Pam – -

Of all people, I am stunned to see you use the cockroach comparison.
Surely, you are aware that the Hutu Power genocidaires in Rwanda
referred to their Tutsi victims as “inyenzi” or “cockroaches”.
Similarly, “Der Sturmer” in Nazi Germany regularly called Jews “vermin”.

When you compare people to vermin –
there is an implied eliminationist rhetoric.
After all, what do you do when your kitchen is infested?

I find the nearly every action surrounding the attempt to pass Amendment 1
completely disgusting. But because out opponents attempt to dehumanize us – should we do likewise?

Huh? Prince Rupert has the deepest port in North America.
And its leaders are begging for port expansion.

And those above talking about mountains –
Yellowhead Pass is the lowest pass across the Rockies – almost unnoticeable.
The real issue is the Lower Skeena.
Environmental risks there are extreme.

It may be stupid.
It may be threatening.
But it is not “bullying”.

Then again, Canada is bigger than the U.S. – -
And has more nuclear weapons.

You have the luxury to Monday morning quarterback from some place other than Benghazi. Do you doubt for a moment what would have happened?

Sure, the U.S., Britain, and France had less than humanitarian motives – - but it does not change the statements that Gaddafi made about his plans for the people of Benghazi nor his history of mass slaughter of opponents.

The problem with the left for the past century has been its naivity in the face of exterminationist regimes. Western leftists denied the Holodomor – none worse than Walter Duranty’s NYT denial pieces. They celebrated the Cultural Revolution – celebrated in the ever-present Warhol images of Chairman Mao. They admired the Khmer Rouge experiment – that is until Marxist writer Malcolm Caldwell was murdered on his guided tour of Democratic Kampuchea.

Of course, if the genocidal regime happened to be of the right-wing variety, the left generally supported armed intervention – such as with the Spanish Civil War or against the Guatemalan regime of Rios Montt.

All of the regimes listed above – leftist or rightist – slaughtered their opponents. They should all be condemned. The fact that Gaddafi used tired anti-colonial rhetoric to deflect attention does not mitigate the basic underlying violence upon which his regime was based. Of course, to pattern, many here buy it.

The selective myopia of the left over the past century is a self-indictment.

I do certainly hope that many of you are never in harm’s way. And that the litmus tests you so eagerly apply are never applied to you. Some of the responses here are precisely why the left is held in such utter contempt. Kitty Genovese writ large.

Jeebus –
What a pathetic exercise in false moral equivalence.

Yes, a few dozen (perhaps more) Gaddafi fighters have been executed.
It is rare in such brutal hand to hand fighting that such does not happen.
Happened in Iraq. Happened in Vietnam. Happened in Korea.
Happened on every front in WWII. Definitely happened in Spanish Civil War.

As for the summary execution of Gaddafi – -
I recall that Mussolini and his party were strung up in Milan for all to see.
And Italy emerged from WWII relatively pluralistic and democratic.
In France, the collaboratrices had their heads shaved.
And France ended up pretty democratic and open.

As for Gaddafi’s intentions in February – he made them clear.
He was going to exterminate all the “rats” in Benghazi.
Exterminationist rhetoric has been used before –
In Rwanda, in Cambodia, and most famously in Nazi Germany.
In addition, Gaddafi had the history to show he meant what he said.

Would NATO members have intervened for the people of Tunesia – sans oil?
I highly doubt it. NATO’s motives are far from benign.
But in an imperfect world – these results are preferable to a Gaddafi victory.
Trust me, had it have been the other way around –
the bloodshed would have been immense.

No –

I said – if you bothered to read – that to mock Appalachian Free Pentecostalis in the manner in which the OP did is to mock a group of people who have been marginalized over and over again.

Has nothing to do with their current political views –
I suspect, however, that the people pictured in this 1946 photo were strongly pro-union. Although Appalachian men may have rarely heard of abortion, I also suspect that the womenfolk had long traditions – albeit quiet – of how to end an unwantd pregnancy.

I was under the misapprehension that folks here tried to refrain from such.

Nothing like a nice helping of bigotry to make your point, eh Blue Texan?

If you want to find out more about Free Pentecostalism in Appalachia I would suggest you do a little reading. At a time when the people of Eastern Kentucky owned nothing – they worked in company mines, lived in company houses, shopped in company stores – at a time when people of Appalachia were told they were worthless – from media stereotypes, to army recruiters, to state educators – - these people crafted one essential part of their lives over which they alone had agency.

The culture that produced Free Pentecostalism was the same culture that fought the union wars of Harlan County and created the UMWA.

UMWA – Part I
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/18/995709/-The-UMWA-A-Different-Perspective?via=search
UMWA – Part II(Pentecostal Church of God – midway down)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/18/995748/-The-UMWAA-Different-Perspective,-Part-II?via=siderecent

Pam –

You say it better than anyone else.
I feel privileged to have you share this with me.