Antisemitism, Holocaust revisionism, Ron Paul and the tea party movement
Two items from Roland: Stay Classy Protesters (on those who fill the void left by the Bush-haters), a Paulista flier (on the darker side of right-wing populism).
Added: more from Snoop - recommended.
Also: I missed this earlier post by Roland. (Found via TNC's round-up.)
And two interesting leftist views on the tea parties: Stumbling and Mumbling, Though Cowards Flinch.
More links. From LGF: Ron Paul & John Birch; Crazy Uncle Ron and the tea parties; Mainstreaming Alex Jones' madness. Also: InfokriegWatch: Lunatic fringe still lunatic fringe.
Added: more from Snoop - recommended.
Also: I missed this earlier post by Roland. (Found via TNC's round-up.)
And two interesting leftist views on the tea parties: Stumbling and Mumbling, Though Cowards Flinch.
More links. From LGF: Ron Paul & John Birch; Crazy Uncle Ron and the tea parties; Mainstreaming Alex Jones' madness. Also: InfokriegWatch: Lunatic fringe still lunatic fringe.
Comments
Sure in a grass roots decentralized protest like this, people will try to latch on and hijack the protests. But these nuts are not representative of the movement. Hell, even Republican politicians came to coopt the Tea Parties and promote themselves...and were booed off the stage where appropriate.
If the Tea Party “movement” wants to be taken seriously, they should work to keep the racists and weirdos out, something the protesting left was generally unwilling to do the last few years. If not, it is just going to get stranger and more bizarre as larger portions of the population get turned off to their direction, leaving only the hardcore and extreme portions in control.
Furthermore the Border and Immigration Law Enforcement crowd will always unfairly be tagged as racists by the left and their MSM Leftist allies.
And on top of that, racist and sexist policy is the Lefts baby, not the American Rights, who are Color Blind policy advocates. The American Right/Conservatives oppose this.
Im sure that the Tea Parties will not be taken seriously by the Left or its Media allies, and will be mocked and tagged racist. Its what the left does.
Now you can join in that chorus all you want to....but the American Conservatives have learned to totally disregard the hatemongers, villifiers, divisive identity politics advocate hypocrites, totalitarian government and revolutionary apologizers and all around ner do wells on the Left.
I welcome coalitions with the Decent Left, and rather like Neo Cons like David Horowitz who has brought his skills and talent to exposing the Left for what they truly are. I hope the Decent Left moves to support the Classical Liberal American Conservatives in the Republican Party.
Are you aware of the tea parties where the attacks on September 11, 2001 were claimed to be orchestrated by the government? That does not sound much different from the radical left to me.
As much as you would like to think that there are no extremists on the right (I've read your comments at Noga's and elsewhere), they certainly are there to see for anyone willing to open their eyes and do a little searching on the Internet. Radicalism is not the exclusive provenance of the left.
I mentioned on Roland’s post that right-wing extremists came out of the woodwork during Clinton’s presidency. I should have added that left-wing extremists did the same thing during George W. Bush’s presidency. So this really is nothing new.
I have nothing against people who want to protest out of control government spending. More power to them. I didn’t vote for Obama and I don’t like the direction he is taking the country in.
But the people who think UN black helicopters are coming to take their guns away and place them in FEMA concentration camps are bonkers. The people who rail against the “globalism” of the Council on Foreign Relations (just like the left rails against globalization), who call for closed borders and an end to the Federal Reserve are of a similar mind. Maybe not totally crazy, but definitely paranoid and delusional. Just like the radical left. They are flip sides of the same coin.
Check out Philip Gleason’s “New Left, Radical Right Spelled Backwards” (The History Teacher, Vol. 1, No. 4, May 1968). Can’t find a public link but it is available on JStor.
Here is part of point #1:
Both Radical Right and New Left (using the term broadly to include SDS, various anti-war and extreme protest groups, and the most radical black militants) are self-consciously extremist or radical in the views they espouse and advocate. "Liberalism" is anathema to both extremes. Both deliberately reject compromise, consensus, muddling through, being moderate, allowing for slow change.
Point #3:
Both groups deal in vaguely defined millenial projections of the state of bliss that will follow when their prescriptions are put into effect. For the Right, the vision is of a sort of natural harmony that will prevail when we return to rugged individualism and the practice of the old-fashioned morality. The vision of the Left seems to be a cross between a cosmic love-in and a Robespierrist Republic of Virtue.
Point #5:
Each group enlists tremendous moral fervor on the part of its adherents. Radical Right and New Left are alike in being movements of the committed, the involved. Both groups are dedicated to the realization of great ideals; neither has any patience with modest hopes or with a politics of the possible. Both reject the "tragic" view that certain problems are insoluble and must simply be lived with. There is little willingness to tolerate ambiguities in either camp...Each group is convinced of the correctness of its own position; each is intensely self-righteous; and each tends to interpret disagreement as evidence of cowardice, cynicism, dishonesty, disloyalty, or some other sort of moral evil in those who disagree.
NWO not NOW...
Like many Jews, I may be a little oversensitive in that regard.
The "tea party" movement (if movement is the right word) has little to do with the principles of the Founders. The American revolution was not about low taxes, it was about taxation without repreentation; it was about whether people shoulds govern themselves or be ruled by a king.
And whatever good elements there are in the tea party movements, there are also elements (even if they are only marginal parasites in the movement) who are radically at odds with the Founders: the pseudo- and paleo-libertarians in the Ron Paul cult, the racist migrant-haters, the paranoid conspiracy theorists, the people that think Obama is a totalitarian socialist. These people, yes, they are extremists.
Not that I (unlike TNC) mind extremism as such; moderation isn't always a virtue. But these are particularly bad extremists in my book.
And to nwo (a strange moniker for an American Joo if I have ever seen one):
Asking question about Ron Paul strange silence about the less savory elements sticking to his boat and about the fact of the attraction of these elements to that boat is not exactly "constant villification of the American Right".
Bob, I think you are misreading the Tea Parties big time.
But these are particularly bad extremists in my book. === bob
Im assuming you mean Tea Party goers.
Im assuming you mean Tea Party goers.No, I meant what I said here:
elements (even if they are only marginal parasites in the movement) who are radically at odds with the Founders: the pseudo- and paleo-libertarians in the Ron Paul cult, the racist migrant-haters, the paranoid conspiracy theorists, the people that think Obama is a totalitarian socialist.That is, not the tea parties as a whole, but these ingredients in its mix.
I see the far Right as an anti Islam ally. And much like Pinochet, much better than the alternative. Its better to ally with less than perfect groups than to have the country taken over by totalitarian Communists.Reckon I called it right before then.
Ill even ally with anti religious bigots like Dawkins and his crew in the fight with Islam.
The Decent Left is going sit on the sidelines and sit this new conflict with and in Islam out(much like they did the Cold War)..... and maintain untainted superiority, the majority of the Left are going to actively undermine the West and apologize for Islam, because the enemy of their enemy(the West) is their friend.
Waterloo Sunset will continue the proud traditions of the Left.
But enjoy your smears. As for me, I keep staring down the worst and most dangerous enemies from the Left and the Right...and getting my hands dirty doing it.
Enjoy your sneers. Ill be fighting the good fight.