Shaughn Adeleye: RoadRants3

Uploaded on Feb 3, 2010

Ranting on the road about political thoughts.

NJO: Title, video and blurb from 2010-2011 James O'Keefe minion Shaughn Adeleye's YouTube channel.

Love Thy Prisoner Campaign: Adopt a Jihad Detainee

Uploaded on Jun 22, 2009

Progressives in Boston sign petitions to be pen pals with Guantanamo Bay detainees and put them into their loving homes.

NJO: Title, video and blurb from James O'Keefe's YouTube account VeritasVisuals. It takes place at Boston Pride 2009. The guy with the screwy-up face is Ben Wetmore, the tall guy with the grey cap is of course James O'Keefe, and I believe the guy with the sailor hat and sunglasses is named Anthony Pombal.

Minions / fellow culture warriors involved:

Ben Wetmore
Anthony Pombal

Ben Wetmore posted the video to his blog (mirrored here) on the same day it was uploaded. The comments from the blog post provide insight into the thinking behind the project, so here they are:

Comments:

Convservative Christian said...

Just because someone was picked up and put in Guantanamo, does not mean they are terrorists. As Christ instructs, we are to love even our enemy. As Americans, we ought to especially care for the wrongfully imprisoned, those who have never been given a trial, those who have never been charged, those against whom no evidence has been brought. What do you propose? That we keep them locked up forever and never tried?

September 16, 2009 at 7:35 AM

. said...

Conservative Christian, I think this is where Christianity descends into insanity. I agree to love thy neighbor, and even love thy enemy, but the largest misnomer possible is that you have to 'turn your cheek' to every act of aggression. If that were true, then let a molester violate a child, let a murderer kill your family. Christians can kill with a clear conscience when the cause is just. You can care about someone and understand that there's no room in this world for them. The Christian crusades are the best example of this, and the world would be a better place if Mohammadism had been wiped off the map. The answer short of that is certainly not to let them into your home, and write loving letters to them. The answer is to have a damn spine, a backbone, kill the enemy, hope for the best, and convert those who are able to be converted. Walking into your murderer's sword on some misguided interpretation of Christian pacifism is not noble, it's suicidal. Charles Martel was a great Christian conquerer.

September 29, 2009 at 4:49 PM

Conervative Christian said...

By your response, you still seem to assume that just by being in Guantanamo, you are guilty, even without a trial. Some of these prisoners were just kids when picked up, some of them are Chinese dissidents picked up in the border region between Afghanistan and China, Although China considers them terrorists, that does not mean we, as Americans ought to. Also by your response you seem to assume that everyone killed in the Crusades deserved to die, even the Orthodox Christians mercilessly slaughtered by the Crusaders? Perhaps you should be a bit more thoughtful about who you wipe off the map and not assume that just because your sword has found its way into their gut, they must be guilty. At least you ought to do a little research into who all is being held at Guantanamo before you decide there is no room in the world for them.

October 25, 2009 at 7:46 PM

Ben said...

alright, well let's turn it around, are all the people in Guantanamo innocent? Would you house one who is guilty and released on a technicality? "Christianity" too often gets defined solely by weakness, by this mindlessness which says "help everyone always" and forgets that there are some people who have to be fought, otherwise you turn into a pacifist, a lamb for the slaughter. I don't think that everyone the government locks up is guilty, but I think that those who blindly advocate for shutting down Guantanamo are motivated by self-righteousness and false notions of Christianity rather than reason, forgetting to be as wise as snakes. In fact, I can't condemn you enough without resorting to name-calling. I think your point and your perspective is ridiculous and wrong and self-destructive. You are the intellectual self-immolation of society. And what of Charles Martel? What of the greatest of Christians who saved millions and future billions of souls by having the strength to act in lieu of your philosophical malaise? If only the Viennese had opened their gates to the barbarians and preached love and Christian happiness, surely Suleiman would have laughed and put aside their differences and all would be forgiven.

November 4, 2009 at 1:10 AM

Debate on The Iraq War via Facebook

me: A nation is being born in Iraq, a dictator who gassed kurds and tortured innocents has been removed, and a democratic revolution is under way! The USA wasn't exactly Disneyland in 1779 either. Saying that we've failed because things are terrible on the ground now is terribly shortsighted, anti-historical , and utopian. Democracy is hard fucking work, and the people of Iraq will succeed or fail, but their inability to snap their finges and create, fully formed, the democratic institutions it took our nation two hundred years to establish is, in the words of the french, sourd-muet logic While we can't assure peace and justice for the Iraqis, we are giving them a chance for human dignity, which is unfortunately, more than most of you "neo-liberals" think they deserve. When we invade and topple genocidal dictatorships we are doing bad and when we allow genocidal dictatorships we do bad. Ah the moral irony!

him: I've always been against nation buildling You want to actually help ppl Enlist and thrust your conservative support towards ending the massacres in Darfur Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the United States Yes, he was a bad man, but when he was killing the Iranians, he was a good guy, as was the Shah :P The thrust from democracy must come from within I think we could have saved $500 billion by listening to Blix Since I don't control things, let me tell you what I'd do If I were made dictator, I'd raise taxes on everyone who voted for Bush to pay for this war I'd also give all of you the opportunity to go and fight for the freedom of these Iraqis Patience is a virtue Wouldn't it have been better James, to have listened to Blix, and to have let inspections continue, realize Saddam was bluffing, and saved $500 billion and embarassment The easiest case scenario in my mind, is even if you think Saddam has weapons, would be to buy him off It's as simple as that Yes, I am a neo-liberal in terms of foreign policy Take Causes of War and come back to me when you realize that there's no credible way in hell Condi Rice believes what she says Do some research on what it means to be a realist in terms of IR An example of why I hate Bush: As Congress moves to slash $40 billion in spending, no program will take a bigger hit than college loans, where almost $13 billion would be cut over five years. For students, the upshot is mixed. Excessive government payments to banks would be halted, freeing up some dollars for new grants, larger loan limits and reduced loan fees. But overall, the student loan program would endure the largest cut in its history, and most of the money would not be pumped back into education. Instead, under a plan the House approved Monday, the money would be counted only toward reducing the federal deficit James: We both know that a soaking the rich policy is one of the only ways to pay down the deficit In order to stop from raising taxes on the rich, they're going to cut student loans for deserving and needy students Not exactly the best way to build human capital :)...is it!?!! Especially with the US lagging so far behing in science, wouldn't it make sense James, to keep great science students such as myself, shouldn't the US invest money into our education so the US remains #1 in tech. know how? And, by the way James, the USA was fighting a war against another nation in 1779 The war in Iraq is a battle of factions of the nation, it's not the entire populace against the US or against Saddam Further, you seem to forget, speaking of treason, which type of political ideologues fought with the Confederacy and who were the Torries? I always have found it ironic how the American idols of conservatism were all unabashed liberals.

me: Oh Danny Boy, You justify our supposed malfeasence in Iraq with the argument that we shouldn't solve humanitarian crises because... there are humanitarian crises elsewhere. Hmmm. The US has already given 700 million dollars in aid to Darfur, which is infinitely more than other governments are doing. You suggest that US marine involvement in Africa would be a smashing success, but you're an anti-military interventionist, who must confess when you put christian yankees inbetween fighting Arab Sudanese Muslims and Black Sudanse muslims; it makes a mess - innocent people will die in a utilitarian calculus you'll claim is unjust. Bush'll be responsible and the same criticisms and factions and "polls" (if that's what you call them in tyrannical dictatorships) will ring true in Africa just as you say they do now in Iraq... So who ya gonna call? At heart your neoliberalism desires to work through the UN, but they'll just repeat another Srebrenica and Rwanda. Both of which, aw shucks, happened during the clinton administration. (But 'ol Clinton was careful not to use what is called “the G word” about Rwanda, as the U.N. has eschewed it regarding Sudan. There is a Genocide Convention,and uttering that word entails responsibilities.) Back to Iraq: To say that because Iraqis aren't Americans they deserve brutal dictators and genocide seems a little grotesque to me. And please remember, our "occupation" will have to increase its brutality and its duration and its so-called torture to come close to inflicting as much death as Hussein, or any of his factions did. The moral balance is still ours. But especially so because most American soldiers are dying right now following the moral imperative your international relations professor neglected to mention while bashing realism's peccesmistic view of humanity (as well as condi rice); our marines die determing if that Iraqi in that roadside car over there is an innocent woman or child or just an insurgent sick enough to be camouglaged as one. Their death is honor in restraint on their aggressive quest for others' freedom, and is more "virtuous" than your Keohanian, soft-power view of "patience" will ever be.

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.