Re: Obama 6(...66)
You (well, SPIN CONTROL, really, but you've jumped to his defense- so this will be the plural "you") were spouting about the "America hating left", a phrase that to me immediately conjures up thoughts of Anne Coulter's strongest case for the burning of books- Treason. As if liberals (or even, as in my case, left-leaning moderates) are some seperatist group.
I counter (and allow me to expand on that counter-point) that the left is not some violent separatist group attacking America (as in an actual seperatist group), but that it has merely made a practice of voicing displeasure with certain acts of the government that they view to run against America's best interest. It's been done by liberals during conservative administrations, and the exact same has been done (most notably right now) by conservatives during liberal administrations. Both sides do it- in fact, everyone does it when they don't like what's going on- but when one general group does it, those people hate America? How does that logic follow?
Your response to my counterpoint brought up leftist Americans who would attack America, or joined with those who do hate America. I merely responded with the most notable example of a right-winger/libertarian/decidedly not liberal American committing one of the worst acts of terrorism this country has every seen. That it was against a federal building strengthens the point.
Really, you're stating my point about America-hating violent psychos more succinctly than I ever could:
But to bring the argument back to the more rational people in this world: Why are people who opposed W.'s (or Bush I's, or Reagan's or... ) policies "America Haters", but not people who oppose Obama's (or Clinton's or Carter's or... ) policies?
Or, to be facetious: Are both types of protestors America Haters? Is our love of this country tied to going along with whomever is in charge? Because that would seem to run counter to the ideals that this country was founded on.
The truth of the matter is that exteme views tend to dominate discussions in this country. People agreeing to disagree just isn't as sexy as the shouting on Fox or MSNBC, nor as profitable. Most Americans are somewhere in the middle on most issues. They may be to the left or the right, but they're in the middle.
The so-called legacy media are daily becoming less relevant and less believable. I'm going to assume you had no use for W. But try to imagine if a network carried allegations against Kerry a couple of weeks before the election in an obvious attempt to torpedo his candidacy. Allegations based on documents that later proved to be forgeries. And then the network defended itself by saying the authenticity of the documents on which the charges were based didn't matter. Again, I'm guessing you'd be steamed.
Certainly the vast majority of Americans left and right love America and their opposition to presidents they oppose isn't just their right, it's their responsibility. And most Americans exercise their responsibilities with great gusto. Whether it's marching in an anti-war demonstration in San Francisco or raising their voices in a townhall meeting in Florida.
The problem is there ARE some elements of the left in this country that have always been antagonistic to America: Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs come to mind. Check out the archival footage of any big anti-Vietnam war demonstration and you'll see Viet Cong and North Vietnamese flags prominently displayed. Prominent anti-war types flocked to North Vietnam and American POW's were tortured for refusing to participate in dog and pony shows with them. One prominent anti-war type was famously filmed looking post coital on a NVA anti-aircraft gun.
More recently, before all of the remains were recovered, some on the American left (Susan Sontag, Ward Churchill, etc) were blaming us for 9/11. To be balanced, some on the right (Jerry Falwell) blamed us too, because of our toleration of ho-mo-sex-u-ality. The difference, of course, is that Jerry Falwell was generally (and accurately) portrayed as some sort of clown by the legacy media. But Susan Sontag and Ward Churchill? Well, that's different.
A few years ago a break through book about the history of the Communist Party in America gave the lie to the trope that they just favored "democracy in a hurry." The book points out in chilling detail that the CPUSA was a
wholly owned subsidiary of Moscow and relates some interesting tidbits. The late Armand Hammer of Occidental Petroleum was a communist money launderer. And John Reed, who helped found the CPUSA and was so lovingly portrayed by Warren Beatty in Reds was on Moscow's payroll to the tune of a million bucks (a huge sum in those days). Incidentally, the book was a collaboration between Russian and American historians and was published by that well known nest of right wingers, the Yale University Press.
The American left was absolutely positively against us getting into World War II. After all, what Hitler was doing in Poland was none of our business (neither was what Stalin was doing, too). And that was their opinion until Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa and invaded the USSR then the American left "did a sumersault in mid air" and decided on second thought, that getting into this war really was in our best interests.
Much has been made of the opposition to BO, particularly his plans for health care "reform." The suggestion is that no president has ever been subjected to this kind of intense opposition, why some dude (who turned out to be African American) even showed up in Phoenix for an Obama speech with a rifle! A calm review of the facts reveals that throughout the Bush presidency there were countless demonstrators all across the country advocating shooting, lynching and guillotining W. This is different, they say, because this opposition is based "mostly" on race (according to one disgracful ex-president) without, of course, an atom of evidence.
BO ran a brilliant campaign for his party's nomination. He ran to Hilary's left so as to enthuse the left wing of his own party. He buried her with the vote to authorize force in Iraq and pandered to them as well, suggesting that people who wear American flag lapel pins are demonstrating phoney patriotism. After the nomination was won, the lapel pin returned to HIS suits.
That's just politics, of course, they all do it all the time. But it was these pumped up folks on the left who trooped to the caucuses and got Obama the nomination. Because head to head in a primary, he had problems beating her.
I've rambled on too long. Let me just say we should all remain true to our convictions but never lose sight of the fact that part of why we're able to express our convictions is the system we have here. One which, for all its faults, I wouldn't swap for anything anywhere else. (cue the trumpets, lol).
