Cabu, one of the victim, was a regular member of the biggest TV show for children in the 1980s.
They killed my childhood.
And since they were about my age, and born in Paris, maybe they have killed their own childhood too.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Yeah, yeah.
Nothing new under the sun-god.
Kinda like how Moses took over the cult of Yahweh, the Midianite god his wife’s family worshipped, and introduced it to the Israelites in Egypt.[/quote]
Somebody slept through Sunday school. In fact, that somebody must have been totally unconscious, even comatose, during his Sunday school years.[/quote]
Nope. I was wide awake during Sunday school. I could sing “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” with the best of 'em, and nobody could top me when it came to memorising verses of Scripture. I was in AWANA and very active in the Wednesday night youth groups as well.
Then I attained the age of reason.
I realised that “All I need to know about astronomy, geology, archaeology, taxonomy, biology, genetics, physics, history and comparative theology I learned in Sunday school” was probably not the best attitude to take as an adult with a functioning brain.
So I read other things beside the Bible and books whose authors used scripture as their primary source.
Yes, I know that this is in direct violation of Ecclesiastes 12:11-13 (I’ll wait while you look that up), but hey, a weary body is better than a lazy mind.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Just because they don’t salute a swastika doesn’t make them any less fascist or any less dangerous.[/quote]
I think it’s time once again for this timeless quote by Tim Wise.
If fascism comes to America, this is how it will happen: not with tanks and jackbooted storm troopers, but carried in the hearts of men and women dressed in comfortable shoes, with baseball caps, and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands. It will be heralded by up-dos, designer glasses, you-betcha folksiness and a disdain for big words or hard consonants.
If fascism comes, it will be ushered in by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack, who, upon finishing his sixth beer and belching forth the stench of a mediocre life lived, will gladly announce its arrival, so long as it comes with a steady supply of Pabst Blue Ribbon and hot dogs on the grill, and giant foam hands with a “We’re Number 1” finger, some Mardi Gras beads and a good titty bar.
If fascism comes it will dress like a hockey mom, or a NASCAR dad. It will believe Toby Keith to be an artist, Larry the Cable Guy to be a comic, and that the world was made in six literal days less than 6000 years ago.
If fascism comes it will come from the small towns; the ones Sarah Palin, quoting a famous racist and Jew-hater, said “grow good people,” and which occasionally do, but which, just as often grow provincial, isolated, fearful and superstitious ones.
If fascism comes it will come from faux populism, from anti-immigrant hysteria, from persons who have more guns in their homes than books, or whose books, when they have them, are principally volumes of the Left Behind series, several different copies of the Bible, and a plethora of romance novels.
If fascism comes it will be welcomed, lock stock and barrel by persons who pray at every meal to a God they visualize as white, whose son they also think was white, and who they believe is going to rapture them all into the sky upon the blowing of some heavenly trumpet, after which point all those who don’t think as they think will be burned in an eternal lake of fire. Their vision and version of God is itself fascistic-- to love a God who would do such a thing is to love an abusive, sadistic and evil deity after all–so it should come as little surprise that their conception of the state would be equally authoritarian or worse.
If fascism comes it will be at the behest of those who hold a contempt for what they call “book learnin,” who prefer Presidents who mispronounce basic words because they make them feel smarter, and who are looking for nothing so much as a commander-in-chief with whom they would enjoy having a beer, or two, or twelve at some backyard barbecue.
If fascism comes it will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio, by hosts whose cerebral inadequacies are more than made up for by their bellicosity, their bombast, their willingness to shout down those with whom they cannot argue, for argument requires knowledge, and this is a commodity with which they have not even a passing familiarity.
If fascism comes it will come wrapped in red, white and blue, carrying a crucifix and a shotgun, projecting its own sexual confusion and insecurity onto others, substituting volume for veracity and rage for reason, and landing on the New York Times best-seller list as a result.
If fascism comes it will have a pajama party at Ann Coulter’s house, pop pills with Rush Limbaugh, and go gay-bashing with Michael Savage, all in the same weekend. And it will refuse to learn another language or get a passport, because doing either of those would make one cosmopolitan, which is just another word for “fag.”
That was for you, Push. Merry Christmas, love and kisses. 
Wise is an idiot.
He thinks baseball, mom and apple pie are racist. He’s the most offended white liberal out there.
[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
He thinks baseball, mom and apple pie are racist.[/quote]
Well, that’s just preposterous.
There is nothing even remotely racist about apple pie.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Maybe not. Romans 1:20-21
[/quote]
Awww. I thought for sure you would reference verse 22 as well. You quote that verse to me so often it kinda feels like a tradition.
And it would have been especially apropos considering the surname of the guy I quoted earlier. 
[quote]pushharder wrote:
[quote]NorCal916 wrote:
Wise is an idiot.
He thinks baseball, mom and apple pie are racist. He’s the most offended white liberal out there. [/quote]
As well as a “timeless” fool.[/quote]
See? THERE! That would have been the perfect setup. You could have said “I guess Romans 10:22 is right. Thinking himself Wise, he has become a fool.”
Droppin’ the ball, my friend.
Tim Wise? For realz?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Tim Wise? For realz?[/quote]
Yeah, I like to trot old Tim Wise out every once in a while when the talk swings around to fascism. Not because I share his politics, but I do like to have a snicker at the “America, Fuck Yeah!” crowd every once in a while.
(Or at least, the ones who didn’t realise that Team America World Police was satire, directed at them.)
I don’t actually believe that America is fascist, or that it is in any danger of becoming so any time soon. But a strong nationalist (or perhaps jingoist, to borrow Push’s term) current to the American zeitgeist has been developing over the last two decades, one which was not a feature of American society as I remember it (even in the military), coupled with a burgeoning anti-intellectualism.
This is the recipe not perhaps for fascism, but certainly for a distinctly American brand of nationalistic idiocracy. Or as I like to call it, “freedumb.”
Certainly nobody on this forum matches the description in Wise’s diatribe, any more than I match the characterisation I was saddled with by my good friend a few years ago: “he is the erudite sophisticate, the agnostic, complete with the cognac, Irish Setter and fireplace.” 
Not even remotely close to being a nihilist, either. As Push very well knows (ye scabrous dog, ye).
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
The idea to nuke Mecca could be the War on Terror equivalent of the Cold War M.A.D. theory, that neither side would start a war because of the dreaded consequences. I think that’s what chicken is trying to imply. Since the terrorists “love death like we love life” and are downright suicidal, possibly threatening something that’s sacred to them would get them to think twice…am I right chicken?[/quote]
yes
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Tim Wise? For realz?[/quote]
Yeah, I like to trot old Tim Wise out every once in a while when the talk swings around to fascism. Not because I share his politics, but I do like to have a snicker at the “America, Fuck Yeah!” crowd every once in a while.
(Or at least, the ones who didn’t realise that Team America World Police was satire, directed at them.)
I don’t actually believe that America is fascist, or that it is in any danger of becoming so any time soon. But a strong nationalist (or perhaps jingoist, to borrow Push’s term) current to the American zeitgeist has been developing over the last two decades, one which was not a feature of American society as I remember it (even in the military), coupled with a burgeoning anti-intellectualism.
This is the recipe not perhaps for fascism, but certainly for a distinctly American brand of nationalistic idiocracy. Or as I like to call it, “freedumb.”
Certainly nobody on this forum matches the description in Wise’s diatribe, any more than I match the characterisation I was saddled with by my good friend a few years ago: “he is the erudite sophisticate, the agnostic, complete with the cognac, Irish Setter and fireplace.”
Not even remotely close to being a nihilist, either. As Push very well knows (ye scabrous dog, ye).
[/quote]
I see the exact opposite happening. And the anti-intellectualism is coupled with an anti-Americanism that’s popular with European dillantantes - the same people who have inflicted multiculturalism upon us. Nationalism is desperately needed in order to try to preserve both the nation(which is in peril) and European culture and Western civilisation(which are also under threat). The fascistic tendencies of the left and the increasing radicalisation of mainstream politics is an existential threat to the state and our culture. Specifically, open borders and mass immigration are undermining the very fabric of the civil society and destroying the economy.
And I don’t know who said you are a nihilist but the term can have many different meanings. In the sense I usually use it I mean anyone who doesn’t believe in God is essentially an existential nihilist unless they embark upon what Becker called an “immortality project” to give meaning and purpose to their lives. But that’s a different topic.