The Icon Faerie

This has always bothered me, but for obvious reasons it's become more prominent in recent weeks. And after my dad fell for the crap and I finally had to say this out loud to him, I thought I'd just FYI. (This is a general you, by the way.)

Because you're an American and probably don't know better, you think socialism ---> Soviet communism (Stalinism). You are, however, missing a lot of steps in there.

It looks something more like this:
Socialism ---> Karl Marx ---> Communism ---> Marxism-Leninism ---> Soviet communism (Stalinism).

I know it's hard, but learn about all these terms and retrain the way your brain thinks about economic systems outside of capitalism. You don't have to agree with them -- as for me, I'm not sure I do, but I think we could all do a little more sharing in general -- but being able to tell the difference is a good thing. I promise.

I was going to post this on a note in phiremangston's Facebook, but I was getting a little grandstandy.

The Weathermen may have been a domestic terrorist organization, but they were a symptom of the problems in this country at the time, not a cause. They were a product of the tumultuous 60's. I'm not saying their methods were kosher, but when you push people to the edge where they feel like they either have to jump over the edge or stop pushing back and give up, sometimes they're going to jump. To call Obama a terrorist or say that he endorses it because he served on a board with Ayers 1999-2002 is ridiculous. Obama was eight when the Weathermen made their charter at a SDS convention in 1969, the way some people are talking about it are making it sound like Obama was in the room with them.

Sorry. People just tick me off sometimes.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said that Obama's middle name – Hussein – is relevant to the public discourse surrounding his candidacy, saying in March that if Obama were elected, "Then the radical Islamists, the al Qaeda, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on Sept. 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror." -- Here

On behalf of all of Iowa... I'm sorry. He's not from my district, so I really can't do anything about it except apologise profusely for this batshittery. Which I will continue to do.

Yayee for the state of Massachusetts!

Tomorrow is supposed to be "Red, White, and Blue day, to support our troops!"

I don't think I can do it, even with my "hate the war, not the warrior" mentality.

EDIT: Of course there are more countries in the coalition. Between Bush bullying them into it and them thinking it would be prudent to get a stake in the Iraqi oil fields. Idiots.

EDIT 2: Apparently the press underestimates the intelligence of the U.S. public. Or maybe they're overestimating, who can really tell sometimes?