They Need Clean Water

Is this how you would want your children to grow up?

The people of Gaza, a full half of them children under the age of 15, are without adequate clean water, food, electricity, homes, medicine and well, everything. Children, people. Write me all the polemics you wish about terrorists, but children are not terrorists. The babies dying in Gaza because there is no sewage treatment and the aquifer is being poisoned are not terrorists. They are babies. And the same people that shout and cry when a collection of cells is aborted think this is just fine. Seriously, fuck you all. And stop calling yourselves prolife until you can bring youself to care about Palestine's children.





Today, 1,400 activists from from over 42 countries will march on the wall in Gaza to protest the inhumane, cruel treatment of the Gazans. I felt nauseated when I read this. I fear for them. I really don't think all 1,400 of them are walking out of there.





And I wish I could be there. I wish I could do something for all those people- and that's what they are, people- suffering under conditions I cannot imagine. You take away my coffee and I'm a wreck, I can't imagine drinking sewage water. I wish I could make everyone listen when I say that we cannot treat children this way and expect anything good in the future.





All I can do is write this post and hope that you will think on it. Think on the fact that each American taxpayer gives about $400 a year to Israel, so if you live in the US, you helped build that wall. You and I helped create this horrendous situation.





I am paying to ensure that children drink sewage.





So are you.

Treebagging

tea bag, teabag, tea party, teabagging, liberal, conservative, speenweasel, asshat, stupid, tax day, protest

So, the Tea Parties are over now. Well, for the time being. Apparently, July 4th, a day devoted to taxes to be sure, is being put forward for the next round of silliness.

Let's review:

The teabaggers (rofl) were protesting higher taxes- no, wait, Obama lowered taxes on 95% of USians, so that can't be it.

The teabaggers (lol) were protesting the highest tax rate ever in US history- no, that can't be it. The highest tax rate in recent memory was the 50% tax rate under Ronald Reagan.

The teabaggers (lulz) are angry about the fact that Obama and the liberals caused the economic meltdow- no, that started under Bush. In case you have a very short memory indeed, the economy was big issue during the election.

The teabaggers (stop, please!) are angry that Obama started the stimulus spendin- no, that started under Bush.

The teabaggers (you named yourselves after a sexual act that involves testicles) are angry at the brand new out of control government spending- no, that can't be it. Bush started his presidency with a surplus, and ended it with stimulus packages.

The teabaggers (and mouths) are angry that liberals spent the entirety of Bush's presidency threatening secession and protestin- oh, no that's right, we didn't.

Fuck it. I cannot for the life of me figure out what those spleenweasels were doing, other than proving that some people are very sore losers.

And what did they do to that tree?

Protest Fail

tea bag, teabagging, conservative, protest, liberal, obama, asshat, speenweasel, stupid

There has been a lot of whingeing on the conservative blogosphere that the MSM is ignoring the right's righteous tea protest, because the MSM hates conservatives, to be sure.

You spleenweasels should be thrilled the MSM is ignoring these protests: they make you look stupid.

Just to review (for a far more thorough review, please visit the Accidental Historian's post on the same subject): our Founding Fathers were protesting taxation without representation. You have representation, you just don't like it. Welcome to the last 8 years of my life. Prior to the American Revolution, tea was taxed by King George after it left the ship it was delivered by. So, by throwing the tea off the ship into the ocean, the colonists were depriving the King of massive amounts of revenue.

Mailing President Obama a teabag is not an equivalent protest. Holding up an accidentally hilarious sign referencing teabagging is not an equivalent protest. Throwing a box of Lipton into a river is not an equivalent protest.

All three of these things are an example of an enormous ignorance of history that could easily be solved by visiting a 5th grade classroom. (The signs are is also an example of an enormous, and highly amusing, ignorance of popular culture.)

In buying teabags to protest with, you are actually giving more money, money you wouldn't have normally spent, to the very government you are protesting, which makes you not a brave patriot, but an asshatting asshat. You may as well protest abortions by getting an abortion.

Protest Fail.

By the way, were I the president receiving tea bags in the mail, this is the thank you note I would send in return:

Dear Sir or Madam:

Thank you for your generous gift. I find tea to be both refreshing and relaxing, and given the various crisis I waded hip-deep into the moment I stepped into office- the economic crisis, the health care crisis, the housing crisis, and two wars- I am in need of any bit of relaxation I can find.

I appreciate your thoughtful generosity, and I would like to again thank you.

Sincerely,

President Barack Obama

Objecting for the Sake of Objecting

facepalm, prop 8, stimulus, obama, protest, stupid

picture from sheburns12*

Pearlyscum has some advice for those protesting Democrats/Obama/stimulus. Some of it's not bad, but the this bit of advice is extremely telling:


3. Speakers not prepared for the media - the organizer was asked to name some specific objectionable items in the stimulus. She couldn’t do it. I doubt many of us could.
If you are an organizer, or the “face” of the event - take an hour to prepare. You don’t need to know everything about the stimulus. Just find 2 or 3 things - hard facts - you can point to and credibly say - these are wrong, wasteful spending items. Or, these items grow government, not the economy. It is critical.


If you can't think of one, just one, item in the stimulus you are opposed to, then how do you even know you are opposed to it? These people used valuable hours of their lives, time that could have been spent doing, well, just about anything, to protest a stimulus and they don't even know what it is they are opposed to?


Captain Picard displays my reaction to this in a way words cannot.

*unfortunately, using the source code for blogs from sheburns12's page results in a picture too big to be seen in its entirety on my blog. hence the awkward attribution.