[USA 2004] The Left Goes Bonkers
Yoki
by Gary Larson*
29 October 2004
What spawned the new Left? Is it a wacky branch of the Me Generation?
The heat of the dispute between Left and Right has grown so
fierce...that habits of civilized discourse have suffered a scorching.
-- Saul Bellow
"To the lunatic Left and its camp followers, the president of the
United States is a Nazi war-monger. Read their placards. Note the
swastikas. See the Hitler-mustachioed cartoons depicting "W" as das
Fuhrer. Modern brownshirts ransack Bush/Cheney field offices, fist
fights break out in bars. Lawn signs are defaced, on both sides,
targets of partisan wrath. The leader of the free world is the
subject of hellish epithets and ad hominem smears. Is this the making
of a Party of Hate? Let's devoutly hope not.
"Hot-headed partisans accuse President George W. Bush of all manner of
vile skullduggery, appealing to baser instincts. Irrational,
incoherent accusations stick, even among the intelligentsia, which
should know better but rarely does, as it is predisposed to the Left's
line and typically, on the wrong side of history.
"President Bush "willfully," says Senator Kerry, "misled Americans,"
his non-subtle subtext for -- let's face it -- a damnable liar. How
the terrorists must exalt in this constant refrain. Hammering Bush
for what Kerry himself believed, as did all intelligence services, is
hypocrisy. Still, many on the Left naively, or disingenuously, buy
into the charade.
"Dick Cheney is the lefties' whipping boy, too. Dour, portly, no
prettyboy, he once was CEO, and thus reviled, of the most-libeled
corporation of all times, Halliburton. This dastardly Republican
pair, defending our nation -- successfully, i.e., absent further
attack -- is called reckless, incompetent, wily, prevaricating, enemy
of the middle class, kids, the elderly. They aim to bring back the
draft, say Dems with straight faces (one authored the "draft bill"),
and to "wreck" (willfully, no doubt) Social Security. These and other
partisan myths are distractions to gain votes the old-fashioned way --
by sheer demagoguery. Hey, it often works, especially on the
uninformed.
"Red herrings and myth-making go far beyond merely manipulating facts,
called spin, to mangling the integral truth. It's that well-crafted,
nuanced partisan lie that, endlessly repeated, evolves into the Big
Lie. Soon news media (about which, more later) enshrine the lie in
clever toss-away lines. "Credibility" is thus achieved. Bias and
assumption are new realities. (Winston Smith's "memory hole," in
Orwell's 1984, is alive and well? Inside joke, that.)
"As I write this, in pre-dawn hours, Bush is being accused on 7/24 TV
of not standing guard -- himself, apparently -- over a huge Iraqi
explosives dump. Then we discover -- via a blog, likely Power Line --
that's it a bogus charge. But well-timed. Seems it's a "story"
repackaged by media to be Bush's October Surprise. Recall that DUI
four years ago?
"Guess where Bush, after swearing himself back in, was supposed to
have guarded those big-boom explosives? At Saddam's would-be nuclear
bomb-making facility near Baghdad, that's where. (Ironic, no?)
"Such slanted "coverage" of current events must bring smiles to
terrorists, brightening their caves, starting with bin Laden -- if he
yet breathes. (Doubtful, some say.) Enemies of "Amerika" must revel
in back-biting anti-Bush rhetoric. Doing their jobs, in effect, of
unveiling "The Great Satan." Anti-Bush news leads al-Jazeera's every
TV newscast. Nice to have friends in the media.
"Speaking of propaganda, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 still packs
'em in cinemas throughout the Middle East. How many Americans and
other mere infidels have been murdered, or maimed, by the type of
deceits -- 50 by one count -- spread by this film. Just wondering.
"(Note to self: During World War II, as recent as the Korean War,
candidates rallied support for the old US of A. What a turnabout!
Recall that Lt. (j.g.) John Forbes Kerry in 1971, before tripping off
to Paris for side talks with the enemy, slandered our GIs still in
Vietnam, and those being tortured as POWs. Yep. Times, they were
a-changing.)
"What galls the political Left to behave so abominably? What is it,
even metaphorically, about freedom and democracy for others, that
sticks in liberals' craw, I wonder. Why their ill-chosen words
denigrating our allies, including the New Iraq, and coalition GIs
under fire? Why snide, smug putdowns of all who disagree with their
view -- "right-wing idealogues" and worse, if such a creature slithers
across Earth. This evinces a hubris not seen since the Vietnam war.
While rallying and stopping ammo trains then, and hoisting VC flags,
the young Left's mantra was, "Hell No, I Won't Go."
"Different tune today. New chant for the new Left. (No it's NOT. I
just made it up.) This new chant would echo age-old pacifists' cries,
and fuddy-duddy old anarchists, too: "No war, anywhere, at any time,
for any reason!"
"What spawned the new Left? Is it a wacky branch of the Me [First?]
Generation? You know, boomers all grown up, asserting their
self-centered "rights" to no war, not at least in their time. Let
George do it?
"And what stirs the Left to go bonkers over Bush? His moves to crush
the enemy? Success in Afghanistan, routing the Taliban, corralling
three-quarters of al Qaeda's core leadership? Next step, with maybe
a little patience for taking sooo long, maybe it's taking out the
Murderer in Chief bin Laden if he still lives. What's not to like
here?
"My own pet theory about the Left's hangup with Bush is its near
fanatical cynicism about love of nation, Old Glory, the full (with
"under God") Pledge, plus "old-fashioned" values, like Real Marriage.
None of which exist, I suppose, in the deftly deconstructed world of
determinism.
"Whatever "It" is, I say the result -- for us political junkies, at
least -- is disturbingly Hobbesian: Reason is trumped by passion.
(See also, Machiavelli.) Alexander Hamilton picked up this theme in
Federalist Paper #15, echoing Thomas Hobbes' realism: "Passions of
man will not conform to dictates of reason or justice, without
constraint," wrote Hamilton, clearly on to something.
""Passions...without constraint." Aye, that's the rub. Except for a
handful of loyal opposition (Senator Joe Lieberman comes to mind),
liberal Dems' lack of constraint -- call it, civil discipline? -
-inflicts damage on the republic. Dialogue, bipartisanship suffer,
when parties -- "factions" in Hamilton's pre-party words, "kindle
unfriendly passions . . . and excite violent conflict."
"When Senator Joe Biden calls a president Bush "braindead" [to a
Delaware labor group], gets away with it, to the roar of unabashed
applause, the die is cast, and the shoe fits. The Left turns ugly.
Redemption will not be easy or quick.
"Effects of this mad tea party of an election will be far-reaching --
likely for decades, affecting all presidents, of any party. Partisan
bickering will reach new levels of lunacy. Obstructionism, for its
own sake, will rear up, creating stalemates.
"Mad as hell, generally magnanimous "Rs" will simply "not take it any
more," same as that crazed anchorman Howard in the film Network.
Controlling both houses, by wide margins, may make them virtual
control freaks, unless they've chilled a little after enduring all the
twisted, hateful rhetoric. Time will tell, and help heal the wounds
of the Left's artful demagoguery. Heck, it heals nearly everything.
Doesn't it?
"Good news: The sky does not fall. A mini-Second Civil War, red
states v. blue, does NOT break out. Americans of all stripes still
talk with one another, but not much about politics. Too dangerous.
Fights break out sometimes.
"Fallout of seething rhetoric -- of both sides in truth -- does not
bode well for rational argument. Impossible to hear others'
well-held views when screaming at them, your cocksure bias shutting
off coherent debate. Like little kids again, it's that shrieking "my
candidate's better than yours...nah nah nah."
"What if Senator Kerry wins? No matter. His words, like Paul
Bunyan's frozen cuss words, will return with the first spring thaw.
Kerry and his surrogates' wild accusations will live again, perhaps to
haunt them. (What goes around?) Regrettably, hot- headed elements of
a steamed-up Right will blast the winners' distortions on nearly every
issue. Elephants, it is said, do not forget.
"An incensed Right points at the biased Fourth Estate as the single
main instrument delivering Kerry's win. In denial, as usual, MSM
pooh-poohs this fact (of life?), nearly empirical now. And they
repeat, as a chorus, the lines about being "perceived as," or
"regarded by some as," a shill for liberal candidates. A vast
segment of the public now is on to their game. Blogging is popular.
Unbiased truths (small T) are THAT important to an informed
electorate. What a Great Country!
"In four years, the GOP is loaded for bear. Fair play is tossed to
the winds -- one is tempted to say, tritely -- of political
expediencies. Because, well, demagoguery does work. Machiavelli was
dead on. So was the dynamic duo, Hobbes and Hamilton, about partisan
passions overwhelming reason.
"Power is the ultimate game in politics; Republicans have it now, and
will surely wield it, for better or worse. Time for avenging?
Revenge for all the distortions, the animus spewed by trash-talking
the Bush administration, and "his" war? Let's devoutly hope not. Our
republic deserves better. A lot better."
* Larson is a retired association CEO in Minnesota, and former
newspaper and business magazine editor. He is not the cartoonist of
the same name.
SpikeSpiegel
http://homepage.mac.com/njenson/movies/sovereignty.mov
Subject: Emblem change
The Republican National Committee announced today that the Republican
Party is changing its emblem from an elephant to a condom. The
committee
chairman explained that the condom more clearly reflects the party's
stance today, because a condom accepts inflation, halts production,
destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives
you a sense of security while you're actually getting screwed.
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