GOP Attacks on MoveOn.org Backfire

You know, you'd think they'd figure out how this works. You loudly and repeatedly protest something, and what does it do? It attracts more people to whatever it is you're protesting against. Remember the brouhaha over The Last Temptation of Christ? Christian groups went bananas over it, and there ended up being lines around the block to see it.

Well guess what happened to MoveOn.org, after GOP office-holders and pundits slammed it relentlessly for two weeks (not to mention the ridiculous vote in the Senate)? The following excerpts from a letter a letter I received from MoveOn.org explains it all:

Dear MoveOn member,

Yesterday, an amazing thing happened. After the Senate's shameful vote, and after President Bush called MoveOn "disgusting,"1 our email started to fill up with messages like this one:

I'm currently in Iraq. I do not agree with this war, and if I did support this war, it would not matter. You have the RIGHT to speak the truth. We KNOW that you support us. Thank you for speaking out for being our voice. We do not have a voice. We are overshooted by those who say that we soldiers do not support organizations like MoveOn. WE DO.

YOU ARE OUR voice.

And then came the donations. By midnight, over 12,000 people had donated $500,000—more than we've raised any day this year—for our new ad calling out the Republicans who blocked adequate rest for troops headed back to Iraq.

The message from MoveOn members was loud and clear: Don't back down. Take the fight back to the issues that matter. [snip]

All day, messages from vets and military family members kept pouring into our email, many of them aimed at the Senate:

I have given a son to this country. My brother, my father, my uncle have all served honorably and bravely. I am a loyal American. I am outraged and sick to death of the tactics this administration uses to try to silence dissent to a war that is unjust, built and maintained on lies, political power, and greed. I was content to let others fight more loudly, but no more. –Sharyn W., NC

I am a prior soldier who served in Iraq for 13 months, and am now an expecting mom with a husband who is deployed in Baghdad. I don't think I can ever forgive the Bush administration for the lies that tricked America into this war and hurt my family so badly. I am ashamed of those American politicians who would condemn an organization for practicing the Freedom of Speech that so many soldiers have died for. –Danielle B., OH

As a US Navy veteran and an Iraq war veteran of over a year I want to ask, What has happened to us? What has happened to our voice? Where is this country going with stopping free speech and free press? ... Every time I think of the long nights I had in Anbar remembering what I was fighting for, well here it is.... –Ahmad H., LA

The letter goes on much longer, but you get the gist, right? And Congress, I hope you get it too. What you did in this matter was flatly un-American, completely counterproductive, and casts you in a VERY bad light. 'Nuff said. For now, anyway.