Posted on 09/27/2005 11:00:16 AM PDT by Impeach98
I do not agree with this author's criticisms of the pro-troop movement. It seems to me that if we took his advice and sat back and were silent, the media would still promote Cindy Sheehan and there would NEVER be any coverage of the fact that a growing number of Americans are willing to step forward and tell the anti-war contingent their actions are not supported and are harmful to our nation, our troops and their missions in the war against terrorism.
The author, talk show host Eric Hogue [of a Salem affiliate], also takes aim at the SupportTheTroopsWeekend.org website, saying it is a Move America Forward website, and attacking the Cafe Presse merchandise. As far as I know that page and material was set up by the DC Chapter of Free Republic (people who I admire very greatly, led by Kristinn Taylor who I have had the opportunity to witness do some excellent work).
Interested in hearing your reaction. Agree with the comments expressed here? Disagree? Other?
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The Weekend War Rally Results 9/25/2005 6:59:58 PM Eric Hogue
DC Rally Results
Since I've been focused on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I wanted to take a peek at the Move America Forward "DC Rally" today and follow up with a pet peeve of mine when it comes to these 'antics and bangings of pots and pans' surrounding ignorant icons like Cindy Sheehan.
Once again, most of America agrees with the President of the United States and the ideology of those associated with the "Pro-War in Iraq and on Terrorism" crowd, but Move America Forward continues to embrace Cindy Sheehan's premise and propaganda - helping her to walk up the ladder to her newly found soap box.
Going back to Crawford, Texas, MAF made a mistake when they arrived in town as Sheehan was in Los Angeles. Sheehan had decided to leave Crawford before the end of August - she broke her promise and purpose and the media was leaving - but MAF couldn't refuse the attention and the promotional opportunity, so they created another one of their 'drills' to prop Sheehan back to the forefront of the media.
Now we have the "DC Rally" by Sheehan, and the mothers of MAF. I ask again, "What do mothers know about international intelligence and war?" By engaging Sheehan, and her sophomoric (stupid) arguments, MAF has afforder her and the anti-Bush crowd the attention and position they desire.
So...we have the weekend rallies and protest. On Saturday, Sheehan's Crowd brought 70,000 to the National Capitol, and Move America Forward was able to rally 400 at a single stage, although they are quoted as stating that 10,000 traveled with MAF to Washington for the event.
In the end, under 100,000 people cared enough to spend the time. This tells me that it is not about the war in Iraq, but rather ideology and political positioning for the mid-term elections. During the Vietnam War, rallies and protest would gather millions - not today. This MSM created sizzle surrounding Sheehan and the liberals, and the 'fund raising efforts' of MAF have managed nothing but self aggrandizing ego strokes.
When you gaze through the MAF website, don't forget to visit the merchandise and product page. How much money has MAF collected surrounding these emotional and patriotic antics? Where has the money gone? If it has entered the pockets of Move America Forward, or any of the other organizations supporting these stunts we don't have a "grassroots" swell, but a collection of opportunists for the attention and money.
Due to the fact that MAF is not a PAC, this is no legal standing for them to reveal their books and accounting. How interesting...how many people across the country donated hundreds of dollars (thousands/million) to organize an effort for 400 on a single stage during a Sunday afternoon in DC...and the attendees had to pay for their own plane tickets, hotels stays and meals.
For those who believe that MAF (and associated organizers) are not making money, take a look at this merchandise page. A "Support The Troops Weekend Stein" sells for $16.99, don't forget the shipping and handling, and the tax. Make sure you purchase two or three today.
Here is another page where you can make a direct donation to the sponsoring organizations. The web page sites, "Some of the sponsoring groups are accepting donations to help offset the cost of organizing their events. Please choose one or more from the list above if you wish to assist. Thank you!"
How much money was collected, and how was it used?
It is easy to raise donations on issues that prey upon one's emotions, patriotic heart and political ideologies. How much did the "DC Drill" cost, and was it worth it considering that one stage drew a total of 400 people who paid their own means to be there?
I think it is time for these sophomoric antics to stop, and for the intelligent crowd (conservative ideals) to stop allowing themselves to be drawn into an emotional argument by a mother who has offered some of the most ignorant comments in the history of liberal America.
Save your time and money for the elections - this is where the arguments are 'really' decided, not by a mother who cries at the switch of a camera spotlight.
I watched parts of both rallies with my beloved and I gotta say here what I told her: turnout at the events was not as important as the time taken up on C-SPAN giving those good people voice on Sunday.
Anyone who accidentally caught the crap on Saturday was no doubt appalled. Anyone who accidentally caught the MAF event on Sunday was moved to cheers and sadness at the stalwart devotion of those Gold Star families. The Navajo Codetalker was especially impressive.
I have watched all of this pretty carefully, and I do not agree with Mr. Purity's "just ignore them and they will go away" premise. I also don't think there is anything wrong with organizations raising money, unless, as is pretty clearly the case with some of those in the Sheehan crowd, they use a national disaster like Katrina to scam people.
I suppose we should just ignore Cindy and the organizations she is working with? The fraud HAS to be exposed one way or another. Too many of my children's acquaintances are eating up their drivel and believing it... which is exactly what these socialist and communist organizations want!!! I was tremendously happy that my children had the opportunity to hear the rally on Sunday and hear from the "other side".
You know, I'm too young to know for sure, but did people say to just "ignore Kerry" back in the 70s? My guess is that these are the same people who are saying to just ignore Sheehan. You don't ignore a festering wound... for God sakes the man is now a Senator and ran for the presidency.
It seems obvious to me that those who want us to ignore these groups (and Cindy) still don't know what appeasement brings...
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
Edmund Burke(British Statesman and Philosopher, 1729-1797)
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
I agree with the author. Here is an exchange of posts from yesterday on another thread:
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Posted by Lancey Howard to Miami Vice
On Bloggers & Personal 09/27/2005 1:04:12 AM EDT · 20 of 27
This "Battle of the Protestors" is idiotic. Sorry to say it, but the reason that the turnouts for the counter protests have been so lame is because most people understand the meaning of the old Chinese proverb, "Only a fool argues with a fool."
Most of the American public long ago dismissed Sheehan and her crowd as cowardly, unemployed simpletons who have nothing better to do than to look for some way to continue their never-ending vent about the humiliating losses they suffered in the last two Presidential elections.
The only thing that all these "Support the Troops" counter protests accomplish is to bring more attention to Mother Sheehan and the goofball left. Arguing with them is like arguing with a friggin' two-year old. Their act was stale a month ago, but thanks mainly to the offended howls of people (allegedly) on the right, they've managed to stage a comeback. Good grief.
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Posted by Miami Vice to Lancey Howard
On Bloggers & Personal 09/27/2005 1:09:46 AM EDT · 21 of 27
Your kind of blaming the victim. Saying the anti antiwar protests only encourage the protesters is delusional.
These people have been protesting for three years. They have more people now then before and they have managed to get public opinion on their side.
The counter protests at least indicate that there are some who disagree with them.
Don't rationalize your own laziness.
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Posted by Lancey Howard to Miami Vice
On Bloggers & Personal 09/27/2005 1:32:29 AM EDT · 24 of 27
Yeah, okay. Have fun getting "laughed at" by your sworn enemies, the two-year olds. (They really bother you, don't they?)
Meanwhile, I'll continue to get up and go to work to support my family and I will continue to ignore Cindy and the Two-Year Olds as if they are houseflies on the other side of the screen door.
Regards,
LH
Unfortunately, during the 60's and 70's, yes, the only demonstrations were against the war and our soldiers. For that reason, if for no other, this was an important reason to stand up and say yes we support the troops and their mission.
To allow what happened to our servicemen when they returned from Vietnam was a national disgrace which should never happen again.
As was stated over and over again on Sunday, we did not start this war on terror, but if we ignored what was done to us, it would just keep happening again and again.
And the troops will be receiving copies. The whole idea was to show that Cindy Sheehan and her filthy rabble of foolish Marxist idiots do not speak for America and I believe that message will shine through.
I don't know about Eric Hogue, but we are bound and determined to not allow the left and their wholly owned propaganda arm, aka, the mainstream media to do to us today what they did to us during the Vietnam war. Never again will the media lose a war for America. Never a battle lost. Just the leftist media running up a surrender sheet.
Also the overall event costs unknown tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on. I doubt any of the dozen or so organizations involved will even recover their costs much less get rich. No one is exploiting anyone (at least not on the conservative side). Perhaps Eric should refirect his fire to the enemy.
God bless our troops!
We took that advice during Vietnam .. and what did it get us ..?? a demoralized military .. and a gloating media thinking they had the power to stop a war.
NOT THIS TIME! NEVER AGAIN!
THANKS so much for going to DC to counter the commies!
This Eric Hogue acts as if he doesn't know that people's votes are conditioned by how their opinions have been formed in the preceding two to four years. Unrelenting negativity does have its effect - as we unfortunately saw during the Vietnam era.
Thank God the Silent Majority isn't silent anymore.
Sheehan is getting attention whether there are counter protesters or not. In my opinion, the more she gets, the worse she looks. Having said that, I didn't go simply because Sheehan was there. The main reason I went was to show my support for the troops and their families. The fact that Cindy and the loons were there to see it was just an added benefit, imo. It drove them crazy that we were there.
Heck, why go back to Vietnam? Most of the posts on freerepublic quite freely and strongly criticized the Kosovo war even while our troops were in harm's way. Back then, conservatives were the peaceniks and liberals were the hawks.
I disagree. I think the passive public that sees visuals on TV and doesn't pay the closest attention to politics needs to see those occassional images of pro-troop supporters. Otherwise after so much negativity you can only come to the conclusion that George Bush must have done something wrong in Iraq because everyone in America is opposed to the war.
OK Eric. For as long as i can remember the Republican party and conservatives in general never voiced their opinions in public when the left was clearly wrong. All we got were the staid, nasal, hyper-intellectual musings of Bill Buckley now and then. Then came Limbaugh. Illustrating the absurd with absurdity and voicing what many on the right thought, but were too "proper" to say out loud. Then for the first time in 2000 there were hundreds of conservatives on the streetcorners in Florida holding signs, protesting the depravity of the leftists in the demoncratic party. That was the first time I had ever seen conservatives with balls standing up for what was right and fair...in public! I wholeheartedly support the anti-Sheehan and pro-troop rallies being held across the country and most especially what I saw this past Sunday on the mall in DC and every Friday night at Walter Reed Hospital. It is way past time for thinking conservatives to stand up and be counted among them. What say you Eric?
I think that pretty much sums up what 98% of FReepers think - which is why there is such a thing as a "FREEP" and why so many people come here. They want information, they want to know what action they can/should take, and they are determined never to return to a time where the media told the country what was "news" and conservatives sat back and expressed quite displeasure.
Err "quiet displeasure" - not "quite displeasure" (though conservatives were indeed 'quite displeased' I'm sure...)
LOL - I understood perfectly what you were saying ;o)
There was a Conservative radio show host in the Orlando/Melbourne Florida area who kept telling listeners that President Bush should meet with Cindy Sheehan, while she was camped outside his Texas ranch. Most callers didn't support the radio host, saying, that nothing was going to stop Sheehan because she is a true whack job and was after the publicity, not an apology.
How about the fact that the President ALREADY DID meet with Cindy? Wow... I guess its just the nature of the radio business that sometimes hosts have to try to stir up their listeners to get attention/ratings.
"Back then, conservatives were the peaceniks and liberals were the hawks."
I don't agree. The last real hawk in the liberal camp was Harry Truman.
Conservatives have always been strong on National Security. The complaint was that there was valid info that Clinton had made up the 100,000 mass graves. It turned out to be about 1,000 - not 100,000. But .. the media has never been held accountable.
While the leader of the serbs was not a nice guy - Serbians were mostly Christians, and they were killing the Muslims .. as they should have been.
I believe that was the major complaint of conservatives - Clinton was bombing the wrong people.
And .. Clinton kept changing the date of ending the war. He said in the beginning .. our boys will be home by Christmas; then it was 6 mos; and WE'RE STILL THERE.
Clinton had no idea what he was doing.
Going back to Crawford, Texas, MAF made a mistake when they arrived in town as Sheehan was in Los Angeles. Sheehan had decided to leave Crawford before the end of August - she broke her promise and purpose and the media was leaving - but MAF couldn't refuse the attention and the promotional opportunity, so they created another one of their 'drills' to prop Sheehan back to the forefront of the media.
1. Sheehan WAS most definitely back in Crawford when we (MAF/FR HOT Chapter) had the Crawford rally, although I didn't hear any calls to cancel it had she not returned-- because it was NOT about Cindy, it was about giving voice to people who wanted to encourage and value our troops, not demoralize them. Cindy had raced back to Crawford after only a few days with her ill mother, and if Mr. Hogue has any illusions that she did so because the MAF Caravan was coming, he's nuts. Her "handlers" knew that without her sympathetic, grieving-mom presence that mainstream America could empathize with, they would quickly be seen as the radical lefties they were, and they got her back to Crawford ASAP.
2. Whether Cindy was in town or not, the media wasn't "leaving," they weren't going anywhere, they are virtually captive in Crawford while the President is there. They were thrilled when Cindy came back and they could ramp up coverage of her again, but it had NOTHING to do with our rally. I saw NO indication that they held her brief absence while attending her mother's sudden stroke against her as breaking her promise to stay until Bush spoke to her. They were simply relieved when she returned because they could resume using her to bash President Bush.
3. Mr. Hogue's assertion that the media returned their attention to Cindy due to MAF's Caravan is just silly. He seems to be of the opinion that normal people should have kept quiet and not said our piece because it might have given Cindy even MORE press-- as though she could have received very much more press than the 24/7 Cindy Show that ran non-stop from Aug. 6th! We should have sat at home because it would have given her only 21 days of coverage instead of 22? "Oh no, not the 22nd day of coverage, now we're really in trouble!" Please! Cindy's message desperately needed to be countered, and literally dozens of the Crawford locals thanked us PROFUSELY for having the Rally-- the only complaint I heard from them was that we hadn't had it SOONER.
So just on that one small paragraph, all of Hogue's arguments encouraging INACTION on the part of conservatives are based on incorrect "facts." I could not disagree more with the faulty conclusions he draws from these "facts."
It isn't appropriate for me to speak for MAF's motivations since I wasn't on their Caravan, but I DO know that the HOT Chapter was not out for any personal aggrandizement. We busted our buns to make sure that there was an outlet for the voices of sanity to be heard, to let our troops know that there were plenty of people who didn't see things the way Cindy does.
I do agree with Mr. Hogue that the REAL power is at the ballot box. But people decide how to cast their ballots based on many factors, not the least of which is what the media claims "everybody" is saying. It is VITAL that we stand up and put OUR voices into the national conversation, because the left is heard every day. If we wait for perfectly fair treatment from the media, for the perfect vehicle for our message, we'll be waiting 'til the end of time. Even as the "new" media gains influence and we utilize it to reach out and go around the "old" media, that "old" media still has enormous impact, and we should not just shrug and abandon it to the left without a whimper.
If the media does not carry our message fairly because they are biased, that is to THEIR shame. But if the media does not carry our message because we were afraid to speak up for ourselves and didn't even bother to SAY it, then the shame is solely OURS.
You should have been pinged to this; if you were, I missed it.
For anyone else, Eric Hogue is by far THE best thing going in live, local talk radio in the Sacramento area, by a wide margin. He isn't a publicity hound or a one-trick-pony; he's principled, articulate, and intelligent.
That I also have a different perspective on this one issue than he does, doesn't affect my appreciation for him, his show, the work he does here.
Dan
This was pretty well articulated - and it made me laugh! :D
You can spin it anyway you want but American troops were in harm's way and conservatives (in my view properly) refused to support their "mission" as defined by the commander in chief and called for bringing them home. Of course, the pretext for the Kosovo war was later proven wrong and it only produced unintended consequences (ethnic cleansing of Serbs).....but that same is true for Iraq IMHO (no WMD, oil shortages, ethnic cleansing of Shi'ites and Sunnis, empowerment of Islamofascists in Basra, etc).
"... that same is true for Iraq IMHO"
Well .. since you're a Clinton supporter .. I'd get my facts straight first before spewing your "same as" statements.
INHO Iraq is not the same as Kosovo or Vietnam. Have we switched now to Kosovo because the same as Vietnam plan didn't work ..??
If you're going to continue to make that charge against conservatives and Kosovo .. you're going to have to come up with some proof.
As for the WMD and your other charges .. you're wrong! There was plenty of WMD found .. but the media will not acknowledge it and therefore it doesn't exist. The whole world knew that Saddam had WMD; the UN, the French, the Germans, the Russians, so WHAT HAPPENED TO IT .. it just magically disappeared prior to our arrival in Baghdad ..?? I sill ask - WHERE IS THE STUFF AND WHO IS HIDING IT. And .. was it moved just to embarrass Bush ..?? Probably - and also to save it - because Saddam was so arrogant he thought the USA would not be able to defeat him.
As for any ethinic cleansing .. WE'RE NOT DOING IT! It's the Sunnis and the former Baath party members who are trying to test the will of the Shiites - and wear them down. It's not working! More and more of the Iraqis are now informing on those groups, helping our troops and the Iraqi troops to clear out stashes of weapons.
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