Invest in tomato futures
By Thoreau
I don’t approve of violence. FBI, if you’re reading this, let me repeat: I don’t approve of violence.
That said, not every physical transgression is harmful, and I don’t necessarily disapprove of a public display of scorn that involves a non-harmful physical act. So, I admire the balls of the guy who threw his shoes at George Bush. It wasn’t an attempt to physically harm him, it was just a display of complete and utter scorn for a man who started a war and sanctioned a policy of torture. Even Bush said that he didn’t feel threatened, that it wasn’t an attempt at harm, it was just a symbolic gesture. (Of course, what Bush doesn’t get is that the only person in that room who did anything wrong was Bush, not the show-thrower.) I would never want to physically harm him or anyone else (if I was revved up about physical harm to people I would have voted Republican in 2004), but public humiliation and displays of scorn are just peachy with me.
In a better world, the people who orchestrated that war would be unable to walk down a sidewalk without facing a torrent of rotten tomatoes, eggs, and insults. Everywhere they go, decent people should shout curses and wave middle fingers. When walking down the street after a rainstorm, kids should stomp mud puddles in their direction to dirty the clothes of the war pigs. Old World church ladies should make the sign to ward off evil in the presence of George Bush and his fellow war-starters. Dogs should bark as they walk by, and monkeys should fling poo at them when they visit the zoo. None of these things will physically harm them, but it’s the sort of utter rejection from polite society that they deserve. That’s right, even the dogs and monkeys should reject them.
They are thugs and evil-doers, and they deserve complete ostracism from any place of dignity.
Comment by Phil —
December 14, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
But in that world Bush would never have been president and never would have had a chance to earn that scorn.
In a better world, he’d be a real estate broker.
Comment by Whammer —
December 14, 2008 @ 11:16 pm
Have we completely given up on the idea of throwing a bunch of them in the slammer?
Comment by Thoreau —
December 14, 2008 @ 11:46 pm
We can throw tomatoes at them on their way to the courthouse.
Comment by KCinDC —
December 14, 2008 @ 11:48 pm
Which is surely yet another Bush lie. There’s no way he didn’t feel two seconds of terror there suddenly having someone stand up and throw an unknown object at him.
Comment by Fraud Guy —
December 15, 2008 @ 12:23 am
Thoreau,
The FBI may understand that you don’t approve of violence, but it’s the Secret Service who investigates threats against the President.
Comment by Fraud Guy —
December 15, 2008 @ 12:26 am
KCinDC
It took him seven minutes to realize that planes hitting the Twin Towers was a bad thing. Now, he may have been distracted by that compelling page turner he was reading….
Comment by skylights —
December 15, 2008 @ 3:22 am
Whammer– Too late, Congress signed legislation a couple years ago containing retroactive immunity for Bush and his cronies.
Comment by bdr —
December 15, 2008 @ 9:20 am
I admire the guys courage, but his balls? By now they’ve been ground to sausage in a police station’s cellar.
Comment by Dr. Psycho —
December 15, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
Fucking poetry, Thoreau.
Comment by Joshua Holmes —
December 15, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
I want the same thing I’ve wanted for years: impeached, removed from office, arrested, tried for crimes against humanity, convicted, hung, bodies left in a ditch, family assets liquidated to pay victims.
I hardly think that’s too much to ask for crimes against humanity.
Comment by albatross —
December 15, 2008 @ 9:11 pm
An interesting test case is how Berkeley is handling John Yoo being on the faculty. I’m not sure how that all works out; my impression is that he’s not so popular with students or faculty, but I don’t know how far that goes. He doesn’t have secret service protection–can he buy groceries or walk down the street without fearing a shower of rotten fruit and vegetables?
There’s an interesting question somewhere in here about our willingness to associate with people whose ideas seem wrong or foolish or evil (and that willingness mostly seems like a virtue), and what the limits are. “Architect of widespread crimes against humanity” does seem like it’s pretty far past any sensible limit, though. But I don’t shun the couple people I know who believe torture is justified to win the war on terror–there’s a huge and important difference between supporting it and doing it, IMO, though I couldn’t really justify that.
Comment by Rojo —
December 15, 2008 @ 10:45 pm
My parents’ apartment in NYC, I’ve been told, is on the same block as Henry Kissinger’s. I’ve been waiting in vain for a number of years now to get a chance to spit on him on visiting occasions. The parents would not approve. Not that they like Kissinger, just that it would be a grave breach of decorum.
I did piss on Henry Clay Frick’s grave once for his role in the Homestead Massacre. One of the most enjoyable moments of my life. My Pops tsked me for that when I told him. My Wobbly compatriats, on the other hand, cheered.
Comment by Ryan —
December 16, 2008 @ 12:45 am
Incidentally, I was watching CNN today, which reported on the subhead “Throwing a shoe is a sign of contempt in Iraqi culture.”
It took me a minute to realize how terribly banal and unremarkable that observation is.