Monday January 31, 2005

Oh damn. We are sooo screwed. I suppose I’d better get my Unabomber cabin up in the mountains ready to roll. To summarize, for those who never read the links:

* 36% of US students think the government should have to approve newspaper reports.
* Roughly one-third of students actually said that the First Amendment “goes too far.”
* 17% of students thought that people “shouldn’t be allowed to express unpopular views.”

I’m just … I’m going to walk away now … and try not to scream.

[CAUTION: Highly vitriolic rant ahead. Y'all were duly warned ...]

<added around 01.00, Feb 1> Okay. Further thoughts. I’m listening to a musical recommendation of Rachel‘s: “Requiem for the Masses” by The Assocation, circa 1967 — a Vietnam War protest anthem. It became increasingly popular as the war dragged on; eventually, the Nixon Administration essentially coerced Warner Brothers to stop distributing the song. The lyrics (and, hell, the song itself) are chilling and, perhaps, most appropriate for our times.

Observation: 61% of Americans don’t think the war in Iraq was worth undertaking, according to a recent poll. Now ignore for a moment whether you are for or against the current war. The article notes that this number is higher than those who opposed the Vietnam War at the time of the Tet Offensive. If three out of five Americans don’t think we should have invaded Iraq — and we still have soldiers dying over there, people! — where the hell is the outrage from the 61%? Imagine if no one had batted an eye at “police actions” in Vietnam. Imagine a war in Southeast Asia that dragged on, perhaps into the 1980s, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands more American soldiers. Instead of a wall, we’d need a tower to fit all the names.

Here’s my bottom line. Vietnam was fought because of an Eisenhower-era doctrine known as “domino theory.” It stated that, if any Indochinese nation were allowed to fall into Communist nations, they all would. If Southeast Asia went Red, it could embolden their sympathizers in Latin America. Sooner or later, it’d be NATO against the world. Looking back, of course, that was bunk. Twenty years of American intervention and over 58,000 dead soldiers later, Vietnam turned Red. Nothing happened. Communism itself was economically unsustainable and is now largely a footnote of history. The war in Iraq is based on a similarly grand, overarching vision: the Bush Doctrine, a notion that an Americanized Iraq can reform the Middle East into a collection of peaceful, modern democracies (and therefore eliminate Islamic terrorism). My opinion is that both theories are equally ludicrous. If you want an argument against attempts at nation building, talk to the Governor George W. Bush who spoke in the 2000 debates, the one that I would have more or less voted eagerly for, if I had been old enough to cast my presidential ballot. We cannot simply reconfigure entire societies on the fly like this. Such endeavors are, in short, reckless. Arming and supporting political and religious dissidents who have a stake in their country is a far superior solution. Deploying thousands upon thousands of my peers into all corners of the Middle East on a wing and a prayer that this whole plan might work is JUST NOT WORTH IT — not when there are other ways to achieve the same goals.

Reality check time. A year ago today, Justin Timberlake ripped off the piece of cloth covering Janet Jackson’s breast during the Super Bowl halftime show (a fact that still overshadows the outstanding game that took place). That incident was the lead story on cable news for a solid couple of weeks, prompting apocalyptic cries of moral corruption destroying our society. That backlash has allowed the FCC to terrorize the broadcasting industry, threatening to fine them and subject them to public ridicule if they air something that they happen to find objectionable (without saying what that is). To anyone that believes people don’t have any influence in government — look at that! Outraged parents brought about neo-fascist censorship of the media! Congratulations.

So we have two events to look at. One was some second-rate singer’s breast being on TV for about a second and a half. The other is 150,000 American troops putting themselves in the way of terrorists hoping to slaughter them. Which of those prompted more response from the populace? I’m thoroughly frightened by the answer. Here is something I never thought I’d say: Where the hell is the Democratic Party when you need them? 61% of Americans don’t think we should be doing what we’re doing in Iraq … and the opposition party has hit the snooze button. I’d like to think that if John Kerry had campaigned on a coherent alternative policy in Iraq, he would have won easily. Then again, though, America probably would have been too stupid to notice.

So since I know that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is a regular reader of this blog, allow to me to post some advice for him. Get your policy advisers together and figure out some way to get American troops out of Iraq in a year without having the country implode on itself. (Someone out there must have an idea — partioning the country, arming counter-insurgent groups, or any number of other things.) Once you have it figured out, hold a press conference every single day, read the over-emotional life story of every soldier that dies in combat (e.g. “Kevin Roosevelt was the oldest of nine children in rural West Virginia who had to raise his siblings himself when his parents died in a drunk driving accident. He worked eighteen-hour days in a local steel mill until it closed when his job was outsourced to China. But then young Kevin saw the horrible images of 9-11 like all of us and was moved to enlist in the Army.”) and tell the American people that the president shouldn’t use our troops as pawns in his reorganization of the Middle East, especially when you have a better plan.

Democrats would win back Congress in 2006 and Senator Reid could start picking out furniture for the Oval Office in January 2009, if he so desired. (Of course, that would probably lead to higher taxes, socialized medicine, and maybe even *winces* FASTER spending growth, which would piss me off to no end as well. At this point, though, I am so thoroughly opposed to both political parties that I will be incredibly mad at whoever the president is.)

So in short, Americans are too busy worrying about American Idol (find something to believe in that’s bigger than Clay Aiken, people!) unless someone comes along and hits them upside the head with a two by four. That’s basically what I’m trying to do on here whenever I’m not writing poetry. I’m holdin’ the plywood and takin’ my swings (even if I’m my own victim). Now I just have to figure out how to get a prime time slot over on Fox News. You’d all watch, right? (Maybe?) Please opine. Keep it pithy.