ALLEN BERNARD WEST is a controversial former Lt. Colonel in the United States Army, who retired under investigation for torture, having been fined $5000 by the Army.
This week, Rep. ALLEN BERNARD WEST reportedly said: “If Joseph Goebbels was around, he’d be very proud of the Democrat[ic] Party, because they have an incredible propaganda machine,” West told reporters during House votes Thursday afternoon. “Let’s be honest, you know, some of the people in the media are complicit with this and enabling them to get that type of message out.” This is not the first time that Tea Party supported reprobate ALAN WEST has put his foot in his mouth, and shown his unsuitability for public office.
"There are three things which are real; God, Human Folly and Laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension so we must do what we can with the third." (Quoted by John F. Kennedy, from Tales of the Ramayana, as told by Aubrey Menon, Scribners, 1954, p. 276)
U.S. Representative ALLEN BERNARD WEST is not the only lying Tea Party hack to use hateful language.
Lying is the one-percenters’ only way of pulling the wool over people’s eyes. There are more of us than there are of them. The 1% can only control the 99% if they propagandize us. The 1% are devious, controlling narcissists. Florida Governor RICHARD SCOTT got elected by spending $78,000,000 of his own money on hatred, including trash-talking ads on television talking about a Mosque in Manhattan – something utterly unrelated to the duties of Florida’s Governor. SCOTT appealed to the Ku Klux Klan vote – as my late friend, KKK-buster Stetson Kennedy told me, the KKK members have now transmogrified into Republicans and Tea Party members.
For example, appearing before our St. Johns County Commission on November 1st – a date that will live in infamy –St. Augustine Tea Party member MARTIN MILLER actually compared me to Joseph Goebbels – and Adolf Hitler – for daring to support a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. Others repeated the Lashon hora (blood libel in Hebrew).
Not one (1) St. Johns County Commissioner dared call MARTIN MILLER out of order or invoke the St. Johns County Commission’s Civility Rule when he compared me to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels. Not one!
Every single one -- all five St. Johns County Commissioners --- are currently registered Republicans. Every single one. Every single one of them either swallowed their pride (or clicked their heels) and asked no questions, voting against the St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore on November 1, 2011. Not one St. Johns County Commissioner bothered to ask one single solitary question of Robin Nadeau, Faye Armitage, Sarah Bailey, John Brendle or me. Shame on them! Don’t worry, we will be back! We shall overcome!
As President Kennedy said, in Profiles in Courage, his Pulitzer Prize winning history book: “… in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'hold office'; everyone of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve." [p. 265]
Courageous German Pastor Martin Niemoller was put in a concentration camp, but he later condemned his own silence during the Nazi era:
First they came after the Communists. I was not a Communist, so I did not object.
Then they came after the Jews. I was not a Jew, so I did not object.
Then they came after the trade unionists. I was not a trade unionist, so I did not object.
Then they came after the Catholics. I was not a Catholic, so I did not object.
And then they came after me, and there was no one left to object.
The next time a lying Tea Party person commits Lashon hora at St. Johns County Commission, I hope that County Commission Chairman Mark P. Miner (an Iraq veteran), will do something about it.
Courage!
Lies told about progressives by the ilk of ALLEN BERNARD WEST and MARTIN MILLER are intended to chill, coerce and restrain protected activity. They are intended to demean, degrade and libel political opponents. The lying liars’ only hope is to make politics so stinky that people stay away, and let reactionaries rule.
Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen.
ALLEN BERNARD WEST and MARTIN MILLER are reckless, feckless thugs – two peas in a pod – cognitive misers who know not that they know not that they know not.
Their Lashon hora is in the spirit of the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, and political arachnid apparatchiks like LEE ATWATER, KARL ROVE AND ROGER EUGENE AILES. What ails them? I am not a psychiatrist, but certain terms come to mind: hierarchical, authoritarian, narcissistic, borderline personality.
ALLEN BERNARD WEST’s mindless, mendacious attack-dog style of politics reminds me of nasty ‘ole Newt Gingrich, who said in 1994 that Republicans could not win the House of Representatives without “demonizing” Democrats.”
As President William Jefferson Clinton said in his Second Inaugural, “Nothing great was ever accomplished by being small.”
It trivializes the Holocaust to compare loyal Americans to Nazis. How insensitive.
It cheapens public debate to compare progressives to Communists. How illogical.
It cheapens public debate to compare progressives to Nazis. How disrespectful.
It insults everyone’s intelligence to compare someone to Adolf Hitler simply for being a guy who loves St. Augustine and wants to see it honored with a St. Augustine National Historical Park and National Seashore. How trite.
To ALLEN BERNARD WEST and MARTIN MILLER: Don’t even think about calling yourselves “Christians” until you apologize. We see right through y’all – you appear to be dybbuks and energumen. WEST and MILLER don’t know Christ, who preached love, and who was neither a Republican, a liar, a right-winger, a hater, a bigot, a narcissist or a homophobe .
Haters like ALLEN BERNARD WEST and MARTIN MILLER contribute nothing to our country.
Republican President Theodore Roosevelt said, 'The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena - whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions - and spends himself in a worthy cause - who at best if he wins knows the thrills of high achievement - and if he fails at least fails while daring greatly - so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.'" (Teddy Roosevelt’s Speech, "Citizenship in a Republic," The Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910).
President John F. Kennedy never got to deliver the speech he had prepared for the Dallas Citizens Council at the Trade Mart in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, the day he was martyred. In that undelivered speech, JFK would have said, “We in this country, in this generation, are- by destiny rather than choice- the watchmen on the walls of world freedom." JFK’s prepared remarks from that day also declare for all time:
Voices are being heard in the land, he said, "voices preaching doctrines wholly unrelated to reality…. doctrines which apparently assume that … vituperation is as good as victory and that peace is a sign of weakness."
"We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will 'talk sense to the American people.' But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense."
To ALLEN BERNARD WEST, MARTIN MILLER and other mockers – men of mendacity and ill will -- who trivialize the Holocaust with imputations of Nazism to Democrats -- it is time for you to stop talking trash and “nonsense. “
We wear your scorn as a badge of honor.
In the words with which Senator Robert F. Kennedy once inscribed his book to segregationist U.S. Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi, “Repent now, there’s still time!”
In the words of JFK’s undelivered last address:
We in this country, in this generation, are--by destiny rather than choice--the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of "peace on earth, good will toward men." That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: "except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
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