Friday, December 12, 2003

I don't dispute the facts you outlined, but it's my right to waste your time

Ugh. This blogging nonsense is mildly addictive. I wasn't going to post, and yet here I am...


I was reading Amritas again. He posted his take on the "find a wife for Kucinich" contest web page. While I don't disagree with everything that Kucinich has to say, this contest is very silly. And yet I was dissappointed with AMR's reaction:

Judy [great photo!]: "In Jr. High during the McCarthy
era, I won the name of "Pinko" because I dared to defy
my eighth grade social studies teacher who called me a "communist"
for going to a Paul Robeson concert ..."
[Yay for Stalin!
-AMR]


The more revealing quote would have included where she considered Robeson a "mentor". I think Robeson's undying support for the Soviet Union was amoral and inexcusable, and I don't trust someone who admires him for it. Hooray for gulags indeed.

But just because she went to the concert when she was in High School and then disagreed with her teacher doesn't mean as much, I don't think. I was a very inquisitive 13-year-old, and I might have just gone to see what the hoo-haa was about. I wouldn't have been pro-communist, though, and I should have (though knowing me, I would have just been cowardly and backed down) stood up to a teacher who thought that merely going made me infected with a Pinko disease.


"... [M]y favorite movie is South Park! Ha!
(You sure can tell I was born in Canada.)
[And I sure can
tell you're oblivious to the Rightist currents in South Park.
Oh, and that movie wasn't exactly pro-Canada. -AMR]


Come now, professor. Doesn't making fun of Hawaii have more meaning for you since you live there? You've proven yourself a thinking, analytical man before but you honestly expect me to believe that you missed the point entirely and think the South Park Movie's creators meant their movie to be even the slightest bit anti-Canadian? Please don't make yourself look bad just so you can shoot more fish in this barrel.



For me, the comments of Anne ("I have been living just outside a rural 'New Age' healing community") and Shira ("I have high hopes for being first lady. I am the year of the dog and believe strongly in astrology: the stars say we're meant to be") stand out the most. Why does the American Left always attract these people with malfunctioning bogosity detectors? Is there no equivalent on the Right, or am I just not paying attention?

Slightly apropos: I heard a discussion about Presidential politics on the radio this morning. One of the panelist quoted Will Rogers, saying, "I belong to no organized political party. I am a Democrat." He then went on to call the party "the oldest established floating crap game". Heh.

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