Limbaugh-Leninism (Will Grigg)

Will Grigg on Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Red State Fascists:

A nineteenth century pundit wearily observed that British political parties behaved like competing carriage drivers, energetically splattering each other with mud while frantically pursuing the same course to the same destination.

An unknown Russian long ago devised the now-familiar joke in which a bright college student, drowning in inpenetrable ideological cant, asks the smug Party hack posing as a professor to explain, in easily understood terms, the material difference between capitalism and socialism.

"Oh, that's easy to explain," replied the professor, his face twisted into a triumphant smirk. "Capitalism is based on the exploitation of man by man; socialism works exactly in the reverse!"

Granted, the latter gibe ignores or misrepresents the ideal of free market capitalism. But it is part of a large and ancient literature of wisdom -- much of it encoded in humor -- regarding the myriad ways that embittered enemies who supposedly represent diametrically opposed principles can wind up mimicking each other even as they seek to annihilate each other.

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