Friday, May 1, 2009

Another country heard from: Ted Rall, Geraldo Rivera and the 101st Airborne Division's Traditional Leave Taking Ceremony for Anal Sphincters.



Just in case you might miss it, I decided to replicate the new comment below from the Ted Rall cartoon piece. Someone, Rall perhaps, has taken offense at my post and the comments. Personally, I believe Rall has a right to draw whatever disgusting slurs he wants to about American servicemen. (Remember, he insulted GIs and not Bush, or his policies. He insulted them directly, in time of war, while having his lily white ass protected by them.)

Now, read the comment and I'll have a few words on the other side.


Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What passes for "cutting edge" cartoonery in the A...":

Keep it up Klan members, you're just as bad as the Muslims who threatened cartoonists. A screenshot of this entry deserves to be memorialized on another blog, as revealing of your true attitudes and motives. Apparently many of you don't seek to liberate others from oppression, you seek to wrest control of the oppression so you may use it for your own ends.

Try to look at these cartoons below from the perspective of a father of a current-serving military man, i.e., me.

The residents of the Middle East are not the real enemies of American liberty; instead, you are, for teaching your child to serve the State as a colonial oppressor.


People who sneer at other people are always amazed when the despised despise THEM. Why is that, exactly? Military men, of course, are bound by the iron code of discipline from reacting in any forcible way to someone like Rall. That is as it should be. The Ralls of the world count on that, of course. That someone unbound by formal discipline or Rules of Engagement might decide to wreak a little personal justice on them does however give them pause.

I recall Tennessee, after the Supreme Court upheld flag-burning as protected speech, passed a law codifying flag-burning as a right, but making the thrashing of flag-burners a misdemeanor with a $5.00 fine. Don't know whatever happened with that, but it seemed like a good idea to somebody at the time.

And just because soldiers are under discipline, does not mean that they cannot express themselves. Let us hop into Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine.

Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

The year is 2003. The place, Iraq. The 101st Airborne Division is on its way to Baghdad. Soldiers are dying because of it, Iraqis and Americans. Embedded in the One-Oh-One is this guy, Gerald Rivera:

The man any Screaming Eagle today refers to as "Mr. Brown," Geraldo "I never got to open Saddam's vaults" Rivera.

Rivera is a correspondent for Fox News. He is about to do something very stupid. In fact, the troopers of the 101st consider it in retrospect to be calculated and treasonous. He does this:

Geraldo pointing out where the 101st Airborne is, where they are going and what time they jump off, live on FOX. ("Fair and Balanced.")

MG David Petraeus, the division commander, did not take this kindly. What he said cannot be repeated in front of a Baptist minister without shock and awe. He overrode his initial Patton impulse to shoot the sonofabitch himself. An enlisted man on the outer edges of the General's wrath volunteered, "Hell, Sir, I'll shoot the bastard." His offer was declined, regretfully. Petraeus got on the horn to the Chain of Command.

To prevent Geraldo from being the unfortunate target of an accidental discharge, it was decided to expel him from Iraq. And go he did, but not before the 101st had a chance to wreak their subtle vengeance on one Geraldo Rivera.

Picture the scene, helicopter rotors turning, sand blowing, Geraldo and his dejected crew, bag and baggage, loading on the bird. There, much to the FOX News crew's surprise is a line of Air Assault troopers, wanting to shake Geraldo's hand one last time before boarding for his trip back to Kuwait.

Each man grabs Geraldo's right hand with his, vigorously shaking it, wishing him a fervent farewell. Geraldo is touched, no doubt. Touched, and likely surprised, for he has hardly been unaware of the anger in the division at him. This feeling lasted, I'm sure, up until the moment the bird lifted off, when he brought his hand to face to scratch his nose or wipe the fine grit sand out of his eyes.

Yes, children, Geraldo Rivera had been "browned."

Picture a hundred or so men. Dirty soldiers, no baths in weeks. Picture the excrudescence that has built up in the nether region between their hairy testicles and the last fold of their buttocks above their anal sphincters. Picture each of those men, just before their stand-to to give Geraldo the old heave-ho, taking his right hand and sticking it well and truly home in that indelicate area, doing their very best to provide a scientific sample of that excrudescence. And picture each of them, smiling, laughing and sending Geraldo off with a small sample of their disgust.

Picture it, for that is exactly what happened. I know, my son was there. What Mr. Peabody would have made of that is impossible to say. Sherman, being younger and more enthusiatic, would have likely joined in.

So if you should have the opportunity to meet Ted Rall some day, take a tip from the Screaming Eagles. Before you punch him in the nose, if that is your wont, be sure and shake his hand first. And if you've been exposed to the Mata Mexicano virus beforehand, that's OK too.



Comments are closed. If you want an explanation, see the last comment in this string. -- MBV

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

ROFLMAO, how appropriate!!! Now that's thinking on your feet...eh, maybe not feet.
YeOldFurt

Anonymous said...

Rall is just a pipsqueek of insignificant proportion. If he's an example of what we are up against, we'll win just by lifting a finger. And for the record, many of us want nothing more than our God given Liberty and to be Left the Hell ALONE. That's the defined opposite of a 'power grab'. Most certainly it's the deranged left that is on a power grab mission. More evidence that Rall is an uninformed/ignorant stooge of the left. I'm not laughing at his 'toons, I'm laughing AT him...

As for GR's send off by our MEN, Outstanding, simply outstanding! Thanks gents!

bobcat

Sean said...

Did something similiar once, with a guy in my platoon, who thought it fun to steal "pogie bait"(sweets and such carried by GIs) kept in the APCs', when no one was looking. Took two remaining cookies in a bag, wiped them all over my boys, and Siegfreid, placed them oh so carefully back in the bag and waited. Sure enough, from a hide position( this particular soldier was not tactically and technically proficient) my squad leaders and I saw him sneak into my track and steal and eat the cookies. Long practice at waiting in ambush kept me from laughing out loud, but just barely. Later, with the whole platoon present, I outlined my method and reason for trapping the miscreant. The perpetrator immediately launched the technicolor yawn, and we had a good laugh on the idiot. Regards Geraldo, I think it's a big desert, things happen, and sometimes you never know where someone got off too. That lying piece of garbage has gotten off too lightly, for too long.

Pat H. said...

But, just because a person serves in the military doesn't mean he deserves my utmost respect because he feels he is protecting me from my enemies. Same goes with cops. They all serve the state on some level. Some more enthusiastically than others.

Everyone has to earn my respect. I'm not hateful and scornful of veterans or cops like many on the left are, and if they haven't earned my respect I'm sure not gonna give a seat up for them on a plane or a bus simply because he is wearing a uniform, and in some cases, a costume. Isn't this part of the idea behind Codrea's "Only Ones"?

If military men and women want to earn my respect, they'll acknowledge that they've been used for the growth of the empire and the gain of the elite. That will be worth quite a bit of respect, because it's an important step.

I'm sure I've offended at least one of you, but that's fine. I'm not gonna pussyfoot around this issue, and I'm definitely not gonna do so to fellow patriots.

Brock Townsend said...

Picture a hundred or so men. Dirty soldiers, no baths in weeks. Picture the excrudescence that has built up in the nether region between their hairy testicles and the last fold of their buttocks above their anal sphincters. Picture each of those men, just before their stand-to to give Geraldo the old heave-ho, taking his right hand and sticking it well and truly home in that indelicate area, doing their very best to provide a scientific sample of that excrudescence. And picture each of them, smiling, laughing and sending Geraldo off with a small sample of their disgust.

Now that's good!

the texan said...

OMG! Thanks for that, I hadn't heard it before. Now I have to clean the coffee off my keyboard.

Sean said...

As an aside, Mike, you might want to take a look over at KABA, a guy named Deadeye is touting you as a former communist, more that once.

Dutchman6 said...

Sean, my reply to deaddick over at KABA:

Comment by: GeorgeMason1776@aol.com (5/1/2009)
Deaddick is right about one thing: I was first an SDSer, then a member in turn of the Young socialist Alliance, The Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Action Movement, the Progressive Labor Party, sthe secret party of the PLP and finally of the "workers militia" subset of the secret party in central Ohio. None of this is a big bad secret. I outed myself back in the early 90s. Indeed, my Benedict Arnold period papers are available for public use at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus. The museum even has a collection of hundreds of antiwar, Black Panther and communist buttons of the period. The papers finding aid is available on line. No big deal. However, my epiphany came in December 1976, when a German surgeon (cont.)



Comment by: GeorgeMason1776@aol.com (5/1/2009)
(Cont.) named Richter decided to wrestle the devil for my soul over a period of two slow weeks between Christmas 1976 and New Years 1977. He got me started reading Hayek's Road to Serfdom and talked about the false dichotomy of collectivism, showing me that communism, Nazism, fascism, socialism, racism, tribalism were all heads of the same hydra monster, having a common ideological premise. He talked from experience about the abject tragedy of young men fighting and dying in the snow for two sides of the same collectivist coin. (He was on the last Junkers out of the Stalingrad kessel.) He made me see that all collectivism was a lie, including the antisemitism you cling to, dickbrain. I went back & reread my history (cont)


Comment by: GeorgeMason1776@aol.com (5/1/2009)
(cont.) & turned in the space of a month from the reddest of reds into an American anti-communist. And let me tell you that there is no bigger anti-communist than an ex-communist, for we know all the lies. I am in Vietnamese parlance, a Hoi Chanh, a "returnee," and I will never get caught on the wrong side of my faith and the Declaration of Independence again. Which is why, deadduck, that all you collectivists hate me so much and obsess about my posts. I am the worst enemy of collectivism that ever was, and will be until I die. That's why you antisemites, neoNazis and Kluxers hate me so much. By their works ye shall know them. I am content that my God knows who both my friends and my enemies are. And you ain't my friend. -- MBV

blah said...

Laughter does good like a medicine

Grumpyunk said...

Good Army ingenuity! No more deserving bastard than, Jerry Rivers.

Along those same lines, you may enjoy this -
http://crazyuncle.blogspot.com/search?q=Why+You+Should+Aways+Be+Nice+......

Steve K said...

Mike,

Is there any place on your blog that you go into further detail about your "conversion" experience? I would be very interested in reading it and to see how your mindset changed and what answers were given to shake you from the chains of the collective. I am relatively new to your writings and am very facinated to learn more from your experience.

Regards,
Steve K

TJP said...

I think that's the first time I've ever been accused of simultaneously being a nationalist-isolationist and an imperialist.

Sean said...

Yow. I already knew some of that, but not the rest. Funny, I had some kind of epiphany myself, in Germany of all places, about the same time. Anyway Rick, I mean Mike, welcome again, back to our side. This time I know we will win. (Marseilles plays in background, as Rick, I mean Mike, and Sean walk across the foggy tarmac.)

Anonymous said...

WOW !!!!
Mister Mike's posted reply was as good as a whole 'nother post! Outstanding, or, if you prefer, 'finest kind, Joe!'
As for Rall and Rivera, too bad both bastards weren't fragged. Rall, however, is a scumbag who is not even worthy to wipe Geraldo's arse with his nose...although that would probably give both of them a thrill... I would enjoy meeting him and providing what has been called 'wall to wall counseling'. No charge.

Vanderboegh said...

Comments here, and on the original post that occasioned this one, are now closed and I'll tell you why.

First, I'm sick of the "I now you are, but what am I" level of this debate, such as it is. I have deleted over a dozen "back-at-yous" and I've got better things to do. I am not David Codrea. I do not have his tolerance for comment hijackers.

Second, chief among those hijackers are the ideologically pure anarchist/libertarian/grabassticrucians for whom the constitution of the founders is just another collectivist conspiracy, and who demand that I publish my expected FOREIGN POLICY for after the Restoration, for the love of Pete, before I can be trusted to write a novel. Here's one example from "anonymous" (aren't they all?):

"When the libertarians do finally work up to winning bar fights with the Marines, and I think they will, they're going to stop paying the taxes that support the socialisms demanded in your precious constitution. . . Mike: democracy and constitutional republics are two more heads of collectivism. The line between good and evil is not between small-government constitutionalists and large-government liberals, it is between defending the ideas in the bill of rights, or supporting government. All taxation is theft. If you want to contribute to crime control, first don't be a criminal yourself."

Look, pal, if libertarians finally begin winning bar fights with one-armed, one-legged, half-blind Marine veterans it will be after they can organize their way out of the ideological paper-bag they can't currently argue their way out of now. Ain't ever happened and ain't gonna happen. You want Walden Pond purity? You won't find it in a bar fight. Now a bar fight between libertarians? Naw, there ain't enough of 'em that have the sack for it. They will try to argue you to death, which is why I'm cutting you off here. I'm trying to write a book, if you don't mind. If that doesn't meet with your ideological purity scale, then write your own damn book and get your own damn blog all about how "Mike Vanderboegh don't agree with the anarcho-libertarians." Hell, I'll even link it here.

Here's another "anonymous," admitting to the original post that set me off. This is the guy who called me a Klansman.

"Thank you, Mike, for engaging. Rall didn't post the comment, I did. I am a libertarian who sees the constitutional restoration movement as already having nearly lost the war on the moral plane. You have mentioned that you used to be a leftist, but you learned better. Please be open to the idea that there could be more to learn. . .
Are you willing to leave peaceful people alone, including telling your son to stop persecuting the Muslims in the Middle East? Or are you a liberal, determined to convert others to your religion by the sword?"

To my mind, the Iraq war was worth it if for no other reason than we finally got to right a historical wrong caused by us, that is by Woodrow Wilson, in 1919 -- the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish state. Do I believe in Bush's rationale for the war, the whole democratization thing? No, I don't. Do I despise the incompetent way the war was run? Certainly. But the main point here is how a country treats its soldiers in time of war. To us, including the pugnacious Sean, this what Rall's name-calling and Geraldo's treasonous aid and comfort to the enemy is about.

The soldiers did not pick this war. They did not, to use your term, go to Iraq to "avenge" anything. They were sent, by a vote of both parties, into a shitty situation which is fraught with lots of bad decisions and horrible outcomes,as are all wars. A buddy of mine just sent me an email from a soldier in Afghanistan. Perhaps this will help explain what we are talking about:

“War does not make our sacrifice honorable, death does not make our service honorable; service itself is our honor.”



Letter From a Soldier in Afghanistan [Michael Ledeen]

One of the best I've seen. It helps us understand how our troops see themselves, free of the cant that surrounds their mission here.

Sarah Albrycht

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

~ Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

A few nights ago, I walked a quiet mile with hundreds of other service members. It was a clear night in Bagram, Afghanistan. Although it was late, the birds were singing, perhaps roused by the unusual occurrence of people walking under their trees at the late hour. Soft voices broke the solemnity, but no words were discernible. Suddenly, as if on cue, soldiers, airmen, seamen, marines, broke off the sidewalk and lined the road, spacing themselves regularly and assuming a position of silent watchfulness. The honor cordon had formed.

Heads began to turn right as flashing blue lights appeared far down the road. As the vehicles neared, one by one, service members assumed the position of attention and rendered the hand salute. In the back of an open truck sat eight military members, and between them, at their feet, was a flag draped casket.

As I rendered my salute, I thought about the fallen soldier. I did not know his name, his unit or his home. I never saw his face or spoke to his family. I did not know why he volunteered for the Army or what he was doing when he was killed. But there was much I did know. I knew he had fought and died in an honorable cause, a cause that had little to do with our policy on Afghanistan. This soldier had volunteered to put his very life on the line in service to his nation and his brothers-in-arms. I see no more honorable cause that that.



In a column, Mr. Putney has again raised the debate about the sacrifice of America's "sons and daughters" in uniform. Some have argued that we must continue the fight to honor their memory "so that they have not died in vain." Others argue we must stop the wars to save soldiers from this fate. I think an essential understanding of what motivates those of us in uniform is missing in this debate.

We are not your sons and daughters, whom you must protect and defend. We are your sword and your shield. We are men and women who volunteer to place our lives on the line so you do not have to. We do not decide when or where we will be sent. We go. You are our advocates, not our parents.

We trust you to care for our families, to hold our jobs, pay for our equipment, salary and medical care and yes, to honor our sacrifice. We trust you to vote for good political leadership, to speak out against bad policy decisions and to demand public accountability. However, we do not count on you to explain the honorable character of our service. We are ennobled by the very fact we serve.

Our "high moral cause" is one of service to a nation whose principles we believe in. We miss the point of political debate when we distill it down to numbers of service member deaths. Debate should be about the policy that leads us in or pulls us out of war. I, as a soldier, am personally insulted when debate about war becomes not about policy, but about deaths, because it implies that my service is at best uninformed or ill-conceived, and at worst valueless.

I know my life is in the hands of others because I choose for it to be that way. I am not your daughter, a child who must be guided. I have made my choice and pledge my honor to it. I will thank you to remember that because we serve our nation, none of us dies in vain, regardless of the cause; end of debate.

Every day a new Marine enlists or an airman puts on her uniform is a reminder that our defenders come from people who still believe in our nation and the values it aspires to, as flawed as we sometimes are. War does not make our sacrifice honorable, death does not make our service honorable; service itself is our honor.

We, your American service members, do not see the cause for which we may give our last full measure of devotion, as our nation's goals in Iraq or Afghanistan, and perhaps that is the difference. Our cause is our nation, in all her beautiful, imperfect glory.

So on a dark night in Afghanistan we stood under a velvet sky of a million stars to honor one man who lay under 50. We never doubted what he died for. Pfc. Patrick A. Devoe II died for you, the United States of America. That, Mr. Putney, is no goof.

Sarah Albrycht is a Bennington native serving in the Army in Afghanistan.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWExMGQyNmRkMWNkZmIzYWE2N2ZmMmRiOTkwODVkNWE=



MBV continues: Now, does this mean that they carry out any order, no matter how raw or illegal? The very fact of Oath Keepers, which was founded BEFORE Obama took office by a veteran and attorney who was troubled by Bush's attacks on the Constitution, shouts "No!" to that allegation.

This is something that, I am sure, we are going to have to agree to disagree on. I will never meet your level of libertarian ideological purity. But neither am I going to feel that I have to justify myself by spelling out a future foreign policy before tackling the job of preventing the success of tyranny. And if you see that in itself as tyranny, I submit that you do not have 20-20 vision, nor the ability to tell shit from shinola.

Thus endeth the peroration. I'm going back to Absolved. -- Mike Vanderboegh

Vanderboegh said...

PS And if you do still want to comment on that then send me an email to GeorgeMason1776@aol.com. Of course, you'll have to risk your anonynmity. But I submit to you that if you cannot risk even that, then you have no right to criticize others who put their lives on the line for their country, no matter how imperfect you find that to be.