As an American-flagged ship, "The Audacity of Hope," prepares to set sail for Gaza carrying 36 unarmed U.S. citizens and boxes of hand-written letters, the the level of vitriolic rhetoric coming from the right is reaching an obscene, if not sociopathic, pitch.
This tweet from Joshua Trevino, former Bush speechwriter and co-founder of RedState, has, within the last two days, become the poster child for such rhetoric:
This is exactly the type of speech that Daily Kos should publicly stand against, particularly coming from those on the right who intone the word "patriotism" as though it is an article in the English language and then have the temerity to turn around and, as a political point, give tacit approval to a foreign nation to murder American citizens.
After getting slammed for his words by Glenn Greenwald and Think Progress Trevino tweeted the following: "Looks like the Israel-hating, pro-Hamas left knows and despises me now. That's excellent."
No, Mr. Trevino...
...being appalled by, and standing squarely against, your apparent invitation to Israel to murder American citizens does not place me in the "Israel-hating" camp, nor does it place me in the "pro-Hamas" camp.
It places me squarely, resolutely, in the "pro-American" camp. In the "pro-humanitarian" camp. In the "pro-international-law" camp. In the camp that holds "these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The conservative, extreme right in America is so blindly aligned with Israel that not only will its contingent reject, out-of-hand, even reasoned, measured critiques of the country, but will apparently champion Israel's right to murder American citizens who would dare participate in (or cover as journalists) a non-violent protest initiative.
Now, for the record, while I sympathize with some of the flotilla's goals, I find it to be a counterproductive effort that will likely produce consequences counter to its aims, feeding into both Netanyahu's and Hamas's desire for conflict, giving both sides simply one more excuse to push off any type of peaceful resolution between Israelis and Palestinians. For this reason, I'm not actively supporting it.
Does not actively supporting the flotilla make me a "Palestine-hating?" American who would be "cool" with the IDF firing off a few rounds toward those who are participating?
In Trevino's irrational, uber-politicized world, yes.
But not in the world we here at Daily Kos (I hope) would like to foster, a world in which people strive to be nuanced and deliberative – and a world which will call out the likes of Trevino for what they are: attention-whoring, hateful individuals who traffic in a world of faux patriotism as a way to justify criminally negligent and treasonous writings protected by the First Amendment.