Anti-American Protesters

[gagged_Louise]

On either side of the issue are either the blind "patriots" who see nothing America does as ever being bad and those who, for some reason, really despise America and see nothing good in it. Both attitudes are, ultimately, unAmerican -- and pretty stupid.

The anti-war protesters who have an honest belief that their country is doing something wrong in Iraq have not only a right but a responsibility to speak out against it. I think they're misguided and naive, but that doesn't make them less patriotic.

Yes, on both sides there's these all-out guys who really don't care about any moral issues but revenge and hate. True outside of the US too - you'd be surprised how freely the brand "America haters" has been waved about in the European media for the past five years. Still, no one would expect the people interviewed on camera at a rally like this to be totally exhaustive about why they are there. They know that whatever they say will be cut down to soundbites and punchlines, so of course they tend to paint in broad strokes sometimes. And as the general mood in the US media has been so heavily pro-war for the past five or six years, they are merely using their right to speak up. For them as citizens this is a moral duty, as Ragoczy pointed out, and it's not cheap.

I think they are right in implying that the media ignore the number of civilian deaths since 2003 and before it (due to the embargos on medicine etc). It's the same outside the US, ten US soldiers dead is much more news than the continuous bloodletting around the country.

Besides, this kind of protest is motivated by knowing that you're not getting through in the mainstream media with any sensible questions. Any war polarizes in this way today, at least in a democracy - the time when you could unite the country behind a war against an inherently evil regime is long gone, especially when this regime is on the other side of the planet and is no real threat at all to the USA (true of both North Vietnam/FNL in the '60s and Iraq in 2003). So opinion unity has to be created, you have to sell the war and the sense of unity.

The guy who is interviewing mentions the 1971 Winter Soldier event (at Detroit) to look into the possible US war crimes and excess brutalities in Vietnam - that one was ignored by all the national media when it happened it seems (though it was later referred to in th US Congress). Not being American I had to look it up on Wikipedia. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Sometimes, being a patriot has to mean that you don't accept all things just because "right or wrong, it's my country". I think we're at one on that vital point Ragoczy.

What does CCR have to do with anything? That was the audience, it's irrelevant. That's not what that video was about

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CCR is the source of the video. The source influences the content, just as in the video from the original post, and must be considered. CCR supports the UN Declaration on Human Rights, one of the most reprehensible documents on "rights" ever created.

Isn't it obvious that the people who shot, edited and posted that video are affiliated with the Republican party and strong supporters of the Iraq war? The reference to John Kerry and hos taking part in the anti-war movement of the 70s is very telling (unlike Bush jr Kerry had seen actual frontier service). Watching a video is not the same as actually being there on the spot, so editing and picking what to show matters a lot with any film, especially documentary/news footage. This one has a heavy biased wish to portray the protesters (not just at that particular rally) as ignorant hippies and total pacifist "pussies".

That the United Nations declaration of human rights is an abhorrent document - well, you're entitled to your view of course.