Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
Let me know if you want in or out
Posted on 03/17/2005 5:43:31 AM PST by Tolik
Sometime in the 1960s there arose a new home-grown distrust of the United States, followed by an erosion of faith in the values of the West. Perhaps the culprit was the fiasco in Vietnam or the rise of a trendy multiculturalism that followed from it.
Our schools often insisted that all cultures were to be roughly the same. History devolved more into melodrama than tragedy. America was no longer exceptional — and thus in no position to criticize a Cuba as undemocratic or condemn the Iranian mullahs as murderously theocratic.
The enormous wealth and leisure that followed from global capitalism and democracy insulated us — creating an unreality about the sources for our privilege and naiveté about why life was so bad outside our shores.
Consequently, some utopian elites forgot the free-market origins of their own riches and why they had the freedom and leisure to be so censorious of their own culture. Maybe they were guilty over our bounty. One way of enjoying an upscale American lifestyle, while simultaneously feeling pretty terrible about it, is to castigate the history and global conduct of the United States in the abstract — without ever giving up much in the concrete.
How else could the currency speculator George Soros — whose 1992 financial manipulations almost destroyed the Bank of England and thousands of its small depositors — win praise from leftists for comparing President Bush's conduct to Nazism? The angry architects of Moveon.org were neither poor nor oppressed. Nor were they bothered that their Soros millions originated from the financial losses of others. But they did reflect that the most strident anti-Americanism is largely found among our unhappy upper-middle classes.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Let me know if you want in or out
If I haven't asked already, please put me ON the ping list. Thank you very much
Now is the simmer of our discontents.......
I would like to be in on the VDH ping as well.
This is one of VDH's better oped/essays.
Many of us in our 60's and 70's have been saying basically the same about the Anti America elite left wingers in America for decades.
It seems like many other Americans are finally getting their eyes opened to the tyranny of these elitist Anti American Left Wing Fascists.
Welcome to the VDH ping list.
See the latest ping: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1361194/posts?page=5#5
I have a total disconnect from these people..I am at a loss to understand them.
snip
"Other elites wished outright that we would fail in the Middle East. Perhaps our defeat would prove that in a postmodern world American force can only be counterproductive or destabilizing to multilateral protocols.
Thus it was not the slur of a Joe McCarthy clone, but President Clinton's own National Security Council member Nancy Soderberg, who recently lamented on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" of George Bush's developing success in the Middle East: "It's scary for Democrats, I have to say. … Well, there's still Iran and North Korea, don't forget. There's still hope for the rest of us. ... There's always hope that this might not work."
snip
You can read much more of him on National Review Online.
Whoa! I need on the VDH ping list too!
VDH is amazing. He writes so precisely what I'm thinking.
I would also speculate that at the very least the media was also a contributing factor. During its rise in the latter half of the 20th century, protest was marketed as a nobile and "holy" cause. As we were taught to "Question Authority" it was all too easy to start here at home so we "Thought Globally and Acted Locally" because we could work it in between classes, spring break and make it back to our room in time to watch the latest un-reality sit-com showing us yet another "very special story" about what's wrong in America. Besides, despite what some would grumble they really don't shoot you, stone you or kill your relatives here so there's little real risk in packing a picnic lunch, going on down to the protest and calling the President a Nazi. Afterall, that's what all the "cool" people on TV do. ;-)
V.D. Hanson is always worth reading for content and analysis, but also because he's such a marvelous writer. Elegant, succinct, logical. No wonder the Left has no use for him.
Normally people send Tolik and I $50.00 in order to get on this ping list, but TODAY ONLY it'll only cost $20.00.
Hey it's worth a shot. Ya can't blame a guy for trying. :-)
History devolved more into melodrama than tragedy. America was no longer exceptional — and thus in no position to criticize a Cuba as undemocratic or condemn the Iranian mullahs as murderously theocratic
They setup a straw man of prefection (that never existed) and demand that until America meet these standars we can't criticize anyone else.
Remember what Jean Kilpatrick called them "The Blame America First Crowd". Pol Pot and his gang of thugs murder 1/3 of their people? It's America's fault, by bombing them we drove them insane. The Soviets run a huge slave labor camp system? It's America's fault, by invading them after WWI we forced them too. AIDS in Africa? It's America's fault. It's
1 a CIA plot
2 we don't spend enough money on AIDS research
3 we don't give them enough money to combat it.
We're all gonna die by global warming? It's America's fault for driveing (the EVIL) SUV's.
bump
As we were taught to "Question Authority" it was all too easy to start here at home so we "Thought Globally and Acted Locally" because we could work it in between classes, spring break and make it back to our room in time to watch the latest un-reality sit-com showing us yet another "very special story" about what's wrong in America.
Not to mention it's a easy way to get laid.
Not that there's anything wrong with hairy legs and pits. :-)
Save
VDH is the bomb!
One of the best writers today!
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