Here's a quick peek into the disgusting dung heap where the maggots of the far left feed. What were the odds that we would find such scatalogical fare in Seattle?
They don't like the term "Anti-American" because it is a propaganda tool to stifle dissent. These are the masters of the euphemism, who insist on not calling a spade a spade, but a shovel.
They have a different "vision" of America, one so different that were it to be actualized America, as we now know it, would no longer exist. It is a nightmare rejected by the vast majority of our citizenry and embraced only by the self-depricating iconoclasts of the radical left.
Seattle, Washington - A T-shirt with a Warholian likeness of United States President George Bush sports the incendiary legend "International Terrorist", Another shows the World Trade Centre towers with the words, "What Goes Up Must Come Down".
These are just some of the provocative - some would say anti-American - items for sale at Left Bank Books Collective, in the liberal and frequently outspoken US West Coast city of Seattle. Left Bank Books Collective has dedicated to spread radical ideas from its spot in one of the prime tourist attractions, Pike Place Market, since 1973.
Collin Coyne, 33, has been a member of the bookstore collective for a year. He quit his job writing marketing copy when his company would not give him time off to attend an activist training camp.
He dislikes the term "anti-Americanism", citing one of his heroes, the radical intellectual Noam Chomsky, who argues the very term "anti-Americanism" is a totalitarian propaganda tool used to stifle dissent.He may not embrace the label "anti-American", but Coyne, whose hat is emblazoned with "Solidarity Forever", opposes what he believes is the country's militaristic foreign policy and abusive capitalist system.
Coyne and Americans like him also don't share their fellow citizens' romantic notions of US history.
They take their cues from historian Howard Zinn, whose A People's History Of The United States tells the story of the rich and powerful elite subjugating everyone else - here and abroad.
Paul Hollander is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts who has written books on anti-Americanism in America.
"There have been few places in the history of the world where people have tried to go and create a new social system," he said.
When grandiloquent visions of justice, freedom and equality are not realised, disappointment sets in, he added.
Cliff Hare, who recently opened a counter-cultural bookstore and art gallery in Seattle called Infohazard, said Hollander's reasoning rings true.
"America could be a strong force for good in the world, but our generosity has been hijacked," he said.
His bookstore's logo features a biohazard symbol connecting two minds, a reference to William S. Burroughs, who once claimed "language is a virus".
Hollander said he isn't sure how many Americans fit the description "anti-American" but thinks the number is small. For the most part, they are not organised, although there are groups such as the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists.
Mark Laskey, 29, is a member who lives in Boston, a city well known for its radical intellectuals, Chomsky and Zinn among them. In an email interview, Laskey went so far as to wish ill upon US soldiers in Iraq.
"I believe in the right of self-defence, and support the Iraqi resistance on that basis. I also believe that the United States, as the dominant superpower in the world, needs to be defeated in Iraq," he said.
Chris Pugmire, another collective member, laid out a vision for a different America: "I think people should govern themselves as they see fit in a non-hierarchical way so everyone's needs are taken care of, rather than people being taken advantage of."
From IOL
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