Right-wing treachery nothing new

The right-wing firestorm against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has made one thing clear in recent days: The conservative movement as it exists today is not recognizably American or patriotic.

But this disloyalty is not new. I'm old enough to remember the treachery they committed in 1994 during the Michael Fay story. Fay - as oldsters like me may recall - was an American citizen living in Singapore. The right-wing dictatorship in Singapore accused him of vandalism, conducted a show trial, and sentenced him to be flogged with a bamboo cane.

The Far Right went ballistic - not against Singapore, but against America. They flooded newspapers with letters smirking about how the United States should follow Singapore's practice of phony trials and harsh sentences for minor crimes. This despite the fact that they were the first ones to defend far more serious crimes that plagued our region. The people who said I was a nut for demanding that violent neo-Nazi hate groups be prosecuted were the same people who demanded caning for someone accused of a far less serious crime (who may have been innocent anyway).

One local politician even sent fan mail to Singapore's government.

American conservatives displayed more loyalty to a right-wing foreign dictatorship than they did to America. And they had a captive audience too. This was a more conservative area back then, and imagine having to wade through their lies and treachery and having to listen to them running America down because it has "too much freedom" - day after fucking day.

These days - in smearing an American POW and demanding that he be left behind - the Far Right is displaying more loyalty to the right-wing outrage industry than they do to America. That's not patriotism. I'm firmly antiwar, but there's no excuse for the betrayal displayed by the Tea Party and the right-wing media.

If Team Tyranny hates America so much, they should leave. They'll be happier, and we'll be happier.

Another observation: I've already been criticized elsewhere for saying the right-wing thought police should leave the country, because that's supposedly stooping to their level. Something about not "understanding" our enemies. Actually it isn't stooping to their level, because the right-wingers have been unpatriotic - while our side hasn't been. They've been asking for it. Over and over - for years and years. Besides, if not fighting back against them is so effective, ask the Democrats what happened to them at the polls when they kept caving. Why don't you go look at my high school records to see what happened when I didn't fight back?

That changed your tune, huh?