... and he absolutely, positively knows this, you see, because HE CAN REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAD YOOUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR MIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND -- !
I... ummmmmmmmm... guess. :)
Posted on 11/08/2004 6:17:55 AM PST by chambley1
President Bush famously botched the truism, but the way it goes is not complicated: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
The first time, it could be argued that the American people were fooled. They didn't give Bush a plurality, but enough felt the country could afford a "compassionate conservative" in the White House. Little did they know what was in store. They condoned the invasion of Iraq because they were lied to about weapons of mass destruction. They were led to believe the war on terror justified assaults on civil liberties. They didn't object to a $300 check in the mail, not told that the consequence would be turning the biggest budget surplus in history into the biggest deficit.
The second time, however, is different. Fooled the first time, there is no such excuse for Tuesday's electoral outcome.
Senator Kerry did a respectable job delineating the disastrous consequences of Bush's first four years and of allowing his re-election. He compromised little on the subject. He didn't pull many punches. Anyone who was paying attention had it clearly and effectively laid out. So, there is no one to blame now but everyone who voted Bush back in.
Those voters wittingly set America on a course to what could unfold as the worst conflagration in modern times. They were told of all the warning signs. Iraq is the mere flash point. With an endorsement, or a mandate, if you will, from the American people to push on in Iraq, the Bush administration will soon find itself in an endless, frighteningly escalated region-wide conflict involving Iran and legions of terrorist tribes descending from all quarters. It could spill over from there.
The mobilization against this at the polls Tuesday was noble. More people voted for Bush than ever before, but more people also voted against an incumbent than ever. It's not easy to beat an incumbent during wartime. Don't forget, Kerry's was a radical call to repudiate a sitting president's prosecution of a war. It was asking a lot and he came very close.
The majority who voted for Bush Tuesday did not vote out of social conscience or fear. They voted for war and conquest. A seething testosterone fury, couched as self-righteous morality, was unleashed at the ballot box blasting away indiscriminately at everything perceived to be liberal, gay, weak, different or foreign, specifically Middle Eastern or French. To them, George Bush is the warrior president. They're ready to paint their faces and charge screaming into holy war.
Regrettably, Kerry did not effectively contrast this blood-lust to genuine American values, including their religious roots, represented in a commitment to social justice, equal rights and an end to exploitation, bigotry, poverty and disease. Failing to identify such commitments in the context of faith and values, he allowed his opponent to define "values" in barely concealed rabid, hateful terms.
I recall as a young seminarian studying the rise of the Social Gospel movement and its theology following the Civil War. It flourished in the context of the exploding industrial revolution. By contrast to the Social Darwinists, it reveled in the notion that science and technological progress held out the hope for ending war and human suffering, and believed that this progress, working hand in hand with the virtuous intentions of faithful individuals, could lift the masses out of poverty, disease and misery.
This radiant optimism energized socially-directed missions in American slums as well as abroad and defined progressive currents in both political parties. But as it progressed into the early twentieth century it was dashed by the descent into First World War.
The dark side of humankind's nature unleashed a mindless holocaust of war and bloodshed unmatched in recorded history. The civilized world devolved into chaos and death so rapidly and furiously that it crushed the very core of any outlook rooted in optimism and hope. Fifteen million died on European soil, in the shadows of the most imposing edifices of refined culture. Theology became transformed to focus on the inherent evil and original sin that darkens the human soul.
What issued from that terrible war was the rise of fascism and the Second World War. American culture never fully regained its footing in the kind of optimism that emerged from the Gilded Age. It was rekindled in the collective, noble effort to defeat fascism and struggle for racial equality and social justice in the 1950s and 60s, but was extinguished by the treachery of Vietnam, Watergate and unbridled covert domestic counterinsurgency. Since then, self-centeredness and greed have dominated our culture and in the context of that, the Social Darwinists have risen to power, poised to spread their dark, foreboding wings of death across wider expanses of the globe.
With Tuesday's national mandate, we stand at a new precipice overlooking a new hell. The new generation of idealists and optimists who arose against all this in the election, only to fall short, must grow up very fast now. The fight is not about who wins, but who's right, and the commitment is not to a campaign but to core values and a lifestyle.
Fool Me Once, Shame On You, Fool Me Twice...
Nicholas Benton may be emailed at
nfbenton@fcnp.com
What crack pipe has this guy been on?
You know what amazes me is that this writer points out that social charitys (such as the Salvation Army) started out during the Industrial Revolution. Then he proceeds to discuss the horrors of fascism. So we have two truths here, the first is that social charities thrive in a purely capitalistic society and second fasicm is bad.
Of note is that he then proceeds to inform us that we were stupid for voting for a President who wishes to end fascism and is for a capitalistic society.
Ahh, the joys of liberalism.
... and he absolutely, positively knows this, you see, because HE CAN REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAD YOOUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR MIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNND -- !
I... ummmmmmmmm... guess. :)
Hey, at least this guy is calling the election a "mandate".
Sweet! Running off like a little whipped puppy with his tail between his legs.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
tSG
He doesn't get it.
Is that Falls Church, VA? I think I'll try to meet with him next time I'm in the DC area. Explain the rest (most) of the country to him.
But, I'm glad he doesn't get it.
Why post this leftist dribble?
B. To gloat.
C. Know thine enemy.
These mental giants haven't figured out yet that this canard causes any normal person to stop reading...
Oh yeah, that will convince millions of people to vote dem.
Hmmm...my husband's not going to be happy to learn I've unleashed a "seething testosterone fury" by merely voting. He has enough problems dealing with my estrogen-induced mood swings.
Cindie
More worthless, asinine words from the real darkside of Ameria--the liberal left. The only words he got right were "a national mandate"--I love that true statement!
Oh, we will. We definitely will.
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