Cultural Revolutions
Education ‘Reform,’ From the Top Down
My goodness, it’s just one favor after another the U.S. government wants to do for us.
By week’s end, the president and his minions hope to have bought, embarrassed or intimidated enough fellow Democrats into passing, at long last, health care “reform.” In the meantime, the White House lets us know it wants action on new national approaches to educational improvement. It just never seems to stop, this business of bringing the whole business of the United States under federal supervision.
The Right Word
Oh, my do lovers of language love images! They should. Images—word pictures—enlighten, enliven, entertain. Tight as a tick; drunk as a lord; ugly as a mud fence. See what I mean? The reader doesn’t merely read; he sees.
You probably think an attack on cliches—images worn down like a mill stone—is about to ensue. Not today. That’s for later. I want instead to say a few words about words that don’t exactly match each other when linked, theoretically, in image form.
Are Obama and Hillary Clinton Really Bumblers?
Are they really bumblers? The opinion columns quiver with reproofs for maladroit handling of foreign policy by President Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Those who cherished foolish illusions that Obama’s election presaged a substantive shift to the left in foreign policy fret about “worrisome signs” that this is not the case.
Undemocratic Democrats
According to John Harwood in The New York Times, public support for “reining in Wall Street” has Democrats about as exuberant as Democrats ever get any more. Scared Senate Republicans are looking for deals to cut. The public wants this thing, with three-fifths supporting it in a recent poll. Democrats—who always do the public’s bidding—are ready to close the deal.
If there’s time, that is, after Congress and the president force the public to take a deal on health care that only a distinct minority seems to want.
Stack’s Afterlife
“I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.”
Joe Stack was now 30 words from the end of his life. He continued: “The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed. Joe Stack (1956-2010).”
“Personal Moral Values”
The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James Conway, has courageously defied the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his Commander-in-Chief with public testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee opposing lifting the ban on homosexuals serving in the Armed Forces. “Ban,” of course, hardly describes the current policy. Homosexuals who keep their inclinations relatively quiet may wear our country’s uniform and have been able to ever since President Clinton created a policy that could have served as a motto for his marriage: “Don’t ask; Don’t Tell.”
‘The Public be Damned’
You there! Congressman! Come out from behind that tree! The speaker of the House has wonderful plans for you, involving the very sharp sword she says you’re going to fall on for the greater glory of . . . whatever.
Wondrous to behold are the leadership instincts of a Democratic establishment conflicted when it comes to Obamacare. Not that Nancy Pelosi has doubts. As she told Elizabeth Vargas on ABC’s “This Week”: “Why are we here? We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We’re here to do the job for the American people”—the speaker’s assumption being that the American people desperately crave the Democratic health care scheme and won’t mind sacrificing an indeterminate number of Democratic congressmen to get it.
Time to ‘Plant’ Obama’s Health Care
It’s moments like this one—our Health Care Moment, we could call it—that make numerous friends of democracy and good government want to pull the covers over their heads and leave a wake-up call for next month.
The health care charade has gone on for a year. Polls suggest most Americans don’t want the measures now on offer. Republican leaders want to start the whole thing over again. The president says no, because he’s got his own plan and a date with the TV audience Thursday to explain why nothing his Republican guests will propose, unless it’s really small, deserves incorporation into the grand scheme that “We’re All Going to Buy Into Right Now. DO YOU HEAR ME, AMERICA?!!!!”
Unzism, A Dangerous Doctrine
Ron Unz, the neoliberal publisher of The American Conservative since the departure of Patrick J. Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopulos, penned an article for the March 1 issue of TAC entitled, like Geraldo Rivera’s recent pro-immigration book, “His-Panic,” where he argues that the notion of widespread Hispanic crime is largely a myth. He writes that conservatives have “accepted the myth that Hispanic immigrants and their children have high crime rates” and even goes so far as to put the word ‘gang’ in scare quotes when discussing Hispanic gangs.
I Gave it Up for Lent
My good friends at Catholic Answers in San Diego invited me to be a guest on their excellent radio program last Monday to discuss the tensions between being a “good” American and “good” Catholic. You can listen to the show at their website, although in one short hour, host Patrick Coffin and I hardly scratched the surface of this complex and undertreated subject. The Americanist heresy came up, and the near convergence of that discussion with the start of Lent brings into focus for me the problem with a practice present even among tradition-minded Catholics. I am referring to each person’s selecting his or her own private sacrifice to observe during this holy season. Mom gives up TV while her teenage son gives up video games. Little sister gives up chocolate, and Dad gives up booze.
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