Wright Erratum
Michael C. Moynihan | April 30, 2008, 4:11pm
I'm largely uninterested in this never-ending Jeremiah Wright controversy, and I'll leave the debunking of his nutty National Press Club rant to others in the blogosphere. But there is one minor point that deserves a correction. According to Wright, his "congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while our government, through Ollie North and the Iran-Contra scandal, was supporting the Contras, who were killing the peasants and the Miskito Indians in those two countries."
I'm not sure I would be trumpeting my "solidarity" with the foul dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, but I suppose that's a matter of taste. It should be noted, though, that it was the Sandinista government that famously massacred truculent Miskito Indians, who then responded by fighting a prolonged guerilla war against the very government supported by liberation theologists like Wright. In 2007, The Independence Institute's Alvaro Vargas Llosa reminded playwright Harold Pinter of "the 1981 massacre of Miskito Indians on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast" after he praised the Sandinista government in his Nobel speech.
Under the guise of a literacy campaign, the Sandinistas, with the help of their Cuban cadres, tried to indoctrinate the Miskitos with Marxist ideology. But the independent-minded Indians refused to accept Sandinista control. Accusing them of supporting opposition groups based in Honduras, Ortega's men killed as many as 50 Miskitos, imprisoned hundreds, and forcibly relocated many more.
Ragnell | May 1, 2008, 11:12am | #
"Oh, and btw, liberalism has most certainly not resulted in millions of deaths."
Surely you jest
If you refer to "Modern liberalism" this movement is not the liberalism of JFK and Truman.* The traditional "liberal" of the 50s and 60s is now an endangered species replaced by the "progressive" movement. Progressive ideology more closely matches that of Mao, Lenin, et al. This virulent form of socialism seeks to implement its goals by establishing an authoritarian form of government.**
The Socialist/Communist revolutions in the Soviet Union, China and Russia resulted in the deaths of millions of people. In the Soviet Union alone, the policies of Lenin and Stalin ended up with a death toll of over 20 million people before the start of WWII.
Please don't attempt that tiresome revisionist canard that attempts the nonsensical argument these socialist/communist regimes were really "right wing"; it doesn't hold up to the historical test. These ideologies consistently implement repression of any opposing political, religious and cultural beliefs.
Should progressive liberalism gain control of the USA, it would take off the mask to reveal itself as yet another Castro, Hugo Chavez; Stalinesque-style movement which would immediately shut down any opposition media outlets and outlaw its political critics.
Ever since the early 20th century; it’s been the same old, tired propaganda.
*political labels often change their meaning over time. For example, look at liberals in the early 19th century- they promoted total freedom from any state involvement with industry; including no child labor laws, minimum wage laws or working conditions standards--not what you'd expect from the "liberal" label.
A "liberal" democrat of the 1960's would be re-defined today as a moderate or conservative. Certainly liberal democratic presidents FDR, Truman, JFK and LBK were all strong foreign policy hawks. I'd say FDR and Truman, both Democratic liberals and presidents during WWII could be held responsible the deaths of millions of enemy German and Japanese soldiers, not to mention Hiroshima. Most Americans consider WII a moral war; but those "liberals" lead a fight where millions died.
All four "liberal" presidents would have approved the Iraq War, and would be horrified at the current Democratic Party leadership. These "liberal" presidents would be spurned by today's "liberals" or "progressive".
**For an example of "progressive" methods one need look no further that the model found in the current political repression enforced on university campuses.
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