Sadsacks on Parade

The New Jersey chapter of the anti-anti-war group Gathering of Eagles is taking its flea circus on the road this month, popping up at peace vigils to yell childish taunts and generally make a sad spectacle of themselves. They showed up yesterday during the Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War’s regular vigil and provided enough material to keep the coalition members in laugh lines for the rest of the year.

As you can see from the photo above, Blathering of Beagles put on a pretty woeful show. The Coalition’s vigil started off small and ended up with about 10 people — much less than other times of the year, but that happens in August. (It’s a terrible thing that this war built on lies has dragged on so long that we can chart cyclical attendance patterns.) But this is the best these turkeys can muster for their red hot roadshow.

I’m not going to dismiss them on the basis of numbers, though. If there had been 20, 40 or 100 of them, the result would have been just as sad. Larger numbers only emphasize the essential smallness of these people.

The Coalition vigil is based on an (unfortunately) ever-growing list of names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, which are added every week to an (unfortunately) ever-lengthening black plastic wall. One of the geniuses in the Nattering of Seagulls kept cawing: “You don’t have permission to use those names!” Oh yes we do, sweeties — your idol, George W. Bush himself, gave us permission when he turned those lives into statistics. We’re there to remind everyone that they were human beings with lives that were of value. You’re there to pretend this is all a big John Wayne war movie.

The vigil ended at its usual time, with a reading of the names of the latest fallen and a moment of silence, during which the Clattering of Creepos kept shouting “Victory!” As we packed up the wall of names of the fallen, Slathering of Bagels started squawking “Goodbye Commies” like a small aviary of not terribly smart parrots. No doubt they’ll write it up for their co-delusionists as another triumph in their eternal struggle against the forces of darkness.

A very sad and delusion bunch, very much in keeping with the odious freakshow the Bush administration has made of American discourse.