The Reno Gazette Journal had an article yesterday about a handful of hippies who continue to agitate for “peace.” By “peace” they mean for us to leave Iraq, Afghanistan, and rid ourselves of the military-industrial complex. Apparently they want to remind Harry Reid and Barack Obama that Obama’s election was a mandate for college-know-it-all hippidom, appeasement, and wishful thinking instead of sound policy.
The Federal Courthouse is across the street from my office, and that’s generally where they gather. One day a week a few of them take pots and pans and bang on them, which I have some recollection of my little sister (or maybe even me) doing when we were toddlers, also in protest, in what I believe is referred to as a “temper tantrum.” It never worked for us, and I don’t know that it does much for them except give the federal judges a headache. If they can even hear it.
On Monday afternoons they gather for a “peace presence” after work, where they get together, wave the American flag upside down and beneath a flag with a picture of the globe (depicting our subservient sovereignty to the rest of the world, apparently). The flag was upside down again this Friday. Here’s a picture I took earlier this year:
This picture is interesting to me. Clearly, it is a liberal sentiment. Because liberals don’t want to take care of themselves, they are comforted by ever greater levels of control and bureaucracy. The farther away and the less acountable the seats of power are to them, the less responsibility they can claim, and the easier it is to simply complain about the world without having to lift a finger to actually do anything about it.
When you think about it, Liberalism is really about wanting to live in a child-like state your entire life, where everything is always someone else’s responsibility and there are no real lasting consequences to your actions.
And it’s not as if showing up for an hour on a Friday lunch our is exactly making a sacrifice. One of the delusions of protesters is that they think anyone cares if they’re “marching in the street.” They aren’t exactly shutting down the local economy.
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Back to the article. There are some precious bits:
“As a nation, we have elected a new president and have a new direction,” said Xan Joi , who made the trip to Reno Friday from Berkeley, Calif. “We need to bail out people and not corporations and we have to end the war.”
Earlier, the article said there were a “half dozen” people. 400,000 people in Washoe County, and to make six hippies over lunch they had to import extras from Berkeley? I’m starting to feel better about flipping Nevada back into the red column next time around.
A hot pink CodePINK truck was stationed at the event by the women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Peace and social justice.” If only they would have protested for social justice in Afghanistan back when the Taliban was in charge. The irony is that peace and social justice aren’t always compatible, unless you define “social justice” as living in a property-less Communist worker’s paradise. When guys with guns and bombs threaten your life and freedom, you can either give up and surrender to them (peace), or you can fight (not peace). If CodePINK wants to put their money where their mouths are, they’ll make some pink burkhas and throw away their drivers’ licenses.
Some of the people at the gathering Friday were from CodePINK while a few were from a local group called The Molly Ivins Pots ‘N Pans Brigade, which meets every Thursday morning in the same location.
For the uninitiated, the “Pots ‘n’ Pans Brigade” is a bunch of burned out hippies literally bringing their kitchenware to the courthouse and banging them together to make a bunch of noise. It’s pretty annoying, but even in my building just across the street you can only hear them for a second when I walk to my car to go to lunch or something. I don’t know how many minds they’re changing, but it’s good for a laugh.
Some in the group said they wanted to communicate their concerns with Reid, who was in Washington Friday.
I’d think, then, going to Washington with their idiocy might have been more effective. It would have beautified South Virginia Street, at least. Barring that, wouldn’t writing a letter be more useful as a communication tool?
“For every one of us here, there are hundreds of people who would like to join us,” said Marie Bravo of Reno. “I want to see change and an end to the military industrial complex.”
Well, if there was an end to the military industrial complex, they’d see change all right. And something tells me the change wouldn’t allow for a bunch of dirty hippies to openly protest their government.
And you have to love the sanctimonious blowhardism that allows someone to claim to be speaking for hundreds of un-named people. Here’s a clue, Ms. Bravo. This thing took place over a lunch hour. If all those people had wanted to be there, they would have gone.
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The opposite of war is not peace, unless you allow a definition of “peace” which tolerates slavery, oppression, anarchy, and/or a total breakdown of civilization and a return to neolithic “noble savage” mythology.
If they really wanted meaningful peace in Iraq and Afghanistan, they would join the fight and support our missions there.
But then, that doesn’t make them seem nearly as cool back in Berkeley.
