I was recently involved in a witch hunt "discussion" centered around a fabricated news story accusing President Obama of sending our troops into hostile territory with no bullets for their guns. Mind you this story was not taken from any news site, only from personal blogs run by far right extremists who will do or say anything to discredit anyone not sharing their exact beliefs. Facts and truth need not apply.
Of course, not a single one of these bloggers could produce any factual evidence of any kind to back up this "news story" nor could they identify any of their sources, the best they could do was vaguely refer to "blogs from our troops" or some such rubbish. Another big surprise, none of them linked to any of these supposed troop blogs which is no real surprise at all since you can't link to that which doesn't exist. The overwhelming majority of the roughly 2 dozen sites I checked out were nothing more than copy and paste of the exact same text, word for word, with some adding a little extra commentary at the end. Even Fox, world leader in posting anti-left lies, half truth and innuendo didn't grant this "story" anything more than a passing mention. If there had been any veracity at all to this story, even the slightest amount, it would have been all over the Fox News main page. It's been about three weeks now and that "story" has all but disappeared, because it's false. It lasted two days running only on conservative blogs then vanished. Another lie to be tucked away and forgotten about.
Conservatives, always quick to tout themselves as champions of our troops (despite numerous attempts of the previous warmongering R administration to hack their benefits and/or pay), were quick to jump on the bandwagon of bs by spreading this lie from blog to blog to blog. It was spread by good little "copy and paste sheep" who sanctimoniously accused our President of treason on account of the events which hadn't happened. But for the right facts are irrelevant, propaganda is preferred.
I stumbled across this blog and informed the author of her error. What followed was the predictable backlash of hostility. How dare I present facts and documentation to disprove a lie? Of course, a document I linked to was dismissed because the link I provided was from a site they didn't like. I'd be willing to bet that the same document on a site they liked would have been fine though, information can only be accepted when it originates from one of their own. A letter written by the Marine congressional liaison to Congress is not acceptable unless linked from a site leaning toward their side of the political spectrum. Snopes, almost universally recognized as a leader in dispelling rumors and in fact checking bullshit lies is also not acceptable according to them. Apparently Snopes is now partisan, lol. First I've heard of that.
Of course I was instantly accused of being a liberal for calling out the lie since it had been propagated by a conservative. Like that's an insult? Oh the pain, how ever will I survive? Yeah, I'm a "liberal" who thinks I should be able to shop for groceries with a Smith and Wesson Model 29 on my hip without having to worry about being hassled by the police. I'm a "liberal" who believes labor unions are a scourge that should be exterminated and that they bear a significant part of the blame for the decline of US industry. I'm a "liberal" who believes entitlement spending is out of control and that there should be tougher restrictions and requirement on programs like Welfare and Food Stamps. Oh how liberal, shame on me.
The slinging of the "L" word demonstrates just how narrow minded the conservative sheep have become, they can not even conceive of the very concept of independent thought. Sadly this narrow minded outlook is beginning to apply to both sides of the political spectrum. You are either one of them or one of the enemy and there is nothing in between. I find it sad that people would so willingly give up their own identity for the sole purpose of partisanship, believing and voting as told, always along party lines even if that party has the least qualified candidate. This, however, is the world in which we now live.
The whole backlash was from people who just love and support our troops to no end. Our troops this and our troops that. "I have friends who are troops and family who are troops blah blah blah", the usual stuff. Oddly enough none of the good conservatives in the discussion who swore they knew sooooooo many of our military personnel could provide any sources showing where even one single member of the military had verified this fake story. Shocker there. Not that lack of proof matters, according to sheep all that's needed is for someone to claim support of our troops and they suddenly and automagically know everything about them! And by god there's nobody on the planet who supports our troops more than the conservative right. Just ask them, they'll tell you all about it.
Which is why I was so amused to read about Republicans blocking the Veterans Jobs Corps Bill. The main purposes of this bill were to provide 20,000 public lands jobs for vets, and to help train returning vets and prioritize them for consideration as first responders; firefighters, police, EMTs etc... This makes sense, combat vets are already used to high pressure, life threatening situations so they're perfect for the job. This was a bipartisan bill, written jointly by both parties, containing every item the Republicans stipulated they wanted to include. It was written in such a way as to pay for itself within a decade. It was expected to be an easy pass however it fell short of passing by two votes, 58 - 40. The 40 votes against it? All Republicans, every single nay vote. The most idiotic part? Even the Republican co-authors voted against it. Yes,they voted against their own legislation. Why? For the sole purpose of denying the current administration a success, as they've done time and time again. But since they co-wrote it they obviously support our troops! Politics above the people, that's their priority. They'll send our military to fight unnecessary wars with insufficient equipment in barely tolerable conditions but help them out when they get back? Oh hell no. But they support 'em... because they said so.
I'd love to hear all the conservatives who jumped on me for calling out the "no bullets" lie explaining to their beloved "friends and family" troops why denying them the help of this bill was the right thing to do. Hell, I'd even be interested in letting them try explaining that to me. This puts them between a rock and a hard place. Either it's wrong to support the troops, or their party was wrong to defeat the bill. Being incapable of admitting error both choices are unacceptable to them so which will they choose? Oddly enough, none of the blog sites I'd found so quick to spread the "no bullets" lie had a single word to say about the defeat of the Veterans Job Corps Bill. Surprise!
I'm not a big fan of Rachel Maddow, nor any partisan biased "news" person or outlet but in a quick check of search results I found her response to be the most sane, logical and factual while providing more insight than most into the whole story. It leans of course, that's her schtick, but not horribly so. You can watch it here if the embed doesn't show up.
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