George Kennan vs. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Kristol, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Coulter
from Walter C. Uhler.com
Posted 7 May 2007
George Kennan's 15 May 1953 speech at the University of Notre Dame was delivered at a time, when the right-wing anti-communist hysteria, inflamed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was at its peak. Yet, it courageously exposed the demagogic McCarthyites for the ignorant, self-righteous, fear-mongering extremists they were. Thus, one can hardly avoid the conclusion that John Lukacs appended the speech to his new book about George Kennan, because it has much to teach us about courage during the current campaign of fear orchestrated by today's American equally self-righteous right-wing extremists.
Kennan excoriated McCarthyism's "alarmed and exercized anti-communism," as "an anti-communism of a quite special variety, bearing an air of excited discovery and proprietorship, as though no one had ever known before that there was a communist danger, as though no one had ever thought about it and taken its measure, as though it had all begun about the year 1945 and these people were the first to learn of it."
President Bush behaved the same way, as if "alarmed and exercised" anti-terrorism rhetoric would enable him to hide his failures to prevent 9/11, notwithstanding numerous warnings about impending terrorist attacks. Attempting to gain proprietorship, Bush's numerous asinine assertions about the terrorists demonstrated that he didn't have a clue.
First, he ignorantly claimed: "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." Then he foolishly promised to "rout out terror wherever it may exist." [Woodward, p.73] More ominously, he would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them." [p. 30] Finally, he also promised to "rid the world of evil." [p. 67]
(Continued here.)
Posted 7 May 2007
George Kennan's 15 May 1953 speech at the University of Notre Dame was delivered at a time, when the right-wing anti-communist hysteria, inflamed by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was at its peak. Yet, it courageously exposed the demagogic McCarthyites for the ignorant, self-righteous, fear-mongering extremists they were. Thus, one can hardly avoid the conclusion that John Lukacs appended the speech to his new book about George Kennan, because it has much to teach us about courage during the current campaign of fear orchestrated by today's American equally self-righteous right-wing extremists.
Kennan excoriated McCarthyism's "alarmed and exercized anti-communism," as "an anti-communism of a quite special variety, bearing an air of excited discovery and proprietorship, as though no one had ever known before that there was a communist danger, as though no one had ever thought about it and taken its measure, as though it had all begun about the year 1945 and these people were the first to learn of it."
President Bush behaved the same way, as if "alarmed and exercised" anti-terrorism rhetoric would enable him to hide his failures to prevent 9/11, notwithstanding numerous warnings about impending terrorist attacks. Attempting to gain proprietorship, Bush's numerous asinine assertions about the terrorists demonstrated that he didn't have a clue.
First, he ignorantly claimed: "They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." Then he foolishly promised to "rout out terror wherever it may exist." [Woodward, p.73] More ominously, he would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them." [p. 30] Finally, he also promised to "rid the world of evil." [p. 67]
(Continued here.)
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