Yes, from the comments section back here, it would appear that, at long last, I have no sense of decency left at all and, upon reflection, the majority of commenters would seem to have a point.
It was, I admit, beyond the bounds of decorum to have told grieving mother and convenient neo-con propaganda mouthpiece Wanda Watkins to fuck right off. Instead, I should have suggested that she was merely enjoying the death of her son immensely, since that would have been the right wing thing to do.
I stand corrected.
OH, YAWN ... and the tidal wave of utterly contrived outrage continues:
... Actually, right now I am demanding a full apology from Canadian Cynic entitled to Mrs. Wanda Watkins and to the mothers and fathers who have lost their brave and valiant sons and daughters to an enemy so evil, they might even speak as you do, Mr. Cynic.
No problem, Mr. Erl ... you'll get that apology just as soon as you can squeeze an equivalent mea culpa (that's Latin, Mr. Erl, you can look it up for yourself) out of your Blogging Tory colleague Steve Janke for his extended, creepy obsession with grieving mom Cindy Sheehan.
How about it, Mr. Erl? Sound fair? Does that work for you? I'll be waiting right here.
P.S. By the way, Mr. Erl, it's not polite to dishonestly misrepresent what's happening here. My beef was specifically with Ms. Watkins, so where exactly do you get off demanding that I apologize to her "and to the mothers and fathers who have lost their brave and valiant sons and daughters"?
You do have a bad habit of exaggerating just a wee bit, don't you, Mr. Erl? But you're a Blogging Tory, so I'm just going to assume you don't know any better.
P.P.S. A friendly word of advice, Mr. Erl: If you want to retain any credibility, you might want to refrain from describing "Canadian Blue Lemons" and "Celestial Junk" as "two great blogs." I'm just sayin'.
DOUBLE YAWN-O-RAMA ... Not surprisingly, Celestial Junk's "Paul" takes time off from twisting his panties into a bunch to invent some additional phony outrage:
Vile Response of "Progressive" Blogger to Grieving Mother
"Progressive" blogger Canadian Cynic responds to the words of a Mother who just burried her soldier son who was killed in Afghanistan.
Go ahead -- read the whole thing. Notice anything missing? Why, yes ... any sort of meaningful response to my original post. But I'm guessing you're used to that sort of thing by now, right?
I suspect we're not done here. I'm sure the same wingnut-o-sphere that spent years slagging grieving war mother Cindy Sheehan are now terribly, terribly concerned about a single, anonymous blogger's naughty words regarding one mother's (public and politically convenient) loss.
Yeah, I'm sure that must be it.
17 comments:
Got to love that sense of entitlement to make such a demand in someone else's name without any consent from that person. The underlying arrogance and sense of holier/better than thou that reeks throughout this nonsense you quoted CC is quite pronounced, yet of course the author will completely fail to grasp that. Man, what a weak/fragile self image/identity such behaviour literally shouts to the rest of the world, eh?
Oh, Mr. Cynic, you beastly man! How could you stoop to such an unconscionable level of moral depravity? For shame!
Shall we now wonder aloud with great mockery if this grieving war-mom is channelling the spirit of her dead son? Shall we call her "Mother Watkins" and denigrate her for being a "tool" of the right wing? And shall we make educated guesses about the size of her vagina? Shall post about her marital status and her relationship with her husband as fodder for our campaign? Shall we say she cheapens herself and her son's death by pimping the death of her son to promote more war-mongering?
See, there's one thing the right wing forgot when they were doing all this to Cindy Sheehan. They lowered the bar on what shall be done to the mothers of dead war heros.
Now they have to suck it up.
I wouldn't have put it as strongly as you CC, but when you get right down to it, her argument was that Canada must continue to send people to kill and die in Afghanistan, because whether the mission is futile or not we all have to act as if it is not futile, in order for her family's loss to be meaningful.
I'm not sure that she thought it through. Too much grief, too many preconceptions about what "the mission" was all about.
But yeah, the right-wing doesn't have a leg to stand on (with their whole "outrage" thing) after what they did to 9-11 widows, war vets who oppose war, Sheehan, even the Tilman family.
(All US examples. Is that because the US right-wing is the worst, or because Canada doesn't have a significant anti-war movement to trash?)
Is Mrs. Watkins a fellow wingnut?
I suspect that may be the case, as she would be getting the same abusive treatment from the right that was slung viciously upon Cindy Sheehan if she weren't leaning in that general direction.
Interesting the way this balances out; two women lost their sons, yet one qualifies as a 'left-tard hatemonger with Bush Derangement Syndrome', while the other is a 'grieving mother' worthy of respect and admiration.
Wingnuts. So fickle.
Oops. Hadn't read down far enough yet to see that she is in fact rolling with the wingnuts. My bad.
Explains why she's on their 'protected species' list and Cindy Sheehan didn't make the cut.
I wonder how some on the right will feel after this fool's errand is over and it was all for nothing...
This hapless creature is trying to somehow justify the death of her son by being a cheerleader for the "mystical" support of the mission....
Five years in and going backwards....
I wonder how some on the right will feel after this fool's errand is over and it was all for nothing...
Oh, they don't care. All of this is just an overwrought drama they're desperate to play a part in because they don't have anything better to do and addressing problems in a way that leads to real solutions is just too much damn work for them.
Hi there ( arrived here via Red Tory).
The Wash. Post just had an article about committed Republican midwesterners changing their minds about Bush and Iraq--but only since THEIR kids have come home in a box.
NOW they say the US should quit Iraq.
Absent from the reporter's quotes is any acknowledgement from them that their cheerleading (and voting for Bush in 2004) contributed to their kids deaths and the deaths of others.
Wanda Watkins would be entitled to normal sympathy for her loss BUT by her political prosletyzing she's actually demanding not sympathy and respect, but
the injuury and deaths of others to avoid accepting any responsibilty through her continued cheerleading of the politics and policies that got her son killed.
She is indeed demanding that others to validate her loss, whereas as Sheehan demanded NO-ONE ELSE DIE for her own loss.
So I think your comment "Fuck you and your grief..." is entirely reasonable.
P.S. I wrote relating to this topic as a result of the article I mentioned here, if you care to have a look.
http://at5thestate.blogspot.com/2007_07_08_archive.html
What makes Cindy Sheehan worth more respect than Wanda Watkins? I am wondering why the double standard on the part of all parties, but particularly on your part as there is a difference between the two, which is the element of time. Sheehan's son died years ago. Watkins' son died very recently. Why is it you believe Sheehan's grief to be more genuine and less "public and politically convenient" than Watkins? And further to that, when it comes to politicizing the death of one's son, Sheehan has gone far beyond what Watkins has, so why the apparent respect for Sheehan's opinion and not Watkins'? And while Sheehan has taken a beating from right-wing bloggers, I don't recall anyone writing anything as vile as "Cindy Sheehan, f*ck you and your grief."
5th Estate- You're completely contradicting yourself. If Watkins is to be afforded normal sympathy for her loss, then CC's statement shouldn't be acceptable, as it completely disregarded the notion of any sympathy for her.
All of you- right and left- are completely being completely hypocritical.
Anon...
The difference is NOT the element of time.
They are BOTH acting politically in speaking publicly about how policies have affected their lives and resulted in their sons deaths. .
Watkins is asking others to share the sacrifice of her son by sacrificing their sons and daughters in support of a policy and actions that are producing no benefit.
Sheehan asked that NO-ONE ELSE share the sacrifice of their sons to facilitate a policy and actions that provide NO BENEFIT.
Watkins accepts continued deaths of others to validate her own son's death and her political views.
Sheehan SOESN'T accept any more deaths to validate her son's death and her political views.
It is up to the politicians and the policies they adopt to validate Watkins son's death, not those whose family members are following orders regardless of their own political and personal views of their mission--which after FIVE YEARS has prodiuced nothing tangible except death and destruction.
But does Watkins appeal to her polticians to increase the investment and change the tactics and strategy in Afghanstan with a view deleivering some good from a bad situation that will make her son's death worthwhile?
Apparently not. She can;t bring herself to critize the people who have let her down, she prefers to warn that opposition to her politics will dishonor her sons sacrifice.
And that's what the Midwest Americans I mentioned can't deal with either. It is psychologically too big a step to take yet. It is truly an awful burden.
When any of the people here lose a child, then you'll be entitled to an opinion on how grieving mothers should behave.
If Cindy Sheehan copes by trying to get troops out of Iraq, or Mrs Watkins gets through it by trumpeting her sons achievment or 'demanding respect'...who am I to tell them otherwise?
Save the venom for the people that make the decisions, not the grieving mothers.
I bet even Cynic's mother would demand respect for his work if he...I don't know...succumbed to an overdose of bile while typing away.
Having read Mr. Erl's post and noticing his quite evident intellectual sloth-driven view of the world as "good vs so-o-o evil", my mind kept doing double-backs for making me wonder: "is this a Canadian blog or an American one?"
To this day, I remain amazed at how Canadian neocons keep mimicking their American brethren in every tactic, every talking point, every type of outrage ... in every way.
No wonder the Mini Leader and his Harpies prove to be such fawning pétasses for Bush-Cheney, day in and day out ...
I find it interesting that anyone who supports the mission in Afghanistan is naturally a "right winger"....and I thought that living in the U.S. was bad! You know, your typical "black and white" mentality..."with us or against us"...."anti-war/anti-troops or pro-war/pro-troops" - if your not careful, you are going to follow the same route. Wanda happens to be my cousin and while I know that she supports the mission in Afghanistan (and did so PRIOR to my cousin Lane's death), she is not a "right winger" by any means. You all have simply decided to label her as such based solely on her statements calling for continued support for the mission in Afghanistan. As if that's all a right-winger is. Please. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?
Seems that has-been Warren Kinsella chimes in about this debate.
He writes:wow. "F*** you and your grief." Just when you think the blogosphere can’t get any more hateful, someone comes along to surprise you. Amazing.
I bet chucklesnuts there has not even read the post. The man makes Well's seem like a genius...
I think you need to adopt the Prolapsed Catholic Defense.
Shake your head with scornful condescension at your critics, and tell them it was just a Polemic.
Mind you, most of them are so thick they think a Polemic is a resident of Warsaw with an eating disorder, but never mind.
I think your "father" shouldn`t went for the blowjob.
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