Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial applauds the protesters at the Port of Olympia who attempted to interfere with the shipment of military supplies to Iraq. "Civil Disobedience: Tilting at war"
their non-cooperation with something judged as evil is worthy of noteIt wasn't just non-cooperation, it was active opposition. But more to the point, the P-I has adopted with the protesters' judgment that the U.S. is not fighting evil in Iraq, but is itself evil. The protesters are not "peace activists". They are on the other side. And so too is the P-I editorial board. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 05, 2006 09:00 AM | Email This
The protesters are not simply aiding the enemy through their actions, but far more through their ideology of anti-Americanism and refusing to acknowledge the morality of the West defending itself from Islamic Jihad.
Fortunately, most Americans grasp that the protesters are not patriotic, nor are the even advancing support for moderate Democrats, but are simply fringe radicals, acting in disorder.
As much as the left wants it to be, this ain't your father's Kent State. No one really cares if a few neo-hippies take a shot of pepper spray in the face.
Posted by: Jeff B. on June 5, 2006 09:26 AMAlso:
"their non-cooperation with something (they) judged as evil is worthy of note." Hmmm, would the PI be saying that about abortion? Egregiously high taxation? Forced mail voting by partisan election officials looking for more porous, fraud-ridden elections?
I doubt it.
Posted by: Misty on June 5, 2006 09:41 AMThe other side of what? Are you saying they are part of the Iraqi insurgency? They are members of the terrorists? Or just that they do not follow the long discredited White House talking points?
Blind obedience to a leader no more supports the troops than protesting the shipping of equipment to them. Both are foolish and miss the point. But give the protesters some credit, they probably didn't believe that they would stop the shipments; they just wanted to draw attention to their position. On the other hand, those very few who support the President's decision despite all the evidence are supporting our troops right off a cliff. The troops deserve better than the protesters in Olympia or the blind fanatics that populate this board.
You must have been talking to john m...
Posted by: alphabet soup on June 5, 2006 10:45 AMThe only thing those protestors accomplished is to piss off a lot of people in this area. There are many who are calling for a council members head on a platter and we will remember the left wings crazies come November.
The military may stop using the Port of Olympia to ship equipment to and from Iraq, but they won't stop shipping the equipment. They have a massive transportation network of providers. The Port of Olympia could lose the business and that will hurt all of us property owners down here in the Port's district.
Even if every seaport in the United States stopped accepting military equipment, (which would never happen) they could simply fly all of that equipment to Iraq..........
Posted by: sgmmac on June 5, 2006 10:47 AMThe city council tried to decree Olympia to be a non-nuclear zone effectively insuring that the Nuclear Submarine Olympia (or any other)never again visits the port.
It's interest how people's outlook changes once they graduate and grow up or get a job in the "private sector."
Now stop questioning their wisdom, comrade.
Posted by: libertarianobserver on June 5, 2006 11:18 AMOn one hand you admit that the Iraqi insurgency and terrorists are on the other side,
then you castigate those who support those that are kicking the shit out of the Iraqi insurgency
and terrorists as supporting our troops right off a cliff?
You are confused by your own yellow nonsense.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on June 5, 2006 12:03 PMSucceeded. The City of Oly is indeed, 'nuclear free'. And now the small businesses and health care facilities are trying to work around this useless, symbolic ordinance.
Officials say law slows city projects
Idiots and fools. The lot of 'em.
Posted by: jimg on June 5, 2006 12:03 PMThanks for the heads up. How hilarious!
Make a feckless symbolic law whose tooth punishes only innocents.
Liberals like TJ Johnson are true morons.
If the protesters were successful in delaying or stopping these shipments, who would benefit the most - terrorists or our troops?
Did the shipments include upgraded body armor or more heavily armored humvees? What justifies a delay in getting this equipment to our troops?
Standing on the sidewalk chanting and showing signs is a viable protest. Tearing down fences and trying to physically block the shipments is more akin to sedition and treason - not "civil disobedience".
Posted by: SouthernRoots on June 5, 2006 12:31 PM
I've got a question here. Since most smoke detectors contain Americium, a highly radioactive substance, why aren't smoke detectors banned in Olympia.
I'd love to hear the Oly Council answer your question,
but they are no doubt too busy dithering with other inane kerfuffles.
Americium was the fourth transuranic element to be discovered; the isotope 241Am was identified by Seaborg, James, Morgan, and Ghiorso late in 1944 at the wartime Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago as the result of successive neutron capture reactions by plutonium isotopes in a nuclear reactor. The luster of freshly prepared americium metal is white and more silvery than plutonium or neptunium prepared in the same manner. It appears to be more malleable than uranium or neptunium and tarnishes slowly in dry air at room temperature. Americium must be handled with great care to avoid personal contamination. The alpha activity from 241Am is about three times that of radium. When gram quantities of 241Am are handled, the intense gamma activity makes exposure a serious problem. 241Am has been used as a portable source for gamma radiography. It has also been used as a radioactive glass thickness gage for the flat glass industry and as a source of ionization for smoke detectors.
BAN SMOKE DETECTORS IN OLYMPIA!!
Posted by: swassociates on June 5, 2006 02:54 PMAbsolutely they are part of the insurgency. How else was America able to lose a war in Vietnam? How else did we get 58,253 names on the Vietnam
Wall? Is anyone really so naive, that they don't understand that-seeing an American sitting
on top on a VietCong AAA weapon, probably motivated a few Viet Cong soldiers to try harder to put a few American names on that wall.
Today, we are told that she is an outstanding US citizen-just in her civil disobedience phase then. American soldiers are dead because of her hatred for America.
Background on John Kerry http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Timeline
Late May, 1970 -- John and Julia Kerry travel to Paris on a private trip. Kerry meets with Madam Nguyen Thi Binh, the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of Vietnam (PRG) -- the political wing of the Vietcong -- and with representatives of Hanoi who were in Paris for the peace talks.¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ Sounds like a candidate the Democrats would run for President in 2004. Amazingly, some people actually voted for him.
Here's another one: Said he preferred to see an American, not a North Vietnamese, get shot during Vietnam War because "[i]t's the other guy's country" http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1821
Do you know what his position is today?
These people wanted us to lose in Vietnam and they want us to lose today. Is that what you want? Do you think the American military is strong enough to overcome the Americans who are trying their best to insure America loses?
Well said and true. This information came out but was de-emphasized during the 2004 campaign.
I wonder why.
Posted by: Amused by liberals on June 5, 2006 08:39 PMLike the Americans who have stridently tried to deprive our soldiers of body armor or adequate numbers of troops to actually win the fight? Or have severely damaged our intel operations by jumping to conclusions first and then cherry-picking whatever scant evidence can be found to support their foregone conclusions?
Almost nobody in this country wants America to lose this war. If the only way you can be secure in your own political beliefs is to caricature and dehumanize your opponents to such an extreme degree -- rather than disagreeing with their actual stated beliefs, perhaps you are just a prisoner of blind anger rather than a patriot. The terrorists that seek to divide us benefit from that hatred. God is love. When you hate, you're doing the work of Satan.
Posted by: CASEY on June 5, 2006 09:47 PMPraythee what are those Americans' . . . actual stated beliefs?
There are many in America who "want America to lose this war. Prisoners of blind anger and stupidity in the liberal Democrat party are out of power and will do anything to seize it back. The terrorists that seek to divide us indeed benefit from that hatred, and God is love. God demands that we defend his laws of fundamental rights by defeating those who attack the basis upon which God's laws are allowed to flourish.
If you feeeeel otherwise, go love the Islamic crazies into submission. I will be the first to sing your praises. Fat friggin chance.
You are either a confused nitwit or a peice of $hit. Which is it?
Posted by: Amused by liberals on June 5, 2006 10:55 PMSomeone please remind me to dredge up this little comment next time there is any kind of coverage in the P-I of the anti-abortion struggle. Somehow I doubt the P-I will find such activity as "noteworthy" as anti-war protesting.
(rolls eyes)
Posted by: Brad R. Torgersen on June 6, 2006 06:24 AM