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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial 07/13/01 note: for links to information resources, go to NewsBoom RIGHT-WING GRANOLA Sam Gibbons was right. Gibbons was a paratrooper who dropped into Normandy in the hours before D-Day in 1944. Figuring, correctly, that he stood a good chance of dying before the day was out, he jumped out of the C-47 Gooney Bird into the blackness of Nazi-occupied France with a can of G.I.-issue Schlitz stuffed into each jump boot. Like most of the paratroopers on June 6, 1944, he missed his drop zone. After almost breaking his leg on landing, he joined up with other stragglers to fight his way through german troops and join up with Allied forces near Utah Beach the next day. He later said nothing ever went down as smooth as that warm, foamy, metallic-tasting beer. Gibbons, jug-eared and raw-boned, returned home to North Florida and pursued a career in politics. He was repeatedly elected to Congress from his district. Almost a half-century to the day after he jumped into France, Gibbons--a Democrat--had an angry encounter with one of the young, sleek Sun Belt suburban burghers who had ridden into Washington with Newt Gingrich in 1994. He had had quite enough of the self-righteous subdivision country club styling gel screw-the-poor rhetoric he had been hearing in conference from this new breed of Republican. Gibbons narrowed his eyes and hissed, "You're the kind of assholes I fought World War Two against." Gibbons lost his next election. It seems the like-minded homefolks who supported the New Right didn't appreciate being compared to Nazis. Ah, but the truth hurts. Herewith, a catalogue of some of the types that make up the Fox News Channel's audience: * The Franco Phalangists. Francisco Franco, long before he was still dead, rose to power as Spain's right-wing dictator with the help of religious conservatives and Adolf Hitler. The religious folk supplied the philosophy, Adolf supplied the weapons. Christian conservatives are the direct descendents of the Phlange movement. Their world view is super--superstitious and supernatural. To them, moral and political philosophy ends with Leviticus; * The Goebells Big-Liers. Josef Goebells, Hitler's minister of propaganda, refined the Big Lie technique--repeat a lie enough and it becomes accepted as fact. This pretty well explains right-wing talk radio and its audience; * The Himmler Racists. Heinrich Himmler is credited with being the first one to come up with the Final Solution. The David Duke wing of conservatism borrows a lot from the Third Reich's theories of racial purity; * The Munich Nationalists. The brown shirts who tramped through the streets of Munich from the beer halls in Hitler's early days were demanding the return of Greater Germany. The nationalist America-first-and-last wing of conservatism spearheaded by Pat Buchanan is the great-grandson of the beer-hall putschers. * The Heydrich Darwinists. Reinhard Heydrich wrote the early Nazi book on getting rid of cripples, homosexuals, and under-acheivers. Untermenschen, he called them--subhumans. The modern survival-of-the-fittest conservatives nod sagely in agreement. * The Farben Business School. IG Farben was the German conglomorate that profited handsomely from the Third Reich. From chemicals to steel, their industrial muscle was provided by slave labor and a tacit willingness to go along with Hitler because it was good for business. They were rewarded with lower taxes and no regulation, aside from purging Jews, homosexuals, Slavs, and others. Sound familiar? If past is prologue, all we have to do is wait for the Reichstag--sorry--the capitol to catch fire, and have Drudge, Limbaugh, and Fox blame the Jews--sorry--liberals. Join the Discussion |
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