A Commentary and Response to The Young Hipublicans, an article by John Colapinto published in The New York Times on May 25, 2003.

We've known this is happening. Right-wing extremists use their $millions on college campuses to recruit, and they do it vigorously. They even offer courses with "general P.R. advice on how to spin their messages on campus."

The article also clearly weakens even more the argument that Bush's junta had nothing to do with 9/11 -- this event single-handedly bolstered the "recruiting" exponentially. All the organizations that finance this type of recruitment were immediately ready to launch a nationwide activism campaign. Like the infamous "US Patriot Act," this was ready too soon to be a coincidence.

Even scarier is the depth of ideological conviction these young people have. To such a degree that it completely blinds them to the intuitive ability to perceive BS in someone like Bush (whose phoniness is an unquestioned fact everywhere else in the world). On the contrary, they "love" and "trust" him for his "honesty." This is what's scary -- that their powers of discernment are being manipulated and shaped, if not brainwashed to smithereens.

Another example of blind gullibility: one female student "was thrilled when Mitchell [her boyfriend] gave her a semiautomatic .22 rifle with telescopic sight. [She] keeps it in a black nylon bag decorated with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Care Bears and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles patches." One could rest one's case here, but...

Even scarier (if that is possible) are the implications in paragraph 20 (that starts with "But a movement based on patriotism"). The author downgrades the meaning of expanded diversity and openness to adjectives such as "seeping stultifying enforced tolerance."

It also exemplifies Gingrich's famous Politics of Perception: their deliberate stealing of liberal ideas to further their own views (which probably wouldn't be furthered if their true hidden ideology was evident). Examples: "crying for freedom of speech" or "left's narrowness and the right's 'diversity." And they admit it -- "it's their stuff and now we're using it."

They know how to capitalize on the young mind, thus their "direct appeal to the natural impulse... to rebel against the powers that be." Which, astonishingly, they make the young students believe is liberal. And they are buying it -- another example in a statement from a female student who sees Ann Coulter as her role model (!): "Conservatives are inclusive in a way that liberals are not." That says it all. They are swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

Just disgusting.

If none of this is convincing regarding their nauseating, repulsive, and revolting behavior, the fact that their role models and regular speakers are Ann Coulter and Katherine Harris should settle the issue.

Now, I do have a comment that may not be too appealing if one is skittish about criticizing Democrats. We need strong voices and clearly articulated convictions from Democratic leaders. This is why Gov. Howard Dean is becoming more and more appealing.

We need this on college campuses. Not only to counteract the right-wing assault, but because as one right-wing student said, "A lot of the courses are mushy stuff about sex and gender and social relations. You can't take a class about a war. We don't have a military historian at Bucknell. Everything is so dumbed down because no one wants to offend anyone."

This may be overstated, but some Democrats are indeed too concerned about not offending anyone. The irony is that history as taught in school has been dumbed down over the years to reflect an increasingly naive right-wing view: (see Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen, highly recommended by Howard Zinn).

The alternative seems to be in liberals -- as a majority and openly -- regaining their courage at expressing their convictions and exposing the right-wing fraud. It's possible that things are not as dim, as I believe that much work is being done to expand the understanding of true freedom and heartfelt fairness. However, one would be hard-pressed to find the non-media reporting any of it.

Quotations above taken from The Young Hipublicans, by John Colapinto, The New York Times, May 25, 2003: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/magazine/25REPUBLICANS.html

See: Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen

Also see: A People's History of the United States and
Declarations of Independence, both by Howard Zinn.