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Choose not to hate (warning: toxic)
Firedog Lake ^ | 8/1/07 | Smith

Posted on 08/01/2007 10:16:30 AM PDT by pabianice

Superb political reporter and sometime blogger Rick Perlstein recently posted this:

Shortly before she died, my grandmother—one of the people, naturally, I loved the most in the world—broke my heart. Celia Perlstein, like most of our grandparents, didn’t get out much in her final years; in fact, for the last few years of her life, I’m not sure she got out of her old folks home at all. I don’t think she really wanted to. She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.

I’d look out of her eighth floor picture window, down at the scene she saw every day, half expecting to find that nightmare landscape before me. Nope: same as always, the brightly colored sailboats on Lake Michigan, kids and their parents feeding the ducks (Grandma used to take me to feed the ducks), happy, strolling Milwaukee couples—paradise. Where was she getting these fantasies?

One evening’s visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O’Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.

What he said. Watch the video. Read the rest.

If “the arc of history bends toward justice,” it’s only because people got up off their behinds and started bending it for themselves. Moral progress isn’t something we can count on the rest of the world to take care of for us. If you want to live in a world in which multimillionaire perverts pile up ever-higher fortunes by encouraging Americans to hate and fear one another, simply do nothing. If you want a better world, start thinking about how to make this stuff stop.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: loonyleft; oreilly; perlstein
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It's difficult to know where to go from here. Professional haters condemning others of their own crimes through -- I don't know -- projection? A sizable proportion of the American electorate that is either blind or clinically insane or -- what? but so full of hatred that it threatens to engulf not just them but all of us?
1 posted on 08/01/2007 10:16:36 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: pabianice
She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door...

I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.

So...does this make it sound like the author is actually admitting to being a far left Democrat out to steal her social security, or a turbaned terrorist? Cause that's sure what it sounds like to me.

2 posted on 08/01/2007 10:25:13 AM PDT by The Blitherer (What would a Free Man do?)
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To: pabianice

ROTFL! This is too funny.


3 posted on 08/01/2007 10:26:49 AM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: pabianice

There’s nothing like listening to a man smear his own Grandmother publicly after her death. Indeed, nothing says “Love” like a man writing an article about his Grandmother, using her full real name, while mocking and castigating her for her beliefs and choices. It is especially telling to see how Mr. Perlstein revels in his revulsion of his Grandmother, never telling us what good she did, but only what he hated about her. Impressive.

From now on, when someone searches the name of Celia Perlstein online, what they will find is not a tribute to a woman who was loved by her grandson - instead, they will find hateful screed, written in venom, hovering over her body like a vulture. This is the way of the left - to hate that which loved you, to devestate the memory of good, and to destroy the works of other’s hands...

For Rick Perlstein, hate IS a family value.


4 posted on 08/01/2007 10:29:00 AM PDT by dandelion
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To: pabianice
 

I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.

 

 

5 posted on 08/01/2007 10:29:10 AM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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To: pabianice
FireDogLake?

That was all I needed to see.

6 posted on 08/01/2007 10:30:11 AM PDT by BallyBill (Serial Hit-N-Run poster)
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To: dandelion; EarthBound

BTTT!


7 posted on 08/01/2007 10:31:22 AM PDT by MacDorcha (We have been at war with this mindset since before the Socratic method was borne.)
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To: pabianice

Somebody throw this worthless union of sperm and egg a crying towel!


8 posted on 08/01/2007 10:31:50 AM PDT by NRA1995 (To Congress and Mr. President: This is OUR country, and don't you forget it!)
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To: pabianice

If you go to link it’s even wierder. This is all based on O’Riley’s crusade against the Kos as a hate site. Don’t try to make sense out of it - it doesn’t.


9 posted on 08/01/2007 10:32:30 AM PDT by joebuck
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To: pabianice
Yeah, Grandma should turn off O'Reilly and watch Keith Olbermann instead. That way she could learn about far-far-far-rightists out to steal her Social Security, businesses pouring arsenic into the ground water and George Bush planting demolition charges in the World Trade Center.
10 posted on 08/01/2007 10:33:18 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (May the heirs of Charles Martel and Jan Sobieski rise up again to defend Europe.)
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To: dandelion

Personally, I’m suspicious of the veracity of his little tale.


11 posted on 08/01/2007 10:35:18 AM PDT by jpl (Dear Al Gore: it's 3:00 A.M., do you know where your drug addicted son is?)
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To: pabianice
One evening’s visit, all became clear. She gestured at the blaring TV set. The excruciating grandma-volume was even more excruciating than usual, because she was visiting with her best TV friend. She told me how much she adored Bill O’Reilly. My wife and I cringed. Watching our latter-day Joe McCarthy on TV every night, she had learned, late in life—for this development was entirely new—how to hate her fellow Americans. I almost cried, because one of the people she was learning how to hate was me.

Now let me get this straight: Bill O'Reilly is a "latter-day Joe McCarthy," according to the author, Rick Perlstein.

Yet Perlstein--who throws around such language promiscuously--is not himself a hater?

Personally, I have never found anything about Bill O'Reilly that would fit any reasonable definition of a hater.

Perlstein, on the other hand, is far more probblematical...

12 posted on 08/01/2007 10:42:09 AM PDT by AmericanExceptionalist (Democrats believe in discussing the full spectrum of ideas, all the way from far left to center-left)
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To: pabianice
" I almost cried,..."

Something tells me this ninnie cries a lot.

13 posted on 08/01/2007 10:49:58 AM PDT by Redbob (WWJBD -"What would Jack Bauer do?")
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To: jpl
"Personally, I’m suspicious of the veracity of his little tale."

Me too;
I'll bet he didn't even HAVE a grandma!

14 posted on 08/01/2007 10:52:59 AM PDT by Redbob (WWJBD -"What would Jack Bauer do?")
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To: pabianice

“”....for the last few years of her life, I’m not sure she got out of her old folks home at all.”””

Probably why she found some comfort in Bill O’Reilly - at least he ‘was looking out for her’....while the dipsheet grandson was not sharing his life with her...taking her for walks, drives, visits?????

DUH!


15 posted on 08/01/2007 10:54:17 AM PDT by sodpoodle ( Despair - man's surrender. Laughter - God's redemption)
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To: All
I thought Mr. Perlstein was still a Freeper but I could not find RickPerlstein, the poster; I'm sure he used his name to post.

I condole with him in his loss and know the feeling having lost grandparents and parents.

Yes, Mr. O'Reilly is like the famous senator; to wit, Mr. O'Reilly is being made the issue rather than answer the issues he raises.

McCarthy and the CP/USA-coined word, McCarthyism, became the issue in the 1950's and internal threats to national security were forgotten -- except by tens of millions of us Americans. We were not so "offended" by the Senator's lack of couth.

I wanted Mr. Perlstein to see my post hoping he could explain why the left has nothing but contempt and contumely 99+ percent of time. That ain't no way to dialogue. That's, in their own word, McCarthyism.

16 posted on 08/01/2007 11:11:18 AM PDT by WilliamofCarmichael (If modern America's Man on Horseback is out there, Get on the damn horse already!)
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To: pabianice

And of course, by extension, people who view things from the right are senile, easily fooled into holding outlandish beliefs and too deaf to hear the beautiful, life-fulfilling tones of the leftist mantra.


17 posted on 08/01/2007 11:21:10 AM PDT by telebob
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To: pabianice
It is amusing to recall that Perlstein posted on FR for a time. I had a quite cordial private conversation with him until the door slammed.

Most of the difficulties noted in his little screed stem from his insistence on his own fantasy world quite as dire as that of his late grandmother; the only difference is the faces placed on the villains. And oh, how they do have their villains.

A refusal to hate that does not incorporate a frank recognition that large numbers of others hate us and are quite happy in that state, is intellectually dishonest. A refusal to hate that maintains the right to "hate the haters" is as well. I cite this little bit of hypocrisy -

If you want to live in a world in which multimillionaire perverts pile up ever-higher fortunes...

Lovely stuff coming from someone who has ostensibly transcended hatred, but it demonstrates my point admirably. Perlstein and his fellow fantasists aren't really down on hatred per se, they merely want it directed toward ideologically acceptible targets. He has transcended nothing - he's as happy in his hatred as the most ignorant Taliban tribesman. At the least the latter does not lie to himself about it.

18 posted on 08/01/2007 11:22:26 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: pabianice
She was sure that beyond its threshold lay dragons: far-far-far leftists out to steal her Social Security; turbaned terrorists just itching to fly a jet into the First Wisconsin tower a few blocks to the south; quisling Democrats itching to help them do it; grandma-gutting criminal marauders just outside her door.

Smart woman. Very discerning.

19 posted on 08/01/2007 11:26:38 AM PDT by TBP
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To: WilliamofCarmichael
Explain?????

Do you really think this deluded moonbat is capable of cogent thought or reasonable debate?

20 posted on 08/01/2007 11:27:12 AM PDT by marlon
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