Sunday, March 12, 2006
City mouse, country mouse
The whole Dubai port fiasco has concluded, with a proper result. The biggest side-effect is to break open the oldest division among Americans, a division that cuts across the present party boundaries.
The unsophisticated folks tend to go with Churchill and FDR: the enemy is the enemy, and our task is to defeat him. Sophisticated folks go with Henry Ford and Neville Chamberlain: the enemy has many gradations, and we can do business with the 'moderate' segments of the enemy.
We can see now, more clearly than ever before, that Bush Junior stands with his father, closer to the Urban Sophisticate side of this divide, the Ford-Chamberlain side. This is why so many of us country folk are so thoroughly disappointed. It's not just a matter of class distinction, either. History shows unquestionably that the unsophisticated black/white approach wins, and the nuanced gray approach loses. ¶ 8:02 PM
The unsophisticated folks tend to go with Churchill and FDR: the enemy is the enemy, and our task is to defeat him. Sophisticated folks go with Henry Ford and Neville Chamberlain: the enemy has many gradations, and we can do business with the 'moderate' segments of the enemy.
We can see now, more clearly than ever before, that Bush Junior stands with his father, closer to the Urban Sophisticate side of this divide, the Ford-Chamberlain side. This is why so many of us country folk are so thoroughly disappointed. It's not just a matter of class distinction, either. History shows unquestionably that the unsophisticated black/white approach wins, and the nuanced gray approach loses. ¶ 8:02 PM
