Got another slimeball email from a BushBot today

[joeunderdog]

here's how it read:

Kind of says it all ...


Lady with an Umbrella (insert cutsie picture here)

Here's a quote from a government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a Metro (subway) station in DC:


"There were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America. I politely declined to take one.

"An elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which the woman politely declined.

"The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice said, 'Lady, don't you care about the children of Iraq?'

"The old woman looked up at her and said, 'Honey, my father died in France during World War II. I lost my husband in Korea, and a son in Vietnam. All three died so you could have the right to stand here and bad mouth our country. If you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it.' "


~God Bless America~

My reply?
This is why we have nursing homes with locked doors!

"psssst!! They were unarmed this time."

[SteppingRazor]

1. Wonderful bit of fiction...

I love that freepers need to invent these bizarre psychodramas to make them feel better abotu themselves and their political philosophies.

[BOSSHOG]

So right

and so sad that humans have to invent stories to make themselves FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES. It really does suck being a "conservative" in America today.

My father in law lost his arm in WWII, he and my mother in law were life long democrats, my father in law holding elected office for many years in a red state. I loved him dearly. One of my favorite quotes from him: "I wouldn't waste spit on a republican." My mother in law ranted and raved about reagan's funeral. "Waste of money." "If he was really that good, a funeral wouldn't have been necessary."

Note to lurkers - always tell the truth and you'll never have to remember anything.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Snopes isn't too sure about this one.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/oldlady.asp

Says it's unverified. Snopes sounds skeptical.

[Beelzebud]

20. I don't need snopes to see this is nothing but bullshit.

[NYCGirl]

3. Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/oldlady.asp

This tale about a wizened old lady standing up to the pushy anti-war protestor first landed in our inbox on 27 March 2003. Some versions we've received identify the author as "an Army captain stationed in Washington, DC," but others don't provide even that much of an attribution. At this point, the authorship of the piece is unknown.

Did the events as described actually take place? Well, they might have. Then again, this account of a feisty war widow's response to anti-war protestors could just be someone's attempt to express in story form how that person feels about those who oppose the war in Iraq. Let's look at what little is known.

On 20 March 2003, war protesters blocked rush-hour traffic on the Key Bridge, one of the main bridges between Northern Virginia and Washington, closing the span for about 30 minutes. The protests began shortly after 8 a.m. in Rosslyn and continued throughout the day. Although news accounts we examined failed to mention anything about protestors handing out pamphlets, that does not mean those involved in the event were not providing literature to passersby.

Yet that something could have happened does not mean that it did happen. One point in the account does give us especial pause — the author speaks of getting off his train in Rosslyn because he had to use the bathroom. Those familiar with the station at Rosslyn point out there are no public washrooms in that facility.

Even so, for now let's place this one in the "possibly apocryphal" category and leave it at that.

[ovidsen]

16. You can use the 'loo at Rosslyn

There are public bathrooms available at nearly every DC METRO stop... but you have to ask the kiosk attndant, and a "yes" isn't guaranteed.

This has been a constant source of irritation between riders (especially the disabled) and the METRO staff since the system opened.

FYI and all that...

[NYCGirl]

18. You might want to let the folks at Snopes know, since they wrote that.

I'm not familiar with the DC Metro.

[ovidsen]

19. I'll do that

Although it doesn't really change the "untruthiness" of the story. It would have had a tad more authenticity if it had said the observer was waiting to change trains (Rosslyn's a big transfer point between the Blue and Orange lines) and not looking for the john.

But even without Snopes, the narrative stinks of "imaginary anecdote" and sends the ol' BS meter pinging!:)

[Selatius]

4. Your response could've been better, sorry if I offend you.

I honestly don't mean to offend you, but I would've suggested you say something like this:

The simple fact is all those wars were waged for good reason except one. (Actually, Korea could be argued as also being not worth it)

Leaving out Korea, the only one not waged for a good reason was Viet Nam, and that was started over a fictional incident in the Gulf of Tonkin.

And Iraq was started over WMD...which turned out to be more fiction.

(Edit: EstimatedProphet's subject line (post #6)--now THAT is a potent, short response. In comparison, mine is too long and bulky in comparison, but his response sliced through like a broadsword.)

[Hav]

9. .

You are right, but I guess it's getting tiresome when one hears these same stupid stories again and again...stuff like Vietnam had to be fought for America's freedom of speech.
Maybe I am unaware of some facts regarding Vietnam, but it simply sounds crazy.

[Selatius]

11. Yeah, I get it a lot, especially here in Mississippi

Honestly, I could sympathize with blurting out "Well, maybe you and your umbrella belong in a retirement home instead of out here!" It's tempting to lose composure sometimes.

[stop the bleeding]

5. send a reply w/ your local military recruiting office's contact info n/t

[Sherman A1]

7. That is the best answer!

[EstimatedProphet]

6. If all those people died so that she could say it, maybe she should listen

Reply to all that, because we have freedom of speech in this country, we have the right to protest. It isn't unpatriotic to protest, it's PATRIOTIC. It's making your voice heard in the system. People who try to silence protesters are Stalinists.

[karlrschneider]

8. Bullshit. Even IF this DID happen, what kind of idiot woman would

deny someone the opportunity to EXERCISE the "rights" her relatives allegedly "fought" for?

:eyes:

[Hav]

10. .

Logic never had a place in emails like this one.

[baldguy]

12. That's the basic con mentality.

They fight for their own right to think & say things they believe in.

NOT YOURS! Especially if you disagree with them.

[ComerPerro]

14. a freeper, that's who. Most of these emails

play off of stereotypes, "Anti-American" war protestors, a sweet old lady who then gets rude to defend her country, blah blah.

This is the kind of stuff freepers masturbate to.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. I seem to remember seeing this story discussed somewhere,

could have been here, a few weeks ago. Someone had done a timeline and calculations of what this woman's approximate age, as well as the ages of the men who supposedly died, would have been during these wars. I wish I could remember all of it, but the conclusion was that it was highly unlikely that this could be true. Did anyone else see this?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

15. Well if the husband died in Korea, he would have to have already fathered

the son who died in Vietnam before he died. Since the Korean War ended around '53, if he had just fathered the kid in the 50-53 time period then the kid could have been old enough to be killed in Vietnam in the late 60's or early 70's.

As far as the likelihood of all this, and the truth of the story, apparently variously attributed to the unnnamed government worker, and an "Army captain" who happened to observe this, at Rosslyn Metro, you can draw your own conclusions, LOL.

Of course in the story, the antiwar protestor is made out to be a jerk, for physically touching the old lady in an unsolicited way, giving the old lady the opening for her homespun but crude witticism. These RW spams are as predictable as they are common.

[northzax]

17. protesting in the Rosslyn Metro?

unlikely. people don't walk around the Metro handing out flyers.

and it sounds to me like men who know her should stop joining the military, appears to me that she's three for three KIA in wars. bad luck.

come on, what are the odds that someone lost a father in WWII, a husband in Korea AND a son in Vietnam? two of three, maybe, but all three? let's do the math! (ok, it's late on a friday, and I want to go to happy hour already!)

let's say the woman was 18 when she married her husband and was knocked up in 1945. Her father must have been at least 36, right? if people 36 and over were proportionally represented in fatalities in the war, then he represented one of roughly 20% of the 291,557 servicemen killed in the war. this is a high percentage, of course since most people of that age were not in combat often. but we'll take it. that's 58,311 people over the age of 36 killed in the war. or .31% of all servicemen in the war.

her husband was right in the age bracket for Korea, so he gets 100% chance of being a fatality, 33,741 out of 5,720,000 or .58% of all servicemen.

for vietnam, her son was again in the age range: makes that 47,000 out of 8.7 million or .45% of all servicemen.

in every case, she lost someone who had less than a 1 in 500 chance of being killed. total: 1:125,000,000. lottery odds, that.