Spirt of America (UPDATED)

Spirit of America is a great cause. I gave $50 the last time there was a big blogosphere-wide fund-raising drive for this charity, and I got to go to the best barbecue of my life because of it. Spirit of America has already been a huge success so far, and now they're in the midst of a push to seriously expand. In theory, anyone should support the efforts of this charity, whatever their opinion was on the war. Columnist Dan Gilmor, for instance, was anti-war but used his Sunday column to promote SoA. He points out that two of the main organizers of the next phase of SoA are the strongly pro-war "Armed Liberal", who has finally, thankfully, "outed" himself as Marc Danziger, and the strongly anti-war Britt Blaser, who was a campaign advisor to Howard Dean. In practice, however, many can't get beyond their partisan invective for even a split-second, no matter how important or worthy the cause. Check out the shrill rhetoric from the anti-Bush people responding to Gilmor's completely non-partisan column. Here's commenter "sadly":

Isn't this what we're paying Halliburton to do, rebuild Iraq?

Ah the voice of the left today, more interested in slamming Bush than making any effort to actually help improve the lives of Iraqis. It's a worthy cause, but given how polarized this country has become I'm frankly cynical about whether we can expect any help from the anti-war people. May they prove me wrong.

Jeff Jarvis has an excellent post describing what SoA has done so far, why this is important, and why it should be non-partisan.

Again, find out what Spirit of America is about and what you can do to help, especially if you have a blog, here.

UPDATE: And on cue here come some of those concerned, enlightened humanistic "liberals" to give a hearty "fuck off" (but, you know, a "liberal" one), to this effort to help average Iraqis. High profile lefty blogger Dave Winer engages in, aptly enough, some whining about Spirit of America. Michele ably eviscerates his neo-isolationist drivel:

When I was a "liberal," I was constantly chastised by my fellow liberals for being isolationist. It was an insult of high order. But Dave here is suggesting that we just tell the Iraqi kids to piss off while we go take care of ourselves. An attitude like that would, once upon a year ago, get you beaten up in the liberal lunchroom. Now that the beneficiary of the good deeds done by Americans is Iraq, it's acceptable in liberal circles to negate those deeds as unworthy of approval from the anti-Bush lefties.

It's not that we need their approval to make this work, but it would be nice if for once people like Winer would drop their caustic anti-everything rhetoric and look at the end result:

SoA Donates Tons of School Supplies, Medical Supplies and Frisbees to Marines for the Iraqi People

Soldier Helps Kurdish Kids Make Music Again

Marines Give Soccer Jerseys to Boys and Girls in Wassit Province

Marines Provide Dental Kits to Families in Al Hillah, Iraq

Toys for Iraqi Children

But you go right ahead and sneer at what they are trying to do. Just remember that there was a time when it was people like Winer who were doing these things and praise from their fellow lefties for it. Now it's people like Winer who are ignorantly dismissing such projects, foregoing the chance to put a smile on a kid's face in return for making sure his anti-war creds are safely in place.

I like this in Michele's comments:

Mr. Winer does have a point that we should not forget domestic issues.

But has he ever promoted anything like the SOA in this country dealing the underprivledged?

Screaming about Bush doesn't count.

This also reminds me of a sickening comment by some mysterious individual styling themself "NJG from NYC" that's been on all of the blogs that have mentioned this:

Here's a what-if for you: What if 'Spirit of America' manages to make a significant improvement in Iraq between now and November? Enough so that swing voters who have been soured on Bush due to the war decide that they can still comfortably vote for Bush? We get 4 more years of liars who think laws don't apply to them running our country

Yaaay! Let's not help people because it might help Bush! Go liberals! I'm so proud of you all right now!