Why do we call them goons?

Workers all over the world have names for the people who do the bosses’ dirty work. In the US for example we call people who cross picket lines during strikes scabs.

Why do we call them scabs? Scabs have one-track minds - all they think about is how to promote themselves. They have no scruples. They’ll take your job and reap the pay and benefits that took decades of union struggle to win, destroying the union in the process. Honest, hard-working people can’t talk any sense with scabs. The only way we can act toward them is with vengeance. If we treat them with kindness they multiply like vermin. We have to ostracize them. Calling them scabs is a proven effective way to discourage the spread of scabbery.

Similarly we call the police pigs. We call them pigs because they beat and shoot our working class brothers and sisters for no justifiable reasons. By calling them pigs we are ostracizing them. We want them to know that we don’t approve of their brutality.

Ostracizing the traitors and enemies of the working class by calling them derogatory names can serve as a powerful political lever, particularly when the use of the names become widespread. To be clear here, we’re not talking about name-calling for the sake of revenge or entertainment; we’re talking about the use of derogatory names as a means to persuade our political enemies and class traitors to stop their assault against working people.

Of course they have names for us. But their reasons for calling us names have nothing to do with social and economic justice. They call us names to oppress us, to divide us as a class along skin color, ethnicity, religion, gender, creed, class, etc. lines. In short they call us names to keep us in chains as wage slaves while we call them names in our struggle against wage slavery. This is the main difference between our use of derogatory names and theirs.

Consider the names that US troops call the people they slaughter. They call Koreans and Vietnamese people “gooks”. They call Iraqis “rag heads”. They call people of color such names to dehumanize them so they can slaughter them without feeling any remorse.

Would it not be appropriate to call these stone cold killers a name that fits their character?

Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines the word goon as: 1) a stupid person; 2) a man hired to terrorize or eliminate opponents.

Goon is a befitting name for the US troops, especially in these times. Yanqui goons are the world’s biggest thugs. And it goes without being said that they are stupid. They join the military to promote themselves, i.e., a career, college, learn some skills, etc. No body forces them to join. The so-called poverty draft is a lame excuse that was dreamed up by goon sympathizers.

Even if yanqui goons were “forced to join” nobody forced them to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to participate in the illegal occupations of those countries and murder, rape, torture, maim, rob and displace hundreds of thousands of people. Nobody forced them to have such a rotten conscience.

Yanqui goons are like scabs and pigs. They are like pigs because they kill poor people of color without remorse, but on a much bigger scale. They are like scabs except that instead of crossing picket lines to take workers’ jobs they cross international borders to take workers’ lives. Actually, what am I saying? They are worse than scabs and pigs.

Imagine holding up a sign on a picket line during a strike that reads: “Support Our Scabs”. Or imagine holding up a sign at an anti-police brutality demonstration that reads: “Support Our Pigs”. It’s preposterous, yet there are those who call themselves anti-war activists, who do just that for the yanqui goons - with signs that read: “Support Our Troops”.

Worse than scabs and worse than pigs, the only people who outdo yanqui goons are the rich pig rulers of the US. Should we treat yanqui goons as blameless victims as many in the anti-war movement would have it? Are scabs blameless victims? Are the police who shoot our working class brothers and sisters for fun blameless victims?

We call them goons because that’s what they are. If they decide to resist, disobey orders, rebel, etc, i.e., if they start acting like human beings then we should treat them as such.

To treat them as blameless victims, as they willingly murder their way about in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is a tremendous injustice toward our working class brothers and sisters of the third world, who are the real victims of US imperialist aggression.

Such “peace activists” are but a tool of yanqui imperialism. History will judge them as it did the “Good Germans”. No unconditional support for yanqui goons. Call a scab a scab, a pig a pig, a goon a goon and military resister a human being!

A lot of progress is being made in getting anti-war military people to step forward. Some are herocically risking prison by refusing to go to Iraq, even in non-combat roles. What we don't need is loons like you acting as unintentional or perhaps intentional provocateurs seeking to alienate the mostly working class military people from the still mostly middle class anti-war movement. The anti-war attitude of US GIs helped break the back of Nixon's effort to continue the Vietnam War and it can do the same to Bush. And I would like to remind you that there has never been a revolution inside any nation in which a large number of the government troops did not come over to the side of the revolutionaries. Think of both the February and October revolutions in Russia. Or the 1918 revolutions in Germany and Austria, which destroyed centuries-old monarchies. Childish name-calling of military rank and file will play into the hands of Bush and the people managing whatever today's version of COINTELPRO is called.

Loonwatch - “A lot of progress is being made in getting anti-war military people to step forward.”

Goonwatch - Over two years have passed since the invasion, with over 100,000 Iraqi deaths. A handful of resisters within the military have come out into the open and you call that progress? You must be kidding. Even if we count the 5000 or so deserters that the pentagon reported last Feb, that’s only about .05% of the military – and that’s without factoring in the National Guard.



Loonwatch – “Some are herocically risking prison by refusing to go to Iraq, even in non-combat roles.”

Goonwatch - If you’ll go back and read the article you’ll see that we’re not criticizing US military members who resist.

Loonwatch “What we don't need is loons like you acting as unintentional or perhaps intentional provocateurs seeking to alienate the mostly working class military people from the still mostly middle class anti-war movement.”

Goonwatch - What we don’t need are scab-brained, goon hugger, Democratic Party class traitor opportunists like you intentionally spreading your nonsense about hugging goons into resisting. As I tried to explain in the article, supporting these war criminals is worse than supporting scabs. Scabs cross picket lines to take workers’ jobs. Goons cross international borders to take workers’ lives.

Loon watch - “The anti-war attitude of US GIs helped break the back of Nixon's effort to continue the Vietnam War and it can do the same to Bush.”

Goonwatch - The US troops in Vietnam were mostly draftees. Once they understood what the war was about they were self- motivated to resist, en masse. We ostracized the ones who did not resist and we supported the ones who did. The US troops of today are volunteer mercenaries, not draftees. One of the reasons Bush is against conscription is because he knows that the people who are in the armed forces right now are very willing to kill, kill, kill whoever he points his finger it.

You think you can support the US troops into resisting. It isn’t going to happen. As I tried to point out in the article, labor history shows that strategies of supporting our class enemies into changing their ways just doesn’t work. What strike was ever won where the union workers held up signs on the picket line that read “Support Our Scabs”?

The difference between your position and ours is that we support only the troops who resist whereas you support all the troops, unconditionally. We think it’s a crime to give unconditional support for these stone cold murders, you think it’s a patriotic duty.

Loonwatch - “And I would like to remind you that there has never been a revolution inside any nation in which a large number of the government troops did not come over to the side of the revolutionaries.”

Goowatch - We’re not saying the troops, at some time in the future, can not become revolutionary. The US troops, at this moment, are very reactionary. The question is how do we undo the reactionary crap that’s been put into their heads? We must educate them, but how?

We might liken the situation to a group of students in a classroom at a School of Crime where the teacher is teaching them how to be murderers. We are on the outside trying to convince them to reject what they are being taught by their teacher. You tell them “We love you, we support you, we want you to have better protection, we want you to survive, etc.” We tell them “If you commit crimes we’re going to hold you accountable. We’re going to call you criminals if you commit crimes.” Who are these students going to listen to?

Loonwatch - “Think of both the February and October revolutions in Russia. Or the 1918 revolutions in Germany and Austria, which destroyed centuries-old monarchies.

Goonwatch - The troops of 1917 Russia were at a very advanced stage of revolutionary development. They were class conscious, they circulated revolutionary literature, they rebelled, went on strike, etc. Read Jack Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World”. Reed was actually there. After you read his book (the movie is crap) you will see how foolish it is to compare US troops to 1917 Russian soldiers.

Loonwatch - “Childish name-calling of military rank and file will play into the hands of Bush and the people managing whatever today's version of COINTELPRO is called.”



Goonwatch - As I tried to explain in the article, calling US troops goons is no more childish name-calling than calling strike-breakers scabs. Calling our class enemies derogatory names is merely a tactic. It’s similar to peer pressure, i.e., when a group of friends ridicules one of their peers as a way to get him/her to stop doing something that is socially unacceptable. If we shouldn’t call US troops goons then we shouldn’t call strikebreakers scabs.



We think that giving unconditional support for the US troops is playing right into the hands of the US imperialists. You people have turned the anti-war movement into an advertising agency for the Democratic Party. You’ve also turned it into a lobbyist organization for military families who want more bereavement pay when their goon sons and daughters get killed and better armor for their sons and daughters so they can kill more Iraqis.

"better armor for their sons and daughters so they can kill more Iraqis."

You seem to be a bit confused over the very nature of war.

The whole point, ultimately, is to kill more of them then they kill of us. A whole lot more.

Would you rather more Americans died? Wait, don't amswer. Of course you do.

I agree with you on one thing. We should leave Iraq.

Less Soldiers. More Bombs.

Back when AIM was in action, a group called themselves the GOON Squad -- Guardians of the Oglala Nation. They were FBI collaborators. Maybe the name is too cute.

Goonwatch - Hey Meyer, check out what fresca is saying. He sounds like another one of your “blameless working class victims”. He says he thinks the US ought to leave Iraq and continue to bomb it in order to kill more Iraqis. You call him a victim. We call him a goon.

Fresca - “You seem to be a bit confused over the very nature of war.

The whole point, ultimately, is to kill more of them then they kill of us. A whole lot more.”

Goonwatch - “The very nature of war” is one where young men and women are indoctrinated to not think, i.e., to “leave the politics up to the politicians”. People who are willing to go halfway around the world to murder people who never hurt anyone in the US, while speaking of it in terms of “we got to kill more of them than they kill of us” - without ever asking why - are goons. Fresca was taught that “the whole point, ultimately, is to kill more of them then they kill of us”. Fresca is incapable of ever asking why; it’s beyond his mental capacity to challenge authority, i.e., he wasn’t programmed to think for himself. That’s why fresca will always be nothing but a goon!

Here's the deal goon, You are an inneffectual whining fool.

You tried to make the point that it was somehow nefarious that families of American soldiers were pushing for better armor so that the troops could "kill more Iraqis".

Let me hip you to something, your hobbyist approach to trying to stop war AND paint America as perrenial monsters is not only mindless but pathetic.

This war was and is neccessary. The troops have been trained (I guess that's indoctrination for you) to do the job and to even suggest that handicapping them in any way is some noble act of a peace loving person is ridiculous.

You are a silly pathetic fool. All your nonsense about class struggle and the working class movement is mere hokum. The real world doesn't give a shit about nonsense like that. It's all so much fodder of a bunch of fools who've made a hobby of forming the "Angry Proletariat Club".

The good news is this. We will continue to fight these savage islamists and you'll continue to work yourself into a meaningless lather.

A win win situation.

shitpile: "You are an inneffectual whining fool. "



...I think you're confusing him with a member of the SOS, shitpile....

"

...I think you're confusing him with a member of the SOS, shitpile...."

As far as I'm concerned, both sides of that ridiculous battle are the same idiot birds of a feather.

...shitpile, you and the truth are mutually exclusive.