Posted on 04/13/2003 9:05:41 AM PDT by tictoc
I turned on NPR just now, the morning after the fall of Baghdad, and heard sounds of elegy, tones of regret: a report on the "humanitarian crisis," followed by about ten seconds of doleful segue mood music - oh, woe!
It will be fascinating in the days ahead to see how the left plays this rather inconvenient turn of events - the vindication of George W. Bush and his savage blood-for-oil fascist aggression. Footage of joyful crowds in Baghdad, and the Saddam statue going down like the Berlin wall, the women trilling in celebration, and the men whacking Saddams head with their shoes, is no doubt a setback.
But something will turn up. The left will go to the emergency rooms and to pictures of wounded children, and to all the terrible dangers ahead.
Of course, that will be only a temporary fix. The American left, and the masses of enraged, self-righteous anti-American demonstrators around the world are going to have a hard time dealing with this immense moral embarrassment: They lined up on the side of passivity, appeasement, cowardice they joined the army of Kofi Annan, the hero of Rwanda, and they called their position moral.
What now?
The left ought to know how dangerous this outcome is to its mindset and to its other projects. (At the same time, the right is going to have to be careful not to over-interpret its victory in the way that, say, Newt Gingrich over-interpreted 1994 and lost everything). Faced with a situation they, on some fundamental level, cannot understand (American soldiers being cheered?), ever more bizarre theories percolate amongst Bushs opponents to explain his behavior. Amongst the academic left, for example, current wisdom holds that the president is a religious nut who invaded Iraq because of his reading of the Book of Revelations - not because of sound, this-world considerations about the dangers of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a cunning tyrant given to playing with matches in the powder magazine of the Middle East, but rather because Bush is privately a Christian fundamentalist suicide bomber with an appetite for the Rapture or the Last Days or some other ecstacy of annihilation.
Bush is not One of Us, they say, not People Like Us. Theres that "scary business" of his believing in God. Bush and his gang are part of a Christian conspiracy to destroy the world. You might call this explanation the Protocols of the Elders of Goyim. It is the backup brought in when the left wants to give the Oil Hypothesis a rest. It is the other side of the same coin.
It is an ingenious line of insinuation. The Protocols of the Elders of Goyim states that the venality of the oilmen works hand in glove with their psychotic spiritual purpose. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that notorious, bogus document beloved of anti-Semites from Henry Ford to Hitler to the House of Saud - performed a similarly comprehensive smear job on the Jews, who were, you see, Mammon-crazed and God-crazed simultaneously. They came from a different universe. They were hostile aliens.
The Protocols of the Elders of Goyim depends upon reassigning Bush - an old-money Wasp from Connecticut and Maine - to an unsavory Christian milieu with roots in the trailer camp and more recently, in the polyester, shopping mall Christianity so culturally distasteful to the snobs of the left.
Last night, I heard the Protocols of the Elders of Goyim delivered sidelong from an academic who said he had heard it from someone else. Sometimes the theory comes in like that - as an unattached but highly developed rumor.
More often it just comes straight down the middle.
I replied: "Bush pays the Arab world the compliment of regarding its people as decent, rational, and perfectly capable of self-government and distinguished contribution to the the life of the world. He respects the ultimate sanity of the people in that region (trusts its common sense a lot more than I do) , and sees, with a clarity that eludes his critics, the dead-end (dare I say, apocalyptic) dangers that await if the people of the Middle East remain subject to religious fanatics and atavistic tyrants with nuclear weapons. It is therefore, forgive the expression, ironic that Bush himself should be accused of religious fanaticism."
I think anyone who endorses the entire Bush approach to life and public policy may be signing on for a number of bad tendencies, especially in the realms of the environment and civil liberties. But the Democratic Party is in miserable shape, with an appallingly weak lineup and with Clinton and Gore still hanging around, disabling remnants who wont quite go away. The lefts own smugness and self-righteousness has disabled it. The Republicans used to be known as the stupid party - and they still are, in many ways. But the Democrats are just about hopeless.
THIS JUST IN: "Americans who only watch CBS/CNN/NBC/ABC
are at risk for developing depression, shingles, and other DSM symptoms and signs.
The therapy may be as follows, Rx : FREE REPUBLIC 1-2x q2-6h or prn"
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Our troops give so much of themselves, and we all benefit from their efforts. The next time you look at your bank balance, why not find some way to take some money and put it towards supporting the members of our armed services in some way? Maybe find a family who has someone serving, and buy them dinner, or some groceries, or a gift for their children? Maybe find a way to contribute to a fund for the memory of any of those who have fallen? Our armed forces deserve our support in tangible ways.
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LOLOLOL!!!
You may be giving the American public at large too much credit. After the major military action is over and the news coming out of Iraq has become more routine America will revert to old habits.
Most Americans give the news very little attention. (Thats where the big media got the If it bleeds it leads philosophy.) If it doesnt immediately grab their attention the greater public switches channels to ESPN or a Soap. Watching more than one hour of news a day (probably less) is totally out of the question.
If the major news media can get some poor little pathetic bandaged child and its mother on tape wailing, then by hook or crook blame it on the Allied military action, they will sway many against the occupation.
Honestly I hope you are right, but I dont see it in my every day life.
The majority of the people I meet and see in public dont supply much evidence to support that conclusion.
In the bars I see the CNN or Fox on one TV with the sound off, on another a ball game or a sitcom with the sound on.
If you ask people they know a little about what is going on, but no depth to their knowledge.
IMHO Americans generally are people of intellectual laziness. And I havent seen much to change my mind since 9/11. Once the fighting war is over they will quickly loose interest until the next big terrorist attack.
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