Spitting incident at the march (1/2007)

[Sweet Freedom]

Proud2Blib's letter to the NYT

Original thread here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x80613

Ian, Thank you for your story about our march on the capitol on Saturday.

Interestingly, while I was marching along the north side of the capitol, I was approached by a young woman who claimed to be a reporter for the NY Times working with you on the story. She interviewed my friend David Quinly and he was quoted in your story.

Then she turned to me and told me she had seen a protester spit on a soldier and asked for my comment. I told her I didn't believe that, and she repeated that she had seen this happen. I told her the peace movement is more supportive of the troops than anyone who supports this war, because we want our troops to come home, while those who support the war are advocating sending them into harm's way. So I really could not believe that anyone who opposed the war had spit on a soldier. My comments were not included in your story.

I was upset when I read your story the next day to see this was an "alleged" incident and the protester had supposedly spit on the ground in front of the soldier (which is quite different from spitting ON this soldier). In other words, what was related in your story was not at all what that reporter had told me. So she either lied to me or your story is false.

When I got back home, I did a little research that apparently you did not do and found out some interesting things about this soldier who claims he was spit on. He also claims to have received a death threat in the mail while he was in Walter Reed Hospital and he claims he was mistreated in an airport when he returned from Iraq.

He has been celebrated on Michelle Malkin's website and was a guest on Sean Hannity's show.

Now I am just a teacher and not a reporter but I hope you are wondering what I am wondering - what are the odds that a soldier who received a death threat also happened to get spit on at that march?? Adding in the fact that your assistant who interviewed me either lied to me or misrepresented the facts in your story, I now do not believe that this spitting incident happened at all.

Ian, the NY Times needs to print a retraction. I will wait for a reply from you and if I don't hear back I will contact your editor. The blogs are already on this story and it doesn't look like it will go away without a retraction in your paper.

Here are some links I found that support what I have told you in this email.

http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004021.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Sparling
(I know Wikipedia is not a great source, but there is a good summary here of the claims Joshua has made about being mistreated)


And here is what comes up on Google for Joshua Sparling:
fficial&client=firefox-a" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/search?q=joshua+sparling%27&ie=ut...

Feel free to call me if you want to discuss this. And thanks again for the story.

Peace!!

[Sweet Freedom]

1. More

From Joshua the spittee:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x85859

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701300012?src=item2007...

Now Joshua is claiming marchers were waiting for him and wanted to beat him with clubs!

So let's recap:

1. He claims to have been hassled in an airport by travelers who don't support the war.

http://gunnnutt.blogspot.com/2006/05/day-in-life-of-her...

2. He claims to have received a death threat while he was a patient at Walter Reed Hospital.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004021.htm

3. He claims that a marcher on Saturday spit on him. Now watch this video and you can see how far away he was from the marchers. Kinda makes you wonder how far spit can travel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0_-FVvSRg&mode=related...

And this gives an even better view of that distance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw1MQZZTtMM&feature=Rece...

4. Now he says he was threatened by marchers with clubs.

Kinda makes you wanna go hmmmm, eh?

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Thanks for putting this here!

I promise to stay on top of this.

[Sweet Freedom]

3. You're welcome and good job! /nt

[DemBones DemBones]

4. See my thread "Debunking a Spitting Image" in GD

for the history of "spitting" allegations, which first arose around 1980. I posted parts of two articles by a sociology prof who was a Vietnam vet and is still involved with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He wrote a book debunking the spitting myth back in 1998, finding no claims of such incidents before 1980. That sounds about right to me, too. I never heard any such claims from vets nor read of any such incidents in the 1960s or 1970s when guys were actually returning from Vietnam.

Some highlights:

In a 1971 Harris Poll, either 91% or 94% of Vietnam vets said they had received a friendly homecoming from their peers. (The conflict in numbers between articles is probably a typo, but "even" 91% is significant.)

Before the Iraq War began, there were "spitting" allegations and allegations of a stoning and threats, all of which proved to be false. These bogus reports helped the pro-war movement, though.

The psychology is pretty interesting, too. One of the articles I cited said "Many tellers of the spitting tales identify the culprits as girls, a curious quality to the stories that gives away their gendered subtext." It goes on to say that after WW I, German vets reported they were "defiled by women." When the Franch left Vietnam in the mid-Fifties, the vets claimed women rejected them.

In my thread, Dhalgren wrote:

"One of the reasons that it has to be "girls" who did the spitting in these myths is that if it had been male "hippies" doing the spitting, who would believe that the returning vets would have just walked away shamed. Whenever a spitting story was told, the obvious question is, "what did you do?" Since the myth doesn't work if the soldier or marine breaks somebody's face, the spat upon soldier has to just walk away in shame - for that to happen, it has to be someone the soldier can't punch-out. Ergo, young girls..."

Here's the link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1004178&mesg_id=1004178

[Sweet Freedom]

5. Thanks for the addition. /nt