Tuesday, September 2, 2008

USEFUL IDIOTS

USEFUL IDIOTS

In the United States, the term [“Useful Idiot”] [Spanish: “Tontos Utiles] is sometimes used as a pejorative against political liberals, radicals, and others among left-wing politics. The tone implies that the speaker thinks the "useful idiot" is ignorant of the facts to the extent that they end up unwittingly advancing an adverse cause that they might not otherwise support. The term gained increased use after the publication of conservative columnist Mona Charen's 2003 book Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First.[7]
Tool, an American progressive metal band, named a track on their Ænima album after the phrase. The track is made to sound like a needle stuck at the edge of a record, to trick vinyl owners into thinking the side of the album was already over.
The term is also sometimes used by anarchists and other radicals to describe groups and individuals whose ideology is alleged to be excessively deferential to a government or authoritarian political movement.
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the term "useful idiot" has also been used by some commentators to describe individuals said to take a softer line against Islamism and terrorism. For example, Anthony Browne wrote in the United Kingdom newspaper, The Times:[8]

Elements within the British establishment were notoriously sympathetic to Hitler. Today the Islamists enjoy similar support. In the 1930s it was Edward VIII, aristocrats and the Daily Mail; this time it is left-wing activists, The Guardian and sections of the BBC. They may not want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s apologists for the Soviet Union — useful idiots.

Similarly, Bruce C. Thornton, a professor of Classics at American University of Cal State Fresno wrote:[9]

Lenin called them "useful idiots," those people living in liberal democracies who by giving moral and material support to a totalitarian ideology in effect were braiding the rope that would hang them. Why people who enjoyed freedom and prosperity worked passionately to destroy both is a fascinating question, one still with us today. Now the useful idiots can be found in the chorus of appeasement, reflexive anti-Americanism, and sentimental idealism trying to inhibit the necessary responses to another freedom-hating ideology, radical Islam.
[FROM THE ARTICLE ON “USEFUL IDIOTS” FOUND ON WIKIPEDIA]

HERE IS A PARTIAL LIST OF CATHOLIC USEFUL IDIOTS
WHO ARE ACTIVELY SUPPORTING
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Ted Kennedy
Caroline Kennedy
Chris Dodd
Tim Kaine
Bill Richardson
Patrick Kennedy
John Kerry
Nancy Pelosi
Douglas Kmiec
Bob Casey, Jr.
Father Michael Pfleger

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