family values and that the attacks were going to cause women to rush out and get married and have babies and reconsider their independence and stay home and sew drapes. And there were some articles about things like more sewing machines being sold or some things like that, weren't there? Right. Right. Time Magazine, well, both Time and Newsweek, among various other publications, but the one I remember distinctly was Time Magazine, saying stay home, sew your own drapes and dresses, and predicting that sewing machines - there would be a spike in sales of sewing machines, meatloaf pans, comfort food, roasting pans. They were right about the roasting pans, but that was simply because the story ran just before Thanksgiving. Was this something that was completely created by the media? Or was it something that you think a lot of Americans actually felt? Well, neither, actually. What I think we were seeing was in a time of crisis, and a particular crisis where we felt threatened on our home soil, we as a culture reflexively reached for a very old mythology. So it wasn't that the media whipped something up, whole cloth. The media, the political culture, the popular culture, reached for a cultural fantasy that we as a society spent many, many years elaborating that the mythologies of ourselves as unassailable and invincible and protected as a nation of helpless rescued women protected by strong, 10-gallon hat men. So it wasn't as if the media came up with something new. It went back to something that, along with the other architects of the culture had been devising since America's founding." The rest can be found here.

How's everyone enjoying their productivity gains? I have a feeling this is going to be a very productive day.

KK, I've been reading your posts for a while now. I hope you don't think this is weird but I've been so impressed by the content and the style of argumentation in your work. Is there a special school that you went to learn all this stuff, cause you just come off as being so knowledgeable on so many subjects. Is there a group that I could join to learn more, or maybe you could point me to some websites or authors that you like. I'm especially interested in your expertise on the thinking of liberals, commies, pinkos, etc. Thanks in advance and keep up your amazing work! --Prole PROLE YOU HAVE CONVINCED ME THAT MARXISM IS THE WAY AND I'VE SEEN THE LIGHT REGARDING OUR EVIL CAPITALIST BOURGEOSIE MASTERS. WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! Hee-hee.

KK, I've been reading your posts for a while now. I hope you don't think this is weird but I've been so impressed by the content and the style of argumentation in your work. Is there a special school that you went to learn all this stuff, cause you just come off as being so knowledgeable on so many subjects. Is there a group that I could join to learn more, or maybe you could point me to some websites or authors that you like. I'm especially interested in your expertise on the thinking of liberals, commies, pinkos, etc. Thanks in advance and keep up your amazing work! --Prole

That the game of baseball is pure bliss may be the only thing we agree on.