Posted on 03/23/2007 5:17:19 PM PDT by crazyhorse691
Apparently, "Portland hates America."
At least that's what conservative commentator Michelle Malkin of Los Angeles told the world on her Web site (www.michellemalkin.com) this week. Why?
Well, Malkin -- along with a Google-worthy list of her friends on the blogging right -- were goaded by the photos uploaded to Linfield College student Rachael Palinkas' online Facebook album.
An aspiring journalist, Palinkas snapped them during Sunday's anti-Iraq war rally and march in downtown. In one image, black-masked protesters burn a uniformed effigy of a U.S. soldier as a young girl cuddles up to her father and watches.
It didn't take long for the picture to explode in the blogosphere, with conservatives using it as reason No. 1 to oppose those who oppose the war.
"U.S. soldier burned in effigy," declared the Drudge Report on Tuesday. "What passes for an anti-war protest in Portland," huffed whackynation.com. "Brainwashing the next generation of troop-haters," said Shock & Blog.
Palinkas just wants them to stop.
"What they're doing is wrong," she said. "They're twisting my pictures and misrepresenting what happened on that day."
In the past few days, the 19-year-old mass communications major said she has learned the power of a picture. And the power of people with an agenda on the Internet.
Palinkas said she posted to her Facebook site 240 photos from the peace rally and march that reportedly drew 15,000 people. Almost all of them showed "people laughing, talking, dancing, marching" at what she called a "family-friendly" event.
"No one is linking to those photos," Palinkas said.
Palinkas attended the march with a group of college friends. Shortly before the march, she noticed that a group of about 30 black-clad people had broken away from the crowd in the South Park Blocks. Shocked to see them burning a uniformed effigy of a U.S. soldier, she started snapping photos. She also took pictures of them lighting an upside-down flag afire.
Although she is opposed to the war, "I thought what they were doing was wrong," Palinkas said. "I had never seen anything like it. That's why I took the photos."
Only 13 of the 240 images in Palinkas' Facebook album show what she describes as "the extreme fringe."
She said she has received more than 150 e-mails about the photos. After the Drudge Report posted a link, she got hate mail from people who thought she was part of the radical group. Among other things, they said, she "should be tried for treason" and should be deported. In response, she told visitors to her Facebook page, "I don't support this."
Late Thursday, Palinkas removed her Facebook album from public viewing so that people without permission could not access the photos.
Conservative Portland radio host Lars Larson posted three of the images on his Web site. "If you think recent anti-war protests are harmless free speech . . . let me give you a few more images to consider," he posted.
After spending months planning what was for the most part a civil demonstration, organizers say they are aghast.
"We had a massive, peaceful demonstration against the killing and destruction going on every day in Iraq, a positive experience for thousands of people from different walks of life," said Kelly Campbell of American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, "and apparently the right-wing fringe is going to pick up that little portion."
Elijah Smith, a Marine reservist who served three months as a combat engineer in Iraq, said he was personally appalled by the group's fiery demonstration.
But Smith, a 27-year-old Portland substitute teacher who opposes the war, also thought the way the images are being used is misleading. "Anyone who was at the event," he said, "knows it."
Joseph Rose: 503-221-8029; josephrose@news.oregonian.com
So the leftists hold their rally, the leftists burn a soldier in effigy, the leftists photograph this and post it on the web, but it is conservatives who are to be condemned for failing to ignore the photos?
It must be a shock to Rachel to have the negative reported about her side. Forget the fact that her side depends on the media to only report the negative in order to get a crowd.
Miss Palinkas, to quote my grandma "if you get in the sty with with the pigs don't be surprised if you end up covered in mud". In other words you are known by the company you keep and you spent Sat. in the company of some pretty dispicable people.
Someone said that some people are alive only because it's against the law to kill them.Whoever said that must have had people like these protesters in mind.
'They're twisting my pictures' -- yeh, baby, "it was just a family-friend picnic AND EFFIGY BURNING. We SUPPORT the troops." umhmmmm. You can lie all you want, but this picture tells the Truth that we already knew.
The image of a US soldier burned in effigy is disturbing, but its nothing, nothing, compared to the bloodbath that will occur the day after American troops withdraw from Iraq.
Just as an older generation of peaceniks ignore the mounds of skulls in southeast asia, this generation will congratulate themselves and the slaughter will not disturb their celebrations for even a moment.
That's right. It is OUR problem for being aghast at that photo. And it is most likely Bush's problem that we were aghast. What is this ninny thinking? People are DISGUSTED. Truth hurts, kiddo.
did she get a photo of the cretin who defecated on the flag?
I'll have to wait a while, won't I.
the fools don't want to accept who they are in bed with
Just imagine if this was a 'pro-troops' rally in Georgia, and some 'fringe group' burned a terrorist in effigy...
The war in Iraq is protested yet these same people want us to intervene in Darfur. They really only want our military getting killed if the USA has NO interest in the outcome except to save innocent people.
I'm up for it. Meet you at Centennial Olympic Park?
Anyone who's ever been to one of their "rallies" knows that they are nothing but hate on parade. PuhLEEZE.
bring matches...
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