Now Playing at Reason.tv: Bring Da Funk, Bring Da Anti-War Protests

Click below to check out reason.tv's three-minutes-and-change take on last week's anti-war protests. More hippies than Woodstock! More questions about health care than the first two years of the Bill Clinton admin!

Comments

[nebby]

I kept waiting for Keva Rosenberg, "Unemployed Person"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID80fUT5SwQ

[Art-P.O.G.]

I like these people. They're more than willing to stop their righteous indignation to contemplate their own foibles.

[Cesar]

Am I the only anti-war person that absolutely cannot stomach anti-war protests?

[J sub D]

Am I the only anti-war person that absolutely cannot stomach anti-war protests?

I'm single. It's a great (and inexpensive) way to get laid. Just don't say libertarian 'til the morning.

I'm against the war so I'm not being too hypocritical, am I?

[Art-P.O.G.]

It seems to me that most protests actually bear little effect on people not directly involved. I mean, I generally try to avoid the crowds and be on my way.

[Cesar]

J sub D, you really want to get laid with ANSWER chicks?

When you're fucking ANSWER, you're fucking Communism!

[Art-P.O.G.]

When you're fucking ANSWER, you're fucking Communism!

W-what h-happens when libertarianism and c-communism have an offspring?[shudders at idea of resultant abomination]

[J sub D]

When you're fucking ANSWER, you're fucking Communism!

Oooh, like you never said "Fuck the Communists". In the morning when you want to bring the libertarian demon out of the closet, try something like this -

As a libertarian, I've been against the war from day one. I'm also against Head Start, Medicaid, and the minimum wage.*

*I'm really not that much of a slut or an asshole. I used to be.

[J sub D]

W-what h-happens when libertarianism and c-communism have an offspring?[shudders at idea of resultant abomination]

Like the mule, offspring would be useful for dull repetitive tasks, but fortunately unable to propogate.

[Art-P.O.G.]

🙂 that sounds about right, J sub D.

[drawnasunder]

Douchebag says what?

[Brother Chad]

THE WAR ON PUSSY

WE WILL NOT RELENT UNTIL ALL PUSSY IS CRUSHED

[Brandybuck]

I'm anti-war, and I hate the protestors too. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a genuine anti-war protestor at an anti-war protest in over a decade. They're not protesting the war, they're protesting Bush, Israel, Halliburton, the WTO, capitalism, dihydrogen monoxide, laws against public nudity, genetic engineering, irradiated food, carbon, caucasians, and traditional art. They always forget to protest against the actual war.

[Jonathan Hohensee]

I've said this before, but in the past I said Chomsky was a genius just so I could feel up a chick

[Kevin]

I agree with the hippie in the kaffiyeh. Government, govern less. Still, it's fun to watch Reason contributors become more conservative once they realize the idiocy of the people who support liberalism :).

Also, please allow comments on your video blog thing. I don't read hit and run since it hasn't quite figured out that conservatism is the bees knees (ALMOST! But not quite). I'd much rather comment on your video blog, which I enjoy quite a bit.

Thanks in advance.

[Jonathan Hohensee]

Whenever someone says something like "people's heads are in the ground" my knee-jerk reaction is to say "fuck you."

As if it is impossible to both watch American Idol AND be well informed about the news. Or that a person is an idiot because they sit on their ass and watch TV instead of taking to the streets and being a part of a stupid, empty gesture.

I noticed that this is the general attitudes of a lot of the protest-types I meet "we are right, and everyone else is a gullible idiot who needs to 'wake up'." Often phrased as "What's wrong with this world is..." or "what's wrong with society is..."
Which to me always comes off as implying that everyone outside of earshot spend all day just picking their nose, watching Wheel of Fortune, and eat Cheeze-Whiz from the bottle.
Of course, that would mean that my brother, my grandma, that cool old guy I met on the bus last Tuesday and nearly everyone else I met who doesn't match to their radical agenda are hogging the Cheeze-Whiz.

Also? zombietime is the greatest website ever.

[Jonathan Hohensee]

Oh, and protesters are always shoe-horning in their own fucking silly agenda into the protests. They are never about war, they are about ending Capitalism so that their could be no more wars forever.

Last year for our campus's anti-war protest the protesters got up and read a couple of speeches. One of the speeches was a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. which the speaker introduced as
"This is a speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. shortly before he was assassinated by secret goverment agents."
WHAT THE FUCK?
These are the people that are chosen to represent the anti-war movement and yet that one women bitches about being maligned by the media? What fucking balls to think that you are entitled to be taken seriously when your rhetoric is the most asinine, judgmental, arrogant examples of polemic out there.

And then when I bitch about this stuff, the more moderate anti-war stuff always give me grief. "Sure, I don't agree with them either, but they are the best chance to end the war." Which is kind of right, but at the same time I highly doubt these guys are really making enough of a difference to justify not going apeshit when they insult my basic way of life.
This one guy told me that we wouldn't have any of the rights we have today if it wasn't for The Weather Underground. Seriously?

Fucking christ-I hate protesters.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Yeah, Zombietime rocks.

[Jonathan Hohensee]

Reading zombie's comments over at LGF kind of made me cool on him/her a little bit. He/She came off as pro-war on drugs and had that general Little Green Footballs knee-jerk demeanor to him/her. (Arab person at the airport had a box cutter? TERRORIST! Watch the MSM whitewash this one)

Although every email conversation I had with zombie the person came off as being blisteringly intelligent.

[GILMORE]

Cesar | March 23, 2008, 8:11pm | #

Am I the only anti-war person that absolutely cannot stomach anti-war protests?

Join the club, Comrade~!

Me, the thing that bothers me is that people think "rage and indignation" is somehow a coherent policy proposal. That, and the whole thing is more about identity reinforcement than practical efforts to actually change anything.

"Im against the Government"! ... but then expect the government to solve all perceived 'problems' of free market economics.

they think blanket statements (generally completely misinformed) about "America" makes them somehow an enlightened class. If you try to get them to talk about details, they start with the "no details are accurate, it's all the MSM and government controlled...blah blah blah"

My man
Jonathan Hohensee | March 23, 2008, 10:51pm | #

said it right above.

There's a reason I'm here. Ever read the nonsense over at Kos or Democracy Underground?? My god, they are their own worst enemy

[Click \'n\' Learn]

If anyone ever asks you, "who was the first reporter to go to an anti-Iraq war protest and come back with pictures?" you now know the answer. Yes, I've changed my mind about a few things in the subsequent five+ year. Thankfully they don't let me vote on resolutions! Just kidding.

What exactly was the point of this video anyway? Shouldn't this site be linking to Bureaucrash videos or something? They're great!

[Jonathan Hohensee]

*nerd rage*

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080324/ap_on_re_us/iraq_protest_mass

[Terry Michael]

Even idiots can come to the right conclusion against an insane war, even if they can't articulate the reasons--just as another set of idiots can come to the wrong conclusion, and support it. Then, when you apply the vapid, incoherent "coverage" of both sets of idiots by TV "news," both broadcast and cable, we get political discourse dumbed-down to verbal food fights. Conclusion: the only TV you should watch is Reason.TV!

[GILMORE]

Click 'n' Learn | March 24, 2008, 12:28am | #

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[BG]

Interesting.

The people speaking seemed to be short on specific policy proposals and analysis, and long on vauge enthusiasm to Make Things Right. (Immediate witdrawal vs. timetable vs. other exit idea. Should they try to assist reconciliation between factions? And if so, how?)

And I agree with ART-P.O.G. that when presented with a challenging argument, they seemed willing to stop and say "Hmm, let me think about that...".

I've said this before, but in the past I said Chomsky was a genius just so I could feel up a chick

There are very few circumstances when such a statement is justified, but I'd say thats one. (perhaps another is referring to linguistics?)

[Jonathan Hohensee]

Oh, later that night I referred to linguistics alright.

[Jonathan Hohensee]

IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

[Jeff Wartman]

I thought Heath Ledger was dead

[mtc]

hippy, very sheepishly: "can i, can i curse?"
off-camera: "yeah"
hippy: "FUCK CENSORSHIP!!!!"

I laughed pretty hard at that one. To be fair, he probably just wanted to make sure he wasn't going to get cut, but he seemed to totally miss the irony of asking permission to yell 'fuck censorship'.

[GILMORE]

he seemed to totally miss the irony of asking permission to yell 'fuck censorship

it's a little microcosm of everything wrong with their "if you have dreadlocks, you're less of like a capitalist and shit" mentality

seriously, I went to the West Point of Hippy Academies - irony isnt on the list of grasped concepts in that set.

Better yet were the two unwashed ladies who scratched their chins over the Do You Want National Healthcare if the Government is so Fucked Up question:

"yeah, it's a paradox..." she offers. Ooooh. Paradox! Almost Zenoesque. Pass the Salvia Divinorum.

Actually honey, in English we call it *Hypocrisy"

[javier]

I've said this before, but in the past I said Chomsky was a genius just so I could feel up a chick

i once tried to bag a lefty chick, but i threw in the towel when i couldn't stand to listen to her talk and had a constant urge to blow my head off.

[BG]

Addendum to my earlier comment:

The people speaking seemed to be short on specific policy proposals and analysis, and long on vauge enthusiasm to Make Things Right.

However, something just reminded me of the suggestion that we go back to living in teepees. So there's one proposal.

Jonathan Hohensee

Nice.

[Lois Maxwell]

IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

Yes, Mr. Hohensee, real cunning.

[Daniel Reeves]

I've said this before, but in the past I said Chomsky was a genius just so I could feel up a chick
Damn, she must have been hot.

[Tag?]

[Phil D]

There one thing I can agree with them on, though: American Idol really does suck.

[J-Dawg]

My brain may be libertarian, but my man-business is equal opportunity.

[libertreee]

Hey. Reno had a very serious, low keyed anti war demo with religious speakers and vets speaking...Well, there was one "No blood for Oil" sign but the guy said he would write in Ron Paul for President. About 200 showed on a cold windy Reno evening.
Not that most are libertarians at all. Most are commies deep down, but gentle commies, you know, democratic commies. But, the demonstration didn't bring that out this week. Five years is too much!

[Instantmoniker]

Looks smelly.

[mk]

I've said this before, but in the past I said Chomsky was a genius just so I could feel up a chick

There are very few circumstances when such a statement is justified, but I'd say thats one. (perhaps another is referring to linguistics?)

Are you saying I should say that Chomsky is a genius so I can feel up John McWhorter?

[Jonathan Hohensee]

There are very few circumstances when such a statement is justified, but I'd say thats one. (perhaps another is referring to linguistics?)

Really, I feel that he is spot-on about the absolute con job that is post modernism

There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will come to understand it. Now Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard, Kristeva, etc. --- even Foucault, whom I knew and liked, though he despised me, and who was somewhat different from the rest --- write things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic mutation, which has created a form of "theory" that is beyond quantum theory, topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b) ... I won't spell it out.

[R C Dean]

Most are commies deep down, but gentle commies, you know, democratic commies.

Easily identified as the first ones up against the wall after the Revolution.

Idiots. Useful to someone, though, I suppose.

[ChrisO]

Only a truly great nation has the luxury of producing phenomena like the Stoner Musician Dude. And that's not a criticism or a put-down.

Everyone should have the opportunity of being young and naive for awhile. The problem is that not everyone gets beyond the naive part, as evidenced by the elderly Code Pink ladies.

[MatthewWilliam]

"we should all go back to living in tee-pees"
Brilliant.

[flighty]

Serious question for the group:

Has the political protest rally been rendered neutral in the US?

I mean, I'm against the war, pretty culturally liberal on a lot of issues but I've wondered if protesting actually has accomplished anything in the past 20 years in the US?

Personally, I think, with the exception of small scale protests by people outside a particular establishment (I saw a group protesting a restaurant for its dubious labor and health practices and that certainly got my attention), the big "end the war" rallies and their ilk seem like a waste of everyone's time.

I mean it doesn't actually convert anyone from being pro-war to anti-war does it? As a matter of overall strategy doesn't it just kind of annoy people?

[mk]

Bringing all the disparate elements of a movement together in Washington DC can be pretty eventful if enough people show up. Note that there were very few people at the above event. There needs to be hundreds of thousands to really get noticed.

Besides the million man march, there was also a gay rights march during the AIDS crisis that was huge. Both pretty much swamped the city. Unfortunately, it tends to rise the bar to an unreachable level.

As it is, I often don't know that rallies are happening downtown unless I run into a bunch of the protesters on the metro.

[Eegosumabbas]

The antiwar movement (protests in particular) has been completely taken over by communists. Click the URL in my name. It made me sick to my stomach.

I am now a huge fan of zombietime.

[Christine]

Hey Johnathan, I'm actually the one who made the "head in the ground" comment on the video. I'm not slamming those who watch American Idol--hell, I have the show on TiVo. It was more of a slam towards the media who use way more airtime on celebrity news then..well, more important things. And, yes, it is also a slam against those people who follow American Idol a bit more closely then the political race--probably the most important of our lifetime.

Many Americans--not you and me--really only care about two things in life: Food and Television. As long as they have these two things in abundance, they can just cozy up in the safety of their living room, not worrying about the 4000 dead in Iraq, the privitization of Social Security or the fact that parts of New Orleans are still in shambles.

ALL Americans? NO! Many? YES!

As for protesting..well, I protested. Did the war end the next day? Hell no. Did I expect it to? Hell no. Do I think it's important to protest? Hell yes. Make your opinions known, show your face.

[FreeThoughts]

I want to see more of the Rage cover band. Looked like they rocked.

[Anonymous]

Like the man said, "I hate the government." When enough of us do, we can rid ourselves of it, and live like truly civilized people. Let's evolve!

[Topper Headon]

What the fuck. 5 years into this fucking war, and this is the best that Reason can come up with? Fuck you.

[JohnD]

So tell me Christine, why are parts of New Orleans still in shambles?

Let me guess... It's the governments fault. Stupid bimbo.

[Christine]

Yes John, I do blame the government. Who do YOU blame?