12 thoughts on “What is Wrong with People?!”

  1. I smell a rat in this story, Aunt B, as should anyone who hears one of these stories repeated without details.As it turns out, ten minutes of googling got me a steaming pile of vague second- and third-hand regurgitations of this alleged spitting incident; all of them (including a laughably anticlimactic interview on the Fascist News Channel) were from right-wing sources, and few of them spared the rehashed 1960s and ’70s reactionary rhetoric ("dirty fucking hippys (sic)!!").Another quick round of googling led me to the festering corpse of the rodent in question:Is a story about a protester spitting at a wounded Iraq vet a right-wing lie?So it turns out that either Joshua Sparling is one incredibly unlucky disabled vet, or he is a willing tool of neo-Nixonian bullshit artists. Believe what you will, but I never underestimate the tenacity and gall of the Right Wing Noise Machine.

  2. I should add, Aunt B., that the willingness of so many to spread this story around (embellishing it as they go; it’s like some meth-fueled, goose-stepping version of "telephone") has more behind it than a choreographed effort by Sparling and his Noise Machine brethren.There is a fascinating study available online now, and it examines the nature of the authoritarian mindset. Perusing the virulent echoes of the aforementioned tall tale as they burst forth from the knuckle-dragging wingnut faithful, I’m surprised this study wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. Well, here’s the link:The Authoritariansby Robert Altemeyer

  3. Wow. This guy really is the world’s unluckiest vet. But here’s my question. Do you really think it’s a deliberate attempt on his part to undermine anti-war protesters (I think we can assume deliberateness on the parts of the folks who’ve spread the story) or do you think he might have some kind of Munchhausen’s?

  4. I focused more on the vandalism in my post because there was actually evidence for that. The spitting seemed unlikely but still, if people are willing to do something like that, and if this veteran is willing to be a part of this, one has to wonder what else people are capable of. And as a friend pointed out in a comment on the post at my site, there are folks out there (tons of them here of course) who live for protests so they can yell and vandalize and whatnot. They don’t give a shit about the issue at hand, whatever it may be.

  5. "…that the willingness of so many to spread this story around (embellishing it as they go; it’s like some meth-fueled, goose-stepping version of "telephone") has more behind it than a choreographed effort by Sparling and his Noise Machine brethren."HAHAHAHAHAHA!

  6. Aunt B., for the roots of this business you have to look back to the Nixon era. As you can see if you google this story, almost all the right-wing blogs draw a connection between this phantom incident and the apocryphal hippie-spitting-on-Vietnam-vet tale. There is no question that there were hippies in the Vietnam era. There is no question that some returning vets were subject to social abuse upon their return. However, none of that is the point. One of the triumphs of the right wing has been their conquest of Vietnam era history. I often hear– not only from self-identified right wingers– that the loss of Vietnam was due to a failure of will on the part of the U.S. public. Peaceniks at home– ‘doves’, if you will– are handed the lion’s share for both the military failure in Southeast Asia and the poor treatment of vets upon their return. This is bullshit, of course, but it is well-crafted, deeply funded bullshit. One thing I never hear in layman’s discussions of Vietnam (unless I’m doing it myself) is scorn heaped upon the architects and supporters of the quagmire. Few people talk about the massive war profiteering that fueled three consecutive presidential administrations’ support for the adventure. Fewer still point to the persistent moral cowardice of Congress in the face of mounting casualties and growing futility.The reason for this apparent cognitive disconnect is that the far right wing (by shrewd organizing and investing tons of corporate and individual wealth) has spent the last four decades wresting control of public political discourse away from more sensible and compassionate voices. What once may have been considered obvious stupidity and madness is now conventional, or at least debatable wisdom (see: Fox News). Part of this process has been the rewriting of history, including recent history. Ronald Reagan is no longer a union-busting race-baiter or the Butcher of Latin America. He is now a national hero. the Vietnam War is no longer a neocolonial, land-grab-by-proxy that went out of control and plunged an entire region into chaos and suffering, destroying and damaging millions of U.S. citizens in the process. It is now a valiant effort to stem the tide of Communism, one that was sold out by gutless, treasonous pinkos back home (like Jane Fonda).The real danger of the right wing’s success, though, becomes apparent when you look at the resurrected spitting-on-vet myth. A generation of young men came home battered and bruised from an unnecessary and brutal imperialist escapade and were abandoned by the government that sent them there. Thanks to the public’s embrace of right-wing revisionism, the assholes who cooked up the Vietnam War get off the hook and the blame gets shifted to those who tried to end the bloodshed and destruction. The latter group– in its entirety– is smeared and twisted into a vile, unredeemable caricature of its least savory and least significant elements, while the former group lives off the profits and plans still more imperialist adventures (see: Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al).And since most of the public has long since proven itself willing to avoid looking behind the curtain in these situations, the wingers running the latest bloody imperialist adventure know that they can get quite a bit of mileage out of even the most ham-fisted attempts to paint dissent with a broad, ugly brush. It is a success by any measure: if we spend even five minutes spent berating and demonizing the actual or imaginary transgressions of a handful of loony protestors, then we’ve spent five minutes distracting ourselves from the real problems. Those would include problems like the criminally underfunded VA system, and increasing pointlessness of the Iraq debacle.

  7. Pay attention to the source. If you follow the links, this is at the bottom of the "newswire.""SOURCE A Gathering of Eagles"I make it a point to acknowledge guys in uniform, sometimes it’s a nod, other times I will shake hands and thank them for their efforts and sacrifice. What I despise is the glorification and the subsequent romantization of military service. The "spitting on a Vet thing has been around forever. I remember the countless versions of this during the Vietnam war. It’s never been nailed down, but that doesn’t stop those like Church Secretary commented about, these guys will stoop to anything.

  8. Truth: "And since most of the public has long since proven itself willing to avoid looking behind the curtain in these situations, the wingers running the latest bloody imperialist adventure know that they can get quite a bit of mileage out of even the most ham-fisted attempts to paint dissent with a broad, ugly brush. It is a success by any measure: if we spend even five minutes spent berating and demonizing the actual or imaginary transgressions of a handful of loony protestors, then we’ve spent five minutes distracting ourselves from the real problems. Those would include problems like the criminally underfunded VA system, and increasing pointlessness of the Iraq debacle."We were talking about this over at my site a bit as well because it so perfectly fits with how everything is cast and covered and forever portrayed without ever being questioned. Not to be goofy, but I appreciate the fact that people genuinely seem to want to organize and protest this war; I am likewise pleased that the monuments are taken seriously because they really are important. I am dismayed by what I think this protest might devolve into and I am sick to death of the power of the extreme positions. I wonder at the power of the spitting myth. If something like that can completely undermine a person’s attitude about an entire movement, then what else can be accomplished in this manner? Having seen a lot of footage of the various protests in and around DC, there is a lot of vandalism and violence and it does not help the cause, even though it is almost certainly not being done by the people genuinely dedicated to the cause. Why are people so easily distracted?

  9. ChurchSecratary is my new hero.As we have seen, rightwingers do have the means and the gall to "infiltrate" leftist organizations for "information gathering." And I wouldn’t put it past them to insert a spy into a leftist org, with the intention of "acting out" at just the right time to injure the reputation of the organization.

  10. To Jagosaurus and Kevin:I believe that’s the Mephistophilean beauty of the Nixonian/right-wing disinformation campaign, including the spitting-on-vet myth. It frames all protest against war– no matter how sincere, and no matter how organized and dignified– as misguided at best, and rabidly treasonous at worst. The government doesn’t have to bust heads, infiltrate groups (though they still do), or assassinate people anymore, because we are all encouraged to censor the dissent in our own minds. That’s why a genocidal technocrat like Henry Kissinger or a convicted traitor like Ollie North can be regarded as a hero (and make good money on the talking-head circuit), while a sincere average citizen like Cindy Sheehan– who lost a son to war and has never stood to gain from her public stance– can be vilified as a pain-in-the-ass dupe.In place of dissent, or even critical analysis, we are encouraged to regurgitate Orwellian platitudes like "Support the Troops" (which apparently involves cheering them on as they are sent into a meaningless war without adequate equipment; it also involves welcoming the physically and psychologically disabled soldiers home to the aforementioned criminally underfunded and decrepit VA system). Also, there are several species of right-wing mouthpieces who have infested the corporate media and the internet (some have come through the Wingnut Welfare system; others are just authoritarians who jibe with the temper). These mouthpieces are there to keep repeating the lies and gilding the deceptive framework of political discourse by any rhetorical means necessary.This isn’t a partisan problem. Unless we all get tired of this b.s. really soon, all we’ll have left of this republic will be the cheap gas and the plentiful beer and Big Macs. And that’ll only last until our house-of-cards economy collapses. After that, we’ll be living out an Octavia Butler novel. I honestly hope I’ll be dead by then. May God have mercy on my poor daughter.

  11. Even older than the spitting on vets myth is the myth that the women killed by the National Guard were sluts–the stories were circulated that they both had the clap. Which of course made it OK that they had been shot.But more important, if we’re gonna be living in an Octavia Butler novel, I want to be one of the people with the freakish but misunderstood powers. In fact, I dibs Anyanwu.

Comments are closed.