3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
Matthew 7:3-5
Norman Pollack
writes
Let’s not forget my imaginative scenario: ten years from now, YFA to emulate the values of their elders and replicate the preceding history of war, intervention, surveillance, as carrying forward the fascist mindset into the American future. Come with me into the scene, for like Hitler’s “Strength through Joy” movement, aimed in this case particularly at the youth, as a vanguard group, we see fitness as a national priority, taking the form, beyond athletics, of political exercise of a more untoward kind: beginning with uniforms, arm bands, torchlight parades through working class, minority, and immigrant neighborhoods, then turned specifically to incendiary attacks on radicals, stoning of women who seek independent selfhood, and VIOLENCE as standard practice to be directed against critics, dissenters, any and all known to object to intervention, abridgment of the right of privacy, social injustice, gross class differences of wealth and power, in sum, malcontents presumptively under the control of a foreign government.
It is interesting that Pollack fails to see the situation he describes as existing right this very minute. The incendiary attacks? They happen to those who are described as "Christian". They happen to those who disagree with same sex marriage. It happens to those who oppose paying for abortions or birth control for other people. Far from stoning women who seek independence, it is in the form of death threats against groups attempting to hold conferences on men's issues. Let us be clear the fascism Pollack discusses is not something 10 years off. It is right here right now. Except the fascism he speaks of is currently directed at "approved" targets. These approved targets are conveniently referred to as "haters". And it is apparently OK to do these things to "haters" because "haters" have no rights.
See The Ghost stands on principle. Not ideology. Not party affiliation. Principle. This is why The Ghost doesn't deal in Right and Left. Because it is human nature to overlook one's own errors and the errors of your compatriots. furthermore it is highly likely that when one's livelihood is attached to appeasing a certain group that one will either willfully ignore facts that are in full view or willfully hide them from view. This is what happens when you engage in the "them always bad, we always right" game.
Get the partisan beam out of your eye.
