Thursday, August 20, 2009

Interesting

So no wonder the White house seems unconcerned with right wingers carrying openly

Every presidential assassin in the history of the nation has been a liberal—or has had no politics at all. None were right-wingers. Actor/Activist John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, because he was opposed to Lincoln’s Republican war policies. Booth, the Tim Robbins of his day, left a letter with his family explaining his actions, saying he loved “peace more than life” and denouncing Republicans for foisting the war on the South. He may have even used the word “Quagmire” to describe Gettysburg.

Charles J. Guiteau, who shot President James Garfield in 1881, had a long relationship with a utopian commune called tThe Oneida Community, where free love and communal child-rearing were practiced.
Leon Czolgosz, who killed President William McKinley in 1901, was a socialist and anarchist (okay, that’s redundant) who was captivated upon hearing a speech by radical socialist Emma Goldman the year he shot McKinley. If memory serves, Goldman’s inspirational speech had something to do with “hope” and “change.”

John Shrank, who shot and wounded Teddy Roosevelt in 19212, seemed to have no political beliefs other than a strong opposition to third terms, —which Roosevelt was then campaigning for.

Giuseppe Zangara, who narrowly missed shooting President-elect Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, was consumed by envy of the rich and sought to assassinate “all capitalist presidents and kings.” Earlier, Zangara had plotted to kill Republican President Herbert Hoover, because both Hoover and Roosevelt were “capitalists.” Yes, you heard me right: This would-be assassin was to the left of FDR.

Lee Harvey Oswald, who shot President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, was a stone-cold Communist ever since he read a Communist pamphlet about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as a teenager. Incensed by racial discrimination in America, he defiantly rode in the black sections of buses as a child. Oswald studied Russian and moved to the U.S.S.R. in his late teens, hoping to avoid the rush. When his application for Soviet citizenship was declined, he slit his wrists. Oswald eventually returned to the U.S. with his Russian wife and child, where he continued to plot an escape to a socialist paradise such as Cuba or Red China. Ginned up by publications of the Communist Party and Socialist Workers Party—, “The Worker” and “The Militant,” respectively—, Oswald first tried to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, a John Bircher. Ten days before shooting at Walker—and missing—Oswald had posed for a photograph holding his guns and copies of the socialist publications denouncing Walker. Some of you will recognize this photo as Randi Rhodes’s screen saver. Oswald next plotted to kill former Vice President Richard Nixon, but got distracted the day Nixon was in Dallas. He spent the next several months passing out “Fair Play for Cuba” leaflets he had written himself. In between “You never take me anywhere!” arguments with his wife, Oswald tried to talk her into helping him hijack a plane to Cuba, so he could fight in defense of the revolution. When he was arrested for shooting Kennedy, Oswald immediately placed a call to John Abt, lawyer for the American Communist Party, planning to ask Abt to defend him, so he could use his trial to showcase his Marxist beliefs. He never got the chance, thanks to Jack Ruby.

Sirhan Sirhan, who shot Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968, was a Palestinian extremist angry with Kennedy for his support of Israel. For more on this worldview, see the works of Noam Chomsky.

From Ann Coulters book, Guilty

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