October 29, 2006

PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS-- AND HAS NO SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

AMERICANS SNUB INVITATION TO PAY $500,000 FOR CLINTON BIRTHDAY PARTY

Daily Mail, by SHARON CHURCHER:

When America's liberal elite were offered the chance to pay up to $500,000 each (about £260,000) to attend Bill Clinton's 60th birthday extravaganza tonight - with the added promise of a private Rolling Stones concert - a packed house was expected.

Wife Hillary and daughter Chelsea sent out about 10,000 invitations to Hollywood tycoons, movie stars, captains of industry and Wall Street - with all proceeds to go to the former President's charitable foundation.

Those who pledged the top price were promised the 'Birthday Chair Package', with the best seating for the concert as well as a chance to have photographs taken with Mr Clinton during a round of golf and a three-day series of cocktail, brunch and dinner parties.

The minimum price, with inferior concert seats and no brunch, was set at $60,000 (£31,000). But with many rich Democrats sending their regrets, The Mail on Sunday can reveal that last Wednesday the Clintons drastically slashed prices to $12,500 (£6,500) for one reception and the concert, or $5,000 (£2,600) for just the Stones.

With the looming possibility of Bill and his long-suffering wife and daughter finding themselves amid a sea of empty chairs at the 2,900-seat Manhattan venue, tickets then went on sale to the public for as little as $1,710 (£900).

And there is a danger that the Clintons' plans may end in a total fiasco, after the Stones cancelled Friday's show in Atlantic City when Mick Jagger complained of a sore throat and was ordered to rest by a doctor.

The supergroup has flown to New York in preparation for today's concert but an insider said it was too soon to know whether Jagger will be fit enough to perform.

A friend of the Clintons said last night: "It is all highly embarrassing for Bill and Hillary. When they created the idea, they thought it would go like wildfire. What's not going to please some who did come up with $500,000 is finding regular Stones fans there who got last-minute tickets on the internet."

A spokesman for the Stones insisted it was always intended that the public could attend and that some seats were left unsold because director Martin Scorsese is making a film about the band. He said: "Scorsese didn't know where he wanted to put the cameras. It wasn't until that was decided that the unfilled seats could be put on sale."

Mr Clinton's Press spokesman declined to comment.

October 25, 2006

"FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS": CLINT EASTWOOD WANTS TO TEACH YOU SOMETHING IMPORTANT

Some men (and women) whom the gods would destroy, they first raise high for all to see. These men (and women) have been so successful, have amassed such wealth, and have acquired so many playthings—the grand houses on Lily Pond Lane, Chateaux en Provence, estates in Scotland surrounded by rushing streams rich with trout, or vast glass and steel condos looking out over Central Park, that they yearn for things that wealth cannot buy. These are men (and women) like George Soros, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg. Besotted with their wealth they forget that they are ordinary men (and women) with small gifts for entertaining or trading in markets. The gods first enchant them with dreams of changing the world and then cast them into the outer space of narcissistic illusion, where they are doomed to watch their own inner movies forever.

One fears that Clint Eastwood is heading in that direction. He has become so successful as an actor, director and producer of movies that he may have forgotten that the gift he was given was to be used simply to entertain us, like a juggler, or a trapeze artist who makes us breathless with fear and then takes a smiling, confident bow.

Now he wants to teach us something important, to tell us what is right and what is wrong about the world. In his new movie, “Flags of our Fathers,” based on the best seller by James Bradley published in 2000, he wants to teach us how we should feel about the tragedy of war and about heroism, together with a little bit about our soulless, lying, cynical government.

You will find none of these pretensions in James Bradley’s book. He wrote it, he tells us, to figure out why his father, John Bradley, one of the anonymous men in the iconic photograph depicting the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, refused to talk about his experiences in the war. The book is the product of James Bradley’s search to understand his father, and in the process of discovery he tells us about the other five marines in the famous photo and a bit about what happened after they became famous.

Eastwood’s movie, on the other hand, is a bloated docudrama, which seems to take as long as the battle—thirty-six days—and seems to use about the same number of people in its cast and crew—70,000.

That is because, in trying to be faithful to James Bradley’s book as well as his own views of war, the movie tries to be about a heck of a lot of things:

There’s the war-is-hell theme.

There’s the in-war-everyone-is-a-hero theme.

There’s the son’s-search-for-the-real-father theme.

There’s the making-of-the-iconic-photo theme.

There’s the confusion-about-the-identity-of-the-sixth-man theme.

There’s the soulless-cynicism-and-hypocrisy-of-the-lying-government theme.

There’s the racism-against-Native-Americans theme.

There’s the how-the-war-and-government-destroy-little-peoples-lives theme.

A pretty heavy load of themes for one movie to carry.

There are so many flashbacks and flashbacks within flashbacks and such a chorus of narrators and disembodied voices that part of the first twenty or so minutes seems like orientation week at Iwo U.

Just as Spielberg gave us a taste of death, dismemberment and mutilation during the wordless invasion preface to “Saving Private Ryan,” Eastwood gives us a taste of death by confusion during the first part of “Flags of our Fathers.”

The battle for the tiny volcanic island of Iwo Jima was one of the two last great amphibious battles of the Pacific in World War II. In order to pursue the grand strategy of the final stage of the war—the invasion and occupation of the home islands of Japan—it was necessary to capture Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Japanese knew that neither island could be denied the Americans, and thus the aim of any defense would be not to meet any invasion on the beaches, but to mount protracted campaigns that might sap the American’s will to proceed with an invasion of the Japanese home islands.

Iwo was the first of these to be invaded on February 19, 1945. For 72 days prior to the invasion Iwo Jima was bombarded by sea and air—the longest bombardment afforded any island in the Pacific theatre of operations. But the effectiveness of air and naval bombardment was largely offset by a combination of the deep, soft volcanic sand which covered the island and the Japanese preparation of a dense network of deeply placed tunnels, caves, and concrete gun emplacements designed so that no American marine would be protected from withering cross-fire. The net result of this defensive preparation made it almost impossible for the invasion forces to see the enemy or to know where they were shooting from.

Iwo was small and shaped like an ice-cream cone—10,000 yards bottom to top, and 4,000 yards across the top part of the cone. At the bottom of the cone was what was left of an extinct volcano about 550feet high—Mt. Suribachi—which contained hundreds of concrete pillboxes where the defenders lurked behind machine guns waiting for marines to get within firing range and pick them off. Inside the volcano there were over a thousand Japanese soldiers free to move about in interconnecting tunnels and get to where they had the best opportunity to kill Americans.

The island contained 21,000 of some of the Japanese army’s toughest and most determined troops, under the command of Lieut.General Tadamichi Kuribyashi. He had already issued an order to his officers: “Every man’s position will be his tomb.” And after thirty-six days of the most horrendous fighting, that was exactly the outcome for the Japanese—21,000 men dead. The aim of this suicidal tactic was to kill, maim, mutilate, and demoralize as many American marines as possible.

One of the first major targets of the invasion was Mt. Suribachi, an elevated and formidable fortress able to rain fire down on any part of the little island. The Americans landed in three Marine divisions—70,000 men—and fought on Suribachi for five days with many casualties before the stars and stripes was raised on its crest. That famous moment is the central focus of Eastwood’s movie.

How fierce and cruel the fighting on Iwo Jima was for more than a month can be expressed abstractly in numbers. It was the highest casualty rate of any engagement up to that time in 168 years of Marine Corps history—6,821 killed in action, and 19,217 maimed, mutilated, wounded. Admiral Nimitz issued a statement saying that “On Iwo island uncommon valor was a common virtue.” There were 353 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded during the Second World War; 84 of these were awarded to marines fighting in the South Pacific, and of these 27 were awarded to the men fighting on Iwo Jima during that single month—a record unsurpassed by any battle in U.S. history.

Such unique wartime struggles always result in ironies, myths, betrayals, guilt, and, more than anything, the need for heroes. The raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi on D+4 is an event surrounded by powerful myths and Bradley’s book is an attempt to get to the truth of the great iconic photograph that recorded that event.

The true story, as pieced together by James Bradley over a period of several years from hundreds of interviews and documents, goes something like this. By the fifth day of savage fighting, Mt. Suribachi seemed uncharacteristically quiet. It was then that Col. Chandler Johnson sent a platoon of forty men to reconnoiter the peak of the mountain. “Just before the forty man patrol began its climb….Johnson called Lieutenant Schrier [leader of the platoon] aside….’If you get to the top,’ the colonel told Schrier, ‘put [this] up.’

“What Johnson handed the lieutenant was an American flag…relatively small…measuring fifty-four by twenty-eight inches.”

As they snaked their way up the hill neither the men nor their officers, nor the growing audience of marines all over the island watching them as they climbed higher and higher believed they would make it to the top. They were afraid that they were walking into a trap and that as they drew closer to the summit they would be attacked.

John Bradley, known to the other members of the company as ‘Doc’ because he was their medical corpsman, was in the group making the climb, as was a photographer from Leatherneck Magazine, Louis Lowry. The patrol clawed its way to the top at about ten A.M. as Sgt. Lowry photographed their ascent.

Searching for a staff to attach the flag to, the men found a length of pipe that was usable. “Then, knowing that this was an important moment that would be photographed, some of the patrol’s brass took over.

“Platoon Sergeant Thomas, Sergeant Hansen, and Corporal Lindberg converged on the pole. They took the folded flag out and tied it in place as Doc Bradley helped. Lou Lowry documented the proceedings with a steady succession of camera shots. He moved in close, suggested poses, cajoled the boys into self-conscious grins with his patter….As Lowry clicked [his final] exposure, an amazing cacophony arose from the island below and from the ships offshore. Thousands of Marine and Navy personnel had been watching the patrol as they climbed to the volcano’s rim. When the small swatch of color fluttered, Iwo Jima was transformed, for a few moments, into Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Infantrymen cheered, whistled, and waved their helmets. Ships offshore opened up their deep, honking whistles. Here was the symbol of an impossible dream fulfilled. Here was the manifestation of Suribachi’s conquest. Here was the first invader’s flag ever planted in four millennia on the territorial soil of Japan.”

Thus it was Thomas, Hansen, Lindberg, and Bradley who were the first flag raisers, and who deserved some measure of acknowledgement for their valor in making the climb to the top when everyone thought that they would never make it, and for making themselves targets in order to plant the stars and stripes and raise the spirits of the other 70,000 Marines still caught in savage battle.

Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal had seen the flag-raising from the shore line and had decided that he wanted the flag as a souvenir. When the pugnacious Col. Chandler Johnson heard about Forrestal’s wish his response was “The hell with that.” The flag belonged to the battalion as far as the Colonel was concerned and he decided to secure it as soon as possible. He ordered another, larger, flag to be found with which to replace the original and sent a small detail of men up to the top to make the change.

It was long after the cheers had died out following the original flag-raising and no one was paying attention to the five men as they reached the peak and began preparing the replacement flag for the second raising. They were four men from the 2nd Platoon of Easy Company: Ira Hayes, Harlon Block, Franklin Sousley, and their squad leader Mike Strank, in addition to Rene Gagnon, a messenger who carried the new, larger, flag.

“As Rene handed Mike [Sgt. Strank] the replacement flag, the sergeant decided an explanation was in order.

“ ‘Colonel Johnson wants this big flag run up high...so every son of a bitch on this whole cruddy island can see it.’

“ Mike directed Ira and Franklin to look for a length of pipe. He and Harlon started clearing a spot for planting the pole, and Harlon began stacking the stones.”

In the meantime Lou Lowry was heading down Suribachi after the first flag-raising and met two marine photographers and a civilian photo-journalist—marine Bob Campbell, a still photographer; Sgt. Bill Genaust, a cinematographer; and Joe Rosenthal, working for AP. He told them about the flag-raising and urged them to go up for the impressive views. When they reached the top and saw that the small original flag was about to be replaced by a taller, larger one they started taking pictures—Genaust movies, and Campbell and Rosenthal still pictures. So the entire scene was well witnessed and recorded.

As the five men of the flag replacement detail were struggling with the heavy and cumbersome pipe in the high wind that was whipping across the summit of Suribachi, Sgt. Mike Strank called out to Doc Bradley to give them a hand. “Mike saw Doc Bradley walking past with a load of bandages in his arms and asked him to come to help. Doc dropped the bandages and moved to the pole, directly between Mike and Harlon.

“Rosenthal spotted the movement and grabbed his camera.

“Genaust, about three feet from Rosenthal, asked: ‘I’m not in your way am I, Joe?’

“ ‘Oh, no,’ Rosenthal answered. As he later remembered, ‘I turned from him and out of the corner of my eye I said, ‘Hey, Bill, there it goes!’

“….Rosenthal remembers: ‘By being polite to each other we both damn near missed the scene. I swung my camera around and held it until I could guess that this was the peak of action, and shot.’ At that moment all nine muses must have swept down from Olympus and touched Joe Rosenthal’s finger to create the iconic photograph of World War II and arguably of the century up to that time—a picture of such classic beauty and power that it became world famous literally overnight.

“And then it was over. The flag was up….Campbell had gotten the shot he was after…Genaust had gotten the footage he wanted…Only Joe Rosenthal was unsure. The AP man didn’t even have a chance to glimpse the image in his viewfinder….Within a few more seconds the flagpole was freestanding, the cloth snapping and cracking in the wind….[But] no one paid any attention. It was just a replacement flag. The important flag—the first one raised that day—was brought down the mountain and presented to Colonel Johnson, who stored it in the battalion safe. It bore too much historic value for the battalion to be left unguarded atop Suribachi. The replacement flag flew for three weeks, eventually chewed up by strong winds.”

The AP photo editor on Guam, John Bodkin, was the first to discover Rosenthal’s beautiful shot. “He looked at it…shook his head in wonder, and whistled. ‘Here’s one for all time!’’ Without wasting any time he radio-photoed the image to AP headquarters in New York. Within hours it was in newsrooms all over America, and on Sunday, February 25, it appeared in the homes of 25 million readers. The image was so arresting that within weeks it was world famous as the expression of American determination and ultimate triumph.

The news of Iwo Jima since the invasion on February 19 had been so worrisome and troubling, so full of description of savage fighting, that it was not difficult for worried Americans at home to misunderstand this image of young men raising a flag on high ground. It was, to the people back home, a symbol of victorious battle. We had fought on Iwo against insurmountable odds and had prevailed. The battle was over and soon the war would be over. Those faceless men in the image were the warriors who had fought and triumphed against the cruel Japanese. They became heroes instantly in their anonymity. It didn’t matter who they were.

These events, which play a central part in Bradley’s book, are treated with minimal interest in Eastwood’s film. What grabs Eastwood’s attention is the opportunity to demonstrate to his public the hellish aspects of war. Nothing new there. The trouble with the non-controversial aspects of the movie is that the men who are its focus are not interesting people in this context. There is little or no inner human conflict that can be shown on the screen. So what you are left with is a story in which the central figures are passive victims of external forces—the battle of Iwo Jima and a war bond drive. Pretty thin stuff when you get down to it—in a movie that is meant to be BIG—unless you hoke it up. Which is what Eastwood is forced to do in the second half of the movie, where the central focus becomes Ira Hayes’ psychopathology during the war bond drive. Interest here is created by political stereotypes and much overacting.

But the most troublesome parts of Eastwood’s film are those that distort the spirit of 1945 through a post-modern sensibility. This is done, in part, by exaggerating the meaning and importance of the 7th War Bond Drive that took place in the Spring of 1945. The movie transforms the two months during which the three surviving young flag-raisers—John “Doc” Bradley; Ira Hayes, a young Pima Indian; and Rene Gagnon—went on tour to sell war bonds, into a vulgar, hypocritical sideshow. The representatives of the government are depicted as soulless cynics, unresponsive to the needs and feelings of the young marines who hated the fact that they were presented as heroes. They knew that in raising the second flag they had done nothing worthy of merit, while the others, living and dead, deserved the recognition.

The bond drive is acknowledged as necessary but somehow made to seem ignoble and grubby, when, in fact, it served an extremely important economic purpose. The bond drives were undertaken during the second and first World Wars not only for the purpose of supporting the material needs of the war—taxing the public could have achieved that. But it was even more important to prevent an inflation, during and after the war, of catastrophic proportions—the kind that Germany suffered after the first World War. What was prevented was huge amounts of cash generated from an economy of overfull employment chasing very few available goods. The sale of the bonds took 26 billion dollars out of the circulating economy and stored it safely in the cupboards and safe deposit boxes of millions of civilians until a later time when it could be redeemed with interest to purchase goods that were more available.

There was no sense of deception or exploitation at the time. The drives had their share of corny patriotism and tedium for those celebrities who participated in them, but there was no cynicism. Most people felt good about helping the war effort by lending money to Uncle Sam at a rate of 2.9% a year. And only a sophisticated few knew that they were saving themselves from inflation and an economic disaster in the bargain.

The movie exaggerates, too, the confusion about the identity of the low man on the right in the iconic picture. The matter was investigated and within a year the right marine was acknowledged publicly as the correct figure in the great photo.

In Eastwood’s movie this understandable confusion is transformed into a high level government conspiracy. The government is seen to be suppressing the truth in order to keep the public from finding out that a mistake was made.The powerful, soulless government lies to the public and covers up its lies, just as it does today.

But perhaps the most anachronistic aspect of the film is Eastwood’s view of heroes and heroism. If he could, Eastwood would eliminate the horrors of Iwo Jima, but if we cannot eliminate war and its horrors we should eliminate heroes and heroism. And we should get rid of the celebration of heroes. Over and over this theme is repeated—‘everyone who went to Iwo was a hero;’ or ‘the only heroes are the ones still there.’

The modern, politically correct view is not only that ‘war is hell,’ but that ‘war is unnecessary.’ And if there was no hero worship war would not be encouraged. Furthermore, heroism is a form of elitism and robs people of a sense equality; no one should be morally ranked.

In 1945 there was no shame involved in getting medals and being a hero. There was also no shame in not being a hero. All that is required of any soldier is that he do his duty. All that is required of any man is that he make some contribution to the protection of his home and children.

All wars and especially all savage battles like Iwo evoke much survivor guilt and feelings that one has betrayed those who died in battle. In addition to the legitimate grief in the loss of a loved comrade, there is a sentimental reaction in those survivors who are singled out for their valor—‘I do not deserve this honor, I let my buddy down. I would gladly give up this honor in return for the life of my friend.’

The fact is that there are wars, there have always been wars, there will always be wars—small and large, between neighbors, brothers, clans, tribes, towns, cities, states, nations, religions, classes, races, in short wherever there are differences to be found between people. Those differences will, sooner or later, lead to fighting. Xenophobia and aggression seem to be hard-wired into man’s nature.

The utopian notion that man can be taught to live peacefully with his fellow man inexorably drives those who are drunk with great wealth and power to believe that they can eliminate differences between men by giving everyone the same equal share.

What is hard to accept among those who value political correctness is that there are differences of degree in every living thing. In stature, intelligence, skills, in everything, even courage. They all were heroes on Iwo, those men who fought there, but some were more heroic than others. The case of the surviving flag-raisers suggests that this is so.

Neither Rene Gagnon nor Doc Bradley wanted to kill people when they joined the service. Rene joined because he wanted to be a hero, or be thought a hero by the girls and he thought that the Marine uniform was the most heroic looking—a girl getter. Doc Bradley specifically joined the navy because he did not want to be on the front line as his father was in the First World War. He hoped to become a pharmacist’s mate aboard ship, which was consonant with his peaceable nature and his wish to help people.

Bradley was surprised when he was chosen to be trained as a medical corpsman serving with the Marines. Throughout his service Bradley was admired, liked, and respected by all the men around him. He may have hated being in the battle of Iwo Jima, but his fear and hatred were set aside in the service of doing his job no matter what. “In the midst of the carnage, Doc Bradley ran through the chaos, doing what he could….He watched a Marine blunder into a cross fire of machine-gun bursts and slump to the ground. Doc did not hesitate…[he] sprinted through thirty yards of saturating cross fire—mortars and machine guns—to the wounded boy’s side. As bullets whined and pinged around him, Doc found the Marine losing blood at a life-threatening rate. Moving him was out of the question until the flow was stanched. The Japanese gunfire danced all around him, but Doc focused his mind on his training. He tied a plasma bottle to the kid’s rifle and jammed it bayonet-first into the ground. He moved his own body between the boy and the sheets of gunfire. Then, his upper body still erect and fully exposed, he administered first aid.

“His buddies watching him from their shell holes were certain that he would be cut down at any moment. But Doc Bradley stayed where he was until he thought it was safe to move the boy. Then he raised a hand, signaling his comrades not to help, but to stay low. And then my father stood up into the merciless firestorm and pulled the wounded Marine back across thirty yards to safety by himself. His attention did not flicker until the Marine was safely evacuated.

“This action—so heroic that two sergeants and Captain Severance came forward to report it—earned him his Navy Cross, an honor he never mentioned to our family. It was one of the bravest things my father ever did, and it happened on one of the most valorous days in the history of a Corps known for valor.”

Not much is made of John Bradley’s Navy Cross or the heroic actions that earned it in Clint Eastwood’s movie. In fact, much more is made of Ira Hayes’ self-destructive behavior and nervous breakdown because it suits modern sensibilities to celebrate Ira’s victimhood than to celebrate John Bradley’s heroism.

Unlike John Bradley, Rene Gagnon wanted to be a hero, to win the love of his girl by impressing her with his bravery—a common adolescent fantasy. He wanted to get something out of being a hero. And here is how he behaved under fire:

Rene Gagnon fired his rifle for the first time on March 12.

“He and a buddy had wandered into a cave, assuming it was empty—a mistake that had cost many Marines their lives. The two boys found themselves facing a lone Japanese soldier with his rifle aimed at them. As he told his son, Rene Jr., many years later, the New Hampshire mill kid had a blinding thought in the split second that followed: “We all have mothers. We’re all human. Why does this have to be?”

“Rene had his own rifle but he hesitated. He hoped, against all reason, that the Japanese would lay down his weapon. Instead, the enemy soldier fired. Rene’s buddy dropped dead. In the next second it would be Rene’s turn. He squeezed the trigger, and the Japanese crumbled. Rene stood in the cave, trembling. This was what the battle had come down to. To his son, he later recalled thinking: ‘Why did I have to do this? Looking down a barrel into someone’s eyeballs and having to kill him. There’s no glory in it.’” There seems to be no recognition that he had put his own anxieties and scruples above the life of his buddy.

I will leave it to the reader to decide whether there are degrees of valor and whether it is nobler to celebrate these degrees or to ignore them as Eastwood believes.

October 22, 2006

VICTIMS OF WESTERN DISCRIMINATION

Quiz: What word is missing from this NYTimes account of the poor, youthful, downtrodden, dark-skinned, victims of discrimination who inhabit the suburbs of Paris? Clue: It starts with I, and ends with M. Could it have something to do with chants, not reported in the New York Times article, to wit:

"Many youths, many arsonists, many vandals behind the violence do it to cries of 'Allah Akbar' (God is Great) when our police cars are stoned..."(see the rest here.)

WAR AGAINST THE JEWS (CONT.)

This was posted by Fjordman on Little Green Footballs:

Europe knows not evil

I, a French-born rabbi, have been sitting in a small synagogue in Brussels, celebrating the High Holy Days. Almost 200 years ago to the day, Napoleon convened an assembly of Jewish leaders to help him open the door of citizenship to French Jews. It was the Enlightenment. The Jews of France prepared to receive equal rights and become full partners in the affairs of state. They could call Europe home.

Now I wonder if it was all an illusion. I and other Jews have begun moving toward the sad and frankly terrifying realization that ultimately we may have no home in Europe. It is not that I no longer identify as a European, or that somehow my sense of loyalty to the place of my birth has weakened. No, it is not me who has changed, but Europe. A conflict has emerged between this new Europe and my Jewishness, and I do not know how to resolve it.

MUCH HAS been said and written about the reemergence of anti-Semitism in Europe, but all the discussion hasn't made the phenomenon any more comprehensible to me. I suppose that after the Holocaust, no amount of anti-Semitic madness should surprise us. Yet, I am surprised - and frightened.

I am frightened not just by the anti-Semitism but by the collective European response of indifference and appeasement. Today, Europe worships compromise. It is "fanatical" in its non-violence. It is a Europe that, in the face of Islamist fanaticism, is ready to stay silent.

I fear that my religious tradition is indeed on a collision course with Europe, which seemingly refuses, on principle, all ideas of confrontation. Has Europe not learned that one day we have to confront what frightens and terrorizes us? Or is Europe still looking for a path to the laying down of arms and the dubious compromise?

For us, the Jews of Europe, after witnessing the murder of 6 million of our own, we find ourselves today unable to see eye-to-eye with the political orientation of our old continent. And if what is happening today is not the ultimate wake-up call for Europe, it seems to me that our presence in Europe, 200 years after we were granted citizenship, is reaching its end.

THE IRAQ DEMOCRACY PROJECT

Horsefeathers has long argued that the American project of bringing Democracy to the backward Muslim world is misguided and utopian. Until Islam is consigned to the dustbin of death cult religions, it is pointless to push for Democracy in the Islamic world (see "Palestinians").Humor can sometimes cut through the inhibitions imposed by political correctness, and thereby approximate the truth. Here's The Onion's take:

Iraqi Leaders Call For Moment Of Violence During Ramadan

BAGHDAD—A coalition of sectarian leaders from the approximately 185 separate political and insurgent groups vying for dominance in Iraq called for a nationwide moment of violence, to be held shortly before noon Friday in the remaining days of Ramadan.

Leaders from some of Iraq's many warring factions called for a unified moment of violence to mark the blessed month of Ramadan.

"All of us fighting for control of this land, whether Baathists, Sunni militants, al-Qaeda sympathizers, al-Sadrites, or just plain street criminals, have one thing in common," read a statement released Monday by the ad-hoc group. "We all share a deep abiding commitment to the indiscriminate use of murder, mayhem, and massacre as a means of achieving our various ends."

"Therefore," the statement continued, "this Ramadan, we shall take time to see past the things that separate us, and celebrate, together, a moment of horrifying brutality for the citizens of Iraq."

According to Monday's statement, leaders deemed Ramadan—the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, in which fasting, prayer, acts of charity, and most importantly, rigorous self-examination and purification are required of the devout—"the perfect time to put others first, whether in the path of an SA-7 anti-aircraft rocket or the blast radius of an improvised explosive device."

Though attendance is voluntary, organizers have strongly encouraged all Iraqi Muslims to participate. Several marketplaces and mosques throughout the country have announced extended hours on Friday, Eid al-Fitr, the Festival Of Fast-Breaking, in anticipation of the activity the moment of violence will bring...

See the rest here.

October 20, 2006

WAR AGAINST THE JEWS

Friend of Horsefeathers, Ruth King, has authored a brilliant analysis of the "war within the war on terror". We would add that if the war on the Jews succeeds it will spell the end of civilization and a re-primitivization of the entire world, under Allah.

The War Within the War on Terror
Written by Ruth S. King
Thursday, October 19, 2006

Author Rita Kramer once wrote that anti-Semitism is the bedrock culture of Europe, always stirring within the great wars that have shaken the continent. The alarming escalation of anti-Semitism on the continent today would certainly bear this out.

In the aftermath of World War II, anti-Semitism was subdued in most Western nations, whose citizens were appalled by the genocide that killed one third of world Jewry. This was the case even in England which was involved in a confrontation with Jewish fighters determined to liberate Palestine.

The Russians and the satellite communist nations showed no such inhibitions. Jews who survived the Holocaust to return to Hungary and Poland were met with pogroms. Stalin set into motion fake trials, purges, “disappearances,” deportations and executions of Jews, including members of his inner circle and staunch supporters of the Communist party. Only his providential death in 1953 aborted his planned deportation of all Jews to Siberia, a likely death sentence for most. Even so, the oppression of Jews continued. Secret police hounded Jews, restricting their movements, their right to worship and congregate, fining and imprisoning them.

In 1967, Israel’s lightening success in the Six Day War invigorated Zionism and inspired pioneering Soviet Jews to become refuseniks. Their numbers and determination grew with Israel’s (more difficult) victory in 1973 and they demanded the right to emigrate. American Jews, also more confident and secure after 1967, lobbied their legislators to support Soviet Jewry. The result was the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 which denied normal trade with states that imprisoned their populations. The rest is history.

Subsequently, free of the yoke of Russia and dazzled by Israel's success, Eastern European countries made some efforts to restore Jewish communities and examine their own sordid history.

But now that the Western democracies are forced to confront Islamic terror, their Jewish citizens face an alarming surge of anti-Semitism. While most of it is fomented by Europe's large Moslem populations, the indifference and complicity of many non-Moslem citizens is startling.

The blame for this state of affairs is usually directed at Israel for its purported “occupation” of Arab lands. This is to reverse reality. In truth anti-Semitism escalated after the Oslo agreements, the Clinton/Rabin brokered swindle that made terrorism another form of statecraft. It grew exponentially with the continued pattern of surrender to terror culminating in the retreat from Gaza and Olmert’s offer of a “convergence” plan which would ineluctably thrust Israel back to the 1949 armistice line.

For a while anti-Semitism was cloaked in anti-Israel rhetoric. Dozens of leftist and “anti-war” political and communal organizations, academics, notably in the Middle East departments, the international media and, of course, the United Nations, all practiced this mode.

The Moslem world never bothered to cloak its anti-Semitism and is now full of hysterical hatred. We hear primitive anti-Jewish ranting from Iran’s president and the imams and mullahs whose vicious fulminations are so well documented by MEMRI, Daniel Pipes and the contributors to Jihad Watch. They embolden suicide bombers and Moslems worldwide, along with their cheerleaders in every corner of the world.

Even in Malaysia--with no Jewish population--the former Prime Minister Mahthir Mohamad called Jews an arrogant world power who gets others to fight its wars and issued a call to arms: “ It cannot be that there is no other way. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way.” The “way” is mass murder and his view clearly resonates far beyond Malaysia.

In South Africa, once home to a large and successful Jewish population, editorials set the climate, describing Hezbollah and Hamas as “Islamic Liberation Groups”--while studiously ignoring suicide attacks against innocent Israelis.

The Jewish Times of Australia (August 16) reports: “The Parramatta Synagogue has been attacked for the second time in the space of two weeks with blocks of cement hurled at it in the attack overnight….In another incident two weeks ago, an attempt was made to set alight a Jewish youth movement centre at Bondi.”

From Corsica, September 1, 2006: “A small explosive device was found Friday morning outside the synagogue of Bastia on the French island of Corsica, police said. The synagogue, the sole on the island, was vandalised in 1998 by unknown people with prayer books torn up, silk scarves shredded and religious images defaced, windows broken and silver candlestick holders stolen…”

Argentina is infamous for two terrorist attacks, the first against Israel’s embassy in 1992, which killed two dozen people, and the second in 1994, against the Jewish Community Center, which killed 85 and injured more than two hundred. Recently hundreds participated in an anti-Israel rally carrying placards denouncing the Jewish state as “genocidal” and pledging support to Hezbollah. The rally, initiated by Moslems, attracted large groups of non-Moslems including students, members of the Workers’ Party and a sizable group of middle class housewives and professionals.

In Venezuela, the Jewish communal organizations are harassed by Hugo Chavez whose pro-Jihadist sentiments were highlighted during his visits to Teheran. Hezbollah is given support and training grounds while Jews are increasingly frightened, their institutions unprotected.

In France, Belgium, and throughout the European Union, anti-Semitic incidents are on an alarming rise, including beating, stalking, desecration of synagogues and murder. The Jewish communities in EU nations are urged to keep a “low profile.” The president of Spain dons a keffya in solidarity with the intifadists and Italy joins England, Portugal, Spain and Germany in refusing to allow El Al cargo planes carrying IDF equipment from U.S. military bases to Israel to land and refuel.

In England the rise in anti-Semitic incidents is so high that a commission has been established to investigate what Melanie Phillips calls “the hate fest against the Jewish people.” Early reports of the commission state that Moslems are eightfold more likely to hate Jews. But they find like-minded folks among rank and file Britons, in the media, in government where the mayor of London and assorted parliamentarians indulge in outrageous anti-Semitic rants, and in the universities where attacking Israel is part of the core curriculum.

In Oslo, a synagogue was bombed on September 17. The home of Nobel peace prizes has a large Moslem population, but the non-Moslems are only too eager to join in bashing Jews. Jostein Gaarder, prominent author of Sophie's World, wrote in Aftenposten, Norway's leading newspaper "We do no longer recognize the state of Israel....May spirit and word sweep away the apartheid walls of Israel. The state of Israel does not exist. It is now without defense, without skin."

A sign of the times: IDF officers have been given a memorandum warning that they may face arrest and charges of war crimes in Europe. Organizations in Europe have begun to compile cases against government officials as well, and they too are warned against visiting Europe.

And here in the United States, our sunny corner of the Diaspora, there are more and more anti-Israel demonstrations. In Salt Lake City, Utah, the mayor permitted defense attorney Robert Breeze to hold a "Death to Israel" demonstration on September 6, despite protests from the Jewish community. On August 12, 2006 in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Seattle, anti-war rallies attracted thousands from Moslem communities and the socialist left. From their podiums one could hear a cacophony of anti-Jewish taunts, demanding an end to American support for “the Jewish Nazis and Kikes.” Similar hate fests are repeated on many campuses.

Even the political arena is different. Democratic candidates usually made the requisite bow to America’s “special relationship” with Israel. The landscape has changed. Connecticut’s Senator Joseph Lieberman, an orthodox Jew who was a vice presidential candidate in 2000, where his nomination at the Democratic Convention elicited cheering chants of “Joe and Hadassah,” is now called “Jew Lieberman” on a website promoting the Democrats.

And, last, mainline Protestant churches routinely promote boycotts of Israel and disinvestment from companies that do business with Israel. In fact, the major strong defenders of Israel are in the Evangelical community which represents forty percent of Republican voters in America.

Had enough? This is only the tip of the iceberg, but I’ll stop. And what is the reaction of the world’s Jews? Predictably, some Jewish organizations blame Israel. Recently the World Jewish Congress sent a mission to Israel to warn Olmert that Israel’s hard line policies in Lebanon had spurred the malignant recrudescence of Jew hatred. Other groups, like the English “Engage,” voice opposition to boycotts and violence against Jews, but keep the drum beating about the “occupation” and the suffering inflicted on Arabs, which only fuels the sentiments of their enemies. Jews continue to gravitate to the anti-war left and demonstrate a dangerous unwillingness to acknowledge the necessity for tough measures to find and control would-be terrorists on our soil.

What Jews fail so signally to recognize is that the most important cause of this resurgence of anti-Semitism is the perception of Israel in retreat. It is undeniable that a powerful and victorious Israel elevated the international prestige and confidence of the Jewish people everywhere. By contrast, an Israel which has lost its way and forfeited its claim to its legitimate and historic rights is viewed with contempt, encouraging and emboldening anti-Semites. Jew hatred is an opportunistic virus that attacks weakened organisms. Like those nations of Eastern Europe which hated Jews even after there were none left, the Arabs will hate Israel and the Jews even if they were all to leave or die. Only Israel’s determination to succeed, to prevail, to prosper and to win will sedate them and anti-Semites all over the world.

There is a war within the war on terror. It is a war against the Jewish people. The consequence of ignoring the link between a strong and secure Israel and the safety of all Jews will be a dark and cold winter for Jews throughout the Diaspora.

October 15, 2006

CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE

The dreadful New York Times agenda-driven sports coverage, has closely paralleled the decline of the rest of the newspaper. Some astute editor apparently decided to give a sabrmetrician, rather than a sociologist, a chance to look at baseball, and the results are splendid. Alex Rodriguez, the much analyzed Yankee third baseman and target of sports talk radio wrath, has been utterly demonized since his poor playoff performance. Everyone has an opinion about what's wrong with A-Rod. Well, it turns out that baseball is still a game in which failure happens most of the time. For Rodriguez, that is far less often than for most. And as Casey Stengel put it: "most games are lost, not won." Here's where sabermetrics can help save the Yankees from a dumb, panicky off-season move.

Beyond the Tumult, Rodriguez Is a Key Contributor

By BENJAMIN HOFFMAN
Published: October 15, 2006

In the wake of the Yankees’ failure to win the American League division series against Detroit — topping a six-year streak without a World Series title — no player has felt the fans’ ire more than Alex Rodriguez.

The calls to trade him — or hire a new manager to get through to him — came quickly.

Most of the criticism focused on Rodriguez’s failure to produce in clutch situations, a significant flaw on the championship-or-bust Yankees. Even Manager Joe Torre lost patience and batted him eighth in the Game 4 loss to the Tigers.

But what is lost in the argument about Rodriguez is his quite significant contribution to the Yankees. And no one benefits more from his presence than Derek Jeter. Jeter has never been considered a top defender, despite his sparkling reputation, and he was on a downward spiral in the years before the Yankees acquired Rodriguez.

From 1998 to 2003, Jeter performed below the league average for shortstops each season in a statistic called range factor per game, which shows how many plays (putouts plus assists) a fielder makes a game. He bottomed out in 2003, with a 3.65 RFg, a low figure in a season when the average major league shortstop recorded a 4.13. He also turned 29.

For comparison, Rodriguez never recorded a RFg below 4.3 as a starting shortstop, and the category has been led the last two seasons by Rafael Furcal of the Dodgers, who had a 4.99 in 2005 and a 4.88 in 2006.

The season he turned 30, which happened to coincide with the Rodriguez trade, Jeter suddenly turned a corner. His RFg improved to 4.32, and he was awarded a Gold Glove. The next year, 2005, was even better, with Jeter improving to 4.56 and winning another Gold Glove. With Rodriguez struggling through a difficult year in 2006 — and his fielding suffering — Jeter again regressed to below average, with a 3.97 RFg.

After Rodriguez’s arrival, Jeter’s fielding percentage remained fairly constant with his .975 career mark, meaning the only difference in his game was that he was getting to more balls put in play.

There are two possible explanations for Jeter’s transformation from a poor shortstop to a Gold Glove contender: either he developed more range at 30, an age when most players are beginning to decline, or he benefited greatly from having a Gold Glove-caliber defender at third base, which allowed him to cheat to his left, a weakness highlighted by many scouts.

Rodriguez certainly struggled this season in clutch situations, but his struggles were nothing that other Yankees, including Jeter, have not gone through.

While Jeter is often talked about as one of the great clutch performers, he has had his share of problems, including hitting .152 in close-and-late situations in 2003, far worse than Rodriguez’s .237 average in those situations this year.

Despite his reputation as Mr. November for a clutch hit in the 2001 World Series, Jeter went 6 for 44 for a .136 average that year in the American League Championship Series and World Series, which the Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, recently said that he would not trade Rodriguez. “I fully expect him to be here,” Cashman said. “We’re going to figure this thing out together.”

If Cashman decided that trading Rodriguez is the right option, getting players in return who could match his value will be difficult.

Using the statistic called win shares, which was developed by the baseball analyst Bill James to determine how many wins a player contributes to his team as a hitter and defender, Rodriguez has been more valuable to the Yankees over the last three seasons than Jeter. He has recorded 92 win shares as a Yankee, translating roughly to 30 wins for the team. In the same amount of time, Jeter has 85, translating to 28 wins. While a few wins may not seem significant, in two of the last three seasons, the Yankees have won the division by three or fewer games.

To replace Rodriguez’s average of 30.67 win shares a season since he joined the Yankees, Cashman would have to trade for two to three players who could combine to provide the same number. At that point the Yankees would already be at a net loss; those shares are accounted for by one player and not spread out over multiple positions where the Yankees have All Star-caliber players.

A player is often one good postseason from being considered a clutch hitter, and Rodriguez may look to Barry Bonds for inspiration. Going into the 2002 playoffs, Bonds was a .196 career postseason hitter. He then proceeded to hit eight postseason home runs and to compile a .471 batting average in the World Series, and that stigma has been shed.

October 11, 2006

CORY LIDLE, R.I.P.

To An Athlete Dying Young

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
---A.E. Houseman

October 08, 2006

NOBODY ASKED US BUT...

(Hattip to the late, great Jimmy Cannon)

This year's Yankees were never as great as the pundits said, and are not as awful as they're saying today. They're a good team that got beaten by another good team, with better pitching, in a best of 5 series. It happens all the time. That's why they play games, rather than anoint winners on sports talk radio.

Would someone please explain how Kenny Rogers can throw 93mph fastballs at age 41, when he was a junkball pitcher at age 35 who couldn't top 86mph? We have our suspicions about what the Yankees players meant when they said he was a "new" Kenny Rogers.

What marketing genius decided baseball at Yankee Stadium needs the accompaniment of deafening rap music? Probably the same genius who thought we should be repeatedly instructed to "clap, clap, clap" and "get loud".

I see two essential functions for government: 1)providing for national defense and 2) making it illegal to start baseball games after 8PM.

Why is there always a guy a few rows ahead of you, who stands up to use his cellphone and is oblivious to the shouts of "down in front"?

Are there any slower moving lines than the lines at the concession stands in Yankee Stadium?

Before we're inundated by psychobabble explaining A-Rod's difficulties, shouldn't we consider possible physical reasons? A-Rod has always had a long looping arc to his swing, but had sharp enough reflexes to get his bat around quickly. We think his reflexes have slowed and he tries to compensate by starting his swing earlier. This leaves him very vulnerable to breaking balls and changeups away. Most players, at least those not on performance enhancers, start to decline around age 29-30. So A-Rod's supposed inability to handle pressure, may actually be a case of physical decline, now being exploited by good pitchers.

Joe Torre's strengths and weaknesses as a manager are, by now, well known. The same people who are blaming him for the Yankees failure in the ALDS were praising him in September for the team's success following the injuries to Matsui and Sheffield. Firing Torre will do nothing to improve the team's chances.

From 'clueless Joe' to Saint Joe and back; it was an 11 year round trip for the Yankees' manager. We trust he remembers Casey Stengel on managing: "It's getting paid for homeruns someone else hits." Casey certainly had the best perspective on managerial success and failure. In 1950, Casey's friend, Billy Meyer's Pirates fell to 6th place while the Yankees won the pennant and World Series. Stengel said, "Billy, what I can't understand is how I got so smart so fast, and you got so dumb."

October 05, 2006

SCRATCH A LEFT UTOPIAN AND YOU'LL FIND A JEW HATER: RALPH NADER IN HIS OWN WORDS.

More evidence that the left and the Jihadis are united in Jew hatred.

October 01, 2006

STICK A FORK IN IT, IT'S DONE: THE DEATH OF LIBERALISM

        Horsefeathers has been fascinated by the decline of Liberalism. Perhaps this is because its rise and fall has occurred over the course of his own lifetime. It sometimes strikes us that all the people, now departed, whose opinions mattered most to us were liberals. While they are gone, Liberalism itself lingers, sick unto death, an almost moribund version of its once lively self. Liberalism was a part of the world of ideas in which we lived, part of what we admired in the older generation. It was the air we breathed and the way we thought of ourselves: we were Liberals, and proud of it. And now it is no more.

        How did a once robust philosophy devolve into a childish set of insular, self- flattering beliefs? How and why did the requirement for reasoned self-criticism, so vital to Liberalism as we knew it, give way to a whiny, feminized set of politically correct sentiments articulated with all the intelligence of a bumper sticker? How did feelings come to assume primacy over thought, while victim status became more sought after than real achievement? Finally, how did Liberalism come to reject reason itself, in favor of politically correct stances and naïve fantasies about human nature? We suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that ideas, like the individuals holding them, can regress, becoming less mature and more primitive. Liberalism has regressively assumed the attributes of a primitive system of shared beliefs having more in common with backward cult-religions like Islam, than advanced ones like modern Christianity. Like Islam, Liberalism has become the dogma of a community of true believers who scorn non-believers as dangerous, unenlightened and malevolent, although it hasn’t quite reached the point of calling for death to the neo-Con infidels. Practitioners of both creeds are grandiosely self-righteous. Each is constantly frustrated and enraged at the failure to attain a perfect world, hence scapegoats are needed. For each it’s the Jews---more openly in Muslim madrassas---more deviously in the fashionable liberal disdain for the neo-Cons, Zionism, and the “Israel lobby”. Contemporary Christian faith, as Pope Benedikt XVI recently made clear, requires a God constrained by reason, one who cannot employ violently barbaric means to promote the faith. The God of Islam, as we learned from reactions of the faithful to his speech, is not constrained by reason, nor by any human considerations at all. Allah can, and does, urge violent jihad to subdue the non-believers. True believers support Islam by beheading infidels, shooting nuns in the back, burning churches, calling for murder of the Pope, and celebrating homicidal ‘martyrdom’. Murderous Jew hatred is more openly expressed every day by mullahs than it was by Nazis. Where Hitler tried to conceal his Final Solution, the jihadis openly boast that they will finish the job. Reason is nowhere to be found in madrassas and mosques.

        Reason has also been pretty much banished from the precincts of Liberalism. Notice how pronouncements by the likes of Ayman al Zawahari sound like talking points composed by the DNC. In fact, the repudiation of reason is a defining symptom of contemporary Liberalism, whose daily tantrums manifest all the rationality of frustrated, angry 4 year olds. Even the causes liberals claim to believe in- minority rights, women’s rights, gay rights, freedom of artistic expression- are quickly set aside when it comes to Islamo-fascists who treat women like cattle, homosexuality as a capital offense, and regularly destroy art (the Bamayan Buddhas) while pronouncing and carrying out fatwas on offending artists. To get a real sense of the regressive nature of modern Liberalism, compare the daily invective hurled at President Bush, with the deafening silence from the same people when jihadis go on a rampage in reaction to a carefully reasoned philosophical enquiry by the Pope. Better not stir up the savages by suggesting our values are superior to theirs.

        What has happened to Liberalism to transform it from a coherent philosophy, clear-eyed and politically unafraid, into a cowardly and childish utopianism? The first direct and repeated diagnostic warnings came from the great liberal critic, Lionel Trilling. As early as the 1950’s he exposed the philosophical and psychological weakness at the core of Liberalism. It is Liberalism’s conception of human nature. Liberalism assumes that human nature is inherently good and only corrupted by malign social forces, ranging from the family to the social structures of capitalist democracies. Such a view of human nature leads inevitably to the utopian fantasy that human conflict can be abolished, by sound social policies and/or by psychotherapy. It explains why liberals have been fellow travelers of Communism and sympathetic to the likes of Stalin, Mao and Castro. It accounts for the self-satisfaction and condescension of liberals: they are on the side of the good, the noble, the ideal. It accounts for their role in creating a feel good, therapeutic culture where non-judgmental multicultural tolerance is enforced in the name of liberal ideals. The history of our times, however, confirms Winston Churchill’s remark: “No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism”.

        In his Freud lecture at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1956, Freud and the Crisis of Our Culture, Trilling admiringly cited the classical psychoanalytic view of human nature as being eternally conflicted and not changeable through schemes of social engineering. He discerned in Freud’s writings, particularly in Civilization and its Discontents a stoic classicism. He believed this could serve as a corrective to the utopianism that regards human nature as infinitely malleable. Unfortunately, in the years that followed, Trilling’s voice was drowned out by the rise of the New Left. Freud’s stoicism did not fit well with the temper of the times. Revolution was in the air and quick fixes, behavior modification, psycho-babbling charlatans selling transcendence prevailed. Within psychoanalysis itself, Freud’s dark, tragic realism was rejected as too pessimistic. A new sunnier, feel good therapeutic approach was preferred. Writers from Wilhelm Reich to R. D. Laing, to Norman O. Brown and Herbert Marcuse argued that neurotic unhappiness was produced by "surplus repression" imposed by capitalism. "Getting in touch" with those repressed feelings became the cant of the age and made fortunes for many a psychopath. Change the family and society, they claimed, and human nature would follow. Come the revolution and egalitarian happiness will prevail as inhibitions and differences wither away. Marcuse’s vision of a world free of repression and inhibition animated the campus radicals of the 1960’s and Trilling became a prime target of their adolescent rage against repressive authority.

        Samuel Johnson, in the 18th century wrote, “How small of all that human hearts endure/that part which laws or kings can cause or cure.” Liberals disagreed. Trilling presciently understood what might happen should Liberalism become unhinged from the tragic realities of human existence. It could proceed down the same utopian path that produced the horrors of Hitler’s pursuit of perfect ‘Aryan’ man or Stalin’s genocidal effort to create the “new Soviet man”, or Mao’s slaughter of millions in pursuit of an egalitarian utopia, or Pol Pot’s mass killing of those who stood in the way of a perfect world. To this day there is a nostalgic romanticism amongst many liberals for Communism’s ‘noble experiment’. Trilling articulated his critique from within Liberalism in books like The Liberal Imagination and in many essays, especially the Freud lecture mentioned above, and in the last chapter of Sincerity and Authenticity wherein he exposed the dangerous inanities of what has come to be known as the “therapeutic culture”.

        Trilling was a literary critic, but he did write one important novel, The Middle Of The Journey. It was a political novel, in which he presented the ideas mentioned above through the novel’s characters. The central figure, John Laskell, an intelligent, secular man of the left at midlife, goes through a physical and spiritual/psychological crisis. It leads him to question his own, as well as his friends’ sympathy for Communism. His illness forces him to confront death--the actual, biological limitations of human existence. He comes to understand the utopian ideas underlying liberal sympathy for radical leftist totalitarians. He grapples with his own conflicted feelings about Communism and eventually comes to an understanding of its anti-human qualities. He recovers his physical and psychological health, breaking with his circle of friends who remain in thrall to the ideology of left utopianism. Lakell’s Liberalism comes to be informed by a realistic sense of the limited human condition, a deep understanding of conflicted human nature. Trilling’s novel thus presents a fictionalized argument for the stoic freedom derived from genuine self knowledge, as opposed to liberal self flattery. The Middle Of The Journey can be said to be hopeful about the still, small voice of reason’s power to prevail over irrationalism.

        We’ve come a long way from the Liberalism of Trilling, from the Democratic party of Truman, JFK, Henry Jackson, and Daniel Moynihan. Now we see one of the last survivors of that bygone political world, Joe Lieberman (see Roger Simon’s interview here) targeted for vile anti-Jewish abuse by the leftists who’ve taken over the Democratic party. The fall of Communism would seem to have constituted a final blow to the utopian fantasists of the left, but that hasn’t occurred. The liberal wordsmith class, the former campus radicals of the 1960’s made sure of that. Unlike Trilling’s John Laskell, these folks have always overvalued words. They were the glib children who avoided physical challenges and were rewarded by teachers for their ‘creativity’. Joseph Conrad, in his great novel dealing with utopian politics, Under Western Eyes, had his narrator, a teacher of languages remark: “Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality”, and so liberal wordsmiths on campus and in the mainstream media, deploy words to cover up, obscure and even deny the reality of totalitarian violence. President Bush is hated by liberals for many reasons but one of them is traceable to a speech soon after 9-11 in which he directly linked Islamist jihadis with 20th century totalitarian ideologies:

“...we have seen their kind before. They're the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."

        A call to arms? How crude! How arrogant! Doesn’t Bush recognize the beautiful ideals expressed by those utopian, 20th century ideologies? If only we had a President who would humbly sit down and talk, use words to convey our empathy and our Western guilt in a therapeutically sensitive manner. If he did so we could at last realize the noble dream of the 1960s to make love not war.

        Another way to measure how far we’ve come since Trilling’s critique is by contrasting Middle Of The Journey with a recent political novel, Saturday, by Ian Mac’Ewan. If he wasn’t consciously writing with The Middle Of The Journey in mind, Mac’Ewan nevertheless addresses a number of the same issues, arriving at starkly different and ultimately dispiriting answers. Briefly stated, his characters, faced with barbarism, choose appeasement. The central figure, Henry Perowne, is an accomplished neurosurgeon at midlife. He is a man of action and of few words. He saves lives, is very skilled and is untroubled by self-reflection. He has a good marriage and two young adult children whom he loves but doesn’t understand. They are both creative artists, the son a musician, the daughter a poet. Perowne is not a contemplative man, and he is impatient with art, preferring the hard truths of science and the active physical life---his prime recreation is tennis. We are led to believe that his idealistic anti-Iraq war daughter, by virtue of her devotion to poetry and politics, is a psychologically deeper person than Perowne. She has an ample measure of adolescent scorn for her stereotypical surgeon father. His well ordered life is shadowed by terror in post 9-11 London, and he lacks the finer empathic virtues of the artist who might ‘understand’ the grievances of our enemies. At first Perowne seems clear when he argues that the ‘idealistic’ anti-war position of his daughter, is in reality pro-Saddam. However, this argument is the high point of Perowne’s moral clarity and confidence. Mac’Ewan cleverly dramatizes Perowne’s real life confrontation with savagery when, during an anti-Iraq war demonstration, he is set upon by a mugger. Perowne escapes the initial encounter but, lacking the finer human touch, he unknowingly humiliates the young attacker. The mugger returns with his friends, invading the surgeon’s home, threatening to rape and kill his wife and daughter and terrorizing the family. Before they arrive, the surgeon’s son tells his father that he dangerously humiliated the thugs and provoked them. (Think Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.) Perowne and his family survive, intact. And what saves them? Why it’s poetry! Perowne’s anti-war poet daughter recites Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach to the mugger, who is instantly overwhelmed by its beauty and lays down his knife! Bring art and empathy, not force, to the barbarians and peace will prevail!
        This is the utopian message of Saturday. Does Mac’Ewan really believe this, or is he simply reporting the symptoms of a grave illness ravaging the body of liberalism? He seems to believe it, because he stacks the deck to have the surgeon proceed from ignorance to understanding. Saved by art, his consciousness now raised, the good Doctor rushes to the hospital to perform a life saving operation on the mugger who nearly destroyed his family. Talk about liberal guilt! Mac’Ewan’s surgeon makes reparations for his affluent life and his failure to appreciate the plight of underclass, the ‘other’. There is little doubt Mac”Ewan wants us to equate the surgeon’s situation with that of the secular West, threatened by utopian Islamic jihadis. Dealing forcefully with these threats, Mac’Ewan’s surgeon learns, inflicts ‘humiliation’ on our enemies and makes them angrier and more dangerous. Saturday is a reverse image of The Middle Of The Journey. The initially healthy-minded surgeon abandons his own hard won knowledge of the truths of the body, in favor of wishful, narcissistically flattering fantasies subsumed under the rubric of ‘art’.
        The setting of the novel, in London during the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, makes the parable clear. How should the West deal with nihilistic threats from suicidal Islamists? Mc’Ewen’s neurosurgeon responds aggressively to the mugger’s threats, only to have things get much worse as a result. Furthermore, from the outset he is depicted as lacking in psychological nuance and depth. He is not interested in deep understanding of himself or others. In short, a caricature of the surgeon as man of action, a technician uninterested in emotions. We are meant to think of Western political leaders impulsively striking back at savage foes. Perowne ia a pragmatist who, for all his exceptional surgical skill, lacks any appreciation for the deeper truths of literature and philosophy. The reader is flattered to feel superior to such a man, one who is impatient with fiction and poetry. Mac’Ewan’s portrait verges on absurdity as when his poet daughter is discussing the poet (Matthew) “Arnold” and he wonders “Arnold who?” The choice of Dover Beach as the poem that soothes the savage beast and saves the surgeon’s life is crucial to the novel. Trilling wrote his first book about Matthew Arnold but we doubt he ever thought Arnold’s words had the power to magically seduce and disarm dangerous killers. Beautiful and touching as the poem is, it is one of resignation and passive yielding. It is certainly not a rousing call to arms against the foe. It is the perfect poem for tender hearted appeasers. The world is one of hopeless moral equivalence where ‘ignorant armies’ war on each other. It is about loss of faith, failure, and resignation tempered by despairing love. It is a beautiful depressive lament and in the context of Mac’Ewan’s Saturday, suggests it is hopeless to fight the barbarians who are already inside the gates.

“…Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

        Between Trilling’s The Middle Of The Journey and Mac’Ewan’s Saturday we can chart the steady regressive weakening of the Liberal mind. In truth, liberalism has had a pretty long run as our dominant ideology. Now it is a hollowed out shell of its former self, a practically moribund ideology. Someone ought to step forward, pull the plug, sign the death warrant and bury the corpse. The stench will soon be getting strong.

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