Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The correct question
In a brief moment of lucidity this morning, half-dreaming, I realized the basic problem with the Bush-Wilson approach.
Presumably, yesterday's dream must have fermented with the Rumsfeld comment to form this solution.
I was thinking this morning about FDR's use of the Four Freedoms as a propaganda tool, and Lincoln's use of the Emancipation Proclamation. Throw in Reagan's less direct and belligerent focus on American freedoms, and you have the obvious background for Bush's focus on democracy.
Well, why were the first three effective while the last is idiotic? My first thought was that Lincoln and FDR didn't really mean it; they were not really fighting for freedom as such; they weren't aiming to set up Free And Fair Elections Supervised By The Carter Center; they were basically trying to preserve the Union and to preserve ...
Aha! Then I realized. It's not the purpose of the tool or even the effectiveness of the tool that matters. The critical difference is where you apply the tool.
Dropping the tool metaphor, the real question is: Who are you talking to?
Lincoln was talking to the black slaves, trying to motivate them to rise up against their white and Indian masters. He was NOT TALKING TO THE SLAVEHOLDERS, who already had everything they needed.
FDR was talking to the oppressed people of Europe and Asia: French, Poles, Serbians, Chinese. Motivating them to form Resistance movements. He was NOT TALKING TO THE KRAUTS AND JAPS, who already had everything they needed.
Well, then, who is Bush talking to? HE IS TALKING TO THE GODDAMN ARABS. Arabs are the world champions of holding and selling slaves. Arabs sold the slaves to our white and Indian slaveholders and taught them how to keep the slaves in chains. Arabs are still happily and actively holding and selling African slaves.
Thanks to oil-welfare, Arabs have everything they need even more intensely than our Southern white and Cherokee slaveholders of the 1800s, or the Krauts and Japs of the 1930s.
So it's no wonder the tool doesn't work. He's pointing it the wrong way. ¶ 6:14 AM
Presumably, yesterday's dream must have fermented with the Rumsfeld comment to form this solution.
I was thinking this morning about FDR's use of the Four Freedoms as a propaganda tool, and Lincoln's use of the Emancipation Proclamation. Throw in Reagan's less direct and belligerent focus on American freedoms, and you have the obvious background for Bush's focus on democracy.
Well, why were the first three effective while the last is idiotic? My first thought was that Lincoln and FDR didn't really mean it; they were not really fighting for freedom as such; they weren't aiming to set up Free And Fair Elections Supervised By The Carter Center; they were basically trying to preserve the Union and to preserve ...
Aha! Then I realized. It's not the purpose of the tool or even the effectiveness of the tool that matters. The critical difference is where you apply the tool.
Dropping the tool metaphor, the real question is: Who are you talking to?
Lincoln was talking to the black slaves, trying to motivate them to rise up against their white and Indian masters. He was NOT TALKING TO THE SLAVEHOLDERS, who already had everything they needed.
FDR was talking to the oppressed people of Europe and Asia: French, Poles, Serbians, Chinese. Motivating them to form Resistance movements. He was NOT TALKING TO THE KRAUTS AND JAPS, who already had everything they needed.
Well, then, who is Bush talking to? HE IS TALKING TO THE GODDAMN ARABS. Arabs are the world champions of holding and selling slaves. Arabs sold the slaves to our white and Indian slaveholders and taught them how to keep the slaves in chains. Arabs are still happily and actively holding and selling African slaves.
Thanks to oil-welfare, Arabs have everything they need even more intensely than our Southern white and Cherokee slaveholders of the 1800s, or the Krauts and Japs of the 1930s.
So it's no wonder the tool doesn't work. He's pointing it the wrong way. ¶ 6:14 AM
