http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/Cover/indexEvery so often, a line of limos and cop cars would whiz by, and were greeted with more Sieg Heils than you'll find in a Leni Riefenstahl movie. Even Bill Clinton got the Heil Hitler salute. The old codger standing next to me at one point did a furtive little Sieg Heil, like he was some dirty little boy doing something that would make teacher mad, and capped it off with a giggle that made me want to grab his Medicare card and burn it in front of him.
Sieg Heils are no way for the Left to reclaim the moral, let alone the political, high ground. The cops aren't Nazis and Bush isn't Worse Than Hitler. He's worse than a lot of things, but Hitler is not one of them. If this were, in fact, Nazi America, the ANSWER people would've been sent to forced-labor camps in Nevada. As it was, this was the first inauguration in history where the moiling opposition was given its own temporary autonomous zone, right near the front of the parade, complete with a speakers' platform and viewing stand.
So stick your Sieg Heils up your ass, people, and get serious.
Earlier in the day, I'd run into the lovable whackballs of the "God Hates Fags" brigades, with their shocking (and, to me at least, darkly hilarious) signs reading Thank God For Sept. 11 and such. That's about as far right as you can get in this country these days without going and actually blowing up the Murrah Building. The Leftie Sieg Heilers were, to the average Republican, as repugnant as these genuine homebrewed fascists are--and that is bad news for the Left, despite what the Italian media might have said about it (the Italian media loved the protesters).
I did not. Keep your Native American hagiography and fanatical multiculturalism to yourself from here on in, okay? Ease off on the fizzbomb analyses of evil "globalization" and recognize that capitalism isn't going anywhere anytime soon. As they say in AA--deal with life on life's terms, not Marx's.
I want the old-timey, bare-knuckled, aggressively macho Left that doesn't call it a "guilty pleasure" when they watch trayf television or find themselves thinking that maybe executing serial rapists of 7-year-olds isn't quite such a bad idea, after all.
My left is the acerbic left, the porn-loving left, the Lenny Bruce left, the left that gladly offers observations about other-colored people without fear or concern about being called a racist. The Left that thinks Michael Moore is a Big Fat Idiot but grudgingly respects his movies. That thinks Jewish activists who make bad-taste complaints about the Advocate putting a Star of David on a Chinese-food container are humorless. (See the letters page this week.) That thinks people who say you are either part of the problem or part of the solution--are part of the problem. That actually respects Colin Powell, despite his shilling for Bush before the U.N. in the Iraq war leadup.Foolish me, I'd thought I might find some of my scabrous and patriotic fellow travelers in Washington. Instead it was a ho-hum assemblage of the usual suspects, united in what must now be called a Hatred of America--since the opposition was not just to Bush, but to the whole Inaugural spectacle; itself an objectively wonderful and balls-out celebration of the true greatness that lies at the heart of this country. It struck me, as a fist might strike a septum, causing death, that the Left simply cannot handle displays of military might, or power and privilege generally, since it has written itself out of all of it through its incessant pandering to whiny interest groups, groups filled with repressed-memory syndromes and chronic fatigue, who cannot help but vaingloriously think that The Man is coming after them next. Join Al Qaeda and then we'll talk. Until then, enjoy your Volvo and your NPR and, sure, ladies, openly fantasize about what Barack Obama might be like in the sack.
This is not the Left I signed up with back in the 1980s. Nor is it the Left I'd like to associate with anymore. I've had it with this Left, and not just because I'm no longer a knee-jerking 23-year-old looking to score Hot Leftist Pussy at the Protest. It's because they are wrong--tactically, strategically, politically, spiritually.
The Left that showed up in D.C. is the jackbooted-thugs-maaaaan Left, the feral-cat Left, cornered and too scruffy, humorless and way-too-convinced of their own righteousness--and I'm not just talking about the shameful war.
The Left needs a "fourth way," and the contours of such a Left ought to begin with the proposition that if you're going to get your hands dirty, you ought to first take a shower. Burn your Rage Against the Machine albums while you're at it, and leave Larry Summers alone. Also: Eliminate the expression "people of color" from your vocabulary. The Left we ought to have subscribes to the Weekly Standard because it's an interesting and compelling read, and because it understands the fullness and reach of the term "liberal."
This Left is American to the core, invests in the stock market, hangs an American flag from its window without a hint of contemptuous irony. It burns its copy of The Collected Works of Katha Pollitt . It's self-assured about its righteousness without being smug. It doesn't equate the police with Nazi stormtroopers, and it understands that Bush, too, shall pass, and the Republic will outlive him. In other words, this Left has not completely lost faith in the resiliency of this fine country of ours.Hey, it's our America, too, and it's about time the Left started reclaiming it--proudly, patriotically, without apology, and without stooping to tactics that do nothing but give those red-staters good reason to continue thinking we're nothing but a bunch of filthy, ill-informed America-haters.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
