Depressing Times (Victor Davis Hanson, must read)

Work and Days ^ | Victor Davis Hanson

[1066AD]

But who will take over from W ?

[John Lenin]

[Captain Kirk]

Stop the presses. Pangloss Hanson is depressed.

[stripes1776]

You now know why Hanson is one of my idols...

I think he may be the only sane academic around.

[stripes1776]

Has he forgotten about us? The millions of Americans who continue to support GWB, who believe he is on the right track? There is reason for depression here but I think he had a bad day. We are still here.

No, he hasn't forgotten about you. But where are you in pirnt? Where are you on television delivering commentary? Where are your sermons? Where are your newspaper articles? Where are your books?

[Rummyfan]

In matters of the present war, I have given up on most of the neoconservatives, many of whom, following the perceived pulse of the battlefield, have either renounced their decade-long, pre-September11 rants to remove Saddam (despite the 140,000 brave souls still on the field of battle who took them at their word), or turned on the President on grounds that he is not waging the perfect fight and thus is not pursuing the good war. The Paleo-right is as frightening as is the lunatic Left. My old Democratic party is long dead, their jackals trying to tear apart the solitary and stumbling noble stag Joe Liebermann, the old center taken over by the Kerry and Soros billionaires, and the guilt-ridden academic, celebrity and media cadres.

So we really are left with very little in these pivotal times—the will of George Bush, of course, the Old Breed unchanged since Okinawa and the Bulge that still anchors the US military, the courage and skill of a very few brave writers like a Hitchens, Krauthammer, and the tireless and brilliant Mark Stein, but very, very few others. No, this is an age in which we in the West make smug snuff movies about killing an American President, while the Taliban and the Islamists boast of assassinating the Pope.

So long may you run, Ms. Fallaci, you who by now have learned that, yes, there is a soul, and, yes, yours was indeed saved for eternity if only for its singular courage and honesty alone. And dear Pope: clarify, contextualize, express sorrow over the wrong interpretation of your remarks, but please don’t apologize for the Truth—not now, not ever.

Sobering words from VDH. Bump!

[IronJack]

VDH's respect for Oriana Fallaci comes through in this tribute. She truly was a champion of the highest caliber, a clarion voice for honor, integrity, and pride. We can ill afford to lose her at this crucial time.

But our loss is her gain. May she be shown the reward she so richly deserves.

[RepoGirl]

She was one tough broad, and I say that with the utmost respect. (And if I could look one tenth as good as she did at 70, I'd die a happy woman.)

[Wombat101]

I would add Daniel Boorstein to the list (although I must admit to not knowing if he's still alive, and being too lazy to make the effort to find out).

[John Lenin]

She was a pioneer as a woman journalist. She interviewed everyone from Kissinger to Arafat.

[cajungirl]

We vote.

[Fudd Fan]

Could you please define the term "Neocon" as you use and understand it? Thank you.

[Gritty]

This is the second depressing article today by a man who has been bold and with a clear vision in this fight.

The first was by Mark Steyn

[hershey]

A sad piece indeed. VDH should have faith that the American public won't give up the fight. Leftist elitists dismiss them/us as flyover country. We don't count. We're nothing, a bunch of nobodies. The nobodies who keep the world economy humming and invent things to make life easier, who lead quiet lives, raise kids, grow old, and get down on their knees and thank God for another day. And remember, we're not in this fight alone -- God's on our side. If He wanted us mired in the eighth century, we'd be there.

VDH is dead on about Muslims' obsession with envy and victimhood, which the Left and MSM pander to every chance they get. Well, they jumped the shark with that long ago, and I have a hard time praying for them. I suspect we'll be attacked again, alas, and God willing, GW will take care of business. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

[RepoGirl]

And it makes you wonder, doesn't it? Your average joe and josephine (unlike news-wonks like the average freeper) would probably say, "Orianna Fallacci? Oh--yeah! I think I had that at Carraba's the other night--it was so good!"

To think, Katie Couric, Star Jones, Barbara "if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Walter's pass for journalists these days.

[John Lenin]

Read this:

The surest definition she can give of herself consequently is that of Soldier. "I am a soldier. I've been that since I was a girl when I became a partisan in my antifascist family: a soldier." The connection between Oriana and war goes back to that - to her own life history. (For the contribution that she made to the struggle against nazi- fascists when hardly fourteen, General Alexander, Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces in Italy during World War II, sent her a laudatory letter of thanks.) "There is a depressing intimacy," she said, giving weight to the word "depressing," "between me and arms, me and explosions, me and fear and courage and death. War, in sum. God knows, alas, how sincere is the cry I uttered against the sons of Allah in my little book: "In war I was born, in war I grew up, I understand war better than you do. And I have more balls than you do who to find the courage to die must kill thousands of creatures. You've wanted war, you want war? As far as I'm concerned, let there be war. Until the last breath."

[omega4412]

Daniel Boorstin, 1914-2004. Certainly a sane academic. His book from 1961, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America is still right on target today, and his series of books on American history cover culture, society, technology, and business, not just politics and wars.

Another departed sane academic is Neil Postman (1931-2003), who wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985).

Edward Tufte is still among us and writing brilliant books on visual communication. How to convey information effectively and how graphics are used to mislead.

[Wombat101]

I always thought Boorstein's trilogy ("The Discoverers", "The Seekers" and "The Creators") was one of the best investigations of the foundations of Western Civilization ever written.

It's too bad he has passed to the great beyond. He certainly would have been an effective voice in the current debate. Could you imagine the tandem of Hanson and Boorstein operating to inform the American public about what it is they fight, and why they should fight? I doubt that anyone alive could make a plausible anti-war case against that duo!

[montag813]

And dear Pope: clarify, contextualize, express sorrow over the wrong interpretation of your remarks, but please don’t apologize for the Truth—not now, not ever.

Too late.

[VOA]

bump for publicity