At Fishwrap, the Madame Defarge of the catholic Left, and their official Tricoteuse, has temporarily left his knitting spot near the guillotine and returned to the Fainting Couch to swoon in the wake of negative reactions to his thought-revealing imagery.
I wrote about that in this: Tricoteuse of the New catholic Red Guard: @MichaelSWinters (aka Madame Defarge)
Michael Sean Winters identified himself with the ghoulish Madame Defarge from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. He described himself in the future as mercilessly knitting by the guillotine as he watched the heads of those “in the Republican political and legal establishment who have not stood up to Trump” being cut off.
His exact words:
To my friends in the Republican political and legal establishment who have not stood up to Trump: When the revolution comes, you are on your own, and I will be clamoring not for mercy but for a seat next to the guillotine, where I can do my knitting.
Did you get that? Trump supporters should be treated without mercy. Lifesite noticed. So did Skojec.
Now Madame D whines that he was misunderstood.
Less welcome than Walsh’s article was this post by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf and this article at LifeSiteNews. Both, and a slew of unspeakably nasty emails, were upset with an admittedly bracing literary device I used, invoking the image of Madame DeFarge in A Tale of Two Cities. I was surprised because there is one issue on which I tend to agree with conservatives more than liberals, namely, the repugnance of anti-free speech attitudes and enforcement of politically correct language. I suggest Fr. Z and his friends go to a local, secular, liberal arts campus, find a “safe zone” and have a meeting of the Conservative Snowflake Society.
You mean like this “safe space” for conservatives?
You see, again, Winters is saying that conservatives should be brutalized.
Or perhaps he meant that we could join the NRA!
First, he accused me of something I didn’t do. “Free speech” is a red herring. No one is saying that Winters should not be able to have his say (even though he thinks that converts should not be allowed to voice their opinions). I did not suggest that, even though Winters writes that people who disagree with him ought to lose their jobs (as he did about Chad Pecknold – HERE), he should not be able to write.
When free speech leads you toward inciting violence, that’s another matter. He invoked something truly horrifying, and truly anti-Catholic.
His rhetorical fantasy suggests that he would have me killed. I want conversion, not his unemployment … or execution.
This is what libs really think, however. They want brutal, physical force used on their opponents.
Take the case of what Rep. Maxine Waters did recently, in telling supporters to harass anyone who works for Pres. Trump. Consider doing that within a year of Rep. Scalise and others being shot – by a lib – at their baseball practice.
Winters and Waters are side by side with their knitting bags on that revolutionary scaffold.
Next, had someone on the conservative side of the spectrum used imagery from the Terror and the merciless cheering of the hacking off of heads, without losing a beat Winters and his venomous band of knitters would have howled in protest.
Do you for a second think that they would have said, “Oh, golly, I guess they have their free speech rights and we shouldn’t be so sensitive!”?
I can hear the objections. “You can’t possibly think that Winters really thinks there should be a guillotine or that people who support Trump should lose their heads. C’mon, Fr. Z! Get real! That’s just, you know, free speech! That’s just kiddin’ around!”
Take also the case of that super hilarious comedienne, Kathy Griffin, who not long ago made a complete ass of herself with a mock-up of Pres. Trump’s severed head.
Winters and Waters and Griffith.
I wonder if she knits too.
Madame Defarge is now upset that people don’t find the Terror – applied to real people today – very funny.
But… but… he got harsh email! Read sometime what Winters writes about other people. HERE
Of course he isn’t at all responsible for garnering that negative reaction. Not at all. He only said that when the “revolution” comes, he will mercilessly watch people’s heads being chopped off while he knits.
During the Reign of Terror (1793-94), the revolution’s henchmen suppressed the Church, nationalized her property, and exiled or killed 30,000 priests and and religious. Thousands died at the very guillotine which Winters so appreciates.
Next, he surely will – as is consistent with the policies of the Fishwrap and with the trajectory of the Reign of Terror – call for a new Revolutionary Calendar and celebrations of the goddess Reason in the guise of a naked prostitute on the altars of our churches. Make that a trans naked prostitute.
The image of the Terror is from Winters. He owns it.
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The actions of the Loony Left are understandable. It would be hard to keep any sliver of sanity with leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Shumer.
And the there’s Tom Perez. He’s was chosen head of the DNC for two reasons: 1) His primary opponent was a Muslim (ex Catholic), and 2) Castro was not available.
Michael Sean Winters:
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
–ghp
Gaslighting. The Left has perfected it. You’re crazy because you respond to the outrageous thing I said.
These are scary people, to be taken seriously. They do intend to obtain what they want by any means necessary. If that means others must die, so be it. Michael Moore, that visually and morally offensive minor celebrity, has recently said “bodies must be put on the line”, in other words, people (not him of course) must get hurt and/or killed for the cause. The cause is the removal of President Trump and his administration and is spreading out to anyone who works for him or who voted for him. These people are satanic, oppressive, and brutal. Human rights mean nothing to them, anymore than human rights ever mean to dictators or their maniacal zealots who do the dirty work. After the Vendee, or Nazi Germany, we can no longer think it is some foreign agent out to get us who would brutalize their neighbor. It is OUR neighbor, who has forgotten we are in this together and no longer thinks of us as neighbors, but as impediments to their political designs, to them, worth killing for. These are not only un-Christian people, they are demonic. It is demonic to call for violence against your fellow American, to imply it is now necessary or right, to state you will happily stand by and knit while your fellow Americans are guillotined. It is indecent, and he has been understood perfectly.
What I do not understand is how people like Peter Fonda, who wishes for poor 12 year old Baron Trump to be put in a cage with men who rape him, are not charged and prosecuted. Inciting violence, especially for elected representatives, should have consequences. This should not be legal. The National Catholic Reporter has done a disservice to everyone by allowing this unhinged person to write such an evil and reprehensible thing. They should be held accountable, and that person fired, unless he represents how NCR feels as well? (You didn’t ask for it Fr. Z., but I can.)
Father, as a prolific (and pro-life-ic) knitter over several decades, I’d like to volunteer to organize a counter-Tricoteuse group, because knitters are not all Mme Defarge types. My favorite image of a knitter is the Blessed Virgin (and there are some marvelous paintings where she is knitting these incredible garments!)
I for one am not about to let Wile E poison a profession that is noble, useful, and otherwise simply splendid.
So let’s hear it for the Blessed Virgin’s own St. Purls, raising our needles for every stitch-uation in praise of Goodness and Right.
Madame Wile E. Defarge whines because people ”were upset with an admittedly bracing literary device I used”…
Yeah, right. He consciously used that literary device and we illiterates didn’t “get” it. Like the irritating combox cretin who is called out for spelling and grammar errors. “I did it on purpose to see if you were reading…”
[Madame Wile E. Defarge… good solution! I wish I were a better artist. We need a graphic of Wile E. as Madame Defarge.]
I wish he would leave knitting out of it. I love knitting, and I bet he doesn’t even know what s1k2psso means, or what the difference between a cable needle and a dpn is. Looser. Liberals ruin everything.
I think Wilie’s comparing himself to Defarge is unfair, I mean apart from nourishing him at her breast what has the Church ever done to him?
Whilst Defarge is undoubtedly evil, she is at least motivated by the injustices committed against her family by the Everemondes.
Michael Sean Winters needs his own theme song. Any suggestions?
Mine are:
(1) Paul Robeson’s English-language version of the pre-Khrushchev Soviet National anthem, https://www.google.com/amp/s/genius.com/amp/Paul-robeson-anthem-of-the-ussr-lyrics
(2) Tom Jones’ “Thunderball” from the 1965 James Bond film.
Father, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your many warnings about where this culture is going and the absolute need for conversion, penance, and readiness. Mr. Winters and his fellow travelers have not even begun their descent into something very much like The Terror. If and when it begins to look like Roe v. Wade will be truly and actually overturned or significantly curtailed, all hell will literally break loose.
We are entering into increasingly dangerous times.
Cor Jesu Sacratissimum, misere nobis !
Playing the victim card is like a natural body for these people. How would he expect people to react to such “literary device”, provided it’s just that? He knows he is provoking such a response. Which begs the question: what would sitting by disinterestedly while people get their heads chopped off be a literary device for? – “I really won’t know how else but feel besides ‘well, you had your chance’ as you get what: fired, arrested, or mobbed.”? Getting your head chopped off carries with it a certain degree of severity. Even if it’s being used as an analogy for something else, it’s not as if it’s an analogy for: “when the ‘revolution’ comes, people are going to cut in front of you in line or take your parking spot, and I will have no choice but to look up and think, ‘well, you had it coming’.” To suggest that watching people get their heads chopped off is merely a literary device for something so non-offensive that others are really at fault for reacting to it is simply B as in B and S as in S.
The use of the French Revolutionary Terror as a positive image of how to treat Catholics is as offensive as would be to talk nonchalantly in similar terms of the desaparecidos of Argentina’s Dirty War. It’s just not done, it’s a horrific matter to make light of.
I would be surprised if anyone on the Left would understand the reference to Mme Defarge. After all the novel was written by a White European Male so it is unlikely to be on the reading list of any liberal institution of higher learning (if you can still use that term).
The Left yells Nazi toward conservatives, yet when one analyzes their tactics one finds A Nazi. Didn’t Hitler’s constant degreagation of the Jews and the undesirables lead to ordinary people help load the train cars?
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Someone could be inspired by the Paul Robeson link provided by Dimitri_Cavalli to change the words a little for the new anthem…
Long live our Soviet Motherland
Built by the people’s mighty hand
could become
Long live our Liberal Church
Built by the people’s mighty hand
Madame SeanWinters shame on you! What you have written is not Catholic at all. You are incapable of forgiving 70×7, like Jesus told his disciples to do. And knitting?? I thought you were a more of a coloring book type of guy.
Guys, it’s like MSW said, it’s a “literary device”…you know like a joke or something. I get jokes!!!
Like “National Catholic Reporter”, it’s just a “literary device” or a “joke”. It’s not like, ya’ know, anybody actually thinks it’s actually “Catholic” or anything.
Sigh…it’s a sad reflection on me that I enjoy these moments so much. Hey MSW, since it’s now obvious you read Fr Z’s blog and the comments avidly (I bet you’re his #1 reader, aren’t you? You adorable little coyote you!), my offer still stands: I’m shaving very closely these days so you can have an easy time at the guillotine, mon cher ;). But I warn you, do it well!! Like I said earlier, I hate shaving cuts!
Maybe you could dress up as an antifa-ette and get him to autograph a little model guillotine. Or a knitting needle.
So…
Isn’t it the suffers of TDS (winters, et al) that are all in a twist of fear at the imagining of President Trump mysteriously morphing into a violent overlording potentate, though he’s done nothing but honor the rule of law and the Constitution….While ironically, their hero, the previous incumbent in the Oval Office, totally trampled all over that document…slinging executive orders like hash on a busy Sunday morning: (ding) “ORDER UP!”
…And it is only TDS sufferers calling for violence and mayhem consistent with fascism…(please place a question mark where you feel it’s most appropriate).
Pfthbt?!?