The Little Red Blog

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

Long before James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose arrived on the scene to warn us against the dangers of “cultural Marxism,” bow tie afficionado Roger Kimball had issued a series of indictments against academic radicalism and the pernicious influence of the Sixties. Having made a name for himself in 1990 with Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education, Kimball emblazoned his reputation a decade later with The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America. Mr. Kimball has since continued his tireless campaign against postmodern culture; his recent titles contain such telltale phrases as Culture and Anarchy, Age of Amnesia, Rape of the Masters, etc. 

In “Americans Know What Time It Is,” however, an essay at American Greatness, Mr. Kimball is for once in an upbeat mood. ¹ “There are many signs,” he crows, “including the announcement of the 1776 Commission, that the conscience of the country is awakening.” Kimball hails Donald Trump’s masterful negotiation of peace in the Middle East as proof that the president is by no means the doofus (“crude simpleton” is the term Kimball uses) that our misleaders on the Left would have us believe. Moreover, could a doofus compose and utter soaring rhetoric like this, the president’s introduction to his “1776 Commission”?

Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.

What really puts the starch into Kimball’s bow tie, however, is the president’s denunciation of “critical race theory,” as Kimball explains:

Adducing the doctrine of critical race theory and some of its operational offshoots like the New York Times-sponsored “1619 Project,” Trump said: 

“This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families.”

President Trump has obviously given the matter some thought, or at least taken a glance at his teleprompter. Kimball, on the other hand, has spent his entire career taking shots at the likes of “critical race theory” and its kindred (women’s studies, queer studies, black studies, etc.), and he could not be more thrilled that his cause is being championed from the Oval Office:

The journalist Christopher Rufo has exposed the astonishing inroads this doctrine has made into major institutions of the federal government—including the Department of the Treasury, Homeland Security, the FBI, and even the laboratories manufacturing the country’s nuclear arsenal. Take a peek: you’ll find a cadre of highly paid consultants running consciousness-raising workshops whose constant theme is the perfidiousness of American society, especially its free-market orientation and, most particularly, the white, male actors who have dominated its history. 

I am not sure how much of an “expose” it is when the information uncovered is in plain sight and a matter of public record, but kudos in any case to Christopher Rufo for documenting the plague of consciousness-raising in our nation.

Kimball sees a new day dawning for American patriotism:

“For many years now,” Trump said, “the radicals have mistaken Americans’ silence for weakness.” The flagrant and malevolent nonsense of anti-American proselytizing in our schools, in the country’s corporate culture, even in major government institutions on the federal as well as the state and local level has been growing for years. But there are many signs, including the announcement of the 1776 Commission, that the conscience of the country is awakening. Here’s my prediction. The president’s 1776 Commission will represent not Trump’s “version of history” but history’s own transcript. 

Historians will be thrilled to hear about the existence and availability of “history’s own transcript”. It will save them the trouble of doing research, of gathering and sifting facts, and of offering interpretations and drawing conclusions based on what they have found; instead, they can just consult the transcript!

While we wait for the “1776 Commission” to enlighten us, feel free to look into the “1619 Project” for yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html Since Kimball mentions in passing that even the sacrosanct Smithsonian has been infected with the “critical race theory” virus, you might want to check that website as well: https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race

Addendum: President Trump has just issued an honest to goodness “Make It So” order on this subject: https://publicpool.kinja.com/subject-executive-order-on-combating-race-and-sex-ster-1845147455

_____________________________________

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/19/americans-know-what-time-it-is/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Kimball

¹ I do not know what the title of Kimball’s essay means—time for a change, perhaps? Time to chase the thieves from the temple? Howdy Doody time? Time to be born? Time to die? Time to buy a new bow tie? Your guess, reader, is as good as mine.

Four for the Fourth

Great writers, of whom America has had its share, produce their own special kind of fireworks, illuminating what is good and what is bad about the nation. Occasionally the literary fireworks fizzle, but when they work as planned, they are nothing short of breathtaking.

1. Walt Whitman, from “Democratic Vistas” (1871):

I say we had best look our times and lands searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease. Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us. The underlying principles of the States are not honestly believ'd in, (for all this hectic glow, and these melodramatic screamings) nor is humanity itself believ'd in. What penetrating eye does not everywhere see through the mask? The spectacle is apalling. We live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy throughout. The men believe not in the women, nor the women in the men. A scornful superciliousness rules in literature. The aim of all the littérateurs is to find something to make fun of.

A lot of churches, sects, &c., the most dismal phantasms I know, usurp the name of religion. Conversation is a mass of badinage. From deceit in the spirit, the mother of all false deeds, the offspring is already incalculable. An acute and candid person, in the revenue department in Washington, who is led by the course of his employment to regularly visit the cities, north, south and west, to investigate frauds, has talk'd much with me about his discoveries. The depravity of the business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater. The official services of America, national, state, and municipal, in all their branches and departments, except the judiciary, are saturated in corruption, bribery, falsehood, maladministration; and the judiciary is tainted.

The great cities reek with respectable as much as non-respectable robbery and scoundrelism. In fashionable life, flippancy, tepid amours, weak infidelism, small aims, or no aims at all, only to kill time. In business, (this all-devouring modern word, business,) the one sole object is, by any means, pecuniary gain. The magician's serpent in the fable ate up all the other serpents; and money-making is our magician's serpent, remaining to-day sole master of the field.

The best class we show, is but a mob of fashionably dress'd speculators and vulgarians. True, indeed, behind this fantastic farce, enacted on the visible stage of society, solid things and stupendous labors are to be discover'd, existing crudely and going on in the background, to advance and tell themselves in time. Yet the truths are none the less terrible. I say that our New World democracy, however great a success in uplifting the masses out of their sloughs, in materialistic development, products, and in a certain highly-deceptive superficial popular intellectuality, is, so far, an almost complete failure in its social aspects, and in really grand religious, moral, literary, and esthetic results. In vain do we march with unprecedented strides to empire so colossal, outvying the antique, beyond Alexander's, beyond the proudest sway of Rome. In vain have we annex'd Texas, California, Alaska, and reach north for Canada and south for Cuba. It is as if we were somehow being endow'd with a vast and more and more thoroughly-appointed body, and then left with little or no soul.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/Whitman/vistas/vistas.html

2. Helen Scott, from “The Mark Twain They Didn’t Teach in School” (2000):

Twain was one of the most forthright critics of American ruling-class ideology at the turn of the 20th century. Especially toward the end of his life, Twain's published and unpublished writings and speeches are overwhelmingly antiracist, anti-imperialist and revolutionary:

“I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. 

“When all the bricklayers, and all the machinists, and all the miners, and blacksmiths, and printers, and hod-carriers, and stevedores, and house-painters, and brakemen, and engineers, and conductors, and factory hands, and horse-car drivers, and all the shop-girls, and all the sewing-women, and all the telegraph operators; in a word all the myriads of toilers in whom is slumbering the reality of that thing which you call Power...when these rise, call the vast spectacle by any deluding name that will please your ear, but the fact remains a Nation has risen.”

https://socialistworker.org/2010/04/21/the-twain-they-didnt-teach

3. John Dos Passos, from The Big Money (1936):

They have clubbed us off the streets they are stronger they are rich they hire and fire the politicians the newspapereditors the old judges the small men with reputations the collegepresidents the wardheelers (listen businessmen collegepresidents judges America will not forget her betrayers) they hire the men with guns the uniforms the policecars the patrolwagons all right you have won you will kill the brave men our friends tonight.   

[punctuation in the original]

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/130564-the-big-money

4. Howard Zinn:

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1899.Howard_Zinn

If At First You Don't Secede...

Today seems like as good a time as any to discuss nullification and secession.  

Writing last July, Kirkpatrick Sale claimed that nullification—individual states choosing to ignore and/or refusing to enforce federal laws—is already taking place. His first example was the reaction to President Trump's withdrawing America from the Paris climate accords: 

What was amazing about watching two dozen states and several hundred cities defy Donald Trump’s decision to take the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement was that so little was made of it. It represented open defiance of the national government and a commitment to follow the principles of a treaty that our elected leader has specifically rebuked. I don’t know what you’d call it, but it looks a lot like nullification, the principle that any American state can refuse to obey certain chosen government laws and policies.  

Nullification. That’s quite a strong position. Some might even call it treason. 

Sale provided further specifics about this "open defiance of the national government"; but for all that, he was wrong on the underlying issue. States and cities that declare their own climate-change principles and policies have every right to do so; there was, and is, no federal statute prohibiting them from such actions. No federal law is being defied; the Paris climate accords, approved by President Obama but not by Congress, were never legally binding. 

Sale's second example, however, seems actually to support his argument: 

Let’s look at the sanctuary movement, which stands clearly in opposition to U.S. laws and practices and specifically to the Trump administration’s demand that cities cooperate with Immigration and Customs officials or face a cut-off of all federal funds. At the moment there are an estimated 476 counties and cities that have declared that they won’t follow the 1996 law that requires cities to cooperate with ICE — and 50 of them were added to the list after Trump’s January executive order threatened to defund them — plus what the Center for Immigration Studies lists as six states (California, Oregon, North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado and New York) that declare themselves to be sanctuary states. 

That’s nullification again, and on a massive scale. 

Progressives applaud the stance taken by sanctuary cities, but it seems undeniable that such cities are, de facto if not de jure, nullifying federal laws and refusing federal mandates.* Sale also cites the legalizing of marijuana by various states and localities, an issue which may be somewhat less clear-cut but which still amounts to nullification in the broadest sense of the term. 

For Kirkpatrick Sale, this all came as welcome news; he has been part of the "Second Vermont Republic" secession movement for years. Last year, he urged the rest of the country to follow: 

As a confirmed decentralist and anti-authoritarian, I applaud this whole movement toward what might be called states’ (and cities’) rights, and I would like to see such a movement spread, achieving by de facto secession the right to self-determination and self-government that alone promotes liberty. And for those of you...who may at first denigrate this movement, you might consider what would be the appropriate action if the offshore drilling companies actually decide to start their destructive exploration projects off the sea island coast. I can think of nothing better than the local sheriffs and deputies showing up to carry out the wishes and ordinances of the local cities and towns and refuse the oil giants permission.  

Note how easily Sale goes from approving nullification to justifying secession to promoting the ultimate legal authority of "local sheriffs and deputies". That latter authority, of course, is also promoted by the likes of disgraced ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio and by those in the "Constitutional Sheriffs Movement" who insist (mistakenly) that local sheriffs rather than state or federal agents are the highest authorities in the land. Cliven Bundy and his brood support the Constitutional Sheriffs Movement, which ought to tell you all you need to know about it. 

I'm a believer in localism; I'm a believer in decentralization; I'm a believer in the principle of "subsidiarity," which holds that "[social] matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority." ** I have long been sympathetic to Kirkpatrick Sale's vision of a "human scale" society structured around "human scale" social institutions. If there were some way imaginable that the United States might amend its federal constitution to align with the above precepts, or that the nation could peacefully be split into several more governable autonomous regions: I would welcome a discussion. 

But I do not believe such outcomes are presently possible, if ever, and I think it is irresponsible to encourage defiance of federal authority; moreover, it is both irresponsible and dangerous to encourage local sheriffs to do so. I say that knowing full well that our federal government is currently in the hands of an authoritarian, that President Donald Trump may take us into a constitutional crisis any day now, and that our democracy is in peril as I write; but that makes this precisely the wrong time for Kirkpatrick Sale to push his agenda—because if ideas like nullification and secession are ever to be taken seriously, it must be at a time when our political fabric is strong and our nation is united. 

No matter what Donald Trump says tonight, this is not such a time. 

________________________________________________________

http://www.vermontindependent.org/the-secession-impulse-is-alive-and-well-in-us-cities-and-states-kirkpatrick-sale/  

* For an example of de jure nullification, see the recent announcement by the State of Idaho that insurers in the state do not need to abide by regulations of the Affordable Care Act, a law which, however despised by some, is still in effect—even in Idaho.    

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism) Some advocates of subsidiarity tend to gloss over the stipulation regarding "competent" authority, a caveat through which you could drive a truck or even a popemobile.

The Church of American Pretension

Stanley Hauerwas, one of our very best contemporary theologians, disagrees with those who say that Donald Trump is not a religious man:

Trump is quite pious and his religious convictions run dangerously deep. But his piety is not a reflection of a Christian faith. His piety is formed by his understanding of what makes America a country like no other.

Hauerwas notes that Trump has already added a blatantly Orwellian feast day to America’s liturgical calendar:

Trump proclaimed Jan. 20, the day of his inauguration, a “National Day of Patriotic Devotion.” Patriotic devotion?  Christians are devoted to God, not to any nation. Trump defended his call for a day of patriotic devotion by drawing attention to his other claim — taken on faith — that there are no greater people than American citizens. Faith in Trump’s view, though, requires belief in those things for which we have insufficient evidence.

A keystone of Hauerwas’ work over the years has been his rejection of the gospel of American Exceptionalism, the very gospel which Trump’s rhetoric invokes:

There is nothing, in Trump’s view, the American people cannot accomplish as long as we believe in ourselves and our country. But Christians do not believe in ourselves or our country. We believe in God, but we do more than believe in God. We worship God. Nothing else is to be worshiped. Christians have a word to describe the worship of that which is not God: idolatry. 

Hauerwas draws the logical conclusion:

Trump’s inauguration address counts as a stunning example of idolatry. His statement — “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country we will recover loyalty to each other” — is clearly a theological claim that offers a kind of salvation.

The evangelistic character of Trump’s faith should not be missed. He suggests that we will rediscover our loyalty to one another through our total allegiance to the United States.  Trump, in his mind, is not just the president of the United States. He is the savior.

I do not doubt Trump thinks of himself as a Christian, but America is his church.

And what a great church it is, or at least will be again: a huge beautiful church filled with winners rather than sinners, the proud rather than the humble, the forceful rather than the meek, and with the stars and stripes flying triumphantly overhead!  Not for this church the humiliation of the cross; to paraphrase then-candidate Trump, "I like people who weren't crucified."

Stanley Hauerwas is not impressed:

Christians have a church made up of people from around the globe. That global interconnectedness might just produce a people with the resources to tell Trump “no.” At the very least, Christians in the United States have little to lose by beginning to reject our long love affair with American pretension.

The correct answer to “Is America a Christian nation?” is, of course, “There’s no such thing as a ‘Christian nation’.” Stanley Hauerwas has been making that point for decades, and Trump Nation may be the very epitome of what Hauerwas has been warning us against.  We would be wise to start paying attention.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/01/27/christians-dont-be-fooled-trump-has-deep-religious-convictions/?utm_term=.c39a753a4ee0

A Monumental Mistake?

Give Dylan Matthews (at Vox) credit: he’s chosen the July 4th weekend to publish an unthinkably un-American heresy.  It is Mr. Matthews’ contention that the American Revolution (as he calls it, the “original Brexit”) was nothing to celebrate:

This July 4, let's not mince words: American independence in 1776 was a monumental mistake. We should be mourning the fact that we left the United Kingdom, not cheering it.

Allowing an interval for readers to recover from their shock, Matthews admits:

Of course, evaluating the wisdom of the American Revolution means dealing with counterfactuals. As any historian would tell you, this is a messy business. We obviously can't be entirely sure how America would have fared if it had stayed in the British Empire longer, perhaps gaining independence a century or so later, along with Canada.

He then presses on with his case:

But I'm reasonably confident a world in which the revolution never happened would be better than the one we live in now, for three main reasons: Slavery would've been abolished earlier, American Indians would've faced rampant persecution but not the outright ethnic cleansing Andrew Jackson and other American leaders perpetrated, and America would have a parliamentary system of government that makes policymaking easier and lessens the risk of democratic collapse.

Omitted from Mr. Matthews’ indictment (and you should read his article in full for the details) are certain charges I have found myself making over the years, to wit: that the American Revolution gave birth to this country’s delusional belief in the righteousness of its wars and of its propensity for violence; that it led to the creation of a quasi-Scriptural founding document (the Constitution), the fetishizing of which has repeatedly been an obstacle to necessary systemic changes; and that the Revolution became the cornerstone of the preposterous notion of “American exceptionalism,” wherein Americans were asserted to be God’s newly-chosen people and wherein we declared this nation to be a shining City on a Hill, exempt from both history and criticism.

I don't know if Dylan Matthews is right in calling the American Revolution "a monumental mistake," but I know that its consequences were not entirely benign and its promises have not all been kept; I also know that, since 1776, the most powerful voices in America have been those reminding us of that.  

Here's a YouTube clip of Bruce Springsteen, recorded in 1985.  This version of Woody Guthrie's “This Land Is Your Land” is mournful rather than celebratory, and Springsteen introduces it with remarks about steelworkers in Pittsburgh and in Gary, Indiana whose jobs were fast disappearing—yes, under the sainted Ronald Reagan our industrial base was being hollowed out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yuc4BI5NWU

As Springsteen says, for countries as for individuals it’s easy for the best parts to get lost.  We can’t let that happen here.  If we want America to be a truly exceptional nation, we need to start acting like one.  

______________________________________________________________

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/2/8884885/american-revolution-mistake

Andrew Jackson: The Man Who Broke America?

From the Department of “That’s not very nice”:

Michael Brendan Dougherty (The Week) celebrates Presidents’ Day by debunking the reputation of Andrew Jackson, “America’s worst ‘great’ president”.  Dougherty writes:

Jackson's authoritarian will, his eagerness with the veto pen, his unprincipled use of federal power against non-whites, and his ugly patronage schemes changed forever the character of the Republic. Jackson pushed America's fragile Republican institutions down in front of the march of mass democracy. He put the executive branch on a tilt that eventually made it superior to Congress, and made the president himself into a kind of populist king and symbol of the people's will. The American nation has suffered from infantalized Congresses, cowardly judiciaries, and "great presidencies" ever since.

I thought it was liberals who went around revising American history and trashing our national icons?* Mr. Dougherty describes President Jackson as having been “a smoldering latrine fire of resentments and rage,” \and I don't think he means that as a compliment. He refers to John Quincy Adams’ election in 1824 as resulting from a “corrupt bargain,” and he says that “Jacksonian democracy reflected [the] ambition of the newly expanded white voting classes at the expense of slaves and Indians.”  That's kind of harsh stuff; I'm sure glad President Obama didn't say it.

Mind you, I don’t necessarily disagree with any of that; I just find it interesting that a conservative is willing to describe an American president, and an entire phase of American history, in such terms—and on Presidents’ Day, no less.  And then to accuse this great nation of having had "infantalized Congresses" and "cowardly judiciaries" for almost two hundred years: why does Michael Brendan Dougherty hate America?

____________________________________________________________________

http://theweek.com/articles/539274/andrew-jackson-americas-worst-great-president

*Except for Woodrow Wilson and FDR—conservatives have always enjoyed trashing them.  Also, of course, Southerners and Confederate sympathizers have long trashed Abraham Lincoln (after having killed him first). 

Mr. Pierce On Our "Moral Calamity"

 

It's commonplace by now to say that slavery was America's Original Sin.  At some point in the future, I suspect that our Bush-era endorsement of torture will qualify as a fall from grace as well. Whatever may have been "exceptional" about this country has been abandoned in our post-9/11 fear and our thirst for vengeance: not just because we tortured, but because we "justified" it at the time and because we continue to do so, this nation has been contaminated.

This is from Charlie Pierce's post on "The Moral Calamity of the Obama Administration":

[President Obama] is not an amoral man. Neither is he stupid. He knew full well, despite all his glowing rhetoric about the fundamental decency of the American people, that, for its own scurvy purposes, the previous administration unleashed the darkest collective human impulses that the country possesses, that the previous administration made good use of fear and ignorance, and the anger that is their monstrous stepchild, and that it profited politically and personally for having done so. He also knew that, somewhere, deep in the heart that he is sure the United States still possesses, a kind of national shame was building up to a level pretty close to critical mass and that, if it detonated in an uncontrolled explosion, the power of it could be terribly misused.

So the moral calamity of the Obama Administration is one that was forced upon it by the nature of the transformation of the country that was wrought in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, a transformation that never was going to be temporary, since an endless war requires a permanently transformed country. Reading the polls today makes a mockery of the notion that there ever has been a president elected to office who would have had the raw political courage to hand these gutless bastards [from the Bush administration]over to the Hague to be tried for war crimes, or to prosecute them ourselves for criminal conspiracy.

All of which, writes Mr. Pierce, leaves America an exceptional country that does not torture or commit war crimes, an exceptional country that has guaranteed that a moral calamity will be at the heart of every presidency for the next 100 years, because there is no [constituency] for law that is stronger than the constituency for vengeance.

Read the entirety of Charlie Pierce's article at:

 http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Moral_Calamities_And_The_Presidency  

President Gatlin Declares World War III

Sean Hannity, as you may have heard, recently hosted noted foreign policy expert Phil Robertson to offer his advice on how to deal with the ISIS crisis in the Middle East: “Convert them or kill them” was Mr. Robertson’s carefully considered suggestion. Not to be outdone, www.foxnews.com has now given editorial space to the equally qualified armchair analyst Larry Gatlin, better known as a country music singer/songwriter but quite clearly a man well-versed in foreign affairs.* Mr. Gatlin’s column¹ contains a certain amount of sarcasm regarding President Obama’s golfing activities, but setting that aside, here is the crux of what Mr. Gatlin thinks America must do:

“I believe that it is time for America to go on wartime footing, all the way up to and including a "peacetime" draft if necessary. Heck, pay the soldiers what congressmen, senators, and your White House spin doctors make.  

“Go save Iraq -- AGAIN. Take 20% of their oil revenue until the money we have spent freeing them -- TWICE -- is paid back. Leave a residual force there to keep this from happening again (see Japan, Germany, and Italy) and tell anyone who doesn't like it to kiss AMERICA's happy, safe rear end.  

“I am 66 years old, I'm in pretty damn good shape and I will go right now. I've lived a good life and I want my granddaughters to have the chance to live one too.

“I was #296 during Vietnam... I didn't have to go, but I would have gone if I had been called. 

I will go now if called… Unfortunately, I know that I never will be called, so I will answer a different call. ²

“I will call on you, Mr. President.³ Do you have the stomach to lead our scared, uncertain, worried, 'tired of war' American citizens in a fight to the death against the Islamic murderers, even if the "tide of public opinion" is against it?

“Anyone can lead people who are willing and eager to go. Can you, will you lead people who are not willing, but need to go? ⁴

“Finally, while it is long past time to start treating our veterans with the dignity and care they deserve, it is also long past time to stop treating our current soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.⁵ They have been trained to defend the United States, Mr. President, to the death, if it comes to that.

“We have trained them, fed them, housed them, equipped them, armed them, and stationed them in close proximity to hot spots all over the world, in order to be ready for the start of World War III.

“Well, Mr. President, WORLD WAR III is here. 

 “It's high time we turn our troops loose to let them GO KILL THE BAD GUYS. Turn them loose, sir, and give America another, "righteous might, so help us God" moment. 

“Please, sir, before it's too late...” ⁶

Now that Fox News has gone to the well for two distinguished analysts the caliber of Messrs. Robertson and Gatlin, I can’t wait to see who they trot out next—perhaps Victoria Jackson, alumna of Saturday Night Live and recently failed political candidate?  Ms. Jackson’s deranged Islamophobia (she believes that Grover Norquist is behind the imposition of sharia law in the United States) surely qualifies her to weigh in on the issue, and her trademark voice adds all the gravitas her opinions (and those of Fox News) deserve.

_________________________________________________________

*Mr. Gatlin’s credentials as an analyst are obscure, to say the least.  It’s possible that Fox has him confused with Richard Gatling, inventor of the eponymous Gatling gun which was first used during America’s Civil War.

¹ http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/09/03/open-letter-to-barack-obama-world-war-iii-is-here/

² “I was #296 during Vietnam…” may be my favorite part of this article, as Mr. Gatlin produces his randomly assigned draft lottery number as proof of his patriotism.  In those days, Mr. Gatlin was sadly unaware that the military was accepting voluntary enlistees and that he didn’t need to wait for #296 to be called; he was busy playing college football and then beginning his music career.  He’s making up now for that oversight by demanding that other Americans be sent overseas to do the killing he never got the chance to do.  "I will go right now," Gatlin blusters; "Unfortunately, I know that I never will be called..."  

³ See how neatly Mr. Gatlin turns “I will answer a different call” into “I will call on you, Mr. President”?  How those two statements fit together, other than through the multiple reiterations of the word “call,” is not immediately evident;  who exactly called on Mr. Gatlin to “call on” President Obama?  How is calling on the President a way for Mr. Gatlin to answer some call?  It’s all very confusing, except for the one clear fact: Larry Gatlin himself ain’t goin’ to war no mo’ today than he did during Vietnam. 

Rhetorically, Mr. Gatlin’s usage of “call” reminds me of a Bob Dylan lyric (doesn’t everything?): “If your memory serves you well, you’ll remember that you’re the one who called on them to call on me to get you your favors done.” [“This Wheel’s on Fire”]Somewhat discouragingly, the lyric continues, “And after every plan had failed and there was nothing more to tell…”  I’m sure Larry Gatlin’s plans will work out much better; he’s had over forty years, since he missed his call to save Vietnam, to perfect them.

⁴ A new test of presidential leadership: lead the American people where they don't want to go.  I'm sure that neither Larry Gatlin nor his friends at Fox News would ever condemn President Obama for embarking on an unpopular course; they'll remain loyal to him no matter what the polls say ("85% of Americans disapprove of President Obama's policies; Larry Gatlin and Fox News advise, 'Stay the course, Mr. President'").

⁵ “Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts”: I have no idea what that means.  You’ll have to ask Larry Gatlin.

⁶ This is like a Pentagon rewrite of the musical Oliver: “Please sir, may I have some more…war?”  By the way, Gatlin's use of "sir" to address President Obama is entirely facetious; as the article makes abundantly clear, Mr. Gatlin has not one ounce of respect for this president.

Tombstone Blues

Apropos of nothing at all, I swear, and for no discernible reason, I found myself thinking of these lyrics this morning:

John the Baptist, after torturing a thief,

Looks up at his hero, the Commander in Chief,

Saying "Tell me, great hero, but please make it brief,

Is there a hole for me to get sick in?"

The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly,

Saying "Death to all those who would whimper and cry!"

And dropping a barbell he points to the sky,

Saying "The sun's not yellow, it's chicken!"

Those lines are from Bob Dylan's "Tombstone Blues," recorded in 1965.  For some reason they seem relevant even today.  Moreover, the same song contains these lines:

The sweet pretty things are in bed now of course,

The city fathers, they're trying to endorse

The reincarnation of Paul Revere's horse

But the town has no need to be nervous...

Nope, no reason to be nervous at all.  I'm not nervous about America; are you?

If you want to understand America 2014, you might start by trying to understand America in the 1960s; and to do that, you have no better sources than either the books of Rick Perlstein or the music of Bob Dylan.  I bid you go and read, and go and listen.  And when you're done with that assignment, I will next direct you to Hunter Thompson's FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS...but that's more of a graduate course.

 

 

Mortal Men, Mortal Wisdom

This is by Noah Millman, written two years ago on the occasion of the 4^th of July:

“The Constitution is just a piece of paper, the result of a series of arguments and compromises between mortal men, motivated both by public spirit and more venal emotions and interests. If we venerate it, we do so primarily because that veneration serves the conservative political purpose of unifying the population across both space and time, much as does British veneration of the crown, and not because those men in Philadelphia were inspired with other-than-worldly wisdom. So, too, with the Declaration, which was also a political document with a specific rhetorical goal. There is wisdom there, and beauty, and much worth loving for its own qualities and not merely for this aforesaid conservative purpose; but that wisdom is a human wisdom, that beauty a human beauty, and we are also human beings, capable of being wise as well as foolish, beautiful as well as ugly. And when we read these documents, and interpret them, and thereby keep faith with both our ancestors and our descendants yet unborn, it behooves us to read them and interpret them with our best wisdom, our best stab at beauty, because that is the only wisdom and the only beauty at our disposal.”  

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/millman/the-declaration-and-secession/