Wednesday, November 02, 2005

I voted for a zombie

The Democrat’s collective experiment in suspended animation was interrupted, yesterday, by a bit of Inspector Clouseau-ism. The Senate Democrats seemed to have noticed 92 Americans died in Iraq last month. Not to speak of some 900 Iraqis – because there is a difference between headlinable and non-headlineable mortality. Now, this is six months after Cheney had pronounced the last rites on the dwindling insurgency, and the American Enterprise Institute’s man in Iraq, in a burst of giddiness, had announced that the war was over, and that we won. Which was after the purple revolution had solved all our problems, which was after Allawi had become the most popular leader ever seen in Iraq, which was after the Coalition’s springtime of painting and building schools, which was after all the good news in Iraq wasn’t being reported, which was after Mission Accomplished. Of course, we are heavily editing the incidence of slavish headlines pumped into the bloodstream of the American behemoth by our 4th estate, little signposts leading us towards this minor apocalypse, where we now swim in blood.

As we know, the Democratic party leadership has responded to the greatest disaster in American foreign policy since the Gipper’s happy days of shipping stinger missiles to the proto Al Qaeda in Afghanistan by the time honored tactics of obfuscation and sulking. And as many liberal blogs assure us, this is a masterstroke of astute policy. Americans like nothing better than a political party behaving like a grounded fifteen year old. Hell, didn’t we elect a grounded fifteen year old President last year?

Credit where credit is due. As the U.S. opens a counter-insurgency school (Last Throes High) in Iraq to train soldiers in the does and donts of pissing off Iraq’s population; as the U.S. army, to the almost universal silence of American papers, opens its trial of a staff sgt accused of fragging an officer (the Independent article quote: “A US officer said: 'Fragging has not happened since Vietnam, so this is obviously something which should be considered seriously. In Vietnam, there was a disintegration of discipline as the war went on. That cannot be allowed to happen here.'); and as Cheney’s office stocks up on resold 70s era electronics gear from the Argentina’s military, we are pleased by any small sign of life from the zombie party. Senator Reid showed a pleasing willingness to question the Daschle strategy (“stay the course of having no course”) to which the D.C.-centric Dems fanatically cling. Meanwhile, the “left” shows no sign of deserting the Dems even as that party gears up to run pro-war presidential hopefuls against each other for 2008. The left bloggers like to call themselves the ‘reality based community.’ I’m going to die laughing one of these days.

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Some random notes. In good conscience, we have to recommend a weblog with the wonderful name, Colonel Chabert, that has been doing a great job of collecting stories of the New Orleans diaspora. Following Balzac's formula that behind every great fortune, there is a great crime, the blog is meticulously tracking a great crime in the making, and the great fortunes that are to be made as the State shovels money to G.O.P. campaign contributors and tries to finish the job that was started in the Superdome -- disappearing the New Orleans working class with extreme prejudice.

Second note: we are still looking for the Department of Education to contact us for fun and bribery. They haven't. So we depend on you to contribute to this site and, in the process, get a nice tshirt. Please click our Dopamine Cowbody Movement button.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So-are we in an 1856 situation, roger? I understand your skepticism towards "party" as a vehicle for change, which is probably realistic, but is it wrong to hope for a party that is merely a milquetoast version of the ruling Party of God?

I think it will take a Draft resulting from the planned invasion of Syria and Iran to really spark outrage.

I always tell my Republican friends: "I don't care. I don't have draft age children who will have to pay back the huge debt we are running up. You do."

Anonymous said...

I meant "not" a milquetoast version of the Party of God, of course.

Roger Gathmann said...

Brian, interesting analogy. In the 1850s, the party system was still fluid -- although even then it had pretty much settled down to the Whigs and the Democrats.

In truth, I think we are sorta stuck with the two party system. I might be wrong there. However, if we are, then in my opinion, we need to carve out a politics from within those two parties -- which is why I would like to see the return of that nearly extinct species, the moderate Republican, and even someday - through the miracle of modern biotechnology -- the liberal Republican. As Simon and Garfunkle once (almost) put it, "where have you gone, Jacob Javits/our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."
Unfortunately, there is still the mathematically illiterate idea among liberals that any Democrat is preferable to any Republican, and the consequence is that any conservative Republican president can count on crippling the Dems by culling out conservative Dems. Somehow, decade after decade, liberals watch this and still don't think, hmm, and still put money into losing campaigns in the south for conservative democratic candidates.
So it goes, man.

Anonymous said...

It is interesting that some of the most eloquent, logical criticism of the war is coming from the right/libertarian side of things. Justin Logan has some interesting stuff on his blog. Heck, Paul Craig Roberts, he who whines about the OPPRESSION faced by the capitalist class in complying with basic environmental rules, has written some heartfelt essays decrying W's Little Adv3enture.

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