On almost every front in our culture wars, there is an underlying thread that distorts our understanding of the issues involved and makes compromise and resolution significantly more difficult than in the past.
Pinch Sulzberger, publisher of the "paper of record" and the guardian of liberal orthodoxy, gave the Commencement address at SUNY at New Paltz this past weekend and apologized to the graduates for the failures of our generation:
It wasn't an apology for anything Sulzberger, who first joined the Times in 1978 as a Washington correspondent, specifically did. It was, for the most part, offered as an apology from a member of a generation that had vowed to beat back world ills, such as the Vietnam War and government corruption, and never let them happen again.
....
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Sulzberger said. "You weren't supposed to be graduating in an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren't supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, be it the rights of immigrants to start a new life, the right of gays to marry or the rights of women to choose."
Thomas Lifson distills the essence of Sulzberger's comments:
From the horse’s mouth, we have it that Pinch believes in the perfectability of man, all within his lifetime. It is nice to understand the mentality guiding the NYT.
In all of the major issues of the day, the liberal and/or left seem to imagine that there is a perfect solution and a perfect answer to every problem. It is not just that man is perfectible, but that life should be a risk-free, easy endeavor. (Note who the Trial Lawyers give their money to.) Furthermore, the direct implication is that a few powerful men and women in Washington, DC (and Tel Aviv), with their allies in the military-industrial complex are primarily, perhaps solely, responsible for all the imperfections of the world.
In the turmoil of the 60s, Eldridge Cleaver made the quintessential 1960s political statement, which has been endlessly repeated, that "you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem." This was meant to indicate the moral and ethical superiority of the person who was opposing Racism, the Vietnam War, and the corruption called American Capitalism. In fact, the comment is meaningless and non-sensical, and suggests the vapidity of the speaker rather than a sophisticated nuanced view of how difficult it can be to change the world.
The corollary to this bit of received wisdom is that one can simply oppose everything that those in power do and maintain the fiction that you are now part of the solution.
Katrina was the largest natural disaster that has ever hit the Untied States and our National Guard performed incredibly well in spite of the most egregiously slanted news reporting. Yet it doesn't matter; there were deaths and the city flooded, therefore someone was at fault.
The globe may (or may not) be warming and it may (or may not) be primarily due to human activity. Al Gore hopes to be elected President in 2008 on the basis of railing against the current administration for not preventing global warming. Does Gore suggest any reasonable policy changes that we can make right now in order to avoid the disaster he thinks is coming? Of course not; there are no facile solutions. We could shut down the global economy and have a world wide recession, which would be the only thing that could really decrease the use of fossil fuels although it still wouldn't really make much of an impact on global warming; but Gore won't tell you any of that. The only solutions will come from a long term market driven change in the way we use energy; it is already happening and while President Bush could (and probably should have long ago) make a splashy speech about an energy "Manhattan Project" the research is currently being done in many fields which ultimately will lead to less greenhouse gas being emitted. The single best way to insure a diminution of Greenhouse gas emissions and decreased use of fossil fuels is maintaining high gas prices, yet the same people who shriek about Global Warming are screaming about high gas prices as well.
As for the Iraq War, yesterday, Neo-neoncon wondered Why this war is so hated and came to a few tentative conclusions, which included these remarks:
This war and its aftermath also have also been unusually long, at least by modern standards. No, the war's not even remotely up there with Vietnam in that regard. But compared to the Gulf War, for example, it's extremely long and complex. That's mostly because it involves a reconstruction, always a long and difficult project. In fact, if just the original invasion and battles with Saddam's official armies are considered, the war was remarkably, almost freakishly, short. But we are all correct to consider those skirmishes just the beginning; the real war is the reconstruction.
.... We've lost sight of how difficult such a thing is; we want immediate solutions and clean and simple endings. And of course those things would be wonderful. But they are unrealisitic. And many believe that the Bush administration expected those things as well; witness the focus on Ken Adelman's "cakewalk" remark ... .
But even though Bush actually made many prewar comments on how difficult the tasks of this war would be does not change the fact that the actual reconstruction has been more difficult than most people (including, I believe, most in the administration) expected.
The two trends, the demand for perfection and instant gratification, along with the impossibility of accepting that the world is by its nature imperfect and that man is not perfectible, leads to an almost exclusive focus on the most superficial appreciation of complexity.
Yesterday, Evan Bayh, another Democrat with desires for the White House, but one who has a much more difficult road by virtue of his inability to ignore reality, met with prospective Iowa primary voters who took him to task for his vote in favor of the Iraq War resolution:
Bayh gets a taste for '08 during an Iowa tour
In a room at a community college in Osceola where a dozen people had gathered to meet the senator, Carole Waterman told Bayh that her son, a Virginia National Guardsman, had returned from a stint in Iraq. She didn’t want him or anybody else's son to be sent there.“How are we going to get ourselves out of this morass? Killing our troops, killing the Iraqis, breaking our budget… It makes no sense to me at all,” Waterman told Bayh. “I’m wondering how you feel about that.”
Bayh replied with a long and subdued justification of his vote for the 2002 use-of-force resolution, along with an explanation that he has learned from his secret briefings as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee that if U.S. troops withdrew, a civil war and perhaps a regional war would erupt, with Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia plunging in.
“That would be bad for us,” he told Waterman.
She wasn’t buying Bayh’s justification.
With exasperation in her voice, she said, “I wanted him to say to say we were leaving Iraq tomorrow. At this point, I don’t care if there is a civil war in Iraq, because there already is a civil war.”
This comment, from a member of the part of the Democratic party which considers itself the "reality based" community is so silly as to be beneath discussion, yet it is very likely that people with this level of understanding and appreciation of the Iraq theater will be instrumental in choosing the 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate.
The underlying promise of an easily achieved Utopian land of multi-cultural Americans living side by side in Peace and Love and Harmony, which has been promised by the left and increasingly demanded by our MSM, has clearly not yet been achieved. Only demonic forces can explain the apparent contradiction between promise and reality (and after all, weren't the Clinton years filled with Peace, Love, and Harmony, not to mention a terrific economy?) In such a setting, it is no wonder that almost half of the people questioned in a recent survey are willing to give credence to the most irresponsible conspiracy theories. Rick Moran suggests this is THE MIND BLOGGLING CONSEQUENCES OF BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME:
This is a direct, purposeful consequence of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Or let’s just call it what it really is: Hatred. Unreasoning, stupid, blind, insane hatred for George Bush and the people who support him.
Since the 1960s triumph of childish, narcissistic, entitlement driven politics, the possibility that the world is not cooperating in our quest for the good life is too difficult for many people to credit. There must always be someone at fault when reality disappoints, and it can never be our enemies (who are only friends we haven't talked to enough) or random chance or personal shortcomings. When we need to deny that reality can be frightening, horrific, and capricious, and we cannot accept our own part in the disappointments of life, Paranoid Delusions are reparative; this works for people and for the body politic.
Maxed Out Mama points out that it is not just the left that has lost touch with the difference between the possible and the perfect; she offers a speech for President Bush which addresses these issues, but sadly, will never be made:
Bush should just give a speech and tell us all, "Look, if you ask consistently and firmly, your parents probably will get you a pony for Christmas. But no amount of temper tantrums will deliver a live flying reindeer under the Christmas tree, and that's because they don't exist. And you also won't get a rattlesnake, because it is too risky. Grow up and get real, wouldja?"
Let me offer a nightmare scenario: The 2008 Presidential primary season and elections are likely to be presented as a choice between various Democrats promising us that there are simple solutions to major problems in the world and the (incompetent, evil minded, venal, take your pick) Republicans (and some allied Democrats) who have thwarted their attempts to bring the live flying reindeer of Peace, Love, and Happiness to the world. Furthermore, since achieving Peace, Love, and Happiness should have been an easy matter requiring relatively minor changes in the lives of their supporters, consider the implications when the world refuses to cooperate. If the next President, whether Gore, Bayh, Clinton, or someone as yet unknown, is a Democrat, they will find themselves trapped by the unrealistic expectations of a large segment of their base, who are already filled with rage and lusting for revenge. The MSM will only be able to protect the Democrats from reality for a short time before even the most fervent supporters of the left become uneasy. If a Republican wins despite the sense that everyone can see they are evil and corrupt, then the feelings of betrayal and hatred can only escalate. How can any President hope to govern in such an atmosphere? A more responsible MSM and opposition would be helpful but is extremely unlikely to spontaneously appear.
In two years, one way or another, we are likely to find out what happens when Utopian dreams are crushed.
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