I know that it’s dangerous to hold on too tightly to formative political experiences of your youth. But that said: I just can’t get over how much all of the lessons of the post 9/11 era, War on Terror, Iraq and the protests against same are being just entirely excised from collective memory.
The protesters are pro-Saddam! What should we do just let the Taliban stay in power!?! The protests are being organized by Maoist freaks who have crazy views and love North Korea, etc etc etc
I protested the Iraq war when I was in high school and got screamed at and called a traitor by wild eyed bigots. It sucked. I feel for these kids who are being demonized by absolute psychotics.
Authoritarian types can't win debates or arguments without maliciously and intentionally lying about the positions and beliefs the rest of us hold.
Just look at the way they've equated support for reproductive rights with literal, post-live-birth infanticide.
I remember people saying the same thing about the comparatively few people protesting the Gulf War back in 1991. "What?!? Don't you support the troops???" Extreme deja vu.
I mean they’ve been saying the same shit about people who oppose war in this country for a long time. Didn’t start with our generation and it probably won’t end with this one.
Agree. Likewise in terms of early *formative* inputs: 1968-‘72 campus unrests > disproportionate LE responses. I’m kind of stunned by what’s unfolding now—even tho we watched Nixon, then Reagan win their respective WH bids by demonizing (and militarizing responses to) student protests. 🫠
How is sending them billions and all the weapons they could ever need to bomb the entirety of Gaza to dust not involved? Just because we don't have troops there? I guess I have a different definition of involved.
Right, I said directly involved. We’re definitely involved but the OP was comparing the protests to Vietnam and this very different. Americans are a lot more willing to put up with getting involved in a conflict if Americans aren’t getting killed.
Palestinian terrorists have never performed a terrorist act & demanded benefits for Palestinians. Where were all these protestors for babies & children’s lives under HAMAS pre 10/7? Weaponized doublespeak
Go ahead criticize Trump for “dodging the Draft” - he got all student deferments except one legit medical deferment. Then look at W using more privilege than Trump did to skip out on even the assignment he used to dodge the draft. Clinton chased bin Laden all over MENA & Al Qaeda attacked under W.
> legit medical deferment
Bone spurs? The same bone spurs that keep him from playing golf?
You do know that no Trump has ever served in the military, and his grandfather was kicked out of Germany for draft dodging, right?
Avoiding the draft for Vietnam at the time was the right thing to do. Since we are talking about legitimate peaceful demonstration of illegitimate wars. If you want to criticize Trump you can do a lot better
are you trying to say that trump draft dodged out of some anti-war sentiment? lmfao yeah you can make bigger complaints about trump but you don't have to create this sort of fiction to do that holy shit
I just say Trump is not only incompetent to run a govt he’s in it 100% for himself & has become a fascist tool of Russia & billionaires & should never be in charge of the public interest & is like to see him in jail. No need to taint anti Vietnam war or anti draft with his memory.
When Clinton tried to take out Osama bin Laden with a missile, the Republicans claimed he he was just doing it to divert attention away from Monica Lewinsky.
But this is the protest criticism script for every anti war protest in the 20th century-Vietnam,both Iraq wars.It’s not memory holed it’s being reproduced as though we should be credulous.Which is why it’s important to point out the repetition&never pretend these kinds of objections are substantive.
If any of the people who said that second thing had actually been sincere, they would flip to realize that we did all that just to let the Taliban take back over.
But really, they were mostly just angry and just saying stuff to support their anger, not actually making real arguments.
Barack Obama became President in 2008 instead of Hillary Clinton basically because he was smart enough to oppose the Iraq War and apparently no one in Democratic politics including Barack Obama learned anything from this
In part because virtually no one who egged that war on, or denounced or dismissed those protesting or warning against it, paid any price at all.
There's a large shared self-interest in not looking backward.
Yep. It's that. I think normal people learned and that's why there hasn't been a ton of popular support for giving support to Israel since 10/7. It's our government and institutions that haven't learned and changed.
Garofalo used to be aired all the time as a talking head next to Jonah Goldberg, Brian Kilmeade, Tucker Carlson, and in 2003 she was endlessly mocked on Fox News for predicting no WMDs & opposing the Iraq invasion. She’s gone from the scene and they’re all still here
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