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Bamboozled: Two Recent Biographies Shed New Light on Liberal Icons (Gandhi and Malcom X)
Pajamas Media ^ | 5/8/2011 | John Boot

Posted on 05/11/2011 10:22:57 AM PDT by mojito

Did you hear that ripping sound? Two liberal icons known by their silly stage names — Mahatma Gandhi and Malcolm X — have just been torn down from their sanctified perches thanks to a pair of massively researched but finally damning new biographies.

Both men, it turns out, were at pains to take on phony identities. Each hid his homosexuality, each was racist, each took pains to manufacture favorable coverage, each was driven by petty hatreds instead of shining ideals — each of these supposedly principled figures was an out-and-out phony.

Perhaps the most delicious irony of this myth-busting is that writers with impeccable liberal credentials are the ones who are doing the exposing — and implicitly rebuking the generations of journalists who actively participated in the distortion and exaggeration.

[....]

Mohandas Gandhi also successfully hid his homosexuality — his biographer Joseph Lelyveld, former editor of The New York Times, writes in his admiring new book Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India that the Indian leader dumped his wife to have an affair with a German bodybuilder, Hermann Kallenbach. “How completely you have taken possession of my body,” he wrote to Kallenbach. Gandhi even said that Vaseline was “a constant reminder” of his boyfriend.

(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History; Society
KEYWORDS: gandhi; gayndi; malcolmx; malcomx; pages
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To: Siena Dreaming

Churchill also faced accusations of being homosexuality. He was not a homosexual but even if he was it has nothing to do with whether or not he was a great man, which he was.


21 posted on 05/11/2011 11:19:39 AM PDT by bkepley
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To: mojito

Turn about’s fair play... Liberals love taking down the founding fathers, Jesus, Lincoln etc... Anyone with a decent bone in his body is fodder for liberal hatred. The major difference here is our side uses facts - their side makes it up...


22 posted on 05/11/2011 11:20:26 AM PDT by GOPJ (Osama bin SEALed - http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2009/05/terrifying-brilliance-of-islam.html)
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To: bkepley

>Churchill also faced accusations of being homosexuality

Churchill also faced accusations of being homosexual.

That’s what happens when you change words without re-reading.


23 posted on 05/11/2011 11:21:03 AM PDT by bkepley
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To: mojito

‘Both men, it turns out, were at pains to take on phony identities. Each hid his homosexuality, each was racist, each took pains to manufacture favorable coverage, each was driven by petty hatreds instead of shining ideals — each of these supposedly principled figures was an out-and-out phony.’

This could easily describe Jug Ears....


24 posted on 05/11/2011 11:21:14 AM PDT by 556x45
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To: allmendream

I don’t see anything odd about Gandhi’s German bodybuilder secret lover being born Jewish, yet Gandhi being accused of being anti Semitic.


25 posted on 05/11/2011 11:22:27 AM PDT by ansel12 ( JIM DEMINT "I believe [Palins] done more for the Republican Party than anyone since Ronald Reagan")
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To: bkepley
Gandhi was a blatant socialist.
26 posted on 05/11/2011 11:26:40 AM PDT by Siena Dreaming
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To: ansel12
I find it interesting that they apparently didn't think it at all relevant and chose to describe the guy as “German”.

There are tell-tail signs of someone attempting to construct the narrative they want out of the facts they have.

Between Marcus Garvey and the Jewish antisemite homo lover - it is obvious this writer has an agenda - and picked his “facts” to coincide with the story he wanted to tell from the outset.

27 posted on 05/11/2011 11:28:09 AM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: bkepley
Churchill also faced accusations of being homosexuality.

Bet you he never told a man he was a slave to his body or said that the male-female sexual act disgusted him.

And, yes, homosexuality DOES reveal greatly flawed character.

28 posted on 05/11/2011 11:30:48 AM PDT by Siena Dreaming
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To: Siena Dreaming

>Gandhi was a blatant socialist.

Of course he was. That’s not exactly shocking.


29 posted on 05/11/2011 11:32:10 AM PDT by bkepley
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To: mojito

Historians love to play the game of “Find the Gay in the History Book”.

You name the guy, you can find someone claiming he was gay.


30 posted on 05/11/2011 11:33:21 AM PDT by DManA
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To: bkepley
I don't think of socialists as "great men". Guess that's just me.
31 posted on 05/11/2011 11:34:10 AM PDT by Siena Dreaming
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To: Siena Dreaming
And, yes, homosexuality DOES reveal greatly flawed character.

Whether that's true it doesn't tell me if he was a great man or not. They say Ceasar had some homosexual flings and I don't think anyone doubts that Socrates did. I just think this kind of accusation is incredibly childish. If you can't argue the facts, argue the sexual preferences.

32 posted on 05/11/2011 11:35:55 AM PDT by bkepley
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To: bkepley
I believe that homosexuality shows huge flaws.

However, that's not the sole reason I think negatively of Gandhi. The socialism is the clincher.

33 posted on 05/11/2011 11:38:12 AM PDT by Siena Dreaming
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To: allmendream

I sure don’t see the issue, you seem to think that his secret homosexual lover being Jewish proves that he could not have a problem with Jews as a group.

I guess that would apply to all bigots in your mind. A Muslim or Jewish bigot that has had a lover from the other group, a black militant or white racist that has had a secret lover from the other race.

I don’t think the author left anything out that disagrees with the claim that Gandhi was anti-Semitic.


34 posted on 05/11/2011 11:38:45 AM PDT by ansel12 ( JIM DEMINT "I believe [Palins] done more for the Republican Party than anyone since Ronald Reagan")
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To: ansel12

I didn’t take that stance one bit.

I took that stance that by leaving it out the author made obvious his agenda. He wanted to tell a story and he was DAMNED if including a fact that might ‘muddy the water’ of his narrative was going to stand in his way.

Along with the clearly an outright lie that X’s book didn’t mention his father’s adherence to Marcus Garvey.

How many lies do you need to hear before you dismiss the source as being less than truthful?


35 posted on 05/11/2011 11:45:44 AM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: allmendream

So far you have that he got the Marcus Garvey thing wrong, other than that you just keep blowing hot air, and I don’t know why.


36 posted on 05/11/2011 11:49:34 AM PDT by ansel12 ( JIM DEMINT "I believe [Palins] done more for the Republican Party than anyone since Ronald Reagan")
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To: fr_freak
I am very skeptical of revisionist histories, especially those which paint historical figures as homosexual. It’s entirely plausible that Ghandi wasn’t quite a saint, and Malcom X’s background of racial hatred is no secret, but trying to paint them both as gay? That smacks of the effort to say Abraham Lincoln was gay.

This.
37 posted on 05/11/2011 11:52:12 AM PDT by Yet_Again
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To: ansel12

How many lies does it take?

For me, one is enough.


38 posted on 05/11/2011 11:52:51 AM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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To: allmendream

You seem to have something burning in you about this negative tale of two liberal heroes, but you won’t tell us what it is.

What is ‘the rest of the story’?


39 posted on 05/11/2011 12:08:03 PM PDT by ansel12 ( JIM DEMINT "I believe [Palins] done more for the Republican Party than anyone since Ronald Reagan")
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To: ansel12
Nice try to make this about me.

What is YOUR fanatical interest in defending this piece of garbage writing? What is your agenda? You like lies so long as you feel they serve ‘the greater good’.

Any lie is A-OK so long as it is about a liberal - and don't you dare point out it is a lie or you are a liberal too?

Really?

As for either of these guys being my “heroes”, that is idiocy.

I read Malcolm X's book in High School - I found it interesting - and thought then - as now - that Black Muslims/Black Islam is as nutty as Scientology and as murderous and reactionary as actual Islam.

As for Gandhi - I don't know too much about the guy - never read a book on him. I do know he thought he was clever and when asked what he thought about Western Civilization he quipped something along the lines of....

“I think it would be a good idea”.

40 posted on 05/11/2011 12:14:46 PM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send the GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism.)
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