The Stories We Hear

"History is strewn thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill, but a lie, well told, is immortal."

     - Mark Twain (1835-1910), American humorist, writer

Orson Scott Card has written an interesting essay titled "Rediscovering History" which originally appeared in the Greensboro, NC, newspaper, The Rhinoceros Times, and has been posted on the website, The Ornery American. Card talks about how we use history:

"We fight a war one way because we want to avoid the mistakes that we think caused us to lose the last war; we elect one candidate for office because we think he represents a cause that was worth voting for twenty years before, but might well be irrelevant today. The trouble is that if we don't study history ourselves, we're suckers just waiting for somebody to come up with a lie that he surrounds with all kinds of 'facts' that, in our ignorance, we think are actually true."

He uses the record of Genghis Khan's reign as an illustration. Khan, as popularly believed, was a devil who committed atrocity after atrocity. The truth, Card says, is quite different. He cites research by Jack Weatherford in Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World that presents Khan as a pretty good guy whose biography got re-written by Chinese and Russian conquerors.

Another of Card's illustrations refers to historian Gavin Menzies' book, 1421: The Year China Discovered America:

"Menzies makes a strong case for Chinese navigators reaching both the west and east coasts of North and South America seventy years before Columbus."

Neither of these books, Card says, is a re-interpretation of what actually happened, but revisionism based on the discovery of new historical evidence. Both are good examples of historians challenging the accepted accounts of events and getting at what really happened.

Card then takes a look at some of the recent past and suggests that the journalists who are writing the stories we read have begun creating their own version of events rather than making objective observations and recording those events, as a good newsperson should. That is to say, they're writing their news, or history if you will, with a slant which tends to mislead their readers, not unlike the Chinese and Russian historians did with poor old Genghis Khan.

Phil Lucas, Executive Editor for the The News Herald, Panama City, FL, has penned an op-ed titled "Enough to Make You Sick" that adds credence to Card's thesis:

"When the press reports about Iraq and virtually all other contested issues in the news, ineptitude is the rule. This is true of television and also of print reporting. We zero in on the worst thing that happens, time after time, day after day, the effect of which is to present the worst thing as the norm, even when it is only one-tenth of the whole story. For good measure, we throw in our personal opinions, arrogantly certain they are correct."

Lucas uses the president's recent press conference as an example:

"Reporter after reporter couched questions in the negative, assuming the worst was true, knowing the worst was true, looking for the kill. They used words like failure, defeat and mistake, time after time. That's not reporting. That's not seeking truth. That's an agenda. Smelling blood, the pack salivated for an apology from the president.

On this point I agree. An apology is in order. So here it is. I am sorry our storytellers have us by the neck. We are better than they picture us. We are better than they are. As an editor, I apologize to Americans for the national disgrace of inept and self-indulgent journalists, who hound after the worst and ugliest to the exclusion of much else, who strut their opinions with conceit, and who spew it all forth upon the public and call it news."

Do we have a problem with our media today? Are they so intent on the sensational that they fail to execute the basics? Certainly you cannot paint them all with the same brush, but Card and Lucas make good points, many of which I'm inclined to agree with.

A Hint of Things to Come

"Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you."

   - Paul Wilkinson, Scottish educator and terrorism expert

Do the spine-chilling confessions of the terrorists who were recently arrested in Jordan upset anyone but me? As I read the Associated Press coverage of what these men were planning, I got a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. This band of assassins had prepared enough explosives to kill 80,000 people. Had the Jordanians not caught them, no doubt they would have succeeded in their deadly plot.

Despite what happened to us on September 11, 2001, I fear that some of us here in the United States are not taking very seriously the possibility of another assault on our homeland. Events such as the train bombings in Spain and plots like this one in Jordan should be signals to all of us that we are still very vulnerable. These murderous enemies have shown they have not only the will, but the capability to do us serious harm. Is there anyone who thinks they won't strike us, and strike us savagely, at a time and place of their own choosing? I, like many of my friends, would like to believe they won't, but to me, the evidence is overwhelming that they will.

I fear if we don't wake up to this possibility and begin pulling together as a country, focusing whatever resources are required to eliminate this threat, we will wake up one morning to another 9/11, but this time it won't be 3,000 souls who are lost. It will be 300,000.

Am I the only one who believes this? Am I like Chicken Little telling everyone the sky is falling? Or are there others out there who, like me, feel that the danger is imminent, and needs to be addressed in the most immediate and forceful way possible?

Update 1: Well, there's at least one gent who's with me. Arnold Ahlert, over at the New York Post, shares similar thoughts in his column, "The Enemy's True Face." 

Update 2: The Opinion Journal weighs in on the Jordanian terrorist story, wondering why most news organizations haven't probed it more. Brief registration is required. Give them your name and e-mail address, check the "On the Editorial Page" block and you're good to go.

Second Thoughts?

"In the choice between changing one's mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof."

    - John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-    ), American economist

James Ridgeway, writing for The Village Voice, believes John Kerry is not the Democratic candidate who can unseat Bush this year:

"...the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go...With growing issues over his wealth...the miasma over his medals and ribbons...his uninspiring record in the Senate...Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner."

John Podhoretz, op-ed columnist for the New York Post, does too:

"Kerry is a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate. It's not so much the policies he proposes, although they don't add up to all that much. The problem is Kerry himself. He no sooner opens his mouth than he sticks first one foot and then the other right in there."

Bloggers Roger Simon at Roger L. Simon and Pejman Yousefzadeh at Pejmanesque have comments about Ridgeway's assessment of the Kerry candidacy, while McQ at Questions and Observations opines on the Podhoretz observations.

Simon thinks it's too late for the Dems to switch horses. Yousefzadeh thinks none of it matters since no Democrat will suggest to Kerry he should drop out of the race, and even if someone does, he believes Kerry would not be receptive. McQ says that Kerry's "whole campaign doesn't add up to much."

How did all this happen? How did the Dems come up with a candidate who may fare as poorly this November as did former nominees McGovern in 1972 and Dukakis in 1988? Jon Keller at Boston Magazine Online provides some insight.

 

Free to Blog, Free to Die

"If we are intended for great ends, we are called to great hazards."

- John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), English Catholic

While on my trip I ran across this interesting article about Iraqi bloggers in the April 20, 2004, edition of USA Today. These men and women are taking advantage of the new Internet cafes that are springing up in Baghdad to make their voices "heard around the world."

Ali Wathak, owner of the Twin Towers Internet Cafe, says "People are enjoying their newfound freedoms. It's a civilized country. We need to get connected to the world." Evidently, business is booming for Wathak. As USA Today reporter Cesar G. Soriano researched this article, all ten of Wathak's computers were in use.

Users pay 1,500 Iraqi dinars (about $1 U.S.) an hour for access to the internet in these cafes, which is pricey considering the average salary for a doctor in Iraq is only about $150 a month. Some Iraqi bloggers are soliciting donations to help defray these costs. 

As I read Soriano's article, I found myself wondering if I would have the courage to air my views in a place where speaking up could result in harm to me or my family. I like to think I would, but like most Americans who take freedom of speech for granted,  I've never had to worry about being physically hurt, maybe even killed, for expressing a viewpoint that someone else might disagree with. Many of these men and women take that risk, especially if they are pro-American:

"We get threatening e-mails from Palestinians and Arab-Americans who write, 'You are traitors. If I were in Iraq, I would shoot you...' Some of the messages are hostile...A German reader, who Ali says is 'anti-everything,' would like to kill the Fadhils for their pro-American comments." 

You may like to take a look at some of these blogs. Here are a few links: Salam Pax, Iraq the Model, Iraq at a Glance and Healing Iraq. Reading them will certainly provide you with perspectives that you're not likely to get from our media in the U.S.

Update: Fellow journalist, Duane, at Progressive Musings has provided me with two more Iraqi blog links. One is Baghdad Burning. The other is A Family in Baghdad. Both are worth a visit.

A Trip Up the Coast

I'm heading up to Wilmington, N.C. this morning to see some friends, so I won't be posting anything this week. Take care of yourselves, and don't let the politicians and news media get you down while I'm away.

Ron

Who is George Bush?

"Action will remove the doubt that theory cannot solve."

   - Tehyi Hsieh, Chinese educator, writer, diplomat

Andrew Sullivan, in his Time Magazine article, "George W. Bush: Radical Gambler," discusses the paradoxical behavior of the man who is our president:

"He campaigned as a bipartisan conciliatory; yet under his presidency, the U.S. has become even more culturally and politically bifurcated. He promised a foreign poloicy based on humility and contempt for nation building; but his Administration has embarked on the most ambitious nation-building project since World War II. He pledged centrist, inclusive conservatism, and yet he has supported a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and has courted the religious right. He was touted as a fiscal conservative, but he has hugely expanded government."

And how have we reacted to these inconsistencies?

"For all this, he is both loved and reviled. He is loved for his undeniable charm, good humor and geniality. He is reviled for excessive rigidity, indifference to those outside his political orbit and lack of reflection and curiosity."

Sullivan goes on to praise our president for the manner in which he led our country immediately following 9/11, citing his speeches, which calmed and rallied us, and his military response against the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq that were supporting terrorism with funding, training and safe havens.

Mr. Sullivan believes that history will judge Bush based primarily on his success or failure in the Middle East:

"The war will be the prism through which he will be judged. If successful, his battle against terrorism and campaign for democratization in the Middle East will be viewed as a hinge of history...But if deemed a failure, the war will stamp his legacy as having created a more bitterly divided country and a more chaotic, fractured world."

All in all, Sullivan has presented an insightful, concisely written overview of our 43rd president and how he thinks history will judge him. It's worth a read, and while you're at it check out Sullivan's weblog, The Daily Dish. There's some good stuff there. I especially enjoy the Essay section on the left sidebar. 

Here, It's Yours

"Men must necessarily be the active agents of their own well-being and well-doing...they themselves must in the very nature of things be their own best helpers."

    - Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), Scottish writer

N.Y. Times columnist Thomas Friedman has written an op-ed that makes a lot of sense to me. He cites Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent decision to withdraw from Gaza as a potentially positive event for that part of the world:

"Consider an intriguing article on Tuesday in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz pointing out that Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Hamas, longtime rivals, had 'made great progress' toward setting up a new administration to run Gaza after Israel's unilateral withdrawal."

Hamas leaders, who not suprisingly are taking credit for liberating Gaza, are telling Arafat that they're willing to help administer the area now that Israel is pulling back to the U.N. border. Friedman believes that Gazans will eventually begin looking to Arafat and Hamas for essentials, and feels that having full control of the area will make it difficult for them to legitimately shirk these duties. As Mr. Friedman says, "There is nothing like the burden of responsibility to promote accountability."

Friedman then makes the point that those who are faced with the challenge of allowing the Iraqis to govern themselves by June 30th, might benefit from considering the Israel/Palestine example:

"America's Baghdad boss, Paul Bremer, is absolutely right when he insists that we must turn over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30, as promised. Why? Because we may have trained thousands of Iraqi policemen, but without a government of their own, they are defending America--which they will never do with vigor. The only thing they might defend is a government of their own."

He also believes that putting responsibility for Iraq into the hands of its own people as soon as possible will lead them to accountability, which is in very short supply right now:

"Iraq's nascent leaders will act in a concerted and responsible fashion only when they--like Hamas, Arafat and Hezbollah--have the burden of responsibility."

His theory seems plausible, but it is a theory. Only time will reveal whether the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will play out as he thinks it will. Assuming that we hold to our June 30th commitment in Iraq, we may know how that goes well before we know how the Israeli experiment will fare. I, for one, hope that Mr. Friedman is right--in both instances.

Note: Viewing the Friedman column at the Times requires a brief, but free, registration. Sorry about that.

Update: Complications abound. The Economist outlines some of them here and here, and if you're interested, they provide a chronology of the Middle East conflict from 1917 to the present.

Move Over Zell

"Discontent is the first necessity of progress."

    - Thomas Edison (1847-1931), American inventor

Some would say that Soj, the author of this post at the liberal weblog Daily Kos, has taken unnecessarily cheap, racist shots at our Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Gerard Van Der Leun minces few words as he expresses his dissatisfaction with Soj's insensitivity, and with other perceived shortcomings of members of his former party of choice, the Democrats:

"This week we have 'The Daily Kos' framing Colin Powell as an 'Uncle Tom' in 'Massah's' House...I guess that the Martin Luther King dream of judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin is just a distant memory among a lot of Democrats."

Van Der Leun's concerns about the Democrats sound like some of those expressed by Senator Zell Miller (Ga) who I've written about in a previous post:

"The party whose ideals once excited me has become a parody of itself, a dangerous parody...Instead of telling us what sort of New Jerusalem it would have us build as our City on the Hill, it takes us into the slums of the soul...What we see instead is a party that...is so deeply out of touch with so much of the body politic that it has turned in upon itself in its hunger for power...That's why we see these snide and creepy slips beginning to erupt from deep beneath the surface of the party in incidents where the deaths of Americans are celebrated and decent public servants are denigrated through racial slurs." 

Miller has begun actively campaigning for Bush as have prominent Democrats like former U.S. Attorney Griffin Bell and former N.Y. City Mayor Ed Koch, among others.  I expect Van Der Leun will be joining them soon based on the disillusionment he has given voice to in this interesting post.

 

Rooney Strikes Again

"All that we do is done with an eye to something else."

    - Aristotle (384-322 BCE), Greek philosopher

I missed CBS's Sixty Minutes the other night, so I didn't get to hear Andy Rooney saying that our soldiers in Iraq are not heroes. A Google search turned up a transcript of his remarks which I present here for your consideration. What has stirred up many military bloggers are the five questions posed by Mr. Rooney:

1. Do you think your country did the right thing sending you into Iraq?

2. Are you doing what America set out to do to make Iraq a democracy, or have we failed so badly that we should pack up and get out before more of you are killed?

3. Do the orders you get handed down from one headquarters to another, all far removed from the fighting, seem sensible, or do you think our highest command is out of touch with the reality of your situation?

4. If you could have a medal or a trip home, which would you take?

5. Are you encouraged by all the talk back home about how brave you are and how everyone supports you?

Tonight I ran across posts about these questions, as well as Rooney's other comments, on many weblogs. Michele Catalano at her blog, A Small Victory, does a pretty good job of capturing the mood of most who were offended by what he had to say:

"...this is the new America. It's ok to talk about our brave (yes, brave) soldiers like that. It's ok, because America is evil and our soldiers are just minions of Satan doing his bidding. It's ok because Bush is a bad, bad man who willfully let 9/11 happen on his watch just so he can be a war president."

Andy calls for openness and honesty about the war in Iraq, and who could argue against that? But is he open and honest himself? There was a time when his commentary  was mainly humorous observations on everyday life, but recently he has migrated to more controversial political material. I wonder why. Perhaps it's because controversy attracts viewers, and television is always looking for more viewers.

Only Rooney knows whether the beliefs he asserts on the show stem from real conviction, which I assume he wants us to think, or a desire for more attention, which I assume he would deny. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall where what's going to be on the show is being discussed and hear him explain the rationale for his segment. Would we hear him taking the moral high-ground, or trying to drum up more business for CBS? 

Update: Patrick on his weblog, Patrick's Place, offers another point of view on Rooney's comments.

Correction: Some of you who watched Sixty Minutes Sunday night have told me that Andy talked about kitchen gadgets, not U.S. soldiers. After some investigation, I find you are correct. Andy's questions appeared in his syndicated column, not on Sixty Minutes. My apologies for the error.

Killing the Golden Goose

"The primary requisite for any new tax law is for it to exempt enough voters to win the next election."

   - Laurence J. Peter (1919-1988), U.S. educator & writer

Having just finished my tax returns for 2003 and actually getting some of what I paid returned to me, I'm feeling pretty good about President Bush's tax cuts. Only a few hours ago while talking with my youngest son, I learned that he'll be getting a refund too--his first in quite some time. Several friends I've talked with are experiencing the same phenomenon: getting refunds when they've always had to pay. I like it. They do too.

Now I hear that Kerry is promising me even more next year if he becomes president. He plans to raise taxes on the top 2% of earners while cutting taxes on the other 98%. My son and I are pretty happy now. Will this make us happier?   

London's Financial Times columnist, Amity Shlaes, doesn't think so. In commentary written for the Los Angeles Times (registration required), she suggests that Kerry's proposal smacks of class warfare:

"...Kerry would increase the top marginal tax rate on the highest earners, moving it from 35% up to the 39.6% rate set by President Clinton. This is where class war comes in. It's about reversing the work of President Bush, of course. But there is another factor driving Kerry here: The top-bracket crowd is an easy mark."

Shlaes points out that high earners already share one of the heaviest tax burdens in history, the top 5% paying more than half of U.S. income tax, and that additional taxes on these "strivers" will have a negative impact on the work and investment of this group. I think she's right, and this little story of unknown origin, which appeared on the KMJ580 weblog, somewhat imperfectly illustrates the premise of her article.

Aesop it's not, but there's a moral to be gleaned from this tale, don't you think?

Update: Matthew Miller, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and author of the book, The Two-Percent Solution: Fixing America's Problems in Ways Liberals and Conservatives Can Love, says "...the Right Gets Taxes Wrong" in a column he has written for the Los Angeles Times.

I'm not sure where he gets his data, but his logic appears to me to be sound.
    

 

Answers We Can Live With?

"To find a fault is easy; to do better may be more difficult."

    - Plutarch (46-120 A.D.), Greek essayist & biographer

Jane Galt has penned an interesting post about the 9/11 Commission at her weblog Asymmetrical Information. She is disturbed about the tenor of the hearings and the way in which they will be accepted:

"...everyone, conservative and liberal and Democrat and Republican, seems to be assuming that there is some answer they will find that will tell them how we could have averted 9/11."

She feels the problem with commissions is that they find what they are tasked to look for, this one being no exception. She also feels that we're seeking reassurances that similar attacks can be prevented in the future when the truth is perhaps that they can't:

"The energy expended trying to blame this failure on someone...seems to me to express an underlying conviction that of course someone could have stopped this--it's only a question of who. For the commission, especially, it's an unacceptable answer; they simply cannot turn to a frightened American public and tell them that it's really too bad, but we live in a scary world."

She goes on to suggest (1) that governments rarely impose massive upfront costs to minimize improbable threats, (2) that political will for taking pre-emptive action against the Taliban was practically non-existent pre 9/11, and (3) that in hindsight, people almost always delude themselves into thinking they could have correctly predicted outcomes. Each of these points is elaborated on in some detail in support of her view that taking "costly, fruitless measures to reassure ourselves" could end up working to our detriment.

It's an interesting post with lots of comments. Take a few minutes and read the whole thing.

His Best Trip Yet

"Death is the great adventure beside which moon landings and space trips pale into insignificance."

    - Joseph Bayly, American writer & public speaker

We have had a death in the family, so I will be in the mountains of North Carolina until the weekend to attend services and pay final respects. One of our patriarchs at age 85, Uncle Fred died suddenly while doing what he loved most--exploring this great world of ours.

Which Came First? Saddam or Fallujah?

"A man who lives, not by what he loves but what he hates, is a sick man."

   - Archibald Macleish (1892-1982), American poet

Historian/essayist, Victor Davis Hanson, has launched a website titled Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers. It's worth a visit.

Shortly after the massacres of the four civilian contractors in Fallujah, Iraq, Hanson posted this thought-provoking essay in which he discussed the aberrant behavior of Muslim extremists:

"...I fear that we have not seen anything new. Flip through the newspaper and the stories are as depressing as they are monotonous: bombs in Spain; fiery clerics promising death in England, even as explosive devices are uncovered in France. In-between accounts of bombings in Iraq, we get the normal murdering in Israel, and daily assassination in Pakistan, Turkey, Morocco, and Chechnya. Murder, dismemberment, torture--these all seem to be the acceptable tools of Islamic fundamentalism and condoned as part of justifiable Middle East rage."

Hanson gives example after example of the vicious killing which has been an integral part of Islamic fundamentalism since the Dark Ages. He asks:

"Are the citizens of Fallujah the victims of Saddam, or did folk like this find their natural identity expressed in Saddam?"

He refutes the theory popular in some quarters that colonialism and the decadent West are what wrecked the Middle East. He points out that India, South Korea, and other countries seem to have overcome these influences and became prosperous, peaceful nations, while the Arab world continues to wallow in its self-imposed victimhood.

Hanson believes the enemy of the Middle East is not the West so much as modernism itself, and that in attempting to bring some good to this part of the world, we "should have no illusions about the enormity of our task, where every positive effort will be met with violence, fury, hypocrisy, and ingratitude." Sobering indeed. 

Crazy, Or What?

"Inconsistency is the only thing in which men are consistent."

    - Horatio Smith (1770-1849), English writer

What is constantly criticized by practically every public service organization as being deadly to your health, but the government annually subsidizes its production to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars? Paul Jacob, on his website U.S. Term Limits, discusses the problem that is tobacco:

"A thousand public service announcements a day urge Americans to kick the smoking habit. Meanwhile, state and federal governments rely on cigarette taxes to cover the check for everything from Medicaid to education. Washington subsidizes tobacco farmers--then turns around and tries to regulate cigarette manufacturers out of existence."

Last year, the U.S. Surgeon General told Congress that he would support banning tobacco products. This stance received little support from his listeners or the anti-smoking lobby. Politicians are in a dilemma. On the one hand, they want to promote the good health of their citizens. On the other, they don't want to give up the revenues from cigarette taxes and lawsuits against the tobacco industry. So what's the answer?

"Should cigarettes remain legal for adults in this country? If so, should they be manufactured and sold by a government monopoly, as in some nations, or by private enterprise? And if it's to be private enterprise, how should the manufacuter and sale of a product with known health risks be regulated?"

Mr. Jacob thinks our state and federal legislators are more concerned with getting their share of tobacco tax revenues and litigation settlements than they are about our health--that they're using this money to buy our votes. Interesting point, and one that Mark Schmidt's research would seem to support. What do you think?

Trust Me...

"With affection beaming in one eye, and calculation shining out of the other."

    - Charles Dickens (1812-1870), British novelist

Are the Saudis, those masters of hypocrisy, secretly campaigning against Bush in the coming election? So says Ed Lasky at his weblog, The American Thinker. It reads like a conspiracy out of a Tom Clancy novel. Mr. Lasky opines:

"Saudi Arabia has launched an undeclared war on George W. Bush...engineering (his) electoral defeat...in November...Bush has provoked this response by proclaiming his intention to encourage democracy and liberalism in the Middle East, liberate the Arab masses from despotic rule, bring peace and prosperity to the region, and halt the spread of militant Islamic terror groups." 

He goes on to suggest that the Saudis feel their absolute rule over the kingdom is being threatened and that Bush is a danger to their survival. Lasky believes the recent surge in oil prices is a result of the Saudis reducing output at a time when worldwide demand is unprecedented. Well, that would work, and the recent OPEC decision has made it official, but that makes the Saudi's plan less sneaky than Mr. Lasky says they'd like it to be.

Jim Miller linked to Lasky's post awhile back, and comments on it again at Jim Miller on Politics. Miller remains skeptical of Ed's theory, but seems less so than when he initially linked to him.

It all makes for some interesting reading, and speculating about the political scene is fine entertainment. So, if you wanted to know why oil prices are skyrocketing, well, now you know. The Saudis are out to get Bush--stealthily, of course.