Tuesday, June 28, 2005
January 1, 1942
Peggy again:
I'm thinking particularly of Kansas editors ... They fight among themselves continually, about elections and taxes, about pawpaws and persimmons, about domestic and foreign policies, about pumpkin pie, Indian summer, frock coats, and falling hair.
This enthusiastic disagreement, carried into national affairs and multiplied over the forty-eight states, has apparently led ambitious despots to believe that Americans would accomodate them by eating each other up should we become engaged in a war.
Yet these Kansas editors, as editors and people everywhere, are accepting without a murmur the restrictions already imposed -- the curtailment of weather reports, the omission of news concerning troop movements. The importance of unified action and the necessity of central authority are recognized and will be obeyed, even though, like the famed Light Brigade, we may know at times that somebody has blundered. Nobody can be right all the time.
A free people are accustomed to restrictions which are voluntarily undertaken. We enjoy hunting and fishing, but we limit ourselves to certain periods and observe certain regulations so that there may be hunting and fishing next year.
The game wardens could not possibly enforce these laws if the great majority of persons did not understand that it is to their interest to obey them.
The foundation of a democracy lies in the intelligent self-interest of the people willingly to accept the regulations imposed by their elected officials. And in time of war that self-interest is cemented into a strong and impregnable unity.
But when it's all over, when the enemy is silenced, then old differences will again be aired and type will sizzle under burning invective about whipped cream and fruit salad.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, will not have been lost. They may need partially and voluntarily to be curtailed, but they will return, or holy hell will break out that will make Pearl Harbor forgotten.
No discipline is so effective as that which is self-imposed.
-----
We won that war.
How do we achieve enough unity to win this one?
Hillary. She will pursue the war, and the majority of the Party of Treason and the Party Media will fall in line. TV and schools will support the war, because it will then be the Party's own war, as WW2 was. Republicans won't like it, but they won't be in any position to argue against fighting, even if they knew how to argue, which they don't.
-----
A more immediate question occurs to me.
Let's look at an organization that needs to gain public support. Let's say the chief executive is deficient in communication skills, and the media are hard to penetrate. A good strategy would be to find recognizable endorsers to run around the country spreading the message. Are there any Republicans with sufficient star power?
Sure: Newt, Rudy, and Arnold. First-name status defines star power.
So where are they? Rudy gave a slam-bang speech at the '04 convention, but hasn't been heard from since. Newt is running for President, talking about everything except the war. Arnold has his hands full running Golivorniya, so I'll skip him.
Why aren't Newt and Rudy helping with the communication job? Two possibilities:
(1) the administration believes that it doesn't need any help, in which case it deserves to be defeated in '08; (2) Newt and Rudy were asked but refused, in which case they deserve to be defeated by fellow Republicans.
I don't have any idea which is true; intuition points to 1. ¶ 4:11 PM
I'm thinking particularly of Kansas editors ... They fight among themselves continually, about elections and taxes, about pawpaws and persimmons, about domestic and foreign policies, about pumpkin pie, Indian summer, frock coats, and falling hair.
This enthusiastic disagreement, carried into national affairs and multiplied over the forty-eight states, has apparently led ambitious despots to believe that Americans would accomodate them by eating each other up should we become engaged in a war.
Yet these Kansas editors, as editors and people everywhere, are accepting without a murmur the restrictions already imposed -- the curtailment of weather reports, the omission of news concerning troop movements. The importance of unified action and the necessity of central authority are recognized and will be obeyed, even though, like the famed Light Brigade, we may know at times that somebody has blundered. Nobody can be right all the time.
A free people are accustomed to restrictions which are voluntarily undertaken. We enjoy hunting and fishing, but we limit ourselves to certain periods and observe certain regulations so that there may be hunting and fishing next year.
The game wardens could not possibly enforce these laws if the great majority of persons did not understand that it is to their interest to obey them.
The foundation of a democracy lies in the intelligent self-interest of the people willingly to accept the regulations imposed by their elected officials. And in time of war that self-interest is cemented into a strong and impregnable unity.
But when it's all over, when the enemy is silenced, then old differences will again be aired and type will sizzle under burning invective about whipped cream and fruit salad.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, will not have been lost. They may need partially and voluntarily to be curtailed, but they will return, or holy hell will break out that will make Pearl Harbor forgotten.
No discipline is so effective as that which is self-imposed.
-----
We won that war.
How do we achieve enough unity to win this one?
Hillary. She will pursue the war, and the majority of the Party of Treason and the Party Media will fall in line. TV and schools will support the war, because it will then be the Party's own war, as WW2 was. Republicans won't like it, but they won't be in any position to argue against fighting, even if they knew how to argue, which they don't.
-----
A more immediate question occurs to me.
Let's look at an organization that needs to gain public support. Let's say the chief executive is deficient in communication skills, and the media are hard to penetrate. A good strategy would be to find recognizable endorsers to run around the country spreading the message. Are there any Republicans with sufficient star power?
Sure: Newt, Rudy, and Arnold. First-name status defines star power.
So where are they? Rudy gave a slam-bang speech at the '04 convention, but hasn't been heard from since. Newt is running for President, talking about everything except the war. Arnold has his hands full running Golivorniya, so I'll skip him.
Why aren't Newt and Rudy helping with the communication job? Two possibilities:
(1) the administration believes that it doesn't need any help, in which case it deserves to be defeated in '08; (2) Newt and Rudy were asked but refused, in which case they deserve to be defeated by fellow Republicans.
I don't have any idea which is true; intuition points to 1. ¶ 4:11 PM
