Parting the Red Sea
So I got this piece of wundertripe in my in-bin yesterday at work. Feel free to skim. Please take note of the colored text though. I did my best to duplicate the exact format of the email.
| Red Fridays. | For a moment, I thought this was going to concern the Socialist Movement in the US. |
| Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority." We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing. | The "silent majority" is neither. So this time we're voicing our love for "God, country and home" are we? In other words, if you don't wear Red on Friday you hate God, country and home. For some reason, I doubt the accuracy of that surmise. Oh, and for what it's worth, Nixon was the one who dragged the term "silent majority" into common currency, calling upon them for their support. The term seems like a convenient way of saying "everybody's backing me, even if I can't prove it." |
| Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends,simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday -- and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that ... every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something red. | "Like you, me and all our friends"? I think maybe whoever drafted this needs to get out more. I'll try to get past this though. I am amused by the Socialist leanings in this piece of virtual propoganda. Wearing red, seeking solidarity, treating the workers with dignity and respect: all very Marxist of them. |
| By word of mouth, press, TV -- let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the USA is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once "silent" majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on. | The inference continues. If I don't participate, then I don't love my country. If I don't dress in red ... I mean RED ... I don't support my country. Dressing in RED will support our troops AND prove my love for the USA. Uh, news flash here guys. The best support we could show our troops right now is to get them decent battle armor, decent tanks, decent living conditions, decent officers that give them decent commands, and decent wages so that their spouses and children don't have to live in poverty waiting for their breadwinner to return to the states. Even better, let's support them by starting to withdraw ASAP. Trying to make this into a high school football game only emphasizes the sophmoric logic going on here. |
| The first thing a soldier says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is ..."We need your support and your prayers." Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something red every Friday. | I suspect that I have a very different idea of what "support" means than this writer. But I've addressed this already. I continue to doubt that many soldiers in battle over in Iraq will give a flying Fig Newton if I put a red t-shirt on today. |
| IF YOU AGREE -- THEN SEND THIS ON. | Note that agreement is color coded red. Clever, eh? |
| IF YOU COULDN'T CARE LESS -- THEN HIT THE DELETE BUTTON. | Ah, and disagreement is color coded blue. Democratic blue. Blue doesn't support our troops. Blue is un-American. Yeah, I could have deleted it. But the nice thing about this country is that you get to voice your opinion. I choose not to be silent, even if I am in the majority - the majority of people who feel we trapped ourselves in a war we shouldn't have started an may not be able to finish. |
| IT IS YOUR CHOICE. | Dear, dear. Which to choose, which to choose...? Shall I prove myself a sheep-brain and follow the red-clad flock, or shall I put myself on the list of traitors and ne'er do wells and risk another color tomorrow? Decisions, decisions .... |
| WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE!! | How I loathe rhetoric. We have appointed ourselves the "land of the free" and then have the hubris to turn this war into a fight for our freedom. I'm not making any statement about Iraq and its politics. Whether or not the prior government of Iraq deserved to be removed is not what I'm discussing here, because it isn't what this absurd email is discussing. It's making a direct tie-in of our freedom to the war in Iraq, and I resent that misrepresentation. It mocks the men who truly did buy our freedom with their deaths, and it does it in a particularly self-righteous manner. |
Today I wear blue to work. Blue is every bit as American as RED, and you don't need capital letters to spell it.
posted by Salamander @ 6:53 AM
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3 Comments:
they're lucky i manage to put clothes on at all!! i'm exhausted and a little confused these days.
i can think of more useful and constructive ways to spend time instead of spending it by spamming people with this sh*t.
ciao!
f
I get so disgusted by people like this spammer who somehow seem to equate lack of support for this war with lack of support for the troops.
Both of my parents served in the military. I support our troops (at least, the majority who aren't raping, torturing, and murdering Iraqis just because they can). I do NOT support a war that was entered into for the wrong reasons, that resulted in tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths (both U.S. and Iraqi), and that further eroded the stability of that region and severely compromised our relationship with the rest of the world. And I do not support people who whine about needing support. If one is in the military, then one should be prepared at any time to be ordered to fight in less than optimal conditions. If one is married to a member of the military, then one should be prepared to be separated from that person for any length of time and accept the risk that that person may die in the line of duty. It's not just a free ticket to college and a chance to learn new job skills, folks - which is unfortunately how the U.S. military is STILL advertising it. It's a tough life. People need to learn to deal with it, or they shouldn't sign up for it (or get involved with those who do) to begin with.
Ahem. *clearing of throat*
Yeah. Well. Just because something is red, doesn't make it communist.
And there is nothing wrong with not supporting your troops in a war, if you disagree with them being there in the first place. Suggesting you oppose a war, but support the troops just means that you, in the end, support the war; whether you want to or not.
Every war has civilian casualties, like my dearest of friends Colin Powell said: "It's just collatoral damage."
Every army since the beginning of dawn has known that when it enters a war there will be civilian casualties. Babies burning, mother's unlimbed, rape and spoil.
And so does every organisation that sends soldiers to war.
I can forgive citizens who voted Republican or Labour or CDA (in the Netherlands) before the war in Iraq, they can't be held responsible for a decision that was made without consultation.
But anyone who voted for these same governments after the war was started is responsible. Responsible for the deaths of thousands of mums, children and old people; people who didn't have a choice in their destiny either.
I also feel that soldiers who go off and fight of an unjust cause are responsible as well. "Just following orders, sir." was proven in Nurenberg to be a non-argument. We all carry responsibilty for our own actions!
Unless your mentally impaired. Which, ironically enough, does seem to let Bush of the hook...
Oh well. Back to drinking beer, me thinks...
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