Posted on 10/28/2004 5:22:17 AM PDT by SJackson
In Saturday's edition of Britain's Guardian, Charlie Brooker concluded his analysis of the presidential election thus: "On November 2, the entire civilized world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr where are you now that we need you?"
Well, wherever they are, they're probably saying, "Why bring us into it? When ol' Lee Harvey here decided it was time for JFK to get assassinated, he didn't sit around whining, 'John Wilkes Booth, where are you now that I need you?' Get off your butt and do it yourself, you big Euro-wimp."
But, with the armchair insurgents of the Euro-left, it's always got to be someone else who straps on the old Semtex belt and waddles off to do the deed. For your average leftie columnist, the vicarious frisson is more than delicious enough. Anything else would interfere with dinner plans.
By Sunday, The Guardian had thought through the implications of Brooker's comments, and decided that it would be rather embarrassing to be flying in the lucky winners of the big presidential election competition for their US vacation only to discover as the plane was diverted to Guantanamo that the entire editorial staff had been placed on a Justice Department watch list.
So in re Charlie Wilkes Harvey Brooker they issued a clarification: "Charlie Brooker apologizes for any offence caused by his comments. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."
I can't say I'm a regular reader, so the humor in the column was lost on me the "joke" is that he wants Dick Cheney to be president, is that it? Heigh-ho. In his mea sorta culpa, he's managed to nail the defects of "the entire civilized world." If by the "civilized world" you mean Europe, Guardian editors, BBC political-discussion panelists, that nice bird from the New Zealand Green Party you met a conference to demand something be done about something, etc, this world is defined almost entirely by its passivity. Whether or not everything is an "ironic joke", hardly anything at all is a "call to action." Does the EU have a position on Darfur? And, if so, who cares?
Brooker's ironic assassination target, being famously moronic, is deluded enough to believe that, when one takes a position on something, one is expected to act on it. But in the "entire civilized world" that's no longer necessary: "Sneer globally, act fitfully" is the watchword. Because Belgium opposes the Iraq war, her foreign minister makes a few anti-Bush cracks and various lesser figures attempt to indict Rumsfeld and co for war crimes but they know nothing's going to come of that, it's an empty gesture.
Now suppose Belgium took the opposite position and decided she wholeheartedly supported the Iraq war and stood 100% shoulder to shoulder with her American friends in the battle for freedom: in that case, they'd have dispatched a rusting frigate to, oh, the eastern Mediterranean or maybe 30 of their elderly infantrymen to help run the canteen in Qatar. That, too, would have been an empty gesture.
That's why, whoever's president, the September 10th international system can't be put back together. The Cold War required deterrence, which is about as suited to a passivist European culture as can be devised and even then there were plenty of wobbly moments.
But this new war requires action, resolve, ongoing participation and most of America's "allies" just can't be bothered. The Spanish vote was a vote for passivity, a call for inaction, and a quiet life, no doubt with many "ironic jokes" about the absurd Americans. The "civilized world" sees itself like Continental skating judges at the Olympics, watching the Yanks career all over the ice and then handing out a succession of cranky 4.7s.
The decadence of passivity does not express itself solely in "ironic jokes."
The ersatz emotions that gripped Britain in the run-up to Kenneth Bigley's decapitation were also the product of a passive culture unwilling to come to grips with the real challenges it faces. After his murder, I wrote that "in the last three weeks of Bigley's life, the actions of various parties... made it more likely that more Britons and other infidels will be kidnapped and beheaded."
The kidnapping of Margaret Hassan in Baghdad is, very obviously and tragically, a direct response to the mass Bigley wallow. She is an Iraqi citizen, has lived there for 30 years, was opposed to UN sanctions, the war, the occupation, etc. She has been seized only because of her nominal British citizenship, which, thanks to the Bigley episode, the head-hackers now know is the key to weeks of primetime coverage. In Hassan's video, her remarks have been scripted by someone keeping a very close eye on Fleet Street both in the references to Bigley and to the deployment of the Black Watch in the Sunni Triangle. She's paying a high price for Britain's decision to lurch into feeble Dianafied emotional paralysis over Bigley.
If this is the best the "entire civilized world" can do maudlin sentimentality and ironic jests then it's in big trouble. Both modes are a pose and a detachment from reality. Brooker and The Guardian seem to be protesting no, don't worry, we don't mean it, we were just talking the talk, there's nothing we're prepared to walk the walk for. That's the problem. In the western world and its institutions, inertia is the default position.
The writer is senior North American columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group.
Europe = apathy Plain and simple. Too brainwashed to oppose tyranny and injustice.
Hey, Chucky......did you write anything like this after 9-11?
SHUT YOUR SHEPARD'S PIE HOLE!!!
bump for later
Brilliant point!
Ping!
A very big Irish bump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Up Mark Steyn.
How did you know I was a very big Irishman :>)
I swear, if Mark Steyn and Ann Coulter ever got together, they could create a Master Race.
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