March 30, 2010
An Impassioned Defense From the Incompetence-Based Community
There is a deep and abiding hatred for mom and pop America on the political left, an anger born out most vividly on the op-ed pages of the New York Times and Washington Post by writers unable to tolerate the fact that most Americans remain opposed to the heath care rationing bill rammed through Congress by the bribery, threats, and coercion of the Democrat Party.
The most recent manifestation of that hatred is Eugene Robinson's latest outburst in the Washington Post, where the writer attempts to claim that the fetid swamp in which he wallows is actually high ground.
But for the most part, far-left violence in this country has gone the way of the leisure suit and the AMC Gremlin. An anti-globalization movement, including a few window-smashing anarchists, was gaining traction at one point, but it quickly diminished after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. An environmental group and an animal-rights group have been linked with incidents of arson. Beyond those particulars, it is hard to identify any kind of leftist threat.By contrast, there has been explosive growth among far-right, militia-type groups that identify themselves as white supremacists, "constitutionalists," tax protesters and religious soldiers determined to kill people to uphold "Christian" values. Most of the groups that posed a real danger, as the Hutaree allegedly did, have been infiltrated and dismantled by authorities before they could do any damage. But we should never forget that the worst act of domestic terrorism ever committed in this country was authored by a member of the government-hating right wing: Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
It is dishonest for right-wing commentators to insist on an equivalence that does not exist. The danger of political violence in this country comes overwhelmingly from one direction -- the right, not the left. The vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.
Like all members of the community-based reality, Robinson is blind to the constant incitements to violence from the political left, and purposefully mute when those calls for violence bear fruit.
Like all lefties, he reflexively cites McVeigh's horrific attack in Oklahoma City, utterly ignoring the fact that the attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is only the worst domestic terrorist attack because President Obama's long-time mentor Bill Ayers was incompetent. Ayer and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, the co-hosts of Obama's first fundraiser, were part of a bomb-happy leftist radical group that failed in their most violent attempts. One was an attempt to bomb a police station across from a crowded diner. An even more ambitious attack to destroy a dance at Fort Dix was thwarted only because Ayer's girlfriend and her fellow left wing terrorists prematurely detonated themselves with the bombs they were building in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse instead.
When left-wing Indymedia writer Andrew Mickel ambushed and killed Red Bluff Police Officer David Mobilio as he sat in his car on November 19, 2002, he did so for the exact same reasons that authorities attribute to the Hutaree. Mickel was trying to start a civil war as well, one that he hoped his fellow socialists and communists would support.
"Hello Everyone, my name's Andy. I killed a Police Officer in Red Bluff, California in a motion to bring attention to, and halt, the police-state tactics that have come to be used throughout our country. Now I'm coming forward, to explain that this killing was also an action against corporate irresponsibility."
Mickel now sits on death row, and the solitary Washington Post story that tells his sad tale is one of the few references to his crime that can be found in a media that refuses to admit that left-wing calls to violence and savage paranoia are routine. And Mickel's violence is hardly isolated.
Carlos Hartmann, a radical liberal from Michigan, was so incensed by the Netherlands supporting the Iraq war that he traveled there with the express intent of murdering Dutch or American soldiers. Unable to find a suitable military target for his rage, this deranged liberal did the unconscionable, and brutally slayed a Dutch student with an axe at the Roosendaal trains station. That story, like Mickel's, was all but buried by an American media with a vested interest in down-playing the violence committed by their co-conspirators.
And the left-wing violence continues, unabated.
A middle-aged MoveOn.Org radical bit the finger off of a senior citizen he provoked a fight with, and remains at large. Thugs belonging to labor unions loyal to the President have beaten up and intimidated numerous protesters, and some of those thugs await trial. A three-time cancer survivor was assaulted by an Obama supporter just three days ago. And of course, two-time Obama campaign contributor and Jew-hating loon Norman Leboon was just arrested for death threats leveled at Republican Eric Cantor and his family.
The left is awash in a sea of blood and threats. It always has been, and always will be. Such must be the mindset of those who champion the supremacy of state over the rights of the individual. The only thing surprising is that more don't call Robinson and his ilk on their lies.
Did you notice you had to go back to the 40 or 50 years to find a group planning bombings with WMD for the "current" liberal stuff, and are trying to equate fist fights with milita groups? You know better.
A couple of insane people like LeBoon (who threatened Obama and Reid, and the rest of the planet, which again you know by now but ignore for some reason), versus a movement that spans groups like the Hutaree and the Willow Springs Cell.
The Hutaree are not Mom and Pop America, pretending otherwise is dishonest beyond words.
Posted by: Jim at March 30, 2010 09:23 AMSome people of all persuasions and political stripes will engage in nasty behavior. That really is beyond debate.
But in terms of rhetoric that portrays the other side as uniformly evil and worthy of destruction, I think the right has the left beat by several miles. And such thinking and speech has consequences.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 30, 2010 09:39 AM>> The left is awash in a sea of blood and threats.
The right is awash in a sea of blood and threats. From constant rumblings about breaking America into pieces if they don't get their way to the harassment and murder of doctors who perform abortion, to the guy who opened fire on a 'liberal' church congregation with a shotgun, and the guy who went ballistic on the Holocaust museum ... please don't pretend that the right is uniformly pure and clean. Really, such claims are embarrassing.
Anarchist groups are planning actions and counter-protests at upcoming tea party rallies. That should be interesting.
Posted by: d.eris at March 30, 2010 10:17 AMBubba,
Explain to me again, exactly how it is that a NAZI is considered to be right wing? Is it because the movement says "national Socialist" in the name perhaps?
Today's media lumps all violence and attempts at violence at "right wing" in an attempt to alter reality. Here is a current example, front page, today's Chicago Sun times: They specifically identify the Hutare assholes as "christian" in the headline, while they do not once mention that the bombers in moscow were Muslim.
Posted by: Scott at March 30, 2010 11:25 AMThe vitriolic, anti-government hate speech that is spewed on talk radio every day -- and, quite regularly, at Tea Party rallies -- is calibrated not to inform but to incite.
The left has a very short memory. Between 2000 and 2008 I regularly heard "vitriolic, anti-government hate speech" coming from the left which makes what you currently hear from the right sound tame. Those people mastrubated every night to the thought of BusHitler being assassinated. They encouraged soldiers to murder their officers. And of course, they insisted that Bush was not the legitimate President of the United States. In other words, they did all the things they are whining about now, only moreso.
The left's favorite paranoid fantasy is that these "right-wing white extremist Christist militias" are going to try to kill them.
As usual with the left, this is mere projection of what the left wants to to do to the whites, right-wingers, and Christians projected onto the targets of their hate.
The actual militias have a poor track record of killing people. That is to say, they have yet to kill a single person. But Obama needs his Reichstag fire.
flenser,
If Obama needs his Reichstag fire why did the FBI arrest the idiots in MI and previously in NC before they carried out their plans? You kinda need to think your conspiracy theories through a bit more.
As for the left doing what the right is doing, only moreso, perhaps you can point me to an armed group of liberals that was arrested in 2000-08 for planning attacks on the government.
>> Explain to me again, exactly how it is that a NAZI is considered to be right wing? Is it because the movement says "national Socialist" in the name perhaps?
Scott,
the guy that shot up the entrance to the Holocaust was not a socialist. He did identify himself as a member of the American Friends of the British National Party, which was a far right organization. He posted 'birther' rantings on the Free Republic website, and was welcomed there. He subscribed to a political philosophy that attributes the current plight of America to a zionist new world order, and he was a white supremacist, but he also was a minarchist when it came to government.
He was previously arrested and done time for attempting "to place the treasonous Federal Reserve Board of Governors under legal, non-violent, citizens arrest" while armed. He had a philosophy that put him right at home with the Freemen, the posse comitatus, and a large percent of those in self-organized militias.
If you look at the little head shot portraits of Eugene Robinson and Harold Meyerson that appear at top of their WaPo columns, you will discern a strange resemblance between the two: they are the salt and pepper shakers of liberal twit opinion.
Posted by: zhombre at March 30, 2010 02:43 PMBubba,
He was a Nazi. Card carrying, full blooded. Are Nazi's also white supremacists? A bunch certainly are. Are white supremacists right wing by definition? Certainly not.
However the primary word here is Nazi. Naziism is a left wing totalitarian condition. It has been since about 1933 or so....
I would define Islam as right wing. I would define some of the various militias as right wing. However, I would define most of them as just plain anti government nuts, neither left nor right, since they hate on government no matter who is in office.
Posted by: Scott at March 30, 2010 02:43 PMThe 'socialism' in Nazi was a ploy to give the early movement as broad an appeal as possible. The whole name is a mish-mash of right and left wing German politics of the 20s. National (right), Socialist (left), German (right), Workers (left) Party.
I know what Goldberg asserts, but there is no professional historian on earth who would agree the Nazis' were left wing.
Look at who they courted (bankers, Army, Industrialists) and who they jailed/killed (Communists, Socialists, intellectuals) when they came to power, that should tell you where they stood.
Posted by: Jim at March 30, 2010 03:36 PMI guess Jim and Bubba want to forget the actions of PETA, the WWF whale warriors, the whacky environmentalists, Jim Hansen's call to try disbelievers in AGW for crimes against humanity.
But, you guys keep believing everything you see and hear on HuffPo and the other left sources of ?truth?.
Posted by: CoRev at March 30, 2010 03:37 PMCoRev,
PETA vs a cell building IEDs to use on a police funeral (for a cop they murdered), followed by a set piece battle from prepared positions. Yeah, that sounds pretty equivalent to me as well.
Posted by: Jim at March 30, 2010 03:40 PMJim, I didn't expect you to relate, but did expect the equivocation. How many bombings, property damage, fingers bitten off, protests, and marches, will it take? There are fools on both sides, but the real fools are those who ignore that fact or consider their set of fools less dangerous than the others.
Posted by: CoRev at March 30, 2010 04:12 PMProtests, marches, property damage, fist fights etc are one thing, and there are plenty of examples of all of the above on both sides, no doubt about that.
Bombings? Anti-abortion bombings, targeting people, and/or facilities, OK City on the right. What are the counter examples of the left targeting people with bombs in the last 30 years?
Still waiting for an on topic example, you know, a left wing militant group that was gearing up for a war against the police and government.
Posted by: Jim at March 30, 2010 04:19 PMLook at who they courted (bankers, Army, Industrialists) and who they jailed/killed (Communists, Socialists, intellectuals) when they came to power, that should tell you where they stood.
Much like todays "Democratic" party.
The fascist motto was, "Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state".
Which political faction in todays America shares that political philosophy? It sure as hell is not "the militias", let alone "the right". It's you, Jim.
Posted by: flenser at March 30, 2010 04:28 PMperhaps you can point me to an armed group of liberals that was arrested in 2000-08 for planning attacks on the government.
Typical trollish effort to change the subject.
When "the militias" kill ten percent as many people as the left has in America, get back to me. At present they seem to be notable mostly for their non-violence.
Posted by: flenser at March 30, 2010 04:33 PMStill waiting for an on topic example, you know, a left wing militant group that was gearing up for a war against the police and government
Since the left-wing ARE the police and government it would be mighty peculiar if they were to wage war against themselves.
Yeah us lefty counter culture hippies sure are in favor of having the state run our lives. Telling us what we can read, what we can smoke, who we can marry, what we can watch on tv, when, where, and if we're allowed to buy beer on Sundays! We're pretty much known for being huge supporters of authority. You nailed it!
And sorry, but I'm not buying the idea that a world run by a Christian militia would be one where we'd have tons of personal freedoms. Guys who's fantasies start by giving everyone a rank and running around in the woods taking orders from the Arkon aren't likely to be big on listening to suggestions and criticisms.
Posted by: Jim at March 30, 2010 05:09 PMJim, I find it truly intriguing when a liberal/progressive take the podium claiming that they are less dangerous than.... Many liberal views and actions are just insanely anti-life. Even though few liberals will actually admit to the facts, but their views on the environment has killed millions.
Example? DDT and Africa.
Another? Bio-fuels.
Need more? Energy demands that artificially raise the price for developing countries.
Anti-militarism that allows dictators kill hundreds of thousands even millions, but never admitting they are abetting those deaths. Oh, and then attacking any administration that does do something about the killings.
Need more examples of liberal wrongheadedness? Or, do you just want to make nonsensical points out of personal righteousness? BTW, I do not expect you to understand that last statement.
Posted by: CoRev at March 30, 2010 05:12 PMSo I take it CoRev you don't want to play the "who has more bombers" game any more?
Blaming things like liberal anti-militarism for...military dictators is a little rich. BTW, was FDR an evil liberal or a conservative anti-dictator hero in your version of the story.
Likewise things like energy demands being liberal? Some Exxon/Ford/GE hippie plot no doubt.
DDT was liberal? Oh, I guess you mean mosquito eradication efforts to curb malaria. OK, so what would the preferred conservative approach have been, do nothing? Then all the malaria deaths (much higher death rate) would be on your side? Very confusing stuff you're pushing now.
Posted by: Jim at March 30, 2010 05:22 PMYeah us lefty counter culture hippies sure are in favor of having the state run our lives.
Your attempt at sarcasm falls flat, since that is exactly what you ARE in favor of. Maybe you'd be better off if you just stopped trying to regulate or tax everything that moves.
You're not the counter-culture, Jimmy. The militias are the counter-culture. You're the Establishment, and you have been for decades.
We're pretty much known for being huge supporters of authority.
You're pretty much known for throwing yourselves at the feet of every left-wing thug who struts down the street, yes. I believe Hugo Chavez is the latest strong man to make leftist hearts go pitter-patter.
I'm not buying the idea that a world run by a Christian militia would be one where we'd have tons of personal freedoms
Good news then! There is zero chance that "Christian militias" are going to "run the world". And as stupid and dishonest as you are, even you don't believe otherwise. You pretend to believe there is some Big Danger here for the simple reason that it suits your fascist purposes.
"Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state". Right, Jimmy?
Posted by: flenser at March 30, 2010 05:25 PMSorry, I finally figured out what the heck you meant with the DDT reference. You're saying liberals are killing people in Africa because we WON'T let them use DDT. Except:
DDT is still used in Africa.
DDT can still be used in the US when there are mosquito outbreaks.
Today's mosquito have evolved DDT resistant genes making DDT less effective, and other insecticides more valuable.
>> However the primary word here is Nazi. Naziism is a left wing totalitarian condition. It has been since about 1933 or so....
Sorry, Scott,
you obviously haven't investigated what von Brunn thought or wrote (not that it stops you from being an expert). The guy wrote a book (available for free online), and in his book he stated that Hitler was great for his opposition to "Liberalism/Marxism/Jewry." The Holocaust Museum shooter was not a leftist; he was clearly on the right.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 30, 2010 06:24 PM>> I guess Jim and Bubba want to forget the actions of PETA, the WWF whale warriors, the whacky environmentalists,
CoRev,
why would you assume that? I acknowledged that there are wackos and on both sides of the spectrum. I don't identify with PETA and I condemn anything they have done that is illegal. But most of it has been vandalism (letting animals go) and tasteless billboards (legal, but still worthy of condemnation). Has PETA killed anyone? Have they plotted to do so? And the 'WWF Whale Warriors' are a figment of your imagination - WWF is not involved with any illegal activities, and has not been .... but I guess good conduct is not enough to prevent slander from some quarters.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 30, 2010 07:03 PMperhaps you can point me to an armed group of liberals that was arrested in 2000-08 for planning attacks on the government.
I like this game!
How about we start with the leftists David Guy McKay and Bradley Neil Crowder that build homemade napalm bombs to attack the delegates (including current elected officials) of the Republican National Convention in 2008 in the Twin Cities? Funny how the media didn't trumpet that FBI raid 24/7 on the news. Both of these liberal thugs got jail time on weapons charges.
But the bonus comes from Obama's close friend and ACORN buddy Wade Rathke, who was so pissed that plot was disrupted he wrote about it on his blog, lamenting that the informant was successful.
That's just off the top of my head. Would you like to continue?
Posted by: Confederate Yankee at March 30, 2010 07:26 PMEven communist Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek acknowledges that Nazis and Fascists are a radical form of socialism (that favors collusion with major industry, akin to say, having the government own but permit industry kingpins run the financial firms, banks, major automotive companies, etc.).
Of course, the seizure of the student loan industry and placement of its functioning within the government was not fascist; it was communist. I'm sensing that ultimately, Obama would prefer the latter not the former, since his ego doesn't permit sharing of credit. But whatever gets him on his way towards totalitarianism right now is really all that matters.
Posted by: Hatless Hessian at March 30, 2010 09:03 PMJim, Jim, Jim, you're just not good enough with the Lib talking points. Didn't immediately spout the knee jerk DDT/mosquito response. Tsk, tsk.
I'm not playing a game. You are! Cherry picking dates. Why? Why not include 2010 and Leboon?
BTW, after catching on to the DDT/mosquito reference why did you ignore the other points? Still googling for the correct responses?
Sheesh!!!!
Posted by: CoRev at March 30, 2010 09:45 PMUm, CoRev, I also mentioned anti-militarism and energy demands. The DDT thing is bizarre coming from a conservative. Do you honestly thing taking OUR money and spending it on THEIR malaria problem is a conservative idea that liberals hindered? Get real.
And I did cover Leboon, here (1st post)and in the Leboon thread, the guy threatened Obama too. And satellites, and Disney, and Iran... On youtube. Who cares?
Hatless,
The government didn't take over the student loan industry, they took back control of the Federal Student Loan program. Yeah, the horrors, the Feds took over a Federal program! Gasp! Salie Mae's stock is up this week btw.
flenser,
I'm the Establishment. Good to know.
Last but not at all least CY,
Great call on the molotov cocktail douches, I'd forgotten all about them. (btw I think the argument with the guy who turned them in is that he was a co-conspirator who made mc's himself and then ratted out his pals. No one likes a rat, even when they do the right thing. Not mob rats, lefty rats, police rats, righty rats. I'm not saying he was wrong to go to the police, but it still kind of stinks. That's a universal feeling isn;t it?)
But please do list all the rest. I'm serious. List all the left wing bomb building/using guys in the last 20 years. I know you have a list somewhere. Skip the finger biters and video makers, and just stick to the people with real hardware and plans. Then make a similar list for the right wingers who were up to the same things. I think that would make a great thread.
>> Even communist Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek acknowledges that Nazis and Fascists are a radical form of socialism
Zizek who? He's a marginal thinker. In communism, government controls business; in fascism, business controls government. Fascism is a rightist philosophy. Was Yugoslavia a mixed-up place where no one knew if government controlled business or vice-versa? Yes, it was.
"Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum, although some scholars claim that fascism has been influenced by both the left and the right.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 30, 2010 10:51 PM>> Even communist Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek acknowledges that Nazis and Fascists are a radical form of socialism
Zizek who? He's a marginal thinker. In communism, government controls business; in fascism, business controls government. Was Yugoslavia a mixed-up place where no one knew if government controlled business or vice-versa? Yes, it was.
Fascism is a rightist philosophy. "Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum, although some scholars claim that fascism has been influenced by both the left and the right.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 31, 2010 07:29 AMIf the impartial truth-tellers at wikipedia say that fascism is right-wing, then case closed!
Posted by: flenser at March 31, 2010 08:10 AM>> If the impartial truth-tellers at wikipedia say that fascism is right-wing, then case closed!
Sure - and if you don't like real encyclopedias with a neutral point of view and multiple citations, there is always Conservapedia!
From Encyclopedia Britannica:
"Martial virtues are celebrated, while liberal and democratic values are disparaged. Fascism arose during the 1920s and ’30s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism (as practiced under Joseph Stalin) by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems."
Franco in Spain? Classic right-winger. Pinochet in Chile? Right winger. Benito Mussolini, the father of modern fascism? An icon of the right. All of these rode into power with support of business, the military, and right-wing nationalists.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 31, 2010 10:06 AMLets lay this out. The greatest mass murderers in history have overwhelmingly been left wingers: Mao, Stalin (then Hitler) and Pol Pot. The greatest mass murderer of American citizens in, say, the last forty years (a good round number) was a fine San Francisco leftist.
The greatest source of murder and terrorism in the world today, including the USA, is not anybody's militia, but militant Islam, a big favorite of the US political left. Lets not forget leftist favorite Ward Churchill describing the victims of the 9/11 terrorists as "Little Eichman's".
Posted by: Doogie at March 31, 2010 12:38 PMBenito Mussolini was an icon of the right? That is just stupid. He was the toast of liberal circles in the US during the '30's.
Even Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies. Mussolini praised the New Deal as “boldly . . . interventionist in the field of economics,” and Roosevelt complimented Mussolini for his “honest purpose of restoring Italy” and acknowledged that he kept “in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.”
Also, Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, was known to carry a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book, The Corporate State, with him, presented a copy to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and on retirement, paid tribute to the Italian dictator.
Daniel Andreas San Diego. Unabomber. ELF. Anti-G20 riots in Pittsburgh. From that much maligned DHS report:
“Many leftwing extremists use the tactic of direct action to inflict economic damage on businesses and other targets to force the targeted organization to abandon what the extremists deem objectionable,...Direct actions range from animal releases, property theft, vandalism, and cyber attacks — all of which extremists regard as nonviolent — to bombings and arson.”
The leftie idea that hurting the economic engine or property is an acceptable method of protest is so dominant that Deutsche Welle reported last week about a 2M Euro effort to stop leftist violence:
"The new figures showed that politically motivated crime increased about 20 percent in 2009 over the previous year, reaching a total of 33,917 cases. The largest increase was in violence by left-wing extremists, whose actions climbed by 40 percent, with 9,375 reported crimes."
Every side has it's kooks. The problem is that according to the MSM and seemingly some posters here, they exist only on the right.
Posted by: Quilly Mammoth at March 31, 2010 01:15 PM"Ayer and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, the co-hosts of Obama's first fundraiser, were part of a bomb-happy leftist radical group..."
Who calmly planned how, come the revolution, they would put tens of millions of Americans in "reeducation" gulag camps and murder tens of millions more who resisted communist indoctrination. None of this (for which Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant) was enough to cause the Democratic Party to shun them.
Posted by: pst314 at March 31, 2010 02:06 PM"The 'socialism' in Nazi was a ploy to give the early movement as broad an appeal as possible."
Utterly false. If you look at what Hitler and Mussolini and their comrades wrote and said over the years, it is clear that they saw themselves as leftists and that other leftists also saw them as leftists.
"no professional historian on earth who would agree the Nazis' were left wing."
That is simply not true. There are reputable historians who regard the Nazism and fascism as being on the left.
Posted by: pst314 at March 31, 2010 02:10 PMI think a better analysis, rather than left vs right, socialism vs fascism, would be personal freedom vs government control. Most of the Tea Party folks seem to be looking for a more efficient, less intrusive, smaller government. Whereas the last two years, to include (especially) the last 6 months of the Bush administration, seems to be all about a larger, more intrusive government.
Posted by: DanB at March 31, 2010 02:26 PMDanB,
I'll go along with that. "The government that governs best governs least" should be the norm, not the exception.
Scott (still shaking his head over assertions that Nazism is right wing)
If you want really crack-pot conspiracy theories, you just have to listen to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Those guys see a Right-Wing anarchist behind every tree, but have never identified a Left-Wing Anarcho-terrorist in any of the WTO demonstrations - let alone the Earth-Firsters.
Posted by: AD at March 31, 2010 03:56 PM>> Benito Mussolini was an icon of the right? That is just stupid. He was the toast of liberal circles in the US during the '30's. Even Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies.
You should review your history.
The conservative business community (Ford, Du Pont, Bush, etc) were very complimentary and cozy with fascism. They saw it as an antidote to communism. William Randolph was summoned to Berlin to meet with Hitler in 1934; Hitler wanted to know how he could improve his image in the US. A deal was cut, and Hearst employees were ordered to report favorably on the news from fascist Europe. DeWitt Wallace, an avowed enemy of FDR and labor unions and the publisher of Reader's Digest, was complimentary when discussing Hitler and Mussolini. US industrialists on the right were doing business with Italy and Germany, and didn't want their profits disturbed by FDRs stand against fascism... they were staunchly 'anti-interventionist' while FDR was covertly providing material and support for Britain in the two years before Pearl Harbor.
Posted by: Bubba Joe at March 31, 2010 04:02 PMYou can distinguish between the groups on the left and right by the reaction of the left when it comes to violence. If the reaction from the left focuses on the cause and ignores the violence, it is an ally of the left. If the reaction of the left is to focus on the violence and ignore the cause, no matter how just that cause might be, the group is right wing. Look at the reaction to the Rodney King aftermath. People burned the city down and killed people because of one jury verdict. Look at the left's reaction. Nobody on the left condemned the violence. We were told that we had to understand the reasons. It was an unjust verdict that gave them the right to act out in that way. The left is incapable of empathizing with the violence when the cause is not something they agree with. The left cannot grasp that other people have views that they feel just as strongly about. These people need to get their head out of their ass if they think that he right wing has cornered on the market when it comes to violence. I guess they need to believe that to justify their fascism. Look at speech codes on college campuses. The real reason these codes are implemented is to close down competing ideas and opinions. In their mind it is to prevent hate. To believe otherwise would make them face who they really are and what they really believe, and that is truly scary.
Posted by: Tomt at April 1, 2010 05:35 AMA deal was cut, and Hearst employees were ordered to report favorably on the news from fascist Europe.
The US corporate media were reporting favorably on the USSR at the same time. (And they continued to do so right up until it collapsed) I assume you have some half-baked explanation for that as well?
US industrialists on the right were doing business with Italy and Germany, and didn't want their profits disturbed by FDRs stand against fascism... they were staunchly 'anti-interventionist' while FDR was covertly providing material and support for Britain in the two years before Pearl Harbor.
Golly!
So who was it that was building the material being provided to Britian in the two years before WWII? It can't have been US industry - after all, according to internet historian Bubba, US industry was in bed with Germany. Must have been FDR's government factory (staffed by loyal lefties) that was bulding those Lend-Lease destroyers and P-40 fighters.
Of course what our useless idiot fails to grasp is the the profits of US industy go up from selling to both sides - indeed, from selling to anyone who wants to buy. Profits could not be "disturbed" by an arms race in Europe.
DeWitt Wallace, an avowed enemy of FDR and labor unions and the publisher of Reader's Digest, was complimentary when discussing Hitler and Mussolini.
FDR was complimentary when discussing Hitler and Mussolini.
