the crimes of the intellectual

sorry for the delay in posting, gentle reader(s), but my attention has been diverted to other matters the past few weeks...

a few quotes i'd like to throw at you-

"In some Christian denominations the intellectual life is looked at askance; anything beyond basic literacy is regarded as presumptuous." - Library Journal

"We [the German air force] will be the terror of our enemies, those Jewish elitists and intellectuals... I want in this army iron men with a will to action... When the Fuhrer in his Reichstag speech said that we would no longer tolerate the suppression of ten million German comrades beyond our borders, then you know as soldiers of the air force that, if it is to be, you must back these words of the Fuhrer to the limit. We are burning to prove our invincibility." - Hermann Goering*

"It is 'deeply offensive and contemptible' to hear 'elites and intellectuals on the campaign trail' dismiss progress in Iraq since last year's overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the elder Bush said in a speech to the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association annual convention." - Bush the Elder

at first glance, one might draw the conclusion that herrs bush, goring, and the fine folks of the fundamentalist christian community are advocating the opinion that our society should consist solely of mindless, drooling idiots blindly following whatever mandates are put in front of them, not criticizing or offering better ideas or methods.

not exactly... it's interesting how fascists have always used the excuse that anti-intellectualism is a stance against "haughty educated types, who have no experiences in common with the common man, believing they know what's best for them, or pushing them around like pawns in pursuit of nebulous or lofty goals" (thanks, ian)... in earlier - or simpler - times, this would generally be ascribed to the western idea of the Great Evil of Communism...

bush's choice of the phrase "elites and intellectuals", by which (i assume) he is alluding to dissenters of the war in iraq, shows exactly how out of touch the thinking of the "ultra-conservative republican" (for lack of a better phrase) is in a world where the communist arch-enemy no longer exists...

* from "berlin diary", william l. shirer, copyright 1941, alfred knopf publishing, pp 94-95.