A Pox On Both Your Houses

In the former Soviet republic of Moldova, there is a totally unremarkable town whose name, Beltsy, means “swamps”. Before 1940, when the town belonged to Romania, there was a thriving Jewish community there. Romania officially restricted access of Jews to higher education. Local Jews were forced to send their kids to colleges in countries that didn't have such restrictions. The result was a vibrant colony of Jewish provincial intelligentsia that bragged degrees from the best European schools. Then the war came and the Germans took care of all those who could not escape in time. Thousands of Jews from Beltsy and nearby areas were rounded up and shot. It wasn't a priority operation. The soldiers were undermanned, and the work took several days to complete. While the execution was going on, a local prodigy, a boy of 12, was forced to play his violin for the enjoyment of both Germans and Jews. He was the last one they shot.

I don't play the violin. I provide entertainment by sharing my personal views on current events. Lately, these events have been rather disturbing. Zack and I have tried our modest best to convey it to you in our writing. As a result, many of you have found our writing disturbing as well. Understandably, it has diminished the entertaining aspect of our essays. We are sincerely sorry about that, but there is very little we can do to help. Please bear with us. It's bound to get worse. Much worse.

Fortunately, while we are getting there, entertainment goes on. A few days ago, I was stuck in traffic. I decided to be entertained by Rush Limbaugh. It was one of his Open-Line Fridays. A listener called and asked Rush what would American liberalism be like 50 years from now. With half his brain tied behind his back, Rush kept entertaining his audience with a detailed answer to that urgent query until commercials interrupted his brilliant soliloquy. Those who listened closely could tell that for the first 40 seconds or so he had no idea what he was going to say. Nevertheless, there was not even a millisecond of dead air. Gradually, his stream of conscience acquired structure and meaning, and everyone who happened to be tuned to his show at the time learned what was in stock for American liberalism in the middle of our still young century.

I stopped listening closely after the first 40 seconds. Frankly, I don't think that 50 years from today I will care about liberalism one way or the other. Instead, I was mulling over a few silent assumptions Rush's prediction was based on. The biggest one was that American liberalism would even exist in that not quite certain future. For starters, for American liberalism to survive, the United States of America must be around as well. The last time I checked Biblical prophecies, I found nothing there on the subject. If you find it difficult to imagine that a superpower in general or the United States in particular can suddenly cease to exist, talk to Zack who was born and raised in a superpower that's no longer on the map. Actually, quite a few countries fell apart before our eyes. The former Rhodesia, renamed Zimbabwe by its new rulers, is gradually succumbing to cannibalism. South Africa is not far behind. Israel is, most probably, next. I believe it would be much safer for us not to take anything good for granted. But even if, during the next half century, the United States does not fall apart, does not become yet another province of the Caliphate, and does not succumb to one of the many dangers we cannot even imagine today, the survival of American liberalism remains highly questionable.

Liberalism seems pervasive like mold, but even mold won't grow without certain conditions. For example, liberalism cannot survive without liberals, and liberals cannot survive without democracy. Wherever democracy fails, the status of local liberals is promptly downgraded from citizens to lamppost decorations. The fact that they themselves actively help bring democracy down earns them the title useful idiots but no leniency. Democracy is a powerful thing, but it is not all-powerful. You can only abuse it so much before it begins to deteriorate; and as soon as it does, there is always some kind of fascism, either under a red banner or a green one, ready to fill the vacuum.

Allow me to say a few words about abuse of democracy. While passing through New Paltz, NY, I saw a comic book displayed in the window of a local bookstore. The book was titled In the Shadow of No Towers. Its author, Art Spiegelman, became famous after he published another comic book, Maus, in which he portrayed Holocaust victims as mice. The cover of his new book shows a bunch of funny looking characters tumbling down from the burning towers. In reality, those little Goebbelses (that's what Ward Churchill called victims of 9/11) didn't look funny at all, but that's not important. What's important, is that no one came to that store and told the owner, “Look, this is a small town. We all respect your First Amendment rights and all that, but this is like pissing on your own mother's grave. We don't do it here. If you want to keep selling books in my town, don't try to sell that one.” But nobody minded the pissing, because our respect for the First Amendment prevails over our respect for our mother's grave. I am not worried about the grave: even desecrated, it won't go anywhere. I am not so sure about the First Amendment. What exactly makes you so confident that we are going to survive as a country, as a democracy, as a civilized society?

If you believe that American democracy is safe and sound, ask yourself two simple questions: (1) Is European democracy safe and sound? (2) What makes America any more resistant to the ongoing Islamization than Europe? My answers to these questions are No and Nothing, respectively. If you have a reason to be more optimistic, I'd love to hear from you.

Of course, Islam is not the only danger to our democracy. Democracy is a multifaceted thing, and one of its most important tools in this country is the two-party system. The idea behind it is simple: two school of political thought compete for better solutions of societal problems and challenges, with the people as the ultimate arbiter rendering their verdict at the voting booth. But that's only the idea. The reality is much uglier.

The Democrats have only one problem and only one challenge today: how to unseat the Republicans. At first glance, that looks like a no-brainer, because the Republicans, who have the White House, the Senate and the Congress, are not delivering.

The borders remain unprotected, even though Mexicans, with the full support of their government, believe they are entitled to cross into the United States any time they wish and bring a few Arabs with them as well.

The "war on terror" has failed to put a dent into the daily threat of terror under which we've been living since 9/11. If you don't believe this, you must have missed the news from London. Homeland security exists only in the name of a newly created bureaucracy. This country has been viciously, without provocation attacked by an enemy that would not have survived our proper response. What was our response? A reorg in the government.

The only country that benefits from our war in Iraq is our worst enemy, Saudi Arabia, whose chieftain just happens to be our president's bosom buddy. Our enemies acquire nuclear weapons, and we do absolutely nothing about it. The UN has become the epitome of corruption, but we continue to participate in it and finance its operations.

In the course of our idiotic pursuit of democracy in the Middle East, we threw Israel to the Arabs. Israel, by the way, was not just the only democracy in the region; it also was the only country in the world truly interested in the long-term survival and prosperity of the United States. Thanks to the US foreign policy, today, Israel is no longer a democracy, and the prospects of its own long-term (let's say, 5 years) survival are shaky at best.

And now our president intends to solve African problems by spraying that continent with a golden shower. That will work, have no doubt about it. Do you know why the Hutus hacked a million of Tutsis to death with their machetes? Only because they couldn't afford guns. President Bush is surrounded with brilliant advisers adept in all areas of expertise. None of them explained to him that the problems of Africa, including its abysmal poverty, stem from the fact that the Africans are neither ready nor willing to live the way we have deemed proper for the 21st century, and no amount of money can alleviate that, just like making condoms readily available has failed to curtail the catastrophic spread of AIDS on the continent.

How do the Democrats oppose all these and many other historic flops in our policies? They don't. Ever since Ronald Reagan left the White House, they haven't come up with anything more innovative than supplying Communist China with American nuclear secrets in exchange for financing Clintons' electoral campaign; nothing more profound than the meaning of is; and nothing more creative than filibustering Bush's judicial nominees. They condemn everything the Republicans do or say, but it would be useless to expect them to suggest a viable alternative. Their interests lie elsewhere.

To understand where their interests lie, try to recall the 2004 presidential elections when the Democrats carefully picked a bunch of perfectly unelectable candidates. Why? Because a victory of their candidate in 2004 would have messed up Hillary's plans for 2008. John Kerry has since proven his uncommon political savvy by behaving as if he would ever be running for president again. He hasn't figured out yet that all he can count on is free ketchup for the rest of his life.

But before we get too giggly about those hapless Democrats, let's think about what's going to happen in 2008. I'll tell you what: we are going to elect Hillary, because she will be the only electable candidate in all the parties represented in that election, including not just every single Republican you can think of, but also Ralph Nader and every other Ross Perot with an itch to waste a few million dollars in order to make no difference whatsoever.

I still remember how shocked I was when it dawned on me that General Motors was not created to provide the American public with inexpensive automobiles of superb quality. It was created to make a few — very few — people very rich. The rest of the operation was but a side effect. I was troubled when I realized that the Clintons and Kennedys want to run this country like it's just another GM. When I hear President Bush assure the American people that Islam is not their enemy while everyone with a brain, including every single Muslim in the world, knows it is; when I see him sucking up to the Saudi royalty in the middle of jihad they have inspired and financed; when I see how American soldiers die in Iraq so that the House of Saud rather than Saddam Hussein would lead the Muslim world against us, what conclusion should I arrive at? What's your conclusion?

If I haven't yet offended your patriotism enough, if your adherence to the party line is not strong enough for you to stop reading this awful stuff in the middle of a sentence and send me a request to unsubscribe, you may want to ask me what can be done to save this country and this world. I am not a prophet. I do not know what can be done. I don't even know if anything at all can be done. I will tell you however, what I am going to do. I will never again vote for someone I don't trust just because I mistrust the other guy even more. I will never vote for someone I do not respect just because my contempt for the other guy is stronger. I will not vote for the lesser of the two evils. If I ever enter that booth again, I am going to vote for someone with enough backbone to tell his/her/its constituents that Islam is their enemy. And if there is no such candidate, feel free to elect whomever you hate less, but without my endorsement. My reference to the candidate's backbone, by the way, should be taken literally. Not only don't I care which party he/she/it represents, I don't care what biological species he/she/it belongs to. As long as it is a vertebrate, it's good enough for me, although I will admit that I would feel a little more comfortable if it was a mammal, like me.

Oh, and one last thing. The person, who told me about the young violinist, grew up in Beltsy. According to him, after the war, the town remained in Soviet hands. They built the city hall right on top of the mass grave. No sign has ever been erected made to commemorate the victims. His parents, incidentally, had known the kid's family. He even told me the boy's name, but I forgot it. Who cares what they called him? He's been long dead anyway.

The article above is presented as a public service. It may be reproduced without charge — with attribution.To read my other articles or to make a donation, please visit http://www.middleeastfacts.com/yashiko/To be added to or removed from my mailing list, please contact me at ysagamori@hotmail.com© 2002—2005 Yashiko Sagamori. All rights reserved. July 8, 2005

Wow. There's a whole lot more food for thought here than initially meets the eye. This particular paragraph grabbed me, because it not only summarized a reality brilliantly, but also its obvious fate.

Liberalism seems pervasive like mold, but even mold won't grow without certain conditions. For example, liberalism cannot survive without liberals, and liberals cannot survive without democracy. Wherever democracy fails, the status of local liberals is promptly downgraded from citizens to lamppost decorations.

In order to understand that paragraph, one has to have some grasp of some elements of recent history, which requires a gene that the emotees obviously lack. So their fate is preordained. A nasty version of the Eloi, they are.

But just as the incompetent can never know they are incompetent, the true "liberal" is oblivious to his precarious status and likely to learn it much too late, after he has championed, encouraged and nurtured the means of his own destruction.

The rest of us can only smile and wait.

When I hear President Bush assure the American people that Islam is not their enemy while everyone with a brain, including every single Muslim in the world, knows it is; when I see him sucking up to the Saudi royalty in the middle of jihad they have inspired and financed; when I see how American soldiers die in Iraq so that the House of Saud rather than Saddam Hussein would lead the Muslim world against us, what conclusion should I arrive at? What's your conclusion?

Wow.

This guy is freaky. He has been listening to me rant in the shower for the last three years!
Creepy.

"The "war on terror" has failed to put a dent into the daily threat of terror under which we've been living since 9/11. If you don't believe this, you must have missed the news from London. Homeland security exists only in the name of a newly created bureaucracy. This country has been viciously, without provocation attacked by an enemy that would not have survived our proper response. What was our response? A reorg in the government.

The only country that benefits from our war in Iraq is our worst enemy, Saudi Arabia, whose chieftain just happens to be our president's bosom buddy. Our enemies acquire nuclear weapons, and we do absolutely nothing about it. The UN has become the epitome of corruption, but we continue to participate in it and finance its operations.

In the course of our idiotic pursuit of democracy in the Middle East, we threw Israel to the Arabs. Israel, by the way, was not just the only democracy in the region; it also was the only country in the world truly interested in the long-term survival and prosperity of the United States. Thanks to the US foreign policy, today, Israel is no longer a democracy, and the prospects of its own long-term (let's say, 5 years) survival are shaky at best. "

This bears repeating--Who are we to tell the Arabs they must practice democracy? WHY? So we can have cheap oil?--screw that--

We need to take that 6 billion a month and protect our borders and develop fossil fuel alternatives. The war on terror is not in IRAQ, it is right HERE. If you think we are any safer than London, with our thousands of buses and long rail lines, you are dreaming.

The Islamic 'Imams' who claim they are against the jihad like to say, "The Koran says that to kill one is to kill the whole world.." What they don't tell you is the the Koran REALLY says, "unless they have committed villainy and murder in the land.." These young Islamic crazies believe that part. I say let them rot in their totalitarian hellholes. They don't deserve our brave men and women dying for freedom they won't fight for. I've had it. Bring them home . Is that what the terrorists want? I don't give a sh*t. It's what I want.

when I see him sucking up to the Saudi royalty in the middle of jihad they have inspired and financed; when I see how American soldiers die in Iraq so that the House of Saud rather than Saddam Hussein would lead the Muslim world against us, what conclusion should I arrive at? What's your conclusion?

That Saudi Arabia is like a despised inlaw.., you make nice with them while maneuvering both them and yourself into positions where they have to be nice to you as well as do what you want.

Iraq is a remarkably good place to set up a huge strategic presence in that area of the world, and I think convincing the Saudis we were perfectly willing to put a BUNCH of assets right by them in the WOT was just as much a part of the calculation as getting rid of the guy that's been at covert war with us for years. President Bush's style won't him to admit that because it would require illuminating the malfeasance of his predecessor.

This bears repeating--Who are we to tell the Arabs they must practice democracy? WHY? So we can have cheap oil?--screw that--

You haven't been listening to what the President is saying. If you want to know what he's doing, read "The case for democracy" by Natan Sharansky.

This was always a war of information. If you haven't read it, you don't have a clue.

I looked at the info on Sharansky's book, it looks interesting--especially the part about democracies not attacking each other. I'm all for it, really--as for what the President has been saying he's not saying much, IMO. "Stay the course, spreading hope and freedom, yada yada.." What I'm not seeing is the PLAN to seed these democracies without creating terrorists of people of a nutty religion who don't want us there. All those happy Iraqi's? They will turn on us, everyone, in a second if they find another leader with another agenda they prefer. I have a clue, thank you very much.

Whoever it is, this is the most insightful, honest and useful post I have seen in a long time.

It summarizes the feelings of just about everyone these days, except for the fanatic cool-aid drinkers of both parties.

And here I would include those girlie-men, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved... even that Mr. Nice-pacifist-Let's reason-together Dennis Prager seems to have grown some [censored]!

Some people will never get it.

The only country that benefits from our war in Iraq is our worst enemy, Saudi Arabia, whose chieftain just happens to be our president's bosom buddy.

I was as strong a supporter of George W Bush as anyone, but the veil has been lifted from my eyes.

This author is dead on.

I know it is heresy on this site, maybe even fatal, but I now believe Bush is more a problem then a solution to our Islamic problems.

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The woman who wrote this is really Debbie Downer of Saturday Night Live: