vision2020
RE: Anti-Americans?
Dear Tex,
"Blame America Firsters!?"
Is this the new right-wing battle cry for political correctness, i.e., what
may not be said in polite company for fear of offending one group's
sensibilities? Is an American who can only see one side of an issue more of
a patriot than one who can see two sides? (Are we still suffering from the
effects of the Viet Nam War?) For example, if Mr. Bin Ladin's intention was
to incite the U.S. into an (additional?) alienating over-reaction that
results in a proliferation of Taliban-type governments in the Middle East,
then a more circumspect view of the situation would actually promote the
long-run interests of the U.S. This is not the time for group thinking but
for clear thinking that almost certainly includes debate and disagreements.
Let the games begin!
Steve Cooke
-----Original Message-----
From: TEX [mailto:tex@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu]
Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 11:04 AM
To: Erik
Cc: Vision2020
Subject: Re: Anti-Americans
Wow. Nice article. It changed a couple of my opinions, honestly.
Clint "Tex" Payton
email: tex@kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Erik wrote:
> The Anti-Americans
> Barry Farber
> Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2001
>
> Pretend you came to me the instant after the attack on America and said,
> "Barry, you remember American students and others taking the side of the
> Communists during the Cold War. You remember how their numbers multiplied
> during the war in Vietnam. You remember how hordes of Americans tried to
> keep freedom from the people of Nicaragua. You remember the candlelight
> vigils for Saddam Hussein's Iraq after the Gulf War and the somewhat more
> confusing redesigned protesters railing against America's role in what
they
> call "globalism." Surely you see the never-ending parade of Americans
> praising the murderous dictator Fidel Castro. You even remember Americans
> taking the side of Adolf Hitler before America was drawn into the war.
>
> "Tell me, Barry. Now that you've seen what they did to innocent people in
> New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, do you think there are going to be
> Americans not only blaming America for this, but actually taking the side
of
> the terrorists?"
>
> "No," I'd have said. "No, no way!"
>
> And I'd have been wrong.
>
> When the first of those blame-America voices came forward after the attack
I
> took notes. The big teach-in at the University of North Carolina calling
on
> America to begin by apologizing to the world. Then over to Berkley,
Calif.,
> where they were saying things even more hostile to America's behavior and
> intent. I made sure I got the spelling right. I was going to quote them by
> name and organization.
>
> I changed my mind. Quoting a person by name in the public arena imputes a
> standing and a dignity to the person quoted that I refuse to accord to
those
> blaming America and "explaining" if not actually excusing the terrorists.
> Even when you assail other people's views most bitterly, you've still
> somehow conferred a touch of collegiality upon them when you mention their
> names. You've thereby turned it all into something like ladies and
gentlemen
> at the seminar disagreeing during the session between lunch and cocktails.
>
> This is no forum.
>
> This is war.
>
> I no more care about their names than Marines on Okinawa squinted to see
if
> there were nametags on the Japanese soldiers coming at them with bayonets.
> You don't have to mention their names to answer them.
>
> My anger at this new crowd of "Blame America Firsters" is tempered by
pity.
> You didn't prance around the wheelchair of the crippled boy in school and
> chant, "Ha, ha, ha. I can run and you can't!" And I don't feel like
prancing
> around this new crowd chanting, "Ha, ha, ha. I can THINK and you can't!"
>
> They've got a vitamin missing from their brains. The vitamin is called
> proportionality. The crimes of which they accuse America, even if true -
> which they are mostly, manifestly, not - are dwarfed by the obvious and
> undeniable crimes of the ones they support. And the virtues and good deeds
> of the United States are omitted from their rhetoric as if they were
> obscenities studiously censored by chaperones from a play about to be
> performed on the stage of the Gaffney, S.C., YWCA.
>
> Proportionality is the ability - and the willingness - to distinguish
> morally between the mass murderer and the jaywalker.
>
> "Hitler was an anti-Semite. My butcher is an anti-Semite. Come, let's
> discuss these two anti-Semites."
>
> That's the fragrance of what happens when the glands of proportionality
just
> don't pump.
>
> America the "Great Satan," indeed! America, oppressor of Third World
masses,
> indeed. America, the despoiler of Palestinian aspirations, indeed.
>
> It's true, in America you can see enough female geography on any billboard
> to excite the heterosexual male. It even takes your gaze off the booze
> advertisements. But you know something? Without attacking the ascetic
> lifestyle of our attackers, let me venture a quiet word for mine.
>
> It occurs to me that the countries that allow sex appeal and alcohol are
the
> countries that write the checks for the countries that horsewhip a woman
if
> she should show a half-inch of leg above the ankle and confine their legal
> libations to nothing stronger than yak tea.
>
> Is it news to anybody that our developed world PAYS for Third World
> resources? And that the oil-rich satraps of the Near East COLLECT that
> payment? And continue to keep their own people in poverty, oppression,
> ignorance, totalitarian stranglehold and perpetual emotion?
>
> And as for Palestinian aspirations, tell me: If a Palestinian state is so
> important now, why was it never mentioned during all the years when all it
> would have taken to achieve that would have been a stroke of the pen -
until
> 1967, when Israel counterattacked and took that West Bank territory from
the
> ANTI-PALESTINIAN Jordanians?
>
> Look at America; the country they exult at having wounded so grievously.
Can
> you name a country that ever amassed more power and abused it less? Can
you
> name a country that ever amassed more wealth and distributed it more
fairly?
>
> Can you name another country that was ever attacked by surprise as America
> was in 1941, rallied to defeat both powerful enemies, and wound up with
LESS
> land than it had previously? (America gave the Philippines its
independence
> after victory in World War II.)
>
> Can you name another country that, after victory, treated its allies and
> enemies alike to massive rehabilitation and rebuilding? Instead of rape
and
> plunder we gave Germany and Japan democracy implants. They're both strong
> and prosperous democracies today. And you call that "satanic"?
>
> My cousin Guerney visited Germany and Japan a few decades after the war,
saw
> their democracy and prosperity, and came home and said, "I swear, I think
we
> LOST World War II and they lied to us!"
>
> Other countries roll over countries when the fortunes of war turn in their
> favor and somehow manage to keep those countries in their portfolios
> forevermore. America restored liberty to every single country we helped
> liberate in World War II. All we asked of them was enough land to bury our
> dead.
>
> Have you forgotten that America had the nuclear bomb exclusively for four
> years beginning in 1945? Had we been so satanically inclined, we could
have
> folded up the world and stuck it in our glove compartment with no backtalk
> Instead, we put the bomb away and hit Europe with the Marshall Plan, the
> most generous and expansive program of rebuilding the world has ever seen.
>
> Once America did, indeed, invade a communist country without provocation
or
> a declaration of war. Can you name it?
>
> In the 1960s, Yugoslavia was stricken with an earthquake in the south in
> what is now the independent state of Macedonia. The main city, Skopje, was
> devastated. After failing to reach anybody in the terminally confused
> capital of Belgrade, America just went in: troops, doctors, hospitals,
> mobile operating chambers, food, clothing, blankets, medicine.
>
> We've always chased fire engines around the world, bringing aid, comfort,
> hope and help. Still, campuses from Chapel Hill to Berkeley insist WE are
> the ones who have to change our ways.
>
> Funny how the very same people who blame America for Sept. 11 insist that
> NOTHING could have justified the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki -
> not Pearl Harbor, not the rape of Nanking, not the death marches, not the
> kamikazes, not the all-out attempt to own Asia and America by violent
> takeover. NOTHING, the line goes, could possibly justify the atomic bombs
on
> two Japanese cities.
>
> Apparently, though, there ARE some things that CAN justify the murder of
> 7,000 random Americans and citizens of other countries in New York,
> Washington and Pennsylvania.
>
> Were I to come face to face with those Americans who say it's all
America's
> fault and hooray for the courage of the terrorists, I would not shake a
fist
> at them or utter an obscenity.
>
> Why use dynamite when insect powder will do?
>
> [Barry Farber's daily radio program is heard on more than 65 stations
across
> America on the Talk Radio Network.]
>
>
Back to TOC