The following is a post I made to the Comic Genesis BBS's "Nip and Tuck" forum. It's a discussion group for a webcomic, drawn by Ralph Hayes, Jr., a reactionary furry-fan with a penchant for bizarre conspiracy theories (he once claimed that all of Saddam Hussein's alleged WMDs were put onto ships that were put to sea somewhere in the Indian Ocean), and the occasional anti-Arab invective. Quite often, the topics in both the webcomic and the BBS turn political, and I was prompted to respond to one of Mr. Hayes' more ridiculous rantings.
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I can always count on a good laugh from Ralph -- not from any of his humorless strips, but from his comments on forums like this one. Like this little gem (posted in response to another poster named Its_Meh):
[quote="RHJunior"] Like all of the leftist ilk, you are a mental child...The actual fact is that, as more Iraqis have taken up arms, both as part of their own governing forces and as individual citizens, the death toll has gone DOWN among the populace--- except among the "insurgents," who are now discovering to their dismay that the Iraqis are shooting BACK now. You see, most of the people in Iraq shooting at Americans and Iraqi civilians aren't Iraqis themselves at all. It seems that "insurgency" has become an export business in several surrounding Islamic countries, and that a large percentage of the "Iraqi insurgents" are actually Iranian, Palestinian, Saudi Arabian, etc..... and that they're being led by operatives from (butsaddamhasnothingtodowith) AL QUAEDA. [/quote]
Just a couple of Points of Information, regarding the above:
o Saddam had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/11 Commission came to that conclusion in their reports last year. Or are you going to accuse republicans (who make up the majority in the U.S. Congress) of harboring terrorist sympathies?
o "Foreign fighters" make up only a small part of the overall Iraqi resistance. It is a convenient fiction that serves U.S. propaganda purposes, but has no basis in reality (re: Iraqi Insurgency Groups).
o The death toll has gone DOWN? Maybe in your bizarro world, Ralphie. But here on Planet Earth, casualties in Iraq have spiked, among both Iraqi citizens and the U.S. military. August is on track to become one of the deadliest months of the occupation ('Black August' in Iraq, Triple Baghdad Blasts Kill Dozens, Iraq Morgue 'Receives 1100 Dead').
o Yes, many people have guns in Iraq. Like the Shiite extremist militias that have taken over security in many of Iraq's larger, southern cities. They have been very effective in dealing with the Sunni resistance. They've also been accused of murdering barbers (for the "crime" of cutting men's beards) and harassing women who refuse to wear the hijab (A Haircut Can Bring Death to the Barber).
(...Oh, and what about those WMDs? Did Saddam wave his wand and make them all magically disappear? Or were they handed over to that other guy -- you know, Osama Been Forgotten? Enquiring minds want to know!)
Again, thanks for a good laugh, Ralphie. But you certainly have a lot of nerve to accuse "meh" of being a "mental child."
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After I posted this note, it mysteriously disappeared from the BBS. I posted another note, mentioning that my original post had vanished -- and it, too, disappeared. My third note (scroll down to see it), which mentions the previous two disappearances, has remained. I have to wonder what it was that I wrote that was so terrible and frightening that someone felt the need to censor it.
It shows just how easy it is to scare these right-wing cretins. But they're mostly chickenhawks and cowards to begin with. Just look at how one grieving woman, Cindy Sheehan, has sent some of the more prominent reactionary slimeballs into spasms of fear and rage. The loonier members of the Bush Brigade have recently engaged in some truly ridiculous verbal attacks on Ms. Sheehan: David Horowitz calls her a "traitor," while Bill O'Reilly accuses her of plotting with Osama bin Laden to destroy America. And then there's Christopher Hitchens -- that "drink-sodden former Trotskyite popinjay," according to British PM George Galloway -- who labeled Sheehan an anti-Semite and says she has no right to speak for her dead son. Granted, Mr. Hayes' moronic post hardly compares to the massive hypocrisy and viciousness of better-known right-wing goons like the above. But deleting my post, without even his usual offensive and poorly-written rebuttal, speaks to just how wide that yellow strip down Ralph's back is getting -- as it is on the backs of all these racist, warmongering conservative cowards.
The problem with these people is that they're idealogues, not pragmatists. They don't deal with reality, they adopt a philosophy that "ought" to work, then they oppress anyone who points out that the implemented philosophy is not working.
They're too cowardly to look at the reality of their failures, and instead shout the dogma even more loudly.
I like this comic: http://www.thepaincomics.com/
Posted by: Albatross at August 19, 2005 12:56 PM