Thursday, October 03, 2013

Alinskyan smashmouth politics.

Knowing that octogenarian veterans trying to gain access to their war memorial would attract news cameras like a spilled ice cream sundae attracts ants, vultures who needed face time began to circle the clash site almost immediately.

GOP congresscritters lost no time in being seen Standing Alongside The Veterans and purely incidentally boosting their Tea Party cred in the process.

Meanwhile, a small knot of protesters turned up, claiming to be furloughed .gov workers and chanting anti-G.O.P. slogans. (Because in a bipartisan world, see, it apparently only takes one to tango.)

Noticing one of the marchers wearing a McDonald's shirt, a bit of reporting uncovered the truth. The big Service Employee's International Union had again hired non-union scabs to pose as something they weren't and protest against the Republicans and in support of the party that rewards the SEIU with its pelf.

29 comments:

Kevin said...

Shame is a completely foreign concept to the Political Animal, isn't it?

Paul said...

Yeah, we have a independent government. Pay union scabs to picket the greatest generation one in a life time trip to score some lying political points on the opposition.

I weep for the country we had.

Tam said...

Paul,

" Pay union scabs to picket the greatest generation one in a life time trip to score some lying political points on the opposition."

The SEIU paid, through a front company, non-union scabs.

While the Dems may be in the SEIU's hip pocket, the SEIU is not the government.

Tam said...

Those protestors should organize for better pay and bennies.

Anonymous said...

I was surprised the Administration thought a Capitol Policeman on a horse and some rent-a dudes would scare away guys who faced Tiger tanks and Banzai charges.

Gerry

leaddog said...

These guys took Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Normandy, Sicily, and dozens of other beaches. Does anyone think a few barricades and a cop would stop them? Good on them for keeping up the good fight and Good on whomever helped them clear the hurdles, literally and figuratively.

JohninMd(help?) said...

I'm just glad my Dad didn't live to see this crap. 25 yrs. Navy, got a destroyer shot out from under him at Guadalcanal, watched most of the deaths of his crew due to shark attack. Those Memorials were a long time coming, were not manned regularly - until politicians decided to close them trying to direct anger at their opponents. The deserted Bastards of Benghazi didn't get that much backup. ALAS, BABYLON....

Chris Gerrib said...

I am a bit confused, though. The Government is shut down. Why would anybody expect a non-essential monument to be open?

Are we going to re-open all the other National Parks? Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc?

Tam said...

Chris Gerrib,

The "closed" monument is currently more heavily staffed (and by several orders of magnitude) than it is when it's "open". Not counting all the fence they rented to keep people from walking around in there.

It is not like a big park with hundreds of staff and emergency services, or a building that requires opening and closing and manning.

It is spending money to "close off" an open area that is essentially free to keep open, just to prove a point.

The administration doing this out one side of its mouth and accusing the GOP of being petulant and childish out of the other is, not to put too fine a point on it, the most fucking hilariously hypocritical thing I've seen happen in Washington DC since whatever toolbag came up with the name for the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.

Anonymous said...

Chris Gerrib,

I can not think of a good reason to close any National Park. I can see securing some of the buildings but you should be able to decide your own risk and proceed if you feel safe.

People are ignoring the closed signs at the local NP here and were riding horses and hiking the place in force yesterday.

Gerry

Chris Gerrib said...

You are misinformed, Tam. There are no park police staffing the Memorial. All that has been done is place some barricades around a closed facility.

See http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/10/02/photos_of_the_great_world_war_ii_memorial_rebellion_of_2013.html

When I visited the site a few years ago, there were one or two Park rangers wandering about, so the facility is normally staffed, at least during the day.

global village idiot said...

http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x452546657/Illinois-WWII-veterans-see-D-C-memorial-despite-shutdown

Senator Durbin (Idiot-IL), a man whose face I wouldn't cross the street to piss on if his hair was on fire, at least deserves credit for attending the memorial along with Sen. Kirk (whose face I would cross the street to piss on).

Clowns, the whole sad lot of 'em.

gvi

Tam said...

Ah. I'm sorry, you're right. I was mislead by partisan photos.

Thank you for your unbiased bipartisan link to set me straight.

Jesus fuck. The sad thing is that I believe you're sincere.

Remember: The people who agree with you are calm and rational and have explored the facts. The people who disagree with you are deliberately wrong or, at best, misled ignoramii blinded by demagogues.

Oddly, the people who disagree with you think the exact same thing.

Tam said...

The above post, of course, was directed at the condescending jerk above you, gvi, not you.

Chris Gerrib said...

It sure looks to me like they posted the barricades and left.

Again I ask - every National Park in the country is closed. The Lincoln Memorial is closed, the Grand Canyon is closed, they are all closed. NASA is closed.

Why would anybody expect that the WWII memorial would somehow be different?

Tam said...

Chris Gerrib,

"Again I ask -"

Indeed you do ask again. Why? Did you not like the answers you got the first time?

Compare the barricades at the WWI and WWII memorials, look me in the eye, and tell me that's just some honest bipartisan park closing.

Chris Gerrib said...

They are exactly the same barricades in the Lincoln Memorial, the Park Service portion of Arlington Cemetery, Jefferson, MLK, FDR, Ford’s Theatre, Korea, Vietnam memorials.

ALL Park Service sites nationwide are closed, because the government is shut down. That's what a government shutdown means. The only partisanship is that the Republicans are focusing on one memorial. I didn't see Michelle Bachman at the Lincoln or Jefferson memorial.

Stuart the Viking said...

It's a national park. It belongs to "the people". Why is it a problem if "the people" want to go look at it without government supervision? We shouldn't be required to have government permission to look at a monument.

Are they going to make us get governmental permission to use our constitutional rights next?... oh wait...

s

Tam said...

Again I ask- compare and contrast the barricades at the WWI and WWII Memorials. Why the difference?

Sendarius said...

If closing the memorial requires that someone do something like put up barricades that are not normally there, then the closure is NOT due to the .gov shut down.

I'm sure it cost money to do so, the unavailability of said money being the claimed reason for the closure in the first place.

I call bullshit - it's petty political point scoring.

Tam said...

(...and seriously, do you not feel even the slightest twinge of oily disingenuousness comparing a building with locking doors to an open space with a rock? Really?)

Tam said...

"If closing the memorial requires that someone do something like put up barricades that are not normally there, then the closure is NOT due to the .gov shut down. "

Bingo.

Anonymous said...

During the Great Republican Shutdown of '95, I was in Hawaii on vacation. Volcanoes National Park closed, just like they're doing today. But strangely, we were able to drive through and spent the day seeing all the sights that were open-air and accessible without the aid of staff or security. The buildings were closed, but the volcanoes didn't have police tape telling us to stay away.

Chris, in your unbiased, bipartisan opinion, why does a park that is normally open 24/7 and doesn't require anything to access other than feet or a wheelchair, now require erecting barricades to keep people out? I'm too steeped in conservative views to figure it out, myself.

jf

KM said...

I didn't see Michelle Bachman at the Lincoln or Jefferson memorial

There were troops from the Revolutionary and Civil war showing up at those two memorials?
Damn, I missed it!

Remember CG, if the kids don't drink the Kool-Aid, just inject them.

Matt G said...

My old partner is a Texas State Trooper, who was sent down to Austin when protestors showed up in the gallery over some abortion bill.

When he arrested one transient who was stopping the government proceedings, the guy admitted during book-in that he just went from protest to protest, chanting what the people who paid him told him to chant. He was one of the Occupy dudes.
This was his job.

mikee said...

"Pelf" is a wonderful word I have not heard nor read in ages. Thanks.

Loot, lucre, score, goodies, all come to mind as synonyms.

Even "Danegeld" isn't any closer in meaning to what is actually going on between the Dems and the SEIU.

Anonymous said...

In Hot Springs National Park (Arkansas) there is a fountain that one of the springs has been channeled to fill. It comes out of a concrete block through an ordinary faucet. Many people believe the water has medicinal qualities and they daily fill jugs with this water for home use. The local TV station ran a story on the shutdown and showed the faucet turned off Ange locked with a sign saying the water was not available due to the federal government shutdown. Guess I never realized there was a federal employee pedalling a pump behind the curtain to make the water FLOW! And no it isn't an electrical pump, just a gravity flow spring with a catch basin. What morons! !!

global village idiot said...

I figured. Love you too :^*

gvi

Kristophr said...

Small town mayor has a snit fit over a failed tax levy, and closes the kids pool.

It is nice to know we have a President even more petty than some small town mayors.

I wonder how Obama is going to enforce the closure of the Omaha Beach Cemetery. I can't imagine the French Gendarmes doing anything more than laughing their asses off when the US paid caretakers try to trespass relatives of the dead there.