Weird, dumbass and hypocritical political statements...

[Ian]

Coito, you've dug up a fair amount of stuff indicating that not everyone who's left-of-center always behaves nicely. Others have shown similar stuff about the right. I think we can agree that we're all talking about stuff that's said by vocal minorities, those people who actually bother to go out and attend rallies.

Do you really want to start talking about larger trends and demographics? By that I mean, getting some polling information which shows percentages of Dems who genuinely thought Bush was a legitimate fascist, vice percentages of Republicans who honestly think Obama is a socialist (or foreign-born, or Muslim, etc.). I don't think you want to go down that road.

I don't think you're objective at all. I think your level of understanding is nothing more than academic. You're a kid.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

C.E.S., you think the "Peace Movement" was violent? Or are you just making this up as you go along?

Generally, no, it wasn't violent. However, it was quite often violent in some instances, like the 1968 DNC protests in Chicago.

Youngling, I was there. I lived less than two hours away, Alexandria, Indiana. The problem didn't start with the protesters. It started with Fieldmarshal Daley.

And, left wingers are far more prone to use violence over the last 50 years than right leaning folks.

Unmitigated bullshit.

[maiforpeace]

Yeah, except that what Bush's being accused of is in fact true, whereas Obama's alleged terrorism and fascist/commie/marxist/islamic conspiracy is utter bullshit...

LOL...of course...of course...your opinion is "true."

Plus, the images were not of accusations - just him being hanged, shot, his murder suborned, etc.

You can try to throw shit on the left for a few violent asses being a bit hypocritical,

You can try the same thing towards the Republicans.

but you can't escape the fact that what Bush did fucked the country up to an extent that is still difficult to grasp now. Read George Monbiot's "Bring On The Apocalypse", it's a wonderful piece of journalism.

I'm sure it's wonderful.

Don't get upset. The fact is that the left is quite often violent, disrespectful, compares Bush to Hitler and a fascist, and calls for his death, his hanging, etc.

You may think that it's justified because you think Bush was a fascist. However, just because you believe it (a) doesn't make it true, and (b) doesn't mean others can't think the opposite. Moreover, you may not think Obama is a socialist or "leading us down the road" to socialism, but some others do. And, their opinion is no less "true" than your opinion that Bush was a fascist or a new Hitler.

The difference is - you don't see threats on Obama's life like you did see regarding Bush. The signs and shirts are comical and hyperbolic, but to say that NOW the rhetoric has gotten bad, and that when the Bushes were in office it was so collegial and civil is just plain, flat out false.

The left, since the 1960s at least, has been quite violent. Look at the anti-globalization protests where socialists and other left wing groups turn over cars, break windows and carry signs about how Bush and others should be murdered. It's not uncommon. Recall the riots in Seattle....

I think most people here will agree that hateful and violent protest isn't a good thing.

Call me a hypocrite, but protesting the war, which is real and is about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is quite different than protesting policies and things that have yet to actually come to pass. All of the protesting so far by the tea party is fear mongering. And, the hatred of Bush was shared by the entire world, not just Americans. Big difference in my book.
But, I am a self-confessed moonbat and have family and friends that lives in socialist countries, so what would I know?

[Chinaski]

Well, Coito's convinced me.

All those left-wing hippie types are really violent, vitriolic thugs.

It's really the right-wing folks who want harmony & understanding in America. Not to mention how shockingly well-informed they are!

Well, I don't know if I'd call them "hippie types" but left wingers sure do have no issue with calling for people's death. The images here really do tell a story. It shows that you folks posting the pics of teabaggers and right wingers find images of people with silly signs, sometimes stupid ones, with hyperbole and such things as calling Obama a Marxist, asking for his birth certificate, etc.

The left wingers, however, quite often appear to be setting fire to images of their opponents, indicating they should be killed, hanging them in effigy, beheading them, etc.

Because right wing supporters are comfortably rich, upper-middle class white citizens who just like giving a political face to their inherent racism, whereas the leftist radicals behave the way they do because they're touched at a personal level by the way countries are run. They're students, or poor, or idealists. The anger is real because the suffering is real.

The teabaggers are a bunch of comfortable, racist fucks who go protest socialism, a concept they don't understand and never will, on Sundays, which they have free BECAUSE of socialism, using public transportation, which they have BECAUSE of socialism, and expressing their right of free speech, which they have BECASUE of socialism.

[Chinaski]

You're a kid.

Hey!

[Ian]

And, left wingers are far more prone to use violence over the last 50 years than right leaning folks.

Unmitigated bullshit.

Concur. Maybe we should start talking about American militias, white supremacists, pro-life activists, Timothy McVeigh, etc. There's no shortage of information on how violent the right has been.

[Ian]

You're a kid.

Hey!

Sorry, I can be unabashedly ageist at times.
You're both very young.

[Coito ergo sum]

1) Were Bush and co. to be tried in a war tribunal, they'd be found guilty of crimes against humanity and executed. Were they to be tried by the Strasbourg court, they'd get life in prison.

Let's discuss it - start a thread. I am absolutely sure you are wrong about that. I'll take you on in that debate. Are you willing? Start the thread and let's do it.

2) The left-wing media does not call for violence.

Never said it did....Neither does the right wing media (e.g. Fox News).

It doesn't deliberately mislead and mangle facts for its own political agenda.

Only because you don't question what they say.

Unlike the right wing media. I'm referring to mainstream tv channels in the states- of course Bolshevik Underground Radio is going to be different. -.-''

MSNBC folks like Olbermann and the gang are quite adept at misleading and deceiving for their agenda.

3) The outrage against people like the Tea Party Protesters isn't due to a sense of "how dare they criticize the president!", it's due to frustration at seeing the democratic process being hijacked by demagoguery, ignorance and instinctive violence.

By those with whom you disagree. You have no problem when the democratic process is being hijacked by those with whom you agree.

Further, the tea partiers - as stupid as they are - are ENGAGING in the democratic process. They are as entitled to protest, write, speak and express themselves politically as you and anyone else.

Obama is much more of a socialist than his predecessor was- but socialism is NOT A BAD THING.

Says you. It is not antidemocratic to be against socialist economics and socialism. To many people, it is a bad thing. And, your opinion to the contrary is not a "fact." It's a value judgment. You like socialism. Good for you. That is your right.

Apart from that, his platform is, by objective standards, completely centrist.

By objective standards, it is left of center in almost all respects. The only thing I would consider objectively centrist is his war policy.

Bush's platform brought us much closer to a totalitarian state-

See, there you go - you think your hyperbole is "objective."

the patriot act,

Note, the Patriot Act is still in force, and the Democrats have the White House and the House and the Senate. Obama support it, obviously, since he signed into law its extension.

an illegal war to divert from domestic issues,

It wasn't illegal, and it's your opinion that it was a diversion. Many others think that he had it planned from the outset of his administration (and therefore not as a diversion from domestic issues since he would have just taken office... Many others think Bush was sincere in that the correct course of action was to pursue international terrorist organizations of global reach and their state sponsors, along with loose-cannon dictators with their sites on catastrophic weapons.

an abundance of moralizing non-issues like abortion and gay rights to polarize the electorate and FURTHER distract from real issues, etc.

Obama polarizes the electorate as well. That's nothing new for politics.

Calling Bush a fascist is a bit exaggerated,

A bit?

but by no means a long stretch of the imagination.

No more or less so than calling Obama a Marxist socialist.

The two positions are not on equal footing, nor do they deserve the same amount of respect as far as being "opinions" go.

Others may think your opinion deserves respect. We are all free to respect, or not respect, what we like.

4) Common protests regarding death panels

The "death panel" label was placed on an actual provision of the health care bill. Here's an article discussing the Senate's decision to drop that provision: http://www.lifenews.com/bio2920.html - calling it a "death panel" was hyperbole. Something you don't object to when it is directed in a direction that you support.

and Obama's alleged Islamism,

You are pretending that this is something that anyone but a few crackpots ever alleged. The mainstream right wing media didn't give it one second's credence. Some old lady stands up in a town hall meeting, and is immediately put in her place by McCain, and your harping all over it?

Communism, Fascism and Socialism, all at the same time (because apparently these things are not mutually exclusive >.<)

Why do you object to that? Your side said those things about Bush - Fascism, Naziism, totalitarianism, dictator, king - etc. Does the argument and debate only have to be civil when it comes to your guy?

abound among the teabaggers,

Sure do. I agree. The teabaggers call him a marxist and a communist all the time. They don't tie a noose around his neck though and set him on fire, like the liberals did of Bush, do they?

and it doesn't matter how much you defend someone's "right to their opinion"- if they're wrong, they're wrong, and these people are so full of fucking shit it's unbelievable.

Are you referring to the leftist "Bush Lied People Died" people who set fire to his effigy and falsely claimed he was a Nazi and a fascist? Those guys? Or, is it just the ones you disagree with?

If you're wrong, you're wrong. And, you are wrong about the Iraq War being illegal. Like I said above, I'll debate you on that any day of the week. Start the thread and post your argument as to how and why the war is and was illegal, and please specify whether you think it is still illegal and why.

[Trolldor]

You know what I see in the uneducated right-wing masses? Severe levels of illiteracy, an incredibly flawed understanding of history and the wilful submission to a fabricated history. That is far more threatening than any twenty-something year old's badly-drawn placard.
And it's proved true time and time again.

[Rum]

Do people forget what politics is about? The so called 'left wing' arose out of the desire for oppressed people - millions of them, to escape the shackles of capitalism.

Of course it was violent. It had to be as nobody was giving up power without a struggle. Arguably the main reason we developed liberal democracies in Europe was because the owners of capital had to liberalise or else face the sort of revolution Russia had..we came close in several countries.

But neither 'side' is any more or less prone to violence in my book. They 'struggle' with each other as the power dynamics change. You get the brown shirts on the one hand and the black flag on the other.

[MissingNo.]

C.E.S., you think the "Peace Movement" was violent? Or are you just making this up as you go along?

He's 20. How well do you think he really understands the world around him?

We need more graphic novels on historical matters.

Joe Sacco at your service! I could have sworn CES admitted he isn't really twenty in another thread...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm invoking Paco's Law at this point!

[MissingNo.]

My google search query turned up dry so I have to ask: what is Paco's Law?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

My google search query turned up dry so I have to ask: what is Paco's Law?

"This is the wrong forum for bluffing. "

[Coito ergo sum]

And, left wingers are far more prone to use violence over the last 50 years than right leaning folks.

Unmitigated bullshit.

Concur. Maybe we should start talking about American militias, white supremacists, pro-life activists, Timothy McVeigh, etc. There's no shortage of information on how violent the right has been.

The difference is that nobody in mainstream politics defends those people....

Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and the Armed Forces for Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN) (bombings and kidnappings)....Animal Liberation Front... socialist Black Blocs and others that riot and attack people and property during antiglobalization protests... Earth Liberation Front (firebombing construction sites, logging companies, car dealerships and food science labs).

Will you attribute the left wing groups to the mainstream left, too?