The fullpage ad for World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
received a reponses from many quarters of society, creating controversy
and giving many people heart that an organized political movement is
demanding that Bush step down. Check out some of the response, positive
and negative, below. All this shows the tremendous potential to impact
and galvanize millions with the Call to drive out the Bush regime and
the upcoming plans for protests around Bush’s State of the Union
address in January.
Why I Signed the Call: Check out statements from Naomi
Wallace, Camilo Mejia, and Michael Berg on why they signed the Call
which appeared in the New York Times, available on our “Voice Speaking
Out” page. [click here]
Tom Duane goes on “The O’Reilly Factor” on occassion of full-page World Can’t Wait ad in NY Times: Check out a rough transcript of the show, as well as responses from voices within the movement. [click here]
Conservative Columnist William F. Buckley Jr. writes about World
Can’t Wait, it’s demand that Bush step down, and plans for protesting
the State of the Union. [click here]
Christian fundamentalist theocrat Louis Sheldon of the
Traditional Values Coalition responds to NY Times ad, and Mark James
from the World Can’t Wait national steering committee replies. [click here]
By Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition
For Publication On Or After
December 13, 2005
Washington, DC ( The war on Christianity and Christians just got hotter this week with the publishing of a full-page ad in the New York Times by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
The ad’s headline reads: ‘The World Can’t Wait ( Drive Out The Bush Regime!’ And the text of the ad is a litany of hate- and lie-filled statements against President Bush and Christians.
The ad attacks Christians and Christianity.
It states: ‘Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy,
where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will
rule.’
The ad also claims that Bush led us into war on the basis of lies about
weapons of mass destruction; and that Bush is like Adolf Hitler who is
setting up a fascist dictatorship as quickly as possible.
This delusional advertisement says that politicians should not seek
‘common ground with fascists and religious fanatics’ because such
efforts will ‘demobilize’ people from activism.
Nowhere in ‘The World Can’t Wait’ ad does it openly admit that this is a Revolutionary Communist Party
front group, but it is. The RCP’s web site says it is a
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization and one of its primary goals is to
‘liberate all of human expression and social relations from the weight
of thousands of years of traditional (oppressive) morality and
institutions.’
The RCP is clearly anti-Christian and anti-American in its orientation
and its overall objective is to overthrow our nation and establish a
communist dictatorship.
Yet who are the signers of this Maoist advertisement against President
Bush? If you guessed Hollywood actors, you’d be right. The usual gang
of trendy Hollywood leftists signed this ad: Ed Asner, Jane Fonda,
Martin Sheen, and Gabriel Byrne.
In addition, California’s leftist homosexual politicians also signed
it: state Senator Carole Migden, Assemblyman Mark Leno and others.
Homosexual activist organizations also signed this hate-filled ad: ACT
UP (New York City) and Queers for Economic Justice. Islamic group
leaders signed it: Islamic Circle of America, Imam Tabib Abdur-Rashid
of the Islamic Brotherhood mosque in New York, and others.
The list goes on, but it is important to see the coalition that has
formed: Islamists, Marxists, Hollywood Liberals, and Homosexual
activist groups ( all aligned with the Revolutionary Communist Party to
vilify President Bush, Christians, and the war against Islamic
terrorism.
This advertisement should serve as a serious wake-up call to
go-along-to-get-along Christians who think they can sit in their pews,
host pot luck dinners, play hand bells, and think everything will be
okay.
A dangerous Marxist/Leftist/Homosexual/Islamic coalition has formed (
and we’d better be willing to fight it with everything in our power.
These people are playing for keeps. Their hero, Mao Tse Tung is
estimated to have murdered upwards of 60 million people during his
reign of terror in China. Do we think we can escape such persecution if
we refuse to fight for what is right?
Reply from Mark James, World Can’t Wait national steering committee
Dear Rev. Sheldon,
In response to your letter, The War on Christianity, I would
like to set you and your followers straight on a few things.
The World Can’t Wait movement is not anti-Christian, look at
our endorsers. Also, Christianity is not
the same as theocracy, we are very definitely anti-theocracy. Christians want
the freedom to believe in God and Christ, Theocrats want the laws of the land
to be based on religious beliefs. Many
Christians, Jews, and Moslems believe strongly in the separation of Church and
State. They do not want another religious doctrine to determine the ‘norm’ with
regard to religious practice. We in World Can’t Wait don’t want religious
doctrine, especially not fundamentalist doctrine, to determine our civil rights.
The World Can’t Wait movement is a movement that includes
Communists, Gays, Christians, Moslems, Women, Democrats, (and sorry to inform
you) even disenchanted Republicans. This level of unity is what it will take to
drive out the Bush Regime. That is what
we all want. You clearly have problems
with these particular groups or communities.
And this comparison to Hitler, sorry Rev. but some people
look at the trajectory of the Bush agenda and think of Hitler and they are
right to do so. The Hitler of the early
thirties was not the same as the Hitler of 1940. His program evolved from bigotry and hate to
outright genocide. We have no intention
of waiting to find out what kind of genocide Bush has in mind. His secret
detentions, torture, and war on innocent people is plenty of warning, too much
actually.
You and your followers should consider this ad a serious
wake up call. We do plan on Driving out the Bush Regime and if some of your
followers wake up maybe they will join us.
-Mark James
William F. Buckley Jr.: Exit Eugene McCarthy
By William F. Buckley Jr.
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, December 14, 2005
The death of Eugene McCarthy marks the end of a cycle
and almost certainly the beginning of a new cycle with similar
hallmarks. The day McCarthy died, Virginia’s popular Democratic
governor, Mark Warner, signaled his candidacy for the presidency in
2008, a claim for the support of the Democratic center.
And a group that calls itself “World Can’t Wait”
(www.worldcantwait.org) announced a campaign to save the United States
from George Bush.
Sen. Eugene McCarthy had aspired to be president but,
after a while, in a formalistic way. He did run for president in 1968,
and by scoring 42 percent in the New Hampshire Democratic primary,
drove incumbent President Lyndon Johnson out of the race, and out of
town. But he did not himself win the nomination, let alone the
presidency.
McCarthy’s career was dotted by political
disappointments. He had hoped, in 1960, to be named if not presidential
candidate, then vice presidential. He delivered the most eloquent
nominating address in postwar history, asking the convention to name
yet again Adlai Stevenson. This was viewed as an oblique move against
Sen. John F. Kennedy.
The Kennedy forces looked on, unamused. They weren’t
afraid of McCarthy, whose oratorical cadenza was dazzling, but was not
seriously challenging to the prescribed outcome of the Los Angeles
convention, which was Kennedy bound. But there was some worry that
McCarthy’s oratory might have the effect of suggesting that the
nomination of John Kennedy had nothing whatever to do with democratic
idealism, quickly confirmed by the choice of Lyndon Johnson as running
mate. It was widely felt that the truly qualified dauphin of democratic
idealism, Adlai Stevenson, lingered only in the memory of McCarthy’s
nominating speech.
Eight years later JFK was dead and the Vietnam War
was raging. Eugene McCarthy went up to New Hampshire to see what he
could do to egg history on. He did a great deal, precipitating the
withdrawal of President Johnson. But that’s as far as it went.
The restless, demanding tone of dissatisfaction
expressed today by the radical left with such candidacies as Mark
Warner’s was prefigured in the Village Voice in 1968. There, Jack
Newfield, an ardent and exasperated ideological interventionist, wrote
about McCarthy: “Let the unhappy, brutal truth come out. Eugene
McCarthy’s campaign is a disaster. It has been run as if King
Constantine was the manager. McCarthy’s speeches are dull, vague, and
without either (life) or poetry. He is lazy and vain.”
What to do? “Start organizing now for disruption of the Democratic Convention in Chicago next August.”
That — disruption — is the goal, almost 40 years
later, of the World Can’t Wait people. In their full-page advertisement
they announced a “State of the Union Emergency,” and are calling for
demonstrations after the State of the Union Address by President Bush
in January.
They wish to unseat President Bush for his
“outrageous lies,” for his “murderous and utterly illegitimate war in
Iraq,” for “openly torturing people,” for working for the establishment
of “a theocracy,” and for enshrining “greed, bigotry, intolerance and
ignorance.”
“People look at all this and think of Hitler — and
they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically
remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to
come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.”
Who endorses such stuff? The homeless radicals, of
course (Queers for Economic Justice, ACT UP New York City, the National
Lawyers Guild). But also a few recognizable names: Jane Fonda, Ed
Begley Jr., Jonathan Kozol, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Grace Paley, Studs
Terkel, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker. Roughly speaking, the
surviving cadre of people who deplored McCarthyism. It is wrong to
accuse fellow Americans of being soft on communism, but OK to accuse
them of being soft on Hitler.
The Mark Warners in the Democratic Party will
probably prevail, as Hubert Humphrey prevailed over the insurgencies of
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. But in 1968 the play was set with
tight schedules. New Hampshire to the national conventions to Election
Day was nine months. The comparable schedule this time around will take
almost two years — from Bush’s State of the Union Address to Election
Day 2008. Can the world wait?
12/12: In response to New York Times ad from World Can’t Wait, Fox’s “O’Reilly Factor”
began with an attack on The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush
Regime, featuring this in its “talking points” and as its top story.
Guests on this segment of the O’Reilly show were New York State Senator and ad signer Tom Duane, and
self-described “battering ram” for the right-wing David Horowitz. Below
are responses from voices within the movement to drive out the Bush
regime. Send us your thoughts to feedback@worldcantwait.org, and indicate whether we can post them on our website.
Click here for a rough transcript of “The O’Reilly Factor”, 12/12.
Responses to O’Reilly’s attack on World Can’t Wait (more to come):
-
“O’Reilly Justifies Torture, Slanders
Communists, and Gets Riled Up About The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out
the Bush Regime’s New York Times Ad” by Sunsara Taylor [below]
-
Response from Stanley Rogouski [below]
-
“SPIN CYCLE”by Daniel Meltzer [below] Press Release from World Can’t Wait [click here]
-
Press Release from World Can’t Wait [click here]
Rough transcript of “The O’Reilly Factor”, 12/12:
The communists are back) Uh-Oh, and they are urging Americans
to shout down President Bush’s State of the Union address. We’ll have details)
Hi I’m Bill O’Reilly, thank you for watching us tonight.
Shouting down President Bush, that is the subject of this evening’s “Talking Points Memo.”
A
group called The World Can’t Wait is urging Americans to disrupt
President Bush’s State of the Union address next month. In a full page
in The New York Times today, the group says, “Just as Bush starts to
speak, everywhere we BRING THE NOISE. In a cacophony of sound we will
drown out his address.”
Very
nice. This coming on the heels of Hillary Clinton being shouted down in
Chicago and Ann Coulter receiving the same treatment at the University
of Connecticut. Both women assaulted by far left radicals.
The
World Can’t Wait group was founded in part by the Revolutionary
Communist Party, if you can believe it. People who are actually rooting
for the USA to lose its place of prominence in the world. They think
this is an evil country.
The
ad goes on to say, “People look at [the Bush administration’s policies]
and think of Hitler – and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is
setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way,
and for generations to come.”
Now that kind of extremism is just stupid. But
the Third Reich allusions are interesting, because early in Hitler’s
rise to power, Nazi brown shirts did the same thing that World Can’t
Way and other radical extremists are doing now, disrupting speeches,
denying opposing points of view.
The
usual suspects sign the ad. People like Jane Fonda, Martin Sheen, Ed
Asner, Ed Begley, Jr., Cindy Sheehan and, of course, Ward Churchill.
What a line-up for the far left Olympics!
Ironically,
it is the far left which is actually helping the Bush administration.
Every time things get dicey for the White House, these loons step up
and remind everybody that no matter how many mistakes the
administration makes, there are far worse people lurking in the bushes,
no pun intended.
“Talking
Points” respects honestly held views, including those held by
Communists, socialists, and other radicals. This is America. They have
a right to believe what they want to believe. They don’t have the right
to infringe on the rights of others by trying to stop them from
speaking. And they don’t have the right to spread malicious propaganda
unchallenged.
The New York
Times should have rejected the ad as soon as the group compared the
administration to Hitler. That’s hate speech, not rational discourse.
The
World Can’t Wait is entitled to its opinion, but media organizations
are also entitled to set standards for advertising. FOX News would not
have run the ad.
And that’s “The Memo
Now for the top story tonight, two more views on this.
Joining us from Los Angeles,
David Horowitz, the head of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.
Here in the studio, New York State Senator Tom Duane, who
signed the World Can’t Wait ad.
I’m surprised you signed this ad. I know you.
You’re not some radical bomb-throwing nut.
TD: No, but I thought it was important to go on record as
saying that many of the things that the administration has done are illegal and
dangerous against international law and really pushing the country in a
direction that we should not be going.
BO: But you put yourself in the company of radical
communists, anti-Americans, people who are rooting for the terrorists to
win. You feel comfortable there?
TD: Well, there’s lots of establishment types who signed on
to that ad as well.
BO: Not too many.
TD: Well, but as you see, we did get some attention. We even got your attention.
BO: You got my attention, because I was surprised that a guy
like you would do that. I mean there are
other ways to protest what you feel is misguided policy on the part of the United
States of America without throwing in with
people who obviously aren’t democratic forces.
They don’t want democracy.
TD: But, Bill, people on the right throw themselves in with
people they probably wouldn’t ordinarily want to be completely associated
with. That’s not the issue. The issue is really about the things that
this administration has done. Illegally
going to war against Iraq.
BO: But, you know that’s not illegal.
TD: Lies about weapons of mass destruction.
BO: There’s not a world court in the country that’s accused
the Bush administration)
TD: The torture, mistreatment of prisoners, in fact the Bush
administration still will not go along with John McCain and say that we..
BO: They have a policy, they believe that coercive, coerced
interrogations can save us. But, look,
when you say the war is illegal)
TD: But that stuff is terrible and it’s illegal. It is illegal under international law and it
should be illegal under our laws.
BO: When you say that Bush went to war illegally in Iraq,
you are wrong because the United Nations mandate said that the first Gulf war
cease fire must be upheld or the United States
and all the other coalition partners could go back in. You certainly know that. You don’t sign a cease fire and allow the
enemy to disobey it. Come on.
TD: And yet the vast
majority of Coalition partners did not go into the second)
BO: That doesn’t mean it was illegal.
TD: Well, they felt
it was illegal under international law.
BO: They did not feel it was illegal. There isn’t one country in this world)
TD: There were no weapons of mass destruction there is no
way that
BO: that’s a debate for another day
TD: That’s what you should be debating every day.
BO: you shouldn’t be saying things that aren’t true. It was not
an illegal invasion to remove saddam Hussein
TD: We just disagree on that.
BO: but is was not, nobody in the world court is making that
accusation
BO: Now, Horowitz,
are you telling me this is a dangerous organization or just a bunch of
protesters.
DH: no this is a dangerous organization this is the
revolutionary communist party im amazed that the senator basically says that
bush is Hitler and is attempting to establish a fascist regime a theocratic Christian
regime these people attacked me on stage in Hollywood I was at a film festival
introducing a film and two of them rushed the stage and had to be wrestled to
the ground and thrown out they also demonstrated against me at bowling green university where they chanted
‘george bush and david horowitz gert out
of the way Christian fascist USA’ these are Maoists they wasn the
terrorists to win and and as somebody who has
a lot of experience with the left these people are already helping
Islamic radical groups who are declared enemies and they are self declared
enemies of America
If this is such a fringe group how can it be helping
al-queda?
DH well I didn’t say al queda they are in a coalition with
radical Islamic groups for example the Islamic circle of North America they
declared war that’s who these people are it’s a disgrace that a democrat
anybody in the democratic party would support anything like this and of course
its completely delusional because they can obstruct speakerslike myself and ann
coulter and Michele malkin targeted by them on their website theyre not going
to get inside the US capital much less make noise during the state of the union
so that’s delusional they got a hundred seventy thousand dollars to pay for
this ad from people who’s names are on it we oughta have a point in America
where these people are beyond the fringe the jane fonda’s
But you don’t believe people senator shouting people down
TD: NO I don’t but I think this is in fact a symbolic
gesture shouting down no one is going to get into the capital and shout down president
Bush unless congressmen want to do that
BO: they shouted down david horowitz
TD: but the action this ad is calling for is for people to
make noise when the president makes his address just to show that there are
millions of Americans who disagree with him in fact as you know bill only 42%
of Americans think that bush is doing a good job so the other 60% have severe
questions about what is going on
BO: but I think if there is a poll question about how many people
like this group it would be two percent you and about six other people
TD well you know bill you cant just depend on what people
think about you I do want to just say one quick thing about, I don’t think that
what bush has done in any way rises to
the level of Hitler
BO you shouldn’t have put your name on this I hated to see
that
TD: However, I think that a wake up call is very important and
people need to pay attention to which way this country is going.
BO: David you have a last word real quick.
DH: Well the senator is lending credibility to fascists is
the problem and to America
haters and until the Democratic Party starts to draw a line its gonna be in a
lot of trouble they need to get back into the mainstream.
BO: Gentlemen, thanks very much very interesting.
O’Reilly Justifies Torture, Slanders
Communists, and Gets Riled Up About The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out
the Bush Regime’s New York Times Ad
by Sunsara Taylor
Incensed
by The World Can’t Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime’s full-page ad in
the New York Times demanding that Bush Step Down, O’Reilly brought on
New York State Senator and ad signer, Tom Duane, and self-proclaimed
‘battering ram’ of the extreme right wing, David Horowitz.
Tom Duane did a great job of repeatedly returning to the content of the Call, pointing out that the war on
O’Reilly
ranted that it is ‘stupid’ to say, as the ad does, ‘People look at [the
Bush administration’s policies] and think of Hitler and they are right
to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, for generations to come.’
Then, he goes on himself to immediately prove that there is nothing stupid about it:
O’Reilly demanded that the New York Times should have banned the ad!
He
acknowledged and upheld the Bush administration policy of torture (even
as people like Condi Rice claim they don’t do it): ‘They have a policy,
they believe that coercive, coerced interrogations can save us.’
In other words: Don’t call us Nazis, or we’ll ban and torture you!
BLURRING THE LINE BETWEEN PROTEST AND TERRORISM
But there’s more. Remember, an important part of Hitler’s rise was that ‘first they came for the communists…’
At
a time when political protest is increasingly being criminalized and a
new, stricter version of the Patriot Act was just approved, O’Reilly
set up the terms in a way that blurs the line between political
opposition and terrorism: ‘Is a dangerous organization or just a bunch
of protesters?’
Then, Horowitz takes it further: ‘This is a dangerous organization. This is the Revolutionary Communist Party.’
By
the time they are done, they have (like the president they both
support) fabricated links to so-called terrorist organizations and
attempted to re-categorize a Muslim charity as a terrorist group.
O’Reilly: ‘How can [the Revolutionary Communist Party] be helping Al-Qaeda?’
Horowitz: ‘Well I didn’t say Al-Qaeda. They are in a coalition with radical Islamic groups for example the Islamic Circle of North America.’
THE TRUTH
And, who is the Islamic Circle of North America? This
is a group that is raising money for earthquake victims, campaigning
against prejudice against Muslims in America, and, in response to the
bombings in the London subways said, ‘The Islamic Circle of North
America (ICNA) is shocked and horrified at the several attacks on the
people of London during the rush hour mass transit. We join everyone in condemning such acts of terror and senseless violence.’ Go find out more for yourself.
As
a supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party and one of the
initiators of The World Can’t Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime, one of
the things which motivated me was this kind of casting of all Arabs,
Muslims and South Asians into a category of automatic suspicion. I
also looked at the threats to women’s fundamental rights to birth
control and abortion, at the death and punishment that have been heaped
on the Iraqi people, at the driving attacks on science and reason, the
legitimization of torture, and the whole direction of this Bush regime
and I see a future that no one should want to live in!
I
believe that another world is possible, a world not immiserated and
endangered by the U.S.’s brutal drive for profit and global domination,
a world where men don’t dominate women, where whites don’t oppress
people of color, where a handful of capitalists don’t get rich while
more than half the planet lives on $2 a day, and where one country
doesn’t try to run the whole damn globe. I
understand that this will take a revolution and invite everyone to defy
O’Reilly and Horowitz and find out more about the liberating politics
and leadership of the Revolutionary Communist Party for your self by
checking out Revolution newspaper.
At
the same time, I understand that there are many who have different
visions of the world they would like to live in who are facing the same
urgent challenge that I am: unless we drive out this Bush regime and
create a political situation where the direction they are taking this
country and the world is reversed, none of our hopes for a better world
stand a chance. And, accomplishing this will take a coming together of many different people from many perspectives.
TO BE ATTACKED BY O’REILLY SHOWS YOU’RE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT
I think the fact that we have begun to do this is what really is driving O’Reilly and Horowitz crazy. The
fact is The World Can’t Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime has succeeded
in uniting a broad section of people, from prominent artists and
intellectuals, military families and recent soldiers, progressive
Democrats, thousands of high school students, religious leaders,
atheists, anarchists, revolutionary communists, even some Republicans
who voted for Bush, and some very brave Muslim organizations who are
acting in the face of severe intimidation. And,
we have done this at a time when, as Tom Duane pointed out, ‘As you
know, Bill, only 42% of Americans think that Bush is doing a good job. So the other 60% have severe questions about what is going on.’
O’Reilly’s
and Horowitz attempts to drive a wedge between the ‘reasonable
opposition’ and those they feel should not be allowed in the public
discourse is not a defense of that ‘reasonable opposition,’ but an
attempt to cripple and stop effective resistance.
Here, again, the comparison to Nazi Germany is apt. I recommend this article by Toby O’Ryan, Extreme History, Part 2: The Saga of Martin Niemoller, on
the lessons of Nazi Germany: the need to defend those who are first
under attack and of the reality that unless this is done the attacks
will only continue to broaden their scope.
As
Tom Duane said last night, it is ‘important to go on record as saying
that many of the things that the administration has done are illegal
and dangerous, against international law, and really pushing the
country in a direction that we should not be going.’
THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT – DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!
World Can’t Wait on “O’Reilly Factor” by Stanley Rogouski
Monday night on ‘The O’Reilly Factor,’ Bill O’Reilly
attempted to give right-wing extremist David Horowitz a platform to attack the
World Can’t Wait–Drive out the Bush Regime. But the performance both of them gave would best be
described by invoking the final speech of Macbeth, ‘full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.’
O’Reilly’s other guest last night was NY State Senator Tom
Duane, a signer of the World Can’t Wait call which appeared as a full page ad
in the New York Times on December 12th.
Duane kept a mature, low key tone as he repeatedly forced
O’Reilly and Horowitz to look at the New
York Times ad itself and address its points. The Bush regime is waging an
illegal and destructive war in
weapons of mass destruction that never materialized. Torture and extra-judicial
detentions are now commonplace. The Bush presidency is in league with religious
extremists.
Horowitz and O’Reilly had no answers. Instead, they
literally turned up the volume and tried to shout down Duane’s arguments or
divert the discussion into wild tangents only they seemed to understand.
Horowitz, a man well into middle-age, seemed more interested
in scoring points against college students he claims heckle him on campus than
he did in addressing the charge from the World Can’t Wait Call that the Bush
Regime ‘puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and
either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.’
O’Reilly accused groups like the World Can’t Wait of
threatening the free speech of right wing extremists like himself and Horowitz
then attacked the New York Times for running the World Can’t Wait’s paid ad! No
mention was made of Horowitz’s own long career threatening and harassing
college professors and students who won’t go along with his own narrow,
reactionary agenda or who exercise their first amendment rights and criticize
But you really had to watch The O’Reilly factor through to
the end to get the full irony of Bill O’Reilly’s bizarre performance. He
started the show off by quoting the World Can’t Wait’s claim that people look
at Bush and ‘think of Hitler and they are right to do so’. Then he said ‘now
that kind of extremism is stupid.’ And how did he end the show but with a long
rant full of barely coded anti-Semitic language reminiscent of Father Coughlin
and indeed, of Hitler, accusing liberal Democrats and secular humanists funded
by George Soros of waging a war on Christmas.
Yes, the language of the World Can’t Wait’s Call ‘extreme’
but that’s because it describes an extreme situation and an extremist
president. That a serious, mature, mainstream politician like Tom Duane would
be met with this kind of bizarre, ranting performance tells you just how much
cause for concern we really have. Even more disturbing yet was the way that
O’Reilly and Horowitz attempted to flatter Duane into turning against the very
group he came on the show to represent. While Duane very deftly brushed aside
the attempts of O’Reilly and Horowitz (both rabid supporters of the war in
Iraq) to drive a wedge between what they see as loyal opposition to the war and
what they see as opposition to the war that’s outside of the mainstream, we’ve
seen this many times before and will undoubtedly see it again.
Kudos to Tom Duane for not playing their game of divide and
conquer.
Matters were spinning out of control as usual on the
O’Reilly “No-Spin Zone” last night when the Grand Interrogator
attempted to take on the polished and proper Manhattan Assemblyman Tom Duane
for his support of THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT, DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME.
O’Reilly wasted no time looking in vain for the high ground,
not by brandishing a burning cross, but throwing around the dreaded
“C” word and sounding the alarm that the “Commies” are
back, while just incidentally allowing that sitting President George W. Bush
may have made plenty of mistakes (never mind that those “mistakes”
have cost thousands of lives at home and abroad so far), suggesting that the
Bungler-in-Chief is doing better than anyone else might under the circumstances.
Talk about faint praise!
Spinning like a Dervish himself, he stepped in it big time
by attacking WCW’s “bring the noise” strategy to “drown
out” the President’s State of the Union address next month as interfering
with the chief exec’s right to free speech. We imagine he would have similarly
lashed out at Abbey Hoffman’s attempt to levitate the Pentagon during the Viet
Nam war as attempted theft of government
property if he and Fox News had been around then. Fortunately they weren’t, and
the anti-war protesters eventually helped get us out of that
“mistake.”
O’Reilly pretends to be giving air time to opposing views,
but his own junior high brat tactic is to interrupt every response to his
questions and criticize and keep his chosen target on the defensive. Duane, to
his credit, emphatically and courageously made the key point that what the Bush
Administration has done and is doing in the war and with its treatment of
prisoners is patently in violation of American and international laws, and that
Bush and Co. lied to the Congress and the American people when they claimed
that this war was necessary, which clearly it wasn’t. Without his bully-boy
Republican majority to protect him, Bush the Younger would have been impeached
in a heartbeat two years ago.
The self-righteous O’Reilly noticeably switched tactics when
putting his questions to right wing whip wielder David Horowitz, asking him if
WCW is a “dangerous organization.” Talk about leading a witness.
Horowitz of course agreed, and went on to assert that WCW is in cahoots with
radical Islam, all without interruption by the attentive host, we might add.
Americans love to watch O’Reilly for the same reasons they
love to watch mud wrestling and those afternoon working class courtroom shows,
in which the defendants have egregiously bad hair and wardrobe and/or are of a
skin color other than white, that end up as often as not with someone throwing
a punch or a chair.
Bill O’Reilly is just a motormouth bourgeois bowler who
likes to set up people for causes he doesn’t agree with like bowling pins and
then hangs a twenty-pounder at them to try to knock them down. Or maybe he’s
just off his meds.
But he can keep bowling all he wants, because we have more
pin-setters than he has balls. Bourgeois bowling alley bullies only look good
in their own hood anyway. We speak truth to power.
He probably would have backed Joe McCarthy. But Gene was the
smarter and the better man.