SECTION ONE
sm
COLUMN
SEVENTY, APRIL 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 Al Aronowitz)
HATE YOUR GOVERNMENT BUT LOVE YOUR COUNTRY
Do America's
holier-than-thou Far-Left fundamentalists hate Clinton-Gore more than they hate
the far-right government they were so instrumental in imposing on our country?
Do they hate America's imperialism enough to throw the baby out with the
bathwater? Not only have they proven that they're willing to cut off their
noses to spite their faces, but they seem to be as downright suicidal as the
fundamentalist Islamic terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. I hate
America's Imperialism, too, but the fundamentalist Far-Left seems to hate it
so vehemently that they're willing to let these Islamic fanatics destroy our
country and everybody in it, including themselves.
On the one hand,
they're against the War on Terrorism. Don't drop bombs on innocent women and
children, they say. Which is exactly what the terrorists did to us and will continue
to do to us unless we do what the fundamentalist Far-Left doesn't want us
to do.
On the other hand, the
Far-Left fundamentalists keep trying to justify their complicity in putting
warmongers in control of our government. The Far-Left fundamentalists are on the
defensive, see. They keep trying to paint Clinton-Gore as bad as if not worse
than the Bush Administration.
The Democrats, they
insist, are just as evil as the Republicans. And so the Far-Left fundamentalists
helped put George Dubya in the White House because they wanted to teach the
Democrats a lesson. In other words, they wanted to punish the Democratic Party
and so they punished all of us.
For example, from PORTSIDE, apparently the Internet's voice of the fundamentalist Far-Left,
comes an email in which a Nader apologist writes:
"Despite our collective
acknowledgements about corporate capitalist domination of both political
parties, progressives persist in adopting the lesser evil fallacy. . ."
If the Far-Left fundamentalists believe the lesser evil is a fallacy, do they believe the greater evil is also a fallacy? The Naderites knew damn well that in voting for their hero, they were casting ballots for the Republican candidate. Is
Gore
did not LOSE
the election; the Republicans STOLE it
that also the way
the German Far-Left fundamentalists helped pave the way for Hitler to come to
power?
No, it wasn't our fault
that Bush won, this Far-Left fundamentalist declares. He explains:
"As Nader claimed, the election was Gore's to lose."
But the fact of the
matter, as history will record it, is that Gore did not lose the
election. With the help of too many fundamentalist Far-Left Floridians, the
Republicans stole the election.
In his PORTSIDE email,
this Far-Left fundamentalist goes on to say that too many on the Left "disdain
the arduous task of building a genuine independent progressive electoral vehicle
in this country. . . We saw the Nader candidacy as a bold step towards a new
politics."
In other words, the
Naderites were driven by the same fuel that drives capitalists. The same fuel
that drove Pat Buchanan in his obviously hopeless quest for the Presidency.
Greed! Both Pat and Ralph knew they couldn't win. What they wanted was to
qualify for that Election Commission money. It didn't matter to the Naderites
that the crafty, wily, pragmatic G.O.P. was surreptitiously chipping in to
finance Nader's campaign. The Republicans are realists. They were well aware
that a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush.
This PORTSIDE email I?m
referring to was written by a holier-than-thou Far-Left fundamentalist whose
name is too close to mine for comfort. In this email, he serves up a plateful of
Far-Left orthodoxy, the kind of holier-than-thouisms you'd expect to find
coming out of any fundamentalist's mouth. Because all fundamentalists
of any persuasion---Far-Left, Far-Right, Christian, Islamist or even
Animal Lovers---are basically the same. They all want to impose their
beliefs on everybody else. Why? Because they believe they're holier than
everybody else.
Well I've been a
left-wing sympathizer all my life and I'm sick and tired of holier-than-thouism
from any side. As far as
I'm concerned, Far-Left fundamentalism is just as much of a threat to world
peace as ANY brand of fundamentalism. Fundamentalists for the most part are
guided by minds dipped into concrete, minds whose thinking is so hardened that
they refuse to budge an inch. With the world population continually doubling
(despite widespread outbreaks of genocidal slaughter) the only way we're going
to be able to make room for all of us is through a word that is not in
the fundamentalist dictionary: COMPROMISE! Either start budging inches or the
world is doomed to a thermonuclear holocaust.
We live in a country that
is so diverse as to be unique in this world. Our country includes so diverse a
collection of ethnicity, of religion, of races and of political
persuasions---it's a melting pot of almost every specimen of humanity on this
earth--- that there can be no unanimous consensus. With such diversity,
it's true that a consensus may become apparent. But whether the
consensus seems to lean to the left or to the right, it can lean from only one
place: the center. Because they have refused to accept this reality, the
holier-than-thou Naderites sought to change the American political equation with
a monkey wrench.
Clinton-Gore wasn't
left enough for them, so now we all have to put up with a government that is
essentially fascistic. As I said, the Naderites cut off their noses to spite
their faces. Do they really believe they can persuade America to toe the line of
their orthodoxy?
Obviously, the attack on
the World Trade Center was not the last bit of terrorism America will have to
put up with. We also had anthrax spread through the mails and an idiot who
wanted to blow up an airliner with the explosives in his sneakers. Another
idiot---this one from New Jersey---randomly mowed down pedestrians on the
sidewalk. Palestinian terrorists have set a style in Israel that our Islamic
tormentors would like to duplicate on American soil. These guys won't quit.
The inevitable eventuality is that they'll set off a nuclear explosion in an
American city.
They proclaim that
they're not afraid to die---something that is more reality than boastfulness.
Not only are they armed with the martyrdom fairy tales preached by their
religion but another weapon in their arsenal is duplicity---a duplicity born out
of the ignorance that sees others as dumb as they are. Dumb enough to believe
their lies, that is. And the truth is that most people are that ignorant.
I have been accused of
bigotry by someone toeing the fundamentalist Far-Left line. Accused of bigotry
for pointing out that the Arabs are raising a whole generation of children whose
greatest ambition is to become suicide bombers. As I explained, Arab kids
collect pictures of so-called "martyrs? the way American kids collect
baseball cards. It is from the Arab world that fanatics urge all Muslims
to wage a Jihad---a "Holy War?---against Western civilization. The
Arab fanatics are even naming their sons Jihad. Inflamed by the mullahs in the
mosques, they decry the modernity of the West and seek a return to medievalism.
What they want is nothing less than genocidal destruction of Western
Civilization and worldwide theocratic fascism.
And so I was accused of
bigotry by someone from a fundamentalist Far-Left that goes out of its way to
refer to Palestinian terrorists as "freedom fighters?? Could that be an
indication of bigotry on the part of the Fundamentalist Far-Left? Anti Semitic
bigotry?
Yes, we're under assault by a bunch of madmen who believe so strongly in the promise of a quick trip to Paradise that they're all willing to die to burn down our house with all of us in it. Blacks, whites, Jews, Gentiles, Hindus, Buddhists, middle-of-the-roaders, right-wingers and even members of a fundamentalist Far-Left that contends America is the world's worst terrorist. Actually, I agree
Do
we have
to appoint
a Hitler?
with that contention,
because America does have an inglorious past. Our country is more of a
hypocrisy than a Democracy. We live in a world ruled by oligarchs. In other
words, like most other nations, we are governed by fools and charlatans.
So, must we take
Draconian measures to protect our house from the suicide bombers? That doesn't
mean appointing a Hitler, does it? If Dubya thinks he is one, I don't think Al
Gore would be of the same mind if he were President. Would Ralph Nader? Do any
of these men have an ego the size of Hitler's? So, if not Draconian measures,
what? Should we plead guilty to our own acts of terrorism and let them burn our
house down with all of us in it? What should we do?
My Pacifist comrades
apparently advocate the equivalent of sticking our heads into the sand while the
terrorists stick bombs up our asses. Another idea from the fundamentalist
Far-Left is that we should take the terrorists to the World Court. OK,
terrorists! Let us serve you with a subpoena! And then they say, "let the UN
handle it." With what? Or else,
"Why do we bomb Afghanistan, when it was Saudis and Egyptians who bombed
us?? Or else: "violence only begets more violence. What good would further
violence do??
So, should we do NOTHING?
Ring bells, they say.
Pray, they say, Sing, they say. Chant, they say. But I don't think that kinda
stuff is gonna work. Do you? How about something practical? So, WHAT shall we
do?
I certainly don't have
any answers that're going to satisfy everybody. The only thing I can
think of is that we have to improvise the way the jazz musicians do.
Improvisation, after all, is how civilization evolved to the point where it is
now. Right?
The fundamentalist
Far-Left author of the PORTSIDE email in question says he's going to run for
governor of the State of New York. I wish him luck. So, of course, will the
Republicans. I'm sure the G.O.P will help fund his campaign. He says he's
running as a Green. Me, I'd rather be red, white and blue.
My parents loved this
country. Immigrating here as refugees from the anti-Semitic pogroms of Eastern
Europe, they became citizens of their new land and raised four children in the
dirt-poor poverty of the Great Depression. Like most naturalized lower-class
Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe with Socialist leanings, they voted
Democratic and even named me after the Democratic Presidential candidate that
lost to the George W. Bush of 1928. I grew up loving this country and even as
I've learned how despicable a place it can be, I still love it because this is
where I live. The more despicable a place I find it, the more I want to make it
better. To quote an old friend, U. Utah Phillips, one of America's great
characters of the Left---a folksinger, a storyteller, an anarchist and a Korean
War deserter:
"Hate your government but love your country." ##
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