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This item might normally fall within the rubric of don’t-write-about-random-crazy-people-saying-crazy-things, but it comes reeking onto my browser from a reasonably prominent conservative blog (Gateway Pundit), and what the hell, it’s Friday afternoon. So check it out:
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Barack Obama will officially launch his 2012 re-election campaign on Karl Marx’s birthday. Freedom Post reported:
“Obama will officially launch his 2012 re-election campain, and no I’m not kidding, on Karl Marx’s birthday, May 5th! First, we learn that Earth Day was started on the birthday of Vladimir Lenin, the Communist butcher and founder of the USSR, now we learn that Barack Obama, America’s first Marxist president, is launching his campaign on the father of communism’s birthday? Come on, now. This is just too appropriate! How fitting!”
Now one might note that May 5 commemorates a slightly better-known event than Marx’s birthday (hint: it’s celebrated in bars all over America), though perhaps conservative bloggers don’t know about it or consider it a celebration of illegal immigration or the socialist expropriation of oil company wealth or something. Where I come from, May 5 is probably better known as the birthday of Tammy Wynette than of Karl Marx.
But let’s play along. What are some of the other events in American history that might have been secret or not-so-secret tributes to the birth of the author of Das Kapital? Let’s see (source of events is HistoryOrb.com; the italicized comments are all my own):
* 1847: American Medical Association organized (first step towards ObamaCare).
* 1862: Cinco de Mayo (discussed above; socialist revolution aimed at destroying America through illegal immigration).
* 1865: First U.S. Train Robbery (Looters! Looters!).
* 1886: Bay View Massacre in Milwaukee; National Guardsmen kill seven people participating in protest demanding eight-hour work day (Union Bosses incite violence, promote unconstitutional legislation).
* 1893: NY Stock Exchange crashes (Marxist sabotage!).
* 1920: Woodrow Wilson bans Communist Labor Party (diversionary tactics by father of Progressivism).
* 1921: 1st ranger for Cleveland Metroparks hired (environmental terrorists thwart economic growth).
* 1942: US begins rationing sugar during World War II (socialist New Deal administration destroys free market to aid Soviet ally).
* 1949: KGO TV channel 7 in San Francisco, CA (ABC) begins broadcasting (liberal broadcast media launched)
* 1957: Betsy Rawls wins LPGA Peach Blossom Golf Open (Feminazis invade clubhouses!)
* 1959: KNME TV channel 5 in Albuquerque, NM (PBS) begins broadcasting (Self-explanatory).
* 1969: Pulitzer Prize awarded to Normal Mailer for Armies of the Night (could have been Stalin Prize).
* 1971: Race riot in Brownsville section of Brookyln (where was Sharpton?)
* 1978: Cincinnati Red Pete Rose becomes 14th player to get 3,000 hits (Reds! Reds!)
* 1987: Congress begins Iran-Contra hearings (and persecution of Oliver North)
* 1997: “Married With Children” final episode on Fox TV (and the Homosexual Agenda advances).
Yes, it’s plain now that the Obama re-election launch on May 5 is just the latest in nearly two centuries of tributes to Karl Marx on his birthday. Yet none dare call it treason.
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Peter C on May 04, 2012 4:38 PM:
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
hells littlest angel on May 04, 2012 4:46 PM:
The Gateway "pundit" is Jim Hoft, AKA the Stupidest Man on the Internets (christened by Sadly, No!, I think). No reference to this simpleton should ever be posted without including a photograph of his face.
schtick on May 04, 2012 4:58 PM:
Some people really should get a job.
crapcha....knowledge tsitun....exactly
T2 on May 04, 2012 4:59 PM:
isn't it about time someone pointed out that Karl Rove and Karl Marx both spell their first names the same. Maybe someone should ask Rove "hey commie, why not use a C".
gus on May 04, 2012 5:06 PM:
For years, the notion of The Narrative in our politics has bugged the hell out of me.
I know that explaining it away is as easy as thinking of it as a simple framework for lazy journalists. It relies on the Conventional Wisdom crowd to set the stage, talking heads utter their redundant points, etc., etc..
But, the idiotic strain that this conspiracy theory fits into, that Obama is to be feared but let’s ridicule him first, is just ridiculous. It is like there are people who are incapable of even understanding how stupid they sound who are offering others talking points.
Let’s just start calling this type of crap, these Profound Insights Into What Is Wrong,
Moron Points Memos, or just Moron Points. Though, I’m sure some junior brainiac would seize on the coincidence that the initials include and M and a P and immediately surmise that it is like Military Police ergo it must reek of fascism.
That is a Moron Point which would be pointed out by a moron.
If we emulate just how childish they sound, we can just debate them by saying,
“Moron says what?"
gus on May 04, 2012 5:12 PM:
On second thought, perhaps "Moron Memo" works just as well.
nerd on May 04, 2012 5:18 PM:
I learn something new every day. I have the same birthday as Lenin! What I like more is that it is also Bettie Page's birthday.
DisgustedWithItAll on May 04, 2012 5:19 PM:
Well, Hoft got one thing right: "You can't make this stuff up."
Nobody could predict the heights of deranged obsession these reality-challenged people could rise to.
After all this time, I'm amazed they're still amazing me.
Simon on May 04, 2012 5:20 PM:
I rarely laugh at blog posts. This was a serious exception. Nice job Ed.
DisgustedWithItAll on May 04, 2012 5:23 PM:
Read some of the comments on that page, and then weep for America. So very, very sad.
Jim H on May 04, 2012 5:31 PM:
But, Mitt Romney is the real Marxist:
"These are my principles. If you don't like them, well, I have others."
-- Groucho Marx
SadOldVet on May 04, 2012 5:52 PM:
Wonderful blog Ed!
The snark and sarcasm are wonderful!!!
TR on May 04, 2012 5:52 PM:
Christ, these idiots are fucking pathetic.
latts on May 04, 2012 6:00 PM:
Hmph. My birthday was yesterday and I share it with Machiavelli (except for the calendar switch) and James Brown, which should tell you... something, although I don't know what.
Sometimes what pains me most about the right is the really childish attempts at analysis-- seriously, most conservatives I know may or may not have plenty of native intelligence, but usually can't get past a middle-school insistence that the narrative in Moby Dick is really the whale's story.
Captain Obvious on May 04, 2012 6:00 PM:
Where I come from, May 5 is probably better known as the birthday of Tammy Wynette than of Karl Marx.
No, its something far more sinister.
Robert Waldmann on May 04, 2012 6:14 PM:
Karl is lucky
I was born on the 23rd anniversary of Kristallnacht (so the 37th anniversary of th beer hall putsch). November 9th also known as 18th of Brumaire.
Clearly, I hate us for our freedoms.
Robert Waldmann on May 04, 2012 6:16 PM:
Karl is lucky
I was born on the 23rd anniversary of Kristallnacht (so the 37th anniversary of th beer hall putsch). November 9th also known as 18th of Brumaire.
Clearly, I hate us for our freedoms.
Robert Waldmann on May 04, 2012 6:17 PM:
Karl is lucky
I was born on the 23rd anniversary of Kristallnacht (so the 37th anniversary of th beer hall putsch). November 9th also known as 18th of Brumaire.
Clearly, I hate us for our freedoms.
JD on May 04, 2012 6:36 PM:
Thanks to your suggestion, Disgusted With It All, I did look at that comment page. I don't really know why I did, but the past is past. I honestly could not tell whether the commenters were spoofing wingnuttery or spouting it.
By the way, did you know that the president's daughter has the initials M. A. O.? A coincidence? I think not!
Steve P on May 04, 2012 7:51 PM:
Well, May 5 would be the Day of Days if only for Michael Palin (1943). But it's all part of Obama's secret geezer strategy, honoring Tyrone Power (1913) and Alice Faye (1915).
Maybe it's triangulation, garnering the TCM demo as well.
Tom Hilton on May 04, 2012 7:57 PM:
And in similar fashion, the calendar reveals the RNC's hidden agenda(s).
g on May 04, 2012 8:10 PM:
Jim Hoft, if I recall correctly, is the idiot who thought that the closed-captioning on a video of an Obama speech, indicating to the hearing-impaired that applause was occurring, was instead the heavy hand of government, commanding the assembled minions to praise the leader.
Jay C on May 04, 2012 9:18 PM:
Umm, Ed?
"Normal" Mailer???
exlibra on May 04, 2012 9:44 PM:
g, @ 8:10PM
Give Hoft a break. In Lenin's (and even later) times, it would have been. The text of a speech by An Important Official was handed around and included such stage directions as: "applause", "strong applause" and "standing ovation". Since both Lenin and Obama are spiritual children of Karl Marx...
OK. So Craptcha is getting really cheeky. The readable part is the name of my town. The unreadable part, OTOH, remains mostly unreadable. What to do? What to do? I think I'll go for it :)
Gene O'Grady on May 04, 2012 11:35 PM:
It's also my mother's birthday; I have the American flag from her coffin that honored her war service -- wanna fight about it? To her credit, she was one Mayflower descendent who was honored to share the day with Mexican population.
Just to prove how meaningless the conjunction of birthdays is, I share mine with Marcello Mastroianni. Some of his other attributes I regret having missed.
mellowjohn on May 05, 2012 8:41 AM:
may 5 is also the birthday of george macdonald fraser's fictional sir harry paget flashman.
and for what it's worth, i share my birthday with voltaire, stan musial, and goldie hawn.
Paul Preston on May 06, 2012 10:48 AM:
April 22, 1970, 100 Anniversary of Lenin's Birthday and the first "Earth Day". Just a simple coincidence? I guess you have to understand the relationship between the environment, Marx, Engels and Lenin to know why "Earth Day" is celebrated on Lenin's birthday. As Niccolo Machiavelli might say 'the end justifies the means'.
Paul Preston
www.edtalkradio.com