Drinking from the Same Well? Or Just Convergent Hates?

US Source

"Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth. It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation, censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the Constitution through a paper shredder. Whom are we calling terrorists here?" -- Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 27

Syrian Source

"How can the U.S. claim itself to be the defender of justice, democracy and freedom and the staunch protector of human rights when it continues to mastermind hegemony, to perpetuate the law of the jungle, to back the forces of terrorism, occupation and aggressors and to validate Sharon's genocide against the Palestinians. Under current tragic and fatal circumstances as well as the flagrant and racist lexicon of Washington, no sane person is able to describe America's new democracy as human, passionate, good and progressive." -- R. Zain, Syrian daily Teshreen October 28, 2003 via MEMRI

US Source

"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people … support your revolution," Harry Belafonte to Hugo Chavez, January 8, 2006

Iranian Source

History abounds with examples of the unprincipled and the godless infidels and how they shed rivers of human blood in the insatiable greed to dominate other cultures and their rich natural resources.

It was only in the last Christian century that the world saw such blood-sucking megalomaniacs as Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin.

Kayhan International (Iran), in IRNA, April 5, 2003 via MEMRI.

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Which one is the enemy?

One of the interesting ironies of the current era is that even as the hatefilled self-loathing of the angry left speaks out and piles levels of rhetoric higher and higher, the values they believe in and represent are some of those which the people whose rhetoric they echo are some of the most reprehensible to those very same people. Sexism, homophobia, curtailment of personal freedom are some of the very things that Moslem conservatives are determined ought to be the standard of the day, and the West is a unmoral hedonistic wasteland. Ironically, the people who have moral values closest to the Jihadis are the ones most opposed to them for other reasons, while the ones most strident in their public echo of Muslim criticism of the US foreign policy and its relationship with Israel have a set of values most likely to be punished under Muslim legal codes.

The strange bedfellows of politics. If the Jihadis won, they would kick the American Left out of it's bed immediately, and after the words of divorce, would offer it the classic choice - convert or die...It really has no tolerance for political correctness, diversity as a moral virtue, freedom of choice on issues like moral behaviors, easy acceptance of other spiritualities, or the rights of women to be the unbridled people they are in America today.

Life can be stranger than fiction.

Yep, just call me blogpimp, but I thought I would share this particular piece...I've been noticing how, at times, it can be mighty hard to tell, without seeing the source, whether a piece of anti-American hate-filled spew is US or from the Middle Eastern press...and this is my comment on it.

Very interesting post. Have you sent it to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as a commentary on Barbara Kingsolver's historically ignorant screed? You should. And at the same time, you should send it to some radio talk show hosts in Milwaukee who might enjoy attacking the paper.

Congressman Billybob