A sampler from John Hawkins at Right Wing News:
25) “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” — Rosie O’Donnell
24) “When I asked Gore Vidal at dinner why the White House seemed so serene and at ease about the vote, he replied that, this time around, the Bush-Cheney henchmen could simply call on martial law. He glumly noted that we are so far down the road toward totalitarianism that, even if Democrats do win back the Congress, it would take at least two generations before the last six years of damage to the nation could be reversed.” — Lyn Davis Lear at The Huffington Post
23) “I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah or for or against Israel.” — Representative John Dingell
22) “We are living in terrorism as black people in America. And it has been that way since the dawning of slavery….If we are having problems with finding our own inner souls and dignity to live out a life that is honorable, what is it that has put us in this position? We didn’t volunteer for it. And those who have put us here and chosen to keep us here are people who deal in terror.” — Harry Belafonte
21) “(George Bush) is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was.” — Cindy Sheehan
20) “It’s quite reasonable to conclude that Bush will harm the nation more–if not more than Bin Laden would like to, than more than he actually can.” — Johnathan Chait
19) “I think the news of the loss of any human being is a tragedy. I think al-Zarqawi’s death is a double tragedy. His death will incite a new wave of revenge.” — Michael Berg
Dominique R. Poirier
Beyond these quotes Right Wing News published one thing struck me while I was reading more on this website. That is: how similar can be far leftist and far rightist people.
As a 46 year old French, I have had countless opportunities to meet far leftist people and to talk with them. Also I have read innumerable articles and books written by those same persons. In revenge, seldom have I enjoyed similar opportunities with American far rightists. But while reading Right Wing News, or listening to personalities such as Ann Coulter or Michael Savage for example, I cannot but reach to this disturbing conclusion which is: those people’s behavior and talk are very, very, very close to these of the French communist pundits and godfathers.
When you see them and listen to them you just need to change minor cosmetics such as clothing style, Israel for Palestine, United States for Humanity, Ronald Reagan for Lenin, and war for peace to identify the very same persons. Nearly all that left beyond some interchangeable keywords seems strikingly spirited by the same feelings which are: unabashed aggressiveness, intolerance, denial of freedom of thought and speech, frustration and uneasiness, permanent over-distrustfulness, ill-contained violence, and maddening absolutism and political extremism.
During WWII the Soviets discovered that is was often much easier to convert convinced Nazis they captured than other common German soldiers. Similarly, In The True Believer, Eric Hoofer tells us that Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi chief propagandist, would have claimed once that he didn’t need more than a couple of month to convert a fanatic Communist to Nazism. As a more recent living example of this phenomenon that comes immediately to my mind, a strange bird such as Lyndon Larouche who, always considering himself at the farthest end of something and fiercely against its contrary no matter what it is, is especially representative of this breed.
Meanwhile, all I can see about those maniacs who fiercely claim to be “Conservatives” is that their saying entertains little relevance with the principles of the Bill of Rights and the American set of values in general; with the noticeable exception, perhaps, of the Second Amendment. I’m firmly convinced that they do much more harm than good for American Conservatism and the Republican Party. That’s why I think that, to say the least, their ill considered critics on the American society and policy in general are as silly as these 40 quotes they published. It would come to no surprise for me if I read that one those would-be-Conservatives once accused George Bush to be a moonbath.
Regretfully, all this shows us that, without any consideration for a political party in particular, any insane person just needs to be heir of the affluent society, or to get access to the media, to be instantly granted seriousness and consideration, as if as a rule. But, this is also at this price that freedom of thought and speech can be preserved in America. So be it.
At least, and as suggest JDZ, we still have the recourse to laugh about all this.
P.S.: I use of the opportunity of this subject to inform my reader that while CNN is universally considered by U.S. Conservatives as one of the most patent expression of Liberalism in America, it is however considered in a country such as France as no less than a powerful worldwide beaming beacon of unbridled U.S. capitalism and “American imperialism.” In France, today, it is also nearly impossible to find an issue of The New York Times, let alone the Wall Street Journal. I would be sincerely grateful to whoever will be able to enlighten my knowledge about this puzzling question.
mapa satelital
I constantly spent my half an hour to read this web site’s content everyday
along with a mug of coffee.
Please Leave a Comment!