archived: 11 - 17 Jun, 2006 Back Next
JAY GREENE*
“A DISTINCT
ABSENCE OF CHEERING”
Administration supporters are asking why there's no cheering following the announcement of al Zarquari's death. Why, indeed? Several reasons come to mind.
One, perhaps because we all realize, as Bush himself said, al Z's death does not mean the intensity and duration of the insurgency are likely to decline.
Two, perhaps we are numbed into silence by this unending, brutal, unwinnable, inexplicable war, now more than three years long.
Suppose a Democratic President, with no military service of his own, had declared war (constitutionally, Congress declares war) on a country which had not attacked us and the offensive capability of which was safely contained; a Prez whose SecDef, never saw combat, bullied the Pentagon and rejected their estimates of force levels; who made no plans for occupying the country or dealing with a predictable insurgency; who engaged in one war before satisfactorily closing another war already underway
Suppose all those things and then tell me what citizen would cheer when simply another ruthless killer on the other side met his end.
(It
should be noted that a docile, pusillanimous, supine Congress is complicit in
the President's unconstitutional actions, failures as CinC and dereliction as
CEO.)
There's no cheering because people know better than to cheer. They have made an
assessment of the situation and know there is nothing to cheer about.
Put it another way: your team is playing a game in which the score is not tied but is already into extra innings: no matter how many hits your team makes, no one posts a score; and in the midst of this, one of your players lays down a perfect bunt and gets to first. Does this elicit wild cheering? Or do most fans sit on their hands and ask themselves, when am I gonna get outta here?
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* Jay Greene, now retired, held several top management posts in the steamship industry and international trade on the Pacific Coast. Jay is a periodic contributor to TPJ.
ERIC COX
IMMIGRANT BASHING--WINNERS AND LOSERS
The current attack on Mexicans who sneak into our country is ugly, setting
neighbor against neighbor. Combined with the movement to make English as our
national language, the message to Latinos is that we don't want their type in
our nation. Former President Jimmy Carter correctly assessed these two movements
as mean-spirited. He was the first national figure to state the unpleasant
truth, namely that the House passed bill that triggered anti-immigrant sentiment
was racist.
Yes,
there will be winners and losers in this controversy. Likely the winners will be
the chief bashers, mostly Republicans in safe district with few Hispanics.
Targeting a minority for pillorying has worked politically, at least in the
short ruin, for all of American history. Any minority would do the trick, be
they Afro-Americans, Jews, the Irish, Catholics, the Chinese, and more recently
liberals and gays. Two centuries ago Thomas Jefferson gained political mileage,
as Joseph Ellis wrote, by proving how strongly he was against American Indians.
Fast forward 200 years when a raising politician in Alabama was tardy in
grasping this political truth when he lost an election early in his career. He
vowed to himself, in his own words, that he would never be 'out-niggered'
again. He went on to be elected governor and to run for president, doing well
until slowed by a bullet. More recently a formerly obscure Congressman, one Tom
Tancredo from Colorado, discovered the value of attacking 'the
other'--undocumented Mexicans crossing our Southern border. He started his rant
against the 'intruders' over a year ago, and it caught on nationally, triggering
the mean-spirited House measure stressing their punishment, jailing and
deportation. His unrelenting bashing propelled him to the forefront of GOP
candidates who may run for president. Maybe Tancredo's rapid rise was a lesson
learned by CNN's Lou Dobbs who has
embraced nativist rantings against those of darker skin who are new to our
nation.
As noted, the winners in this exercise of demonizing will be mostly the Republicans in safe districts. But there will be losers too. The former governor of California Pete Wilson proved this to be true. He sponsored a ballot measure to deny public benefits to immigrants and that initiative passed. But as a result, California, with its large Latin population, was lost to the Republicans in national elections. The same result could be present in the swing state of Florida with its large Spanish speaking population, most of whom are not GOP friendly Cubans but from other nations.
In the most recent national election, President Bush garnered about 40% of the Hispanic vote, up from low of some 20% in previous national elections. If as a result of the spate of immigrant bashing, that 40% is pared down to maybe 35 percent or less, then this most rapidly growing segment of the electorate could decide which party will wins the White House in 1980.
The lesson from history may be that zeroing in on an enemy to protect you from has worked politically in the short run, nationally and in some states, but that in the long run this divisive tact will backfire.
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Last Update: 06/18/2006