Clearly, All Christians Are Evil
By Carl
That's the satirical note to take away from the events of Friday afternoon, when the Norwegian equivalent of a Teabagger decided to slaughter nearly 100 people, willingly and gladly:
“He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary,” lawyer Geir Lippestad told independent TV2 news.
[...]Breivik hated “cultural marxists”, wanted a “crusade” against the spread of Islam and liked guns and weightlifting, web postings, acquaintances and officials said.
So in one neat little paragraph, we have the entire right wing of the United States in a nutshell, eh? "Socialism," "Islamism," gun nut, white Aryanist. If only he ate Cheetos in mom's basement, he could be Jim Hoft!
But I digress, and apologize for scoring a cheap political point.
Not really...
Anyway, there's a certain irony hearing the right wing of this country stretching, massaging and twisting truth to fit their narrative. After all, Norway is one of the most socialistic nations on the planet, the very essence of the whole argument "don't let this happen here," that faux freedom fighters and tea-pot tipping Taxbaggers cry over when President Obama suggests a marginal hike in taxes to pay for wars we can't afford.
And when Ross Douthat is the voice of reason for your side, your side needs serious help.
Ahhhhhhhh, but the Foust article has the juicy idiocy:
Not that there's anything wrong with understanding the schools of thought Breivik subscribed to. It is important that he emerged out of an intellectual movement that includes Brussels Journal, Pamela Geller, Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer, as it shows how he developed and formed his worldview.
In fairness to Foust, he does not ascribe to the views of Geller and Pipes, but could you ever imagine, even in mocking, the juxtaposition of "intellect" and "Pamela Geller/Daniel Pipes"?
Foust raises a good point, which is that its one thing to talk about eliminating Marxists, Islamists and other impurities in a society, it's another to actually take the step of cleansing. It's one thing to point the finger with words, and another to point a gun at children.
My argument back to Foust is simple: Not everyone who was a Bolshevik picked up a gun in a pogrom. Not every Nazi in Germany gassed a Jew. Not every militia member blew up Oklahoma City. Not even every radical Muslim flew a plane into a building.
That doesn't change them from being Bolsheviks, Nazis, militia members, or radical Muslims, and fomenting the very Petri dish that nurtured the Breivik's of the world. No one is condemning the entire right wing of the world for the actions of one nut, but many of those same conservatives now hiding behind Foust's apron would be the first to tar me as a liberal if this fellow had turned out to be "doing it for the environment," or some such.
For that, Foust should be ashamed.
(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)
posted by Carl at
9:39 AM
1 Comments:
I really enjoyed reading your post, and agree with your point, but I would suggest your last paragraphs could be clarified, as you seem to be suggesting that the role of Bolshevism in pogroms in Russia is analogous to that of Nazism in the Holocaust, the militia movement in the Oklahoma City bombing, etc. I may be misreading you there, but this comparison would be far off the mark, historically, and confuses your otherwise good point! Whatever sins the Bolsheviks may have committed, it is misleading to suggest that they were the primary driving factor in pogroms, or generally had anti-semitic violence as their goal. In fact, that charge would be much better laid at the feet of the Russian right, if it had to be specifically placed anywhere.
(Certainly anti-semitic violence and discrimination existed in the developed Soviet state, particularly as manifested in Stalin, but to say that the Bolsheviks were generally anti-semitic in their goals or practices would be inaccurate, in fact would misrepresent the position of the Bolsheviks in relation to the Whites, the Church, and other parties and actors in early Twentieth Century Russia, and would ignore the role pogroms and anti-semitic violence under the Russian Empire played in increasing Jewish support of and participation in revolutionary movements like the Bundists and the Bolsheviks.)
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TOP123, at 1:08 PM
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