The Radical Centrist

There should be no question about the OBL tape...

Perhaps you've heard about the smiling crocodile? Another round in the on-going al-Qaida psi-ops campaign. I like the way Arthur Chrenkoff sees it:

Can John Kerry please take off that fake beard?

And no, I'm not engaging in an exercise of moral equivalence between Kerry and bin Laden. Far from it - I have no doubt that John Kerry is as sincere as George Bush when he says he wants to see al Qaeda destroyed.

But for goodness' sake, why does the new and improved Osama sound like he's reading a Democratic Party script, mixed with a fair dose of soft left op-ed commentary? How do you react to quotes such as these?

"I am telling you security is an important pillar of human life. And free people don't let go of their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom... [W]e fought you because we are free people, we don't sleep on our oppression. We want to regain the freedom of our Muslim nation as you spill our security, we spill your security..."

Doesn't this sound like Michael Moore's "Iraqi insurgents are Minutemen" claptrap? And doesn't Osama know how to play on the liberal guilt, the victim culture and the cult of the oppressed? Sadly, I'm sure many will continue to fall for the "we're all freedom lovers" line, forgetting all about the Taliban/Wahabbi theocracy oppressing women, stoning homosexuals and beheading infidels.

"I am so surprised by you. Although we are in the fourth year after the events of sept 11, Bush is still practicing distortion and misleading on you, and obscuring the main reasons and therefore the reasons are still existing to repeat what happened before..."

The first part of the paragraph is pure Kerry

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Now there is word (at ZombieTime and elsewhere) that this is an edited portion of a longer 18 minute tape. I'd be interested to see how Al-JazeeraTV has selected the highlights.

The psuedo-elite gets noticed

The self-declared intellectual elite in America has long thought it self the best source of political thinking; Spiro Agnew famously referred to the "nattering nabobs of negativity" 30 years ago. The bush presidency has brought out the worst in this annoying but otherwise harmless group, to the point that they are no longer quite so harmless. I'm distressed in the extreme by the disregard and disrespect for opinions and democratic the rights of the general population that are evident in the writings, speeches (and this year films as well!) that come out of media, entertainment and academic circles. These folks are so self-absorbed and inbred, speaking only to one another, that they have concluded that the rest of the country is too brainless to understand their "wisdom" and can't be trusted with a decision.

This sort of thinking was actually rather common for much of human history. What was most revolutionary about the new American state was the trust it placed in the people. We've continued to resist the efforts of elites to control our laws, our lives and our thinking for over 200 years. This is no time to relax that guard.

The excesses of the progressive elite have been noticed elsewhere this year. Writing in the London Times, Gerald Baker expresses real concerns about President Bush's performance, but he endorses his reelection, largely because of the insufferable rantings of his opponents. (Hat tip to Mudville Gazette)

" I have to say it is his enemies who most justify Mr Bush’s re-election.

The list of those whose world could be truly rocked on Tuesday is just too long and too rich to be ignored. If you think for a moment about those who would really be upset by a second Bush term, it becomes a lot easier to stomach.

The hordes of the bien-pensant Left in the universities and the media, the sort of liberals who tolerate everything except those who disagree with them. Secularist elites who disdain religiosity except when it comes from Muslim fanatics. Europhile Brits who drip contempt for everything their country has ever done and long for its disappearance into a Greater Europe.Absurd, isolationist conservatives in America and Britain who think the struggles for freedom are always someone else’s fight. Hollywood sybarites and narcissists, self-appointed arbiters of a nation’s morals.

Soft-headed Europeans who think engagement and dialogue with mass murderers is the way to achieve lasting peace. French intellectuals for whom nothing has gone right in the world since 1789. The United Nations, which, if it had its multilateral way, would still be faithfully minding a world in which half the population lived under or in fear of Soviet aggression.
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And so, perhaps for the wrong reasons, perhaps less because he has been right and more because those who hate him so much have been so wrong, I want this President re-elected."

The always insightful Victor David Hansen ascribes the overwrought tone of the anti-bush rhetoric to frustration. A self-important elite that is increasingly ignored is an unhappy elite. There was a time when they might get a debate from opponents, but the language has stretched beyond the point of discussion (how do you respond intelligently to being called a Nazi?)

"The universities, the arts, the major influential media and Hollywood are predominately liberal - and furious. They bring an enormous amount of capital, talent, education and cultural influence into the political fray - but continue to lose real political power. The talented elite plays the same role to the rest of America as the Europeans do to the United States - venting and seething because the supposedly less sophisticated, but far more powerful, average Joes don't embrace their visions of utopia.
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It is apparently a terrible thing to be sensitive, glib, smart, educated or chic - and not be listened to, as we have seen from this noisy and often hysterical campaign among elites."

Like Gerald Baker I am going to vote for George Bush largely out of disgust over the behavior of his campaign and supporters. I fear the effect on our democracy if this arrogant bunch is rewarded with a victory. Not only would we have to endure their term of leadership, but the nature of our forthcoming elections would be determined. Handing them a loss asserts that the people have their own opinions and will determine their own best interest, and discredits arrogant and dishonest politics.

Let's not give the terrorists a cheap win

Matt Drudge is giving the story of the new threat tape being "held" by ABC News his big underlined font treatment. I feel that ABC, in sitting on this thing during the final days of the election might actually be doing the right thing. There is a lot about this tape that is suspicious. As has been much noted, the speaker is an American, which has not been the habit with Al Queda. Even if this Adam Pearlman has ties to terrorist organizations, why should we believe his threats? Not only does Al Queda not generally provide warnings before it acts, it has demonstrated the patience to wait until the guard is down. Drudge is concerned that an American like Pearlman could travel about the country undetected and be a greater threat, but if stealth was his mission, why release a video?

It seems more likely that the tape is an attempt to influence the election through the fear of an attack, rather than an actual attack. The terrorist planners may be displaying a well tuned sensitivity to the American political mood. A serious attack on the scale of 9/11/01 would likely galvanize American resolve to fight and rally support behind our incumbent president, but a more vague unease caused by frightening video threats and the appearance of mayhem in Iraq would have the reverse effect.

If we allow these anonymous threats to unhinge our thinking we do their work for them. At some point the best weapon against terrorism is a people who won't be frightened. The real effectiveness of terrorism lies in a multiplier effect in the response of the targeted population; a small act can effect a great many people. If the targeted people don't respond, however, the strategy collapses. The best way to react to this video tape is with scorn. If our enemies are reduced to taunts from hooded spokesmen we have made great progress.

Let me introduce you to Steve Poizner

If you don't live the SF Bay Area you've probably not heard of Steve Poizner. He is a self-described "frustrated moderate Republican" who made a bundle in communications and is now running for the CA Assembly seat for the west side of Silicon Valley. This is traditionally a safe seat for Democrats, but Poizner is making a real run for the spot, picking up the endorsement of the San Fransisco , San Jose and Palo Alto papers and the all-important endorsement from the Governator. Poizner is not the charismatic candidate that Arnold is, but like Arnold he has a legitimate claim to "political outsider" status. He also has experience in education and a bi-partisan story that resonates well in this area.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that his candidacy is a referendum on the Schwarzenegger Revolution, but a victory would demonstrate the voter frustration which led to the successful recall last year is still a force. Watch the results!

Anna Quindlen asks an important question

In her latest column Anna Quindlen asks if America is asking itself "who are we really?"

"Who are we, we Americans? The answer is murkier at this moment than at any point in our history. Election Day is probably an ideal time to stop and think about that, although it seems we rarely think about it at all. ...Are we inspired only by personal vengeance, not humanitarian succor? Are we willing to make war in Iraq but not peace in Sudan? What moves us to action?"

One thread through the column is our lack of public concern or even interest in the genocide taking place in Sudan. Her position seems to be that we are not living up to our imagined role of moral leader for the world. That as we choose our leadership, we should a this moment to think about what sort of country we want to be.

"This is a moment when those questions must be asked again, now that the United States so towers over the other players on the world stage. Are we a country willing to match strength with strength of purpose? Are we a country prepared to model free speech for others, or one that will trade its birthright of dissent for national security? Are we a country that cares about the needy and the disenfranchised, or a country of individualists in which self-interest is the ruling ethos? Is our symbol the open hand or the closed fist? Who are we? What do we stand for?"

These are good questions that we need to think about more, but this may be a particularly bad time to do it. The nature of elections is competitive and partisan, no way around that really. Important issues like those raised by Quindlen inevitably become debate points causing opinion to polarize. The leading players have a difficult time speaking honestly about these matters in the best of times, but the charged atmosphere of a close election makes true openness impossible. In matters as important as our active role in the world this is not a healthy step.

And Quindlen's argument seems to imply that our failure to act in Sudan as we did in Iraq implies a lack of compassion in favor of more "vengeful" motivations. I believe she is mis-reading the American public. The suffering of the Iraqi people under Saddam has been widely reported and is much on the mind of Americans. Our desire to stay in Iraq and see the country rebuilt is clearly motivated as much by compassion and commitment to ideals, as it is to any sense of self-interest or vengeance for September 11. What has changed in the past year has been our confidence in the reward for compassionate work. Americans hesitate to take up the cause of the Sudanese because they fully expect that such a campaign, no matter how nobly motivated, will end badly. The situation there will turn out to be much more complex that we expected, the good-guys will turn out to have skeletons in the closet, (or piled in mass graves) and the bad-guys will find support groups here in the U.S., and the world community will be on the sidelines decrying every mis-step. Like the New York portrayed in the Spiderman stories, this is not always a friendly world for super-heroes and crime-fighters.

September 11th is still taking lives...

Michelle Malkin links to a WaPo obit for Kenneth Foster, a Gulf War vet not much older than me, who lost his wife in the attack on the Pentagon and finally succumbed to the effects of grief. Yet another indication that "Sept. 11" is more than just a date in history. It's an on-going phenomenon where innocent people are made to suffer in someone's mis-guided attempt to make a political statement. I see the murder of kidnapped hostages in Iraq as just another incident in the Sept. 11 plague. So long as people punish innocent individuals for the perceived (or even real) injustices of a nation or religion, we are still living through September 11th.

Now this is how bloggers ought to meet!

I posted on this over at my other blog (Bird's Eye View) but I'm so charmed by this invention that I wanted to talk about it here too. A fellow named Eric Staller (apparently Dutch) has come up with a way to keep meetings fun and healthy! The Conference Bike is an idea that deserves more attention. If one of the news networks ever wanted to do a political panel show using bloggers, this seems the perfect venue. "Today, two laps around Central Park with our guest the Majority Leader..." Afterwords there can be an argument over who was pedaling hardest and who was loafing, and over who gets to steer the next time. Perhaps, instead of debates next election we could have a race between the candidates teamed with their chief advisers. Imagine the competition to get Lance Armstrong's endorsement.

You know, this bike would be perfect for John Kerry's summit meetings!

A moving story of sacrifice among our troops and their families

The Discovery Times channel is running an on-going documentary on the deployment of a National Guard brigade from Arkansas to Iraq. It's titled "Off-to-War" and the first three episodes of what will apparently be a five part documentary have been released. I saw all three tonight and was very moved by the personal stories of these families. The web site for the show provides a bit of background and a schedule (click the "remind me" link). If you receive this channel I strongly recommend "Off To War". Its a very honest telling of the story. The men and their families do the talking, not the filmmakers.

If you have a chance to catch this series I would recommend it.

Waiting for the start of the 21st century

Over at Doc Searls place he posts several excerpts from email he's received. The third one contains a particularly insightful comment. Here's an excerpt of the excerpt:

"What scares me about Kerry most of all is that he talks like he's running in 1992. If you read Philip Barlow's Achilles Shield, it becomes clear that both candidates talk to the electorate like the cold war never ended. I think that's because th electorate, in many ways, hasn't moved past the 20th century yet. For example, the future is not about universal health care and it never will be. That's so 20th century it hurts my head. Will we have to solve the health care crisis? Yes, absolutely. But FDR and Johnson are the wrong models for how to do it. Government can't and won't solve the problem."

I finally realized what bothers me so about John Kerry, he's "so 20th Century". I keep having flashbacks to 1969 or 1978. He has that 20th century way of looking at the world. A world where France and Germany are world leaders, where great statesmen maneuver great forces at a ponderous pace. I wonder if the first major public figure to really enter the 21st Century is Osama Bin Laden. He's fighting the "cell phone war", using an army that has no defined leadership and no defined headquarters. We're learning fast and may come out of this even more dominant in the world as the only major army that knows haw to fight the 21st Century war.

And let's return to this pithy little statement.

"the future is not about universal health care and it never will be"

I'd go further, "the future is not about universal anything. The past century or two has been fascinated by groups and blocs, but this is obsession with an illusion. Everything happens at the individual level, the perceived behavior of groups is something that emerges from the individuals, a convenient way to categorize and analyze, but there is no firm reality there. Trends in technology, politics and culture are allowing individuals to assert their variety, allowing new apparent group behavior to emerge. As these trends go forward we can either become further fragmented or find new ways to unify ourselves. This much is certain, however, a one-size-fits-all mindset is doomed.

It may be another decade before the true nature of the new century sets in, but the early signs are appearing.

Blogging the troops

Some warblogs are written by Iraqis, with a lot to say about the rebirth of their country, some are written by soldiers, with a lot to say about the progress of the war and their experiences, but this blog is written by Kevin Sites, a freelance journalist in Iraq, and he's not so much blogging the war and he is blogging the troops. This post features an instant classic photograph, of a marine waiting to go into Falluja.

Sites has a good eye and ear for the little details that put you "in the scene". In an earlier post Sites is holed up at the US Embassy in Baghdad, waiting for transport out to Falluja. He describes a relaxed moment.

"At the pool it's a bit more relaxed. A group of young Marines are taking turns doing tricks off the platform high dive. They are laughing and being silly like 18 and 19 years olds should. From the pool deck, their staff sergeants watches them with fatherly eyes, gently encouraging them to push the envelope."

Take a moment to enjoy this blog