REDUX

The Case for War

Very detailed, very exacting, and very well organized...if only the administration listened to the captain of the USS Clueless!

Most Defining Events and such

Have you been by Venomous Kate's? You must go. She's got brains, looks, attitude, integrity, and whole lot of whoop-ass, in other words, she's the complete package. Lots of upside.

She recently decided to throw a contest, The 50 Most Defining Events in American History, and published the results. I was late in entering, and my list is currently under construction, but I have responded via her comments, I have decided to include them here for you, noble reader:

Your most gracious Excellencies, Ms. Kate, Venomites, et. al.:

Alas, I hesitated too long to contribute to your undertaking, namely, charting the 50 Most Defining Events in American History. Nonetheless, you and your, er, slithering, cohorts did a fine job!

The order of some of the events did strike me as, well, bass-ackward (you've got to expect it from a creature with no legs). I see that I must remind myself that this list is all about defining events, and not most important events. But still, Bill of Rights at #16? Let me guess -- "It's got a great bass line, but I just can't dance to it!" And while I'm a big believer in making the world safe for democracy, I still cannot place us saving a bunch of pasty white guys "Over There" over the respect for rule of law as enshrined in Judicial Review by Marbury v. Madison, not to mention the whole freakin' Civil War. I went to high school in Virginia (okay, Northern Virgina) and they're still not over the War of Northern Agression (or maybe it was the War Between the States?)

Since I'm not a Baby Boomer, #12 Watergate, doesn't mean much for me, and seeing as how the Pax Republicana is most certainly upon us, I think that it belongs somewhere a little south, say after #27 Mass Production of Automobiles (but maybe that's because I live in CA -- right?)

And one more thing, I know that lists like these generally suffer from editorial shortsightedness. You know, that particularly heinous crime of egocentrism practiced at VH-1 (c.f. 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons). You know that really obnoxious blind spot that puts P. Diddy ahead of Johnny Carson, or Bill Clinton and Jennifer Lopez ahead of Jack Nicholson, or the cast of "Friends" ahead of Muhammad Ali -- Muhammad freaking Ali! I find that same kind of loathsome myopia with your choices for September 11th (#8) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (#37) ahead of the Louisiana Purchase (#9) and Revolutionary War (#38), respectively. You guys have no excuse for blowing these two calls, since I'm pretty sure you're not crack smokers (I dunno about all those cool style gurus with the overly bleached teeth at VH-1).

And I'm sure forgetting to clarify that #28 was, in fact, a TIW, is a simple clerical error on the part of some low-level staffer's since, uh, the Treaty of Versailles and the end of WWII are not, I repeat not, the same thing. In fact, many learned scholars have attributed the beginning of WWII to the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI.

The Seneca Falls thing (#4) might be near and dear to many, including you, o Venomous One, but to rank it higher than the Emancipation Proclamation (#10) doesn't resonate with me.

The Transcontinental Railroad (#3) was bold, I'll grant you that. I'd have put Sutter's Mill (#24) on equal footing, but I admire your balls. (Please understand, I mean that in the highest possible sense -- the ever popular Tony Montana usage.)

But what about those didn't make the cut? How about a man named Mark Twain. Didn't he shape our national character and self-image/esteem/love just as much as the Fall of Saigon (#49)?

How about Ike's Federal Highway System? I don't know about you, but I think that the Freeway deserves a spot at least as high as the "ARPAnet" (#30). After all, the latter is often compared to the former (Information Superhighway, anyone?)

My guess is that the Roaring 20's gang violence is rolled up in (#26 Prohibition/Repeal). But doesn't America's enduring love affair with gangs (whether from 5 Points, Hell's Kitchen, Compton, or "The Outsiders" maybe you could have thrown them a bone.)

I'm no socialist -- but I think that those Haymarket Square riots deserve a mention. We've been trying to get rid of those damn unions ever since.

What about the impact of illicit substances on our culture? You can't really begin to scratch the American character of the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of this one without some understanding of drugs. No moral judgment here -- but really, how else could you explain WTF all those dirty, stinking hippies were doing spinning in circles and stuff -- cause it wasn't dancing.

But the unkindest cut of all. The worst, most shameful act of abandonment you erstwhile Republicans did was to leave the Federalist Papers off your little list. Hamilton, Madison, Jay. You've got the Articles of Confederation (#20), and no Federalist Papers? It sets out not only the principles, by which our Republic runs to this day, but also the structures of government and their rationales. I doubt that anyone can take exception at declaring those writer's attempts any other than unqualified success. The Articles didn't freakin' work, fer crissakes.

You might object, however, saying that they're not that important, they didn't really shape who we are or anything, not like FDR's New Deal (#34) or anything. You would, maybe, if you were a communist. You ever heard of checks and balances? What am I saying, you were a lawyer, once, and I'm sure that you can see how the diffusion of power has been crucial in shaping us to be the mighty we-don't-take-no-shit-from-nobody country that we are today. You could even argue that the very longevity of our great Union has been made possible by the flexibility and competition inherent in our governmental structures. There is no more Definitive Event in our nation's history than the continued existence of a robust political culture -- even if it means looking at Chris Matthews fat head every night.

Maybe they're part of Constitutional Convention and its Passage (#2) and they're omission in print amounts to nothing more than a faux pas.

I look forward to your prompt attention to this matter.

But, please, most excellent Ms. Kate and the Venomites, continue with your excellent works. I for one, will be reading, and enjoying all of your continued postings.

Best regards,

Andrew Schouten

I guess this means I'll have to actually cobble the damn list together, then, huh?

Philosophical Differences

It's very easy to attribute America's place in the world to our creation myths. You know, things like "Manifest Destiny", frontier spirit, "Don't Tread on Me", or even the honor-cruelty dichotomy of America's warrior hicks Jacksonians. The truth of course much more complex than what we like to tell ourselves. I would like to emphasize that one of the structural reasons that has made America strong is shared by all the countries of the West. I like to call it Sustainable Development. It's a confusing term, really. I don't mean that form of environmentalism that restricts entrepenuership in the service of a condescending worldview.

To me it's a more organic notion. It means that economic activity is self-perpetuating. That longevity is not due to adherence to psuedoscientifc truisms, but instead to the very nature of the economic activity. Kind of like, planting trees to replace the ones you log, only so that you can log them and replace them again. Or making cars cheap enough, and paying your employees more than enough to make sure that your cars become indispensible. In government that means following reasonably sane anti-trust policies, and ensuring a level playing field for healthy competition (not just targeting your campaing contibutor's rival that's kicking his -- and everyone else's -- ass).

This is not a viewpoint exhbited by Liberian President Taylor's Life of Crime. After he came to power, he wrecked his country so that he could be rich. Then he pissed off all of his neighbors. What a jackass. But it serves to highlight a basic, and most fundamental difference betweent the West and the Rest: When we compete to see who's at the top we don't screw it up for everybody else, because that only undermines the winner's future growth and destroys potential. Bernard Lewis illuminates the difference far better than I do as he contemplates economics and government corruption in What Went Wrong?, pg. 63:

In the West, one makes money in the market, and uses it to buy or influence power. In the East, one siezes power, and uses it to make money. Morally there is no difference from the two, but their impact on the economy and on the polity is very different.

Gettin' somewhere

Look who's not on a road to nowhere. Reason prevails.

Splitting Hairs

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo quashed a budding coup, ordering the arrest of nearly 60 junior officers who were plotting to take over the country. A fierce supporter of America's War on Terrorism�, Ms. Arroyo, who fancies herself the Filipino nation's "little aunt", came to power in 2001, thanks to a military-led popular uprising.

I'm sorry. Come again? What's that you say? Rank hypocrisy? Perhaps. But I think its more like those unpleasant ambiguities of sexual harrassment laws. You know -- "It's not harrassment, if he's cute."

How 'bout that Cardinal Sin? Could you have written a better name? And how about his messianic complex:

Influential Philippine church leader Cardinal Jaime Sin called on his flock to protect Ms Arroyo.

Sin is the de facto church leader in the Philippines, Asia's bastion of Catholicism, where more than 80 per cent of the country's 80 million people are practicing Roman Catholics.

Render unto Caesar, huh?

Crackin' Skulls

It's not just our soccer team. Even the girl next door will kick your ass:

U.S. Army Specialist Heather Baldus, 21, of Independence, was standing guard duty west of Bagdad along the road to Syria. In a call to her mother Saturday, Baldus related the story of how she chased down General Husam (Hossam) Mohammed Amin.

"She was standing post with this other soldier when she saw some movement in a bush by the road," explained Baldus' mother, Kim James, of Sibley. "She told the guy to cover her while she checked it out."

As Baldus approached, she came under fire from unseen gunmen in surrounding buildings. A man bolted from the bush ahead and she pursued, knocking him to the ground with a blow to the head from the butt of her weapon.

"He looked up at her and all he could say was 'You're a woman.' Heather told him 'Yeah, but that doesn't mean I won't put a bullet through your head,' "

AMERICA: We're so baaaad, our women will kick your ass!

Exploding Groupthink

He can get a little long-winded and heavy, like German cuisine, but Victor Davis Hanson has got a point. Actually, five and a half.

They grew 'em smart in those days

"It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect." --James Madison

A Gag -- it's a good thing, really

The public has a right to know. The thing is, they normally don't give a sh*t. Except of course, when a celebrity is invlolved. And then, when the public's appetite is voracious, in even Afghanistan does not have a right to know.

Does not have a right to know what, exactly?

Poor girl. Poor boy. Nothing good ever comes from things like this (well, unless you're a diamond merchant, I suppose.)

Reading the old sheep guts

Priests in Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Greece, etc. ad nauseum always protected their niche in the pecking order (and increasingly larger slice of the communal pie) by claiming to divine their dieties' whims as well as the heavenly zietgeist by "reading" magic communications from inexplicably powerful fetsihes and artifacts like bones, tea leaves, cards, huffing vapors, and my personal favorite, piping-hot sheep entrails.

Us secular-humanist-technological moderns have brand-name journalists and pundits, and their altar boys and girls, the "chattering class", to tell us when the sun rises and sets, and if the eclipse of the sun is because the gods are angry and want our virgins, or because the gods are angry and want our gold. And so these tellers of tales, spinners of yarn and keepers of that most vacuous and hollow repository of knowledge, the Conventional Wisdom have barked themselves into a newly-defiant tone vis-a-vis the Administration�:

But readers, some of you continue to write us on this topic, praising old journalistic foes for their new-found integrity. Andrea Mitchell is finally telling it straight, you say, with your own straight faces. But Mitchell hasn�t been telling it straight, and Chris Matthews�pushing this story on Hardball�hasn�t reported a straight fact in weeks. He spun the facts for years about Gore. Now he�s spinning the facts about Bush. Eager to believe his current spin, you insist that he�s telling the truth.

Readers, don�t be suckers. People who spun you for years about Gore aren�t likely to tell the straight facts now. For reasons that are completely unclear, major parts of the Washington press corps have flipped on Bush in the past few weeks. But their dysfunctional culture lives; they continue to spin the basic facts to construct a sweet story which furthers their outlook. Their reports are full of spin and conflation. Can�t you hear what they�re saying? Hey, rubes!

...

Our point on this is simple. The press corps� culture remains unchanged; they are once again crafting the stories they like, and some of our readers are running to praise them because they have turned against Bush. But readers, you�re still receiving the cock-eyed stories the Washington press corps always supplies you. We�d support a review of Bush-on-Iraq. But that isn�t what the corps is providing, and we thought that you might want to know it.

While I disagree with the part about Gore (I think the Washington press corps didn't highlight his vapid, crypto-Marxist, "Green" agenda), the Daily Howler does have an excellent point. These guys like to hear themselves talk and are allocated prestige based on their "credibility" (i.e. how much do you believe what they're saying based on their scrappy gravitas) at repackaging gossip and score-settling as an essential good which only they can produce. Moreover, as an elite, it behooves them to replicate each other's we're-on-your-side-most-trusted-name-in-all-that's-fit-to-print-hard-hitting-investigative-eyewitness-action-breaking-inpartial investigative journalisitic memes in order to rationalize their "face-time" and expense accounts.

A century ago, you can almost picture a smoke-filled room, with ruddy-hued, beady-eyed, fat-fingered, sweaty men eating roast-beef sandwhiches with a side of cigar ash, drinking sh*tty scotch, deciding the political futures of the Capital's luminaries over poker games played with nudie, peek-a-boo cards. "Well, Bob, you wiped us all out. What do you think tomorrow's headline should be?" And these guys knew everything. The thing about J. Edgar Hoover and his panties. They knew about it. You know why? 'Cause they were there at the same parties. But nobody attacked them because they had a much bigger megaphone with which to dredge up your dark little pecadillos.

(Whew)

So where was I? Oh yeah, the Washington press corps will turn on you faster than you can blow twenty bucks (in singles) at a strip joint. But that doesn't mean that they're not needed. We do need self-important people with limited credentials to force our communal the understanding of our lives and times to the lowest common intellectual denominator, so that our leaders do not indulge to greatly into their pathological megalomania.

Bottom line: whether or not the omens augur well or naught, we should do all that we can to ensure that our high priests o' the media keep their nose to the grindstone and stick to "reading" the steaming, bubbling tripe, instead of thinking themselves gods that determine the fates of mere mortals. Maybe we could hire/fire newspeople with those damned instant polls (another tool for divination, I'm sure).