Anti-Fascist Fascism, or The World Appears To Be Waiting

Whilst perusing The New York Times yesterday, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” came upon a rather curious full-page advertisement. Sponsored by the urgent sounding group “The World Can’t Wait,” this strange ad exhorted readers to “Drive Out the Bush Regime.”

Affixed to this incendiary anti-Bush agitprop was a series of reasons why right-thinking (i.e., Left-thinking) chaps should hunger to send the evil Bush junta packing. For example:

YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.

Frankly, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” found this particular point puzzling, given that the radicals behind The World Can’t Wait appear to have no problems with Muslim fundamentalists who aim to turn the entire world into a theocracy. After all, as the group’s “website” makes clear, it is an avowedly Communist group, and many of its members were opposed to uprooting the Taliban. As far as we can determine, then, to our pals at The World Can’t Wait, Osama bin Laden is a fine fellow, but Pat Robertson is awfully dangerous.

Think that point was rebarbative? Here’s another example of coruscating brilliance:

YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.

On this point, actually, we may be inclined to agree. One of the signers of this Communist drivel is Prof. Cornel West, ersatz “rap” star and ersatz scholar. Brother West, for those of you blissfully unaware of him, is a card-carrying Marxist. And he’s a card-carrying Marxist who makes bundles of money Mau-Mauing universities into offering him a large salary and embarking on extremely lucrative speaking tours. Is this the “culture of greed” that The World Can’t Wait contemns?

Or maybe, in regard to bigotry, they mean Prof. West’s despicable denunciation of Harvard President Lawrence Summers as the “Ariel Sharon of higher education.” President Summers is Jewish, and Brother West, mortified that Mr. Summers had the temerity to question the scholarly import of his “rap” CD, blasted back with a typical example of his charming anti-Semitism. If the Bush junta is enforcing this kind of bigotry, we’re opposed to it too.

As if the ad’s pernicious rhetoric weren’t already sufficiently malign, the folks at The World Can’t Wait simply can’t wait to up the ante:

People look at all this [the Bush Administration has done] and think of Hitler—and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.

Ah, no crazy lefty rant is complete without the obligatory reference to Hitler, now is it? What impressive political acumen the signers of this nonsense must possess! Couldn’t they lowball their estimations a bit, and merely claim that Bush is akin to Mussolini? Or how about Pinochet? If memory serves, when he was in power he wasn’t that great a guy either.

Clearly, though, the loveable scamps at The World Can’t Wait found the Nazis to be the closest and most illuminating parallel to the Bush administration. Bravo. Hey, if Lawrence Summers is Ariel Sharon, why can’t Bush be Hitler? And maybe Demi Moore could be Tony Blair, and Gary Coleman could be Yao Ming?

Surely the most delicious part of the advert is the following:

There is not going to be a savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into “leaders” who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.

Do the dolts at The World Can’t Wait realize that they are speaking about themselves? In regard to worldwide terrorism, they are the “‘leaders’ who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics”—al Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, &c. To be sure, their ideas are dangerous and disastrous, but it appears as if they don’t know it.

So, you ask, what is the point of this dimwitted advertisement? Well, the eminences at The World Can’t Wait aim to “Bring the Noise.” No, that doesn’t mean they hope you can join them in a faux-Broadway tap routine. They appear to have no interest in you “Bringing the Funk.” Or even “Brining da’ Funk.”

Rather, the ad explains: “At 9:00 PM EST, just as Bush starts to speak, everywhere we will bring the noise. In a cacophony of sound we will drown out his address with music….”

Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t want to seem like a bunch of spoilsports, but this all strikes us as distinctly fascistic. Not Hitler-esque, mind you, but troublesome all the same. If you oppose President Bush, wouldn’t it be better to listen to him, and then explain why you disagree?

One might expect such childish buffoonery from signers such as Ed Begley Jr. He was really great in Amazon Women on the Moon, but that doesn’t mean that we are inclined to trust his political acumen. And it is nice to see that Mumia Abu-Jamal also signed on with the campaign; clearly, when he’s not busy killing police officers, he is deeply worried about the health of our great nation. How very sweet.

But Brother West? This fellow’s a professor at Princeton, for crying out loud. One might have thought that likening Bush to Hitler would seem a bit obtuse for his tastes. After all, that’s kind of like likening Brother West to Buckwheat.

And, as anyone knows, that comparison’s inapt: Buckwheat was intentionally funny, whereas Brother West is only unintentionally funny.

We must admit a certain similarity in hairstyles, though.