Ranger Bagel: The Press Ranger

I try not to be terribly combative in real life. It’s a struggle because I have a temper. I have discovered an activity that helps me be more patient and also helps me analyze political and social issues to a much more fine degree.

I read Todd Starnes’s Fox opinion blog. It’s a kind of like a conservative gawker in a weird way. His posts are very short and generally express anguish over something somebody else has done. He also enjoys declaring wars for others, like a liberal “war” on Christianity, or whatever.

So, some Colorado students as part of a multicultural club decided to say the Pledge of Allegiance in Arabic. People would’ve likely not gotten too upset if they had not used the  Arabic cognate “allah” instead of “god.”

Where my education lies, however, is not with Starnes, but with the comment section. It’s an opportunity for me to converse with those who disagree with me over almost everything. People get very upset with me, insult me, are sexist, degrading, or insult me for having gone to Berkeley. I’m kind of used to it.

Where I learn things, however, is in my use of Aristotelian rhetoric. I simply ask questions.

U Mad?

I am really not the type of person that muses on “the good old days.” I was born in 1988. The “good old days” for me included the Spice Girls.  So, really, I’m all about progress.

I do somewhat often muse on a three-pole dynamic of the first world: whether things should take time, money, or effort.

Effort to click

A while back on Sproul Plaza at Cal I had an encounter with some Larouche Underlings and a couple members of the defunct Communist party. Somehow they both managed to horrify me to my deepest core.

The Larouches sported posters of Obama with a Hitler ‘stache and attempted to explain to me that because of his supposed “imperialism” in expanding the war (don’t mistake me for a warhawk, I’m not) Obama is Hitler. Somehow this president who has been accused of socialist anti-Americanism with his stimulus package and attempts (maybe hopeless) at healthcare reform is JUST LIKE OMG Adolph Motherfucking Hitler.

This is not a new tactic. But I would like to say Obama is not like Hitler. Obama is not an insane sadistic genocidal maniac. It is offensive and horrifying to compare any little old politician to one of the worst people to have ever lived; whether it be Obama, Bush, or anybody else of any party affiliation.

In conjunction with this encounter some young woman from the communist party with the face of a leather sack approached us and began to explain to me how the Larouches were right. Ok…So the commies are on board with that one. When they commented that it’s okay to draw historical comparisons between figures I agreed. I said that, indeed, when you have an incredibly mean personality and force such as Hitler it’s only intellectual to draw comparisons with equally (or maybe worse) people like Stalin, but that Obama really hadn’t done enough or been around long enough to warrant such a comparison.

That’s when the borscht hit the fan. Miss Leathercommie asserted that Stalin should not be compared to Hitler. Say what? She asserted that the claims of the mass murders across the USSR were indeed fabrications.

Holy Shit

I was standing in front of an honest-to-Trotsky Stalinist in 2009.  I asked her if she’d like to take a trip into the history books at the Library or if I should bust out my computer to find some sources to the contrary. She then asserted that all the sources are lies. So she believes in Stalin’s innocence despite all evidence to the contrary.

Sound like a Holocaust denier?

Basically, to me, if a person believes that any modern politician (or Obama) is just like Hitler or that Stalin didn’t kill anybody they either need to hit the books or be hit with a brick. Preferably the latter by me.

In reaction to this I had a conversation with my father. Out of that I made this film: