Posted on 11/10/2001 12:41:51 PM PST by Pokey78
The Office of Homeland Security. Has a nice retro-Soviet ring to it, eh? Or how about Operation Infinite Justice, the Orwell-by-way-of-Madison-Avenue moniker that Pentagon image-makers first hung on our nascent World War Three? When the propagandists adopt phrases plucked from dystopian novels, we're in trouble.
We are not yet living in a police state; not even close. But neither are we quite living in America any more. Erstwhile civil libertarians endorse national ID cards. The ominous whisper of a military draft is in the air. When in the privacy of the family homestead I ventured the opinion that the 11 September attacks were a wicked response to wrong-headed US intervention in the Middle East, a dear family member counselled, "Don't say that too loud, Bill. Someone will report you to the police." She was serious.
The American precepts of individual rights, local self-rule and avoidance of foreign wars are so deeply buried under the rubble of empire that to mouth what once was a commonplace ("let's keep our noses out of others' business") is now a virtual act of sedition.
"Our calling" has become the eradication of terror from the world, according to President Bush. We are to "rid the world of evil", vow his speechwriters: mad and hubristic guff from callow thirtyish policy geeks who don't know a gun's stock from its barrel.
As an ardent patriot I love my country because it is mine. I suppose I should be pleased by the ubiquity of the red, white and blue banner. Flags fly from pizza shops, porches, car antennae.
Those whose knowledge comes from the idiot box will believe America to be the sum of Friends and Madeleine Albright and the preppies of the Family Bush, and they will hate us – understandably. But there is an untelevised America, a land of Iowa poets and rural volunteer fire departments and villages of faith and neighbourliness and the continuity of generations. This is the America I love, one that the keyboard bombardiers of DC would destroy in a New York minute.
Patriots – by which I mean Americans who love their untelevised country – despise war, not least for its catastrophic domestic consequences. In time of war, power flows to the centre. Regional culture withers, idiosyncrasies are smothered, young men are sent across the globe to serve as armed employees of the central government. People shift their loyalties from the local and immediate to the abstract and remote; already, local charities are reporting huge shortfalls as generous souls send their donations to the bureaucracies of New York and Washington. Through it all, the belligerent eggheads of the militaristic right and world-reforming left piss their pants with glee.
I defer to no one in my desire that the homicides who orchestrated the evil acts of 11 September be given their measure of justice, thrice over. But I will not watch silently as my country disappears. Empire is not worth a single American (or Afghan) life; defending Israel is not worth sacrificing what remains of our traditional liberties; overthrowing the Taliban is not worth bleaching the colour out of regional America.
The time for dissenters to keep quiet out of respect for the dead is over. Simple patriotism demands that we take up the plaint of a peaceable statesman from the Vietnam era: Come home, America. Come home now, while there is still a recognisable America.
Bill Kauffman's books include 'America First! Its History, Culture and Politics'
If you think Kauffman, a WHINING COWARD who doesn't understand a grave threat when he sees one, is your kind of conservative then I wish you both luck. You'll need it, since you'll be totally defenseless before any bully who wants to kick sand in your face. After you've eaten enough sand sandwiches to satisfy him, he'll just plant his heel firmly on your neck.
The naive paleo fantasy that we can scurry back to a time of horse-drawn carriages when other lands were far away across a vast ocean is much too laughable to be held by anyone who thinks seriously about world affairs.
I bet he can mumble that in his sleep.
What exactly merits a "barf alert" for this, d'you imagine? Might be a couple of things to disagree with in here for some...but a "barf alert"?
I love my country.
I don't love the idea of the Office of Homeland Security, national ID cards, the Patriot Act, increasing intervention.
Hope I didn't make anyone puke.
Thoughtful? Like this stupidity?
Simple patriotism demands that we take up the plaint of a peaceable statesman from the Vietnam era: Come home, America.
Gimme a break! Thousands of Americans died while sitting at their desks doing their jobs on a sunny September morning because a state-supported and financed group of terrorists were convince that America was the Great Satan and Americans were - and are - according to bin Laden - 'legitimate targets' and this fellow cries 'Come Home, America' and whines about a Soviet-style dictorship here. Rubbish.
Conservative? Blind, deaf and stupid with some ninteenth century concept of America and a not-well-hidden dislike of the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel is more like it. You can have this brand of 'conservative'. America was attacked, thousands died and he wants us to 'Come Home'. I say, get lost Kauffman. Go visit Bill Clinton; he'll tell you it's all our fault - and Israel's fault too, of course. You'll love him. Now, excuse me but we have work to do here and you're in the way.
Why don't we just ENFORCE the laws on the books and stop this totalitarian grab for power??
Those of you who trust politicians are in for a rude awakening in the future. Goodness sake, they tell us to go on with our lives and they run back home because of the anthrax scare. Do you really want to follow men and women such as this? I think not!!!
Bottom line, I support our President 100%, however, unless congress OFFICIALLY declares war and defines the enemy, I am afraid the professors and the radical leftists on our campuses AND the leftist media will eventually turn Americans
against this "police action". I sincerely hope I'm wrong, but, I remember how the politicians stopped the military from winning in Vietnam.
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