Marxism and Socialism, are the new Al-Qaeda!

Occasionally, a concerned family member will send me something like this and occasionally I’ll respond. Maybe it’s because I was in a bad mood _before_ seeing this, but this video really pissed me off. Honestly, I’m so sick and tired of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh polluting our nation’s media that I’m starting to feel physically repulsed whenever I see or hear them speak (something that they’d probably be proud of however… bravo you disgusting fucks). Anyway, watch the video before reading further.

Marxism is not Communism
Socialism is not Communism

The average American believes that Socialism and/or Marxism are both the exact same as Soviet-style Communism when in fact they aren’t.

Every time I hear a so-called “conservative” talk about either, as if they actually know what the fuck they’re talking about, I just shake my head. Their ignorance of these philosophies that they claim to know (and fear) so much about is just embarrassing.

People like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh want everyone to believe that Socialism and/or Marxism means that eventually, soldiers will be kicking in your door and confiscating your valuables so they can “redistribute” them to the poor, in an effort to make everyone “equal”. This is not the case however, and if anyone believes that this is the scenario that Barack Obama is trying to implement, then they’re a brainwashed fucking idiot. We came a hell of a lot closer to a Communist dictatorship with the passage of both the “PATRIOT” acts and with Bush’s warrant-less wiretapping program… sadly though, they’ll never rebuke these legislative atrocities because they were enacted by a republican.

And let’s discuss that term “conservatives” … what the hell are you conserving? It sure as hell ain’t the environment, it sure as hell isn’t freedom and equality for everyone. You’re not conserving a woman’s right to choose. The past eight years has shown us that conservatives don’t give a fuck about peace either. A quick count of the number of “conservatives” that would like to see “Intelligent Design” taught in science class tells me that “conservatives” also aren’t interested in “conserving” education. I’m just confused as to what it means to be a pro-life/anti-choice, pro-war/anti-peace, let’s-solve-everything-with-our-fists “conservative”. Someone, anyone, please explain this to me.

Scandal? Double-Standards? Doom and Gloom? Are you sure we aren’t talking about the Bush [mis-]Administration here? C’mon Glenn, you’re smarter than that… start acting like it.

Really? So like, the combined costs of the Iraq war and Veteran healthcare (veterans of the Iraq war) is just fucking pocket change? I’m not trying to downplay the cost of the stimulus package—it’s big, but need I remind you that the Iraq invasion was completely unnecessary? Most analysts put the total cost of the Iraq war at about $3 Trillion. That’s more than 3 times the amount of Obama’s Keynesian stimulus bill. Once again, so-called “conservatives” are willing to ignore the trespasses of the “Grand Old Party”… people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

I really need to stress the point here that President Obama’s stimulus package has all the markings of of a “Keynesian” stimulus package; does that mean it will work? Who knows, but at least he’s taking an academic approach rather than the usual “shoot-from-the-hip” approach embraced by his predecessor that has failed us so miserably.

So? It’s about damn time. We’re people too, religion doesn’t make you moral and non-religion doesn’t make you immoral/amoral. In fact, here’s a perfect example of a “good Christian” doing something immoral:

–Glenn Beck (…lying in the aforementioned video)

Uh.. no he didn’t. He DID issue an executive order to freeze military tribunals at Guantanamo. Matter of fact, Susan J. Crawford, the top legal authority for military trials is the one who decided to drop the charges:

Read that again: “It was her decision”

See? This subtle misrepresentation of the facts by Glenn Beck has probably gotten a lot of people all fired up and angry at President Obama for something that he was accused of doing but did not do. Glenn Beck just lied to his viewers by completely misrepresenting the facts on national TV (surprise!). I believe this implies that either he really believes what he just said -or- he thinks his viewers are too dumb to notice that he just fed them a shit sandwich. I’ve never seen/heard him not acting like a pompous, condescending ass or saying something stupid so I’m leaning towards the latter.

Moving right along…. why was there an executive order to freeze the tribunals?

There’s nobody who could possibly argue successfully that this review is not needed. The prisoners at Guantanamo have been imprisoned for quite some time (which is punishment all by itself) and the kicker is that the United States; the land of the free, just and righteous, has condemned them to their fate without trial. In short, they have been found guilty by our government without being afforded the opportunity to argue their case—this injustice can only be acceptable to those who believe that every Muslim/Iraq /Afghani/etc is a terrorist/Al-Qaeda or less than human and thereby does not deserve a chance to argue their case (i.e. the majority of Beck’s, Limbaugh’s, and O’Reilly’s viewers/fans/sheep).

Now, am I defending the prisoners? No. But injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and these people have not had their day in court.

I thought you’d never ask…

Yes Glenn, I am worried about my country. I’m worried that it’s been taken over by people who are intellectually lazy and by people who misrepresent the facts; I’m worried that it’s been taken over by people who willingly allowed the restriction of our rights and great atrocities to be committed out of fear for our own safety. I’m worried that we might never regain our reputation; I’m worried that it’s no longer “politically correct” to educate children about science just because a few fundamentalists disagree with the FACTS about how old the earth is and whether or not man lived with dinosaurs. I’m worried that there are masses of ignorant, weak-minded people who vote; I’m worried that there are greedy arrogant fuckers with TV and radio shows who will take advantage of those who either can’t or won’t think for themselves and instead would rather be told what to think (as long as it falls in line with their preexisting biases—as long as the commentator hates the same people they hate). I’m worried about the effects of two costly simultaneous wars on our ability to defend ourselves from a real threats; I’m worried that the UN wants to make it a punishable crime to insult religion and that some religious leaders in the U.S. would like to see the government enforce this rule—free speech be damned. I’m worried that the chairman of the Federal Reserve refuses to name the banks and financial institutions who applied for and received bailout money—OUR MONEY—and I’m worried about the fact that congress can’t currently compel him to do so. I’m worried that we’ll never truly know the extent of Bush/Cheney’s treachery because the only politicians who have the balls to stand up and do anything about it (Dennis Kucinich for example) have been largely marginalized by the rest of the spineless bastards in the House and the Senate. I’m worried that if so-called conservatives keep misrepresenting historic fact (e.g., The U.S. was started as a Christian Nation, The New Deal was a failure, etc.) in order to push their agenda, that eventually these falsehoods will become generally accepted as fact. I’m worried that President Obama might give in to the anti-gun lobby, although I must admit, this is at the bottom of my list of worries. I’m worried that our country is circling the drain in a whirlpool of rampant lies, confusion, magical thinking, ignorance, misunderstanding, hatred, xenophobia, fundamentalism, cognitive dissonance and fear; and that the majority of this mess was created by those whose patriotism has gone unquestioned; whose reasoning unchallenged only because they were members of “the party that loves America”. Simply, this crisis was caused by those who told us what we wanted to hear while feeding our fears so they could gain as much control as they could in the shortest amount of time possible. Now that those people have been mostly voted out of office, or have had their careers ruined because someone exposed their scandalous deeds, it’s time to return to reality. It’s time to climb out of the rabbit hole; it’s time to remove our heads from the sand. The real world has sharp edges; reality doesn’t give a shit whether or not it hurts your feelings—in the real world, facts are cold and unfiltered and truth is not subjective. You can believe whatever you like, but unless it’s in accordance with fact, you will be wrong. Hopefully the Obama Administration will not repeat the mistakes of the Bush Administration; namely; feeding fear and legitimizing falsehood. So far he’s doing a good job; you can tell simply by the number of people who are crying because they want their teddy bears back; welcome to reality. It’s taken us eight years to get where we are, why should we expect that it will take anything short of eight years to get us back on track?