To paraphrase a famous movie line, the liberals are revolting.
Only, this time it isn’t a joke. They apparently mean it.
We’ve suffered through years of lefty calls for violence, claims the government was somehow “fascist” and led by “BusHitler,” pushes for Nuremburg trials for climate deniers and more. Through it all, the media message has been … about how scary and dangerous the right is.
Watch as they downplay or flat out ignore the current tone of violent rhetoric on the left. Left-over lefties from the ’60s who once obsessed over the Beatles “Revolution 9” are now advocating Revolution 2.0.
Enter, from stage left, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan – talkin’ about his revolution during his Sept. 8 show. “Are things in our country so bad that it might actually be time for a revolution? The answer obviously is ‘yes.’” Then he threw in a little extra: “the only question is how to do it.”
This is the network that just pulled Keith Olbermann for a long weekend as some Barnum-esque PR stunt to pretend it’s a valid news organization. Now they have Ratigan, who must have stopped taking his meds when he left CNBC, talking such “drastic solutions” to equally loony cartoonist and author Ted Rall.
You might know Rall, who called former President George W. Bush a “psycho fascist moron” in one cartoon and disgustingly mocked the American military in others. His sick “Profile of a Suicide Bomber” [1] directly targeted American soldiers for their “willingness to die for a cause,” “religious fervor” and “immaturity.” His cartoons appear in more than 100 publications from the Los Angeles Times to The New York Times. Now he’s outdone himself and come out with a book called “The Anti-American Manifesto.”
The book is exactly as it sounds and the nutball Rall is just as bad in person. He has no stomach for nonviolence. “The American left has been very peaceful since the early ’60s and where has it gotten us? Millions marched against the war in Iraq. What did it do?” he asked.
The pair went on to discuss “4 ways to change government.” Those included, according to the nifty little MSNBC graphic, “political process, bond and currency markets, passive resistance” and “violence.” According to Rall, “violence is the last case scenario.”
Awww, isn’t that nice of him. Advocating for open rebellion, after his side just lost an election. But it’s the “last case.” Of course, Rall already thinks we’re there. In a recent interview [2] with The Washington City Paper, he argued “in reality the country is too undereducated to have a functioning democracy.” In elite speak, that means he knew his side was going to lose and now he thinks rebellion is an option.
According to excerpts of the book from the equally loony left site Alternet.org [3], Rall thinks the U.S. has had its time come and go and “the collapse feels as though it is currently in progress.” In Rall’s “mind,” he wants his side to revolt before us evil rightwingers take power. “They – the hardcore, racist, undereducated, fundamentalist Christian, anti-civil liberties Right – are preparing to step into the breach, to seize power.”
The left is obsessed with that kind of insanity – what Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, called the “insurrectionary right [4].” Only it’s his side not the right that is sounding insurrectionary. And hateful, though they say that about the right once again: “It is a hateful and heartless spirit that strives to elevate demagogues, bullies and criminals,” wrote David A. Love is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com. His piece, was ironically headlined “The Tea Party Spirit Is Corroding Public Discourse In America [5].” He must have been drinking lots of tea then.
Remarkably, as we move into the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, it’s the left that’s in the spirit of insurrection. It’s OK for their side to openly discuss “revolution” on a TV network (OK, it was MSNBC) but horrible if anybody on the right says something wrong.
Just before the elections, Chris “The Tingler” Matthews was mouthing off with Nazi comparisons in reference to one incident at a rally. “I mean it isn't far from what we saw in the ’30s, where all of a sudden, political parties started showing up in uniform.” Maybe Chris has a different memory of the ’30s and the rise of National Socialism. Most Americans remember it as the uber-state where government got involved in everything – even the car companies. Sound familiar?
Of course not. In the twisted mind of the left there are only two options: “fascist” rightwingers are in charge, or moderate Democrats (they actually mean Obama here) are in charge but they aren’t sufficiently liberal to hold back the threat of “fascist” rightwingers.
It’s a perfect, self-reenforcing storm of crazy. Only now they are emboldened enough to discuss open violence.
Revolting indeed.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business [6]and Culture [7]. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum. He can also be contacted on FaceBook and Twitter as dangainor.