A Veterans Day to “Honor” our Troops
As presented by ‘Veterans for Peace’ at the Santa Monica Beach
“Arlington West” grave-cross display.
11/21-1830 - video and audio clips added, as well as
separate AV page containing them all, as a shortcut
(there will be a separate report for Day2, following shortly)
A 3-Day Parade of Negativism, Defeatism, political rhetoric and a contrived focus on maudlin horrors arranged to sway public opinion
against the Iraq War, kicking off on Veterans Day, 2005.
The Anti-War obsessives have combined their efforts at the site of the
long running protest (22 months). This display is a weekly protest installation at Santa Monica Beach, immediately adjacent to the Santa Monica Pier – in fact, it straddles the Boat-Launching access way / walkway.
An array of groups operate this site, or more correctly, whichever group has an axe to grind gets their name on it.
These days it’s ‘Veterans for Peace’, although my understanding is that the same core group of people has always controlled this particular Anti-War exercise.
That’s the 5 W’s.
Their stated purpose was to “Honor the Warrior, Not the War” (as per the announcement by Tonia Young of the Topanga Peace Alliance). This announcement was also featured by Code Pink.
What actually occurred was a stacked deck of Negativism, Defeatism, Sedition and gross exaggeration.
My previously posted shorthand notes on the event, from Friday evening, Nov 11th 2005:
Among the lowlights:
- an assclown playing 'Taps' on a saxaphone, who thought a little extemporaneous valve-play was appropriate for such a solemn
piece
- the 'staff' running around in 'Grim Milestone' t-shirts, and one old crone who I'd bet my last quatloo was a Red Diaper Baby,
bedecked in red sweater and jaunty red beret
- photo boards of our KIA, still earmarked with titles from the <i>last</i> 'Grim Milestone'
- a series of speakers who didn't have the first clue how to read names or many place names, of our casualties
- speaking of speakers, their list was garbage - 'Army Gunny', 'Marine Petty Officer' were but two egregious mistakes I heard as
they "honored" our Fallen
- a swarthy speaker of indeterminate origin who took it upon himself to read the names of little iraqi baby girls 'our soldiers have shot
to death'; 'they should face criminal prosecution'
- a sculpture touting our 'KIA in Iraq' [emph. added] as 2,060, chalked in for dramatic effect.
- a picture board loaded with rehab photos of the maimed / amputees, culled from non-propaganda sources but assembled for a
Horror Show
- a performance of Aztec dancers, performing what I saw to be as a triumphal war dance over / in front of / at / circling the group of
flag-draped coffins representing our war-dead this week.
- and to top it all off, that favorite theme of LLLeftist representational protest art, wherein in larger numbers of objects are used to
inflate the negative impression - I'm referring to the portrait of Pres Bush comprised of tiny photos of our KIA, which was made of
nearly double the number of faces as were actually dead at the point it came out - the fields of crosses on the beach actually
held 2331 crosses, ~300 more crosses than the number of casualties they purportedly represent.
It's going to take me a several hours to process the imagery I took. I have a great deal of still, video and audio. I'm also going back
tomorrow to observe the creepshow procession with the coffins, and with hopes of seeing Jeff Key - he was apparently a no-show today.
And Maxine Waters apparently blew through sometime after 9am, instead of the published 2pm time.
I also have an extensive series of shots covering the coverage - all the media camera-angle tricks at work, as well as the sickening
shot-framing that went on while the Aztecs counted coup over our war dead.
I also have what should be some hackle-raising video of a Santa Monica Councilman Kevin McKeown (Green / Kucinich) saying some
very seditionist things, as well as eavesdropping audio of several bystanders and organizers. I definitely MUST be wired for sound front and
back, with an always-on recording capability for my next such event. I missed many shocking statements from those around me, especially of some parents conditioning their children. It was wretched.
End of notes
I’ve broken the sequence of imagery and video / audio, to group related subjects together. The categories are
Overview & Attendence; Crosses; Coffins; Readers & Speakers; Propaganda Organizers, Shills & Cliches and
their Messages; Media (unintentional redundancy, sorry), with subgroups of Media Craft and Media Staging; and lastly, a demonstration of Aztec ritual dancing. On Veterans Day.
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