Your Weekly Rush

Rush was pretty difficult to enjoy this week. His incredible joy about the election was not enjoyable. On Thursday, Rush said, “We ran on optimism and the future, not Mondull's pessimism and the 70s. (Somebody tell me the last time anything about George W. Bush made you feel pessimistic.)” Hmmmmmm. I don’t want this nation to invade Iraq and yet that seems inevitable. I’d like to see tighter corporate oversight, and yet Wall Street is ebullient because it seems that that is not likely to happen under Bush’s administration.

My biggest problem with Bush is this. It’s a hallmark of conservative thought that those who are wealthy and in power got there because they worked hard, and had talent. And yet we have Bush, who for the first 30 to 35 years of his life was mediocre at best. I haven’t read the article that talks about his brilliance as a businessmen, and his performance as a student was so unexceptional that even he jokes about it.

Here’s the rub. Any Black man or woman, Hispanic Man or woman, White Lower class to lower middle class man or woman who preformed like Bush did as a young man into his thirties would be flipping burgers or waiting tables or worse. Some businessmen can say, “Nobody handed me anything.” Bush has to say, “Everybody handed me stuff, and pretty much my only skill has been in taking it.” So what does this say about the Republican ideal? Answers should be sent to me care of this email address. The first person who’s not my brother to send me an e-mail will get a personal e-mail back, typed by my secretary Doogie McBouser (Personal in this case meaning that I count Doogie as a person.)

The Healing Power of Music

Yesterday while I drove around at lunch, I turned on Rush Limbaugh and listened for a while as he discussed all the wonderful things Bush would do now that he had the country firmly in his back pocket. And then I put on Fatboy Slim's "Drop the Hate." And it was better. Not perfect, but better.

What comes after math? Aftermath!

Well today’s articles are full of responses to the elections. So lets go down them. The Republicans are naturally ebullient. Ann Coulter happily contemplated the fate of the democratic party, saying “What a miserable party. I'm glad to see their power end, and I'm sure they'll all be perfectly comfortable in their cells in Guantanamo.” Something to look forward to I suppose. I suspect the cells in Guantanamo aren’t sufficient for the approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of this country that is Democrat. Steve Chapman has a somewhat more realistic assessment.

On the Liberal side there are two theories. One is that Democrats ran to the middle and never came up with an issue other than vague generalities. The other is something about how the American system is biased against real reform, and therefore the democrats never had a chance. This second opinion is advocated strongly by Thom Hartmann, who suggests that “It's time to get the banana companies out of our republic.” I don’t know about this; I really enjoy the occasional banana.

For those interested in economics, Salon ran a very good article by Andrew Leonard on Harvey Pitt’s resignation today - well written and interesting. And if you have any comments or questions on what you read here, please e-mail me.

Walter Williams, A Voice you can Trust

Walter Williams is one of the triumvirate of conservative commentators, along with young Ben Shapiro and Ann Coulter, who almost never fail to amuse. Walter Williams favorite sentence structure is putting words in his readers mouth.

You say, “Gries, what do you mean by that?” I mean that Walter Williams loves having his readers pose innocent dopey questions that he can immediately and condescendingly answer. Gives the illusion of considering both sides of an issue without having to.

His latest piece does not happen to use this sentence structure unfortunately, but a quick study of William's archives will reveal it’s constant use. His latest piece does borrow another common rhetorical technique, that of answering the question you want to answer without any reference to the actual question.

You say, “Gries, how does that work?” Well it works like this. In his latest article, Williams discusses Princeton University economist Paul Krueger’s contention that the 1950’s and the 1960’s were are more egalitarian time in American society. Krueger’s work, which I must admit I have not read, laments the shrinking middle class, and the subsequent growth of the lower class. Williams, like most conservatives, is uncomfortable with the idea that our society is moving to a division between the haves and the have-nots.

So how does Williams respond? By comparing life now to 100 years ago. Life is probably better now for most people than it was 100 years ago. Isn’t that great? But of course it doesn’t answer the question of whether life is better now than it was 50 years ago. And Williams focuses mainly on technological and medical innovation in his article, ignoring the social and economic ramifications of Krueger’s work.

You say, “Gries, I’m sick of reading your web log, would you kindly shut up.” Yes. Yes, I will.

Oh, don’t miss Ben Shapiro’s discussion of female sexuality. Pretty bold territory for young Ben. Commondream’s columnists didn’t update today, but I love their headline. “ELECTION FALLOUT: WORLD IN FEAR OF AN EMBOLDENED BUSH…” Just have this image of a gigantic Bush making the Godzilla sound and knocking over the Eiffel Tower. Most ideologically motivated people fear democracy.

Once around the horn

Several articles caught my eye today.

Dennis Prager wrote an article continuing Ann Coulters line on Islam. In it he reiterates the comparison of Islam to Nazism (and adds in Communism for good measure). He’s a bit more cagey than Coulter, admitting that the majority of Muslims are not terrorists. He merely holds them responsible for not rooting out the terrorists. Of course this is akin to holding the United States responsible for not rooting out the rampant (although greatly diminished) crime that exists in our society. In only a few places (Iraq, Saudi Arabia) are the governments entertwined with the terrorism business. In most of the Islamic world, the governments and law-abiding citizens are victims as surely as the West is.

Matthew Engel wrote, in the Guardian/UK on the terrible state of American politics. You can read it yourself and get your own take on it. To me it feels like Matthew Engel is complaining that the Federal Government is too democratic and too weak. It is also interesting that Commondreams.org would choose to reprint this article on election day. Are they trying to dispirit those who might vote, particularly given their predominately liberal base?

James Carroll’s article comparing the terms of surrender at the end of WWII and the terms we are offering Saddam is also thought provoking.

Anyway, hope you all had a nice election day.

On Election Day

Remember to Vote today. And in case you are stymied in your attempts to select an appropriate candidate--you can always write in the candidate of your choice. And my name is Bryant E. Gries.

Seriously though, vote.

Ideology and Ira Chernus

“Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. . . . That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.”
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago

I am an American, and I make no apologies for that. I love my country and what it stands for. I love freedom, and seek to do those things which will increase the freedom and opportunities of all Americans.

Because of that I am suspicious of Ideology of any kind. Ideology is a form of shutting off the mind--closing yourself off from possibilities and truths.

It should be said that the prevalent ideology of the 21st century (at least so far, and I hope it changes) is cynicism. It is so easy to believe the worst of our public officials, of religious leaders, of media representatives, of ourselves. Easy, but lazy ultimately. The truth is that our public officials are no different from we ourselves. I don’t know about you but I find in myself a mixture of passions. Some of them are exceedingly noble, some are terribly base and mean spirited, and most are just selfish. I would assume our public officials are animated by the same mixture of passions. They do have noble impulses and on occasion they give reign to those impulses.

With those thoughts in mind, and believe me I will return to them often, I turn to Ira Chernus’ recent article, entitled The National Insecurity State. In it he makes some interesting points on the origins of the cold war and then proceeds to cite a recent Bush administration document, entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States.” In commenting on the document he provocatively suggests that the document states that we the United States is “threatened by any nation that might resist the spread of free trade or seek military strength equal to our own.”

That would be terrible if true. Not so much the second part, but the United States is threatened by any nation that resists free trade? What does resisting free trade mean? Allowing trade unions? Levying taxes?

Unfortunately Chernus does not provide a link to the document in question; one quality of many commentators that I do not share is the desire to shield my audience from the source documents. However, a review of the document does state the Bush Administrations hardly remarkable affinity for Free Trade, but does not commit the United States to intervene militarily in any way, assuming I didn’t miss anything.

Why read a document stating that the United States is in favor of free trade and automatically jump to the assumption that the President is in favor of military action in those situations? Because it’s an easy assumption to jump to, if you are facing that direction ideologically. It’s no more noble to reflexively attack President Bush than it is for Rush Limbaugh to reflexively defend him.

It's a Confusing World

“Phrases such as "plucking out the terrorist network," "destroying the terrorist infrastructure" and "attacking terrorist nests" (note the total dehumanization involved) are repeated so often and so unthinkingly that they have given Israel the right to destroy Palestinian civil life, with a shocking degree of sheer wanton destruction, killing, humiliation and vandalism.” Edward W. Said

“[T]he creation of "Palestine" will simply bring into existence yet another Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, corruptly and despotically misruled nation committed to the destruction of Israel. The difference is that this nation would exist on territory without which Israel is essentially indefensible, giving rise for the first time since 1973 to the distinct possibility that the very existence of America's only regional democratic, and most reliable, ally could be imperiled.” Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

I can’t write very much tonight--but did want to comment briefly on the Palestine-Israel conflict. With Ariel Sharon’s recent troubles and his subsequent courting of more hard-line parties, it seems likely that this issue will flare up again.

What I have to say isn’t brilliant. Those who choose to support Palestine, generally choose to ignore the aggression of Israel’s neighbors, portraying Israel as the aggressor in conflicts where the record is clear that they were not.

Those who support Israel, on the other hand, generally choose to ignore the Palestinian people’s legitimate claims to the land and to popular sovereignty. They choose to ignore that Israel’s settlement policy is aggressive.

So what is my solution to this terrible problem. I don’t have one, except everybody should stop believing things they know aren’t so. Tell the truth, and work towards a peaceful future.