ARE THESE MASKED FLAG BURNERS RIGHT WING AGENTS?
My good friend Jack of The Peoples Republic of Seabrook posted this picture with comments about extremists on the Left who are doing damage to Liberals by these anti-American flag burinings and used a comparison referring to Indymedia which Monday had a post about the weekend's protests.

"The problem here is that Indymedia is to the Wingnut Left what Limbaugh and Coulter are to the Nutcase Right."

Jack points out a massive imbalance: A 285 million dollar contract + 20 million dittoheads AND a well used talking head with multi-million dollar best selling books on one side V. a rather obscure website that covers a few overtly theatrical "please look at me" flag burners on the other.

The Right in this country controls the Media, the money, the corporate power structure, all three branches of government and minions of well paid RIGHTWINGNUT extremists on the air and in print. The Left has working people, minorities, a registered majority, the popular vote in the 2000 election and a few idiots who think they have a need to go to ridiculous extremes in a self defeating bid for attention. It is impossible to make the argument that these extremes are in "balance" because they obviously are not.

The disservice the flag burners do to the left is in the limited attention they do receive. Is is over the top to consider that these masked flag burners might be paid agents of the Right? We know that the oil companies funded the anti-nuclear movement. We know the FBI and other agencies infiltrated the anti-war movement before. Are there contemporary Donald Segrettis out there as agents of Ashcroft's FBI or some plumbers unit funded by Cheney and the Neocons? History would lead me to expect that there are such agents.

Related Links:
How law enforcement is keeping tabs on the new peace movement.
The FBI's Monkeywrench Alert: Slander by ANSIR?
The FBI-CIA Entrapment Tag Team
History of the FBI- The Vietnam War Era (1960s-1970s)
Ex-Agents: FBI Recruits Violent Informants

I don't know much about Indymedia other than what appears on their website today which seems to be pretty straight forward reporting of the DC protest with this Addendum: "Some DC activists have been exchanging notes about today's activities, and made these remarks: "These type of protests might make people wash their hands of the issues." "Do these types of protests inspire anything, and is this related to the way the protest was organized?" "What comes after this?" Which seems to be more "fair and balanced" than anything I have ever heard from Limbo or Annthrax, but I will admit to not being an authority on Indymedia.

The well funded Rightwing is certainly not above using any means to reach their ends and they certainly have more than enough funding and authority to accomplish whatever they want. I'm not trying to throw any stones by pointing out the huge imbalance in this comparison. As a liberal who agrees in part with the sentiment of the anti-war movement I do not wish to grant any "parity" to the extremes in this example. A few flag burning fools will never the equivalent of the well funded highly visible radical extremists on the Right no matter who is paying them.

Anytime a mask wearing flag burner shows up in the news we should ask ourselves who is being served by the act and the coverage. It certainly isn't the interest of American Liberals who love their country and disagree with the current leadership.

Kevin Hayden at Reach Em High Cowboy Noose Network has an excellent post on Censoring the Dead about the ban on pictures of returning coffins from IRAQ.

Barbara at The Mahablog remembers the Berlin Airlift and touches on these same Anti-war movement demonstrations and A.N.S.W.E.R.