Liberal Urban Legends, Volume 1

[eetmewithtoast]

I still feel like a horrible monster for screaming at Coyote . . . but that's something that'll fade in time. It has to do with the fact that I was never physically or sexually abused . . . plain old verbal abuse/mindfucking was all I ever received, but I feel awful when I give as good as I got. I feel awful when I fail to vent in an appropriate manner. Between roleplaying (in at least 3 games, currently) and art and writing and singing . . . I feel like I have no excuse.

But anyway. I'm on a little island of sanity this morning, so I thought it'd be useful to address a post just to my four Conservative friends, three of which read my Livejournal. This is for you, and any other people reading my journal who are standing in mute wonder as I scream and rant and bang myself against my padded walls.

Calling this a list of Liberal Urban Legends is kind of a misnomer, since many of these opinions are held by non-city folk, but Urban Legend is the only name we have for Modern Myth, so it'll have to do. The first one's personal.

• I do not hate you or think that you are stupid. Misinformed, underinformed, perhaps, but some of you Conservative folks are only getting your news from one extremely unfair and unbalanced source, so how can I blame you? I do not hold any individual Conservative responsible for the results of the election. How could I? Yes, it was a very narrow win, but it wasn't your vote that made this happen. I don't even think that W is stupid, but I do hate him. I think that W is a liar. If you'll take note of his mis-speak, it is almost always when he is talking about things he doesn't care about: education, welfare, the poor, the middle class, the environment, et cetera.


• Liberals support the troops. We draw our lines in the sand very carefully, don't we? The pro-Iraqi/Afghanistan-War people took up this chant almost immediately, remembering how the Marines were treated when they returned from Vietnam. I think most Liberals agree that blaming Boy Scouts for doing what their Scout Leader told them to do is not productive. Many new Liberals are the families of those overseas. We love our troops, and we want to bring them home, alive and well. One of my favorite parts of Farenheit 9/11 was one of Michael Moore's closing thoughts.
  
  "I've always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is remarkably their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?"


• Liberals are not a bunch of pansy peace-loving hippies. This is true and it is false. For the most part, the people who are opposing this war (sorry, these wars) are not people who hate all war. I myself fall into the category of "don't kill people, or send our people to be killed, unless you've got a really good reason". So the crux of this pro-war/anti-war thing is, was Saddam Hussein and these possible Weaopons of Mass Destruction an adequate reason to go to war? Many Liberals say no, many Conservatives say yes.
  
  But back to hippies for a moment. Yes, I have seen a few old hippie statements taken out of the closets and used for this war. In the Providence Army/Navy Surplus Store on Thayer Street they're selling T-shirts with "Make Love Not War" written on them in a chunky 60's hippie font. The Black-Eyed Peas sing, "Yes to sex, yes to sex. No to war, no to war," which I think is a nice update on that. They also sing, "Where is the Love?", which I interpret as a call for this Christian government to show some Christian love for its enemy.
  
  Show the other cheek, Dubya. I'd love to see you have the balls to do that.
  
  Anyway, these messages of hippie-ness are out there, but they are nowhere near as plentiful as messages of anarchy, anger, and general upset that the government is, yet again, not listening to its people. Could you imagine Eminem in a fringed vest, skipping up to a war supporter and handing him a flower? What about the Beastie Boys, Sum 41, The Offspring, Ministry, Pennywise, NOFX, Social Distortion, New Found Glory, Green Day, Bad Religion, Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly, Foo Fighters, Rancid, Sleater-Kinney, Yellowcard, Sick of it All, No Doubt, and the Bouncing Souls? All of these bands have taken a stand against W, against the wars, but they aren't strumming guitars and singing about doves and flowers and blowing in the wind. They're pissed. They're screaming their rage, and you can hear it on Encore and Rock Against Bush Volume 1 & 2.
  
  Yes, those "Make Love Not War" shirts sell pretty well, but I've seen more people wearing the "Good Bush/Bad Bush" T-shirts. Next to "Good Bush" is a picture of a girl's hips, her thumb hooked under her underwear and tugging it down. Next to "Bad Bush" is W's face.


• Liberals do not think Saddam Hussein was/is a Good Guy. He's a bully, he's an ass, he's someone who slaughtered and tortured people who were ethnically and religiously different to him. He didn't do it by the millions, so he does not deserve the title "Hitler". And yes, as a grandaughter of Jews who fled Eastern Europe at the brink of the second world war, I can state that with authority. Ethnic cleansing is not a new concept. The problem is, at the time this war broke out, he was one of . . . I'd say, at least a dozen petty dictators who were doing the same thing. Saddam was not the only bully in the playground. In fact, there were plenty of bullies who were doing the exact same thing: slaughtering thousands of people who were of a different religion or ethnicity to themselves, talking trash about the U.S., trying their best to develop weapons which they could use to kill the people/nations they hate more effectively.
  
  The question is, of all these evil dictator types, why did the U.S. single Saddam out? What was so much more important or appealing about him? Did W yearn to finish the job that daddy started? Did the whole administration really believe that Saddam was in any way tied to Al Qaida and thus responsible for 9/11? Did they really believe that the Iraqi people would cheer at their liberation from Saddam? Of all the bullies, why pick on him?
  
  The only answer we can think of is the old American standard: profits. Oil is money. Rebuilding a country which has lots of oil is money. And then we look to see who got those contracts to rebuild, and, to nobody's surprise, most of them were no-bid contracts to the company that the Vice Prez used to run. Providence's beloved Mayor Cianci issued some no-bid contracts to . . . gosh, now I can't remember. Garbage men? Construction workers? Something along those lines. And he's sitting in prison for it, while Dubya gets four more years at the helm of the entire country.

I just came up with an incredible idea for Roundabout, so I'm going to stop now. I'm sure I'll do Volume 2 soon. Leave a comment if you want to, Conservatives, but be warned that I may no longer be in this little island of sanity when I read it. I reserve the right to go apeshit- the point of this post was to explain ourselves and debunk some myths (ooh, Liberals hate terrorists definitely needs to go in Volume 2) not really to spark debate. I'll engage you if you want, but I can't promise I'll keep my feet away from your groin. You are welcome, as always, to express yourself fully in your own journals. I haven't started a flame war on someone else's journal for months and months, and I'm trying to make it a full year.