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The sky is falling... I hope
Negativity becomes The major plank in the Democratic platform.
By Vincent Fiore
April 28, 2003
Half a world away, the war winds down to the occupation of Iraq by coalition forces. Saddam Hussein, if not shoveling coal in Lord Harry's deepest hell, is most certainly out of power. U.S. and U.K. forces conducted a near seamless war, losing fewer than 200 combatants, and sparing countless Iraqi innocents through painstakingly accurate targeting. The people of Iraq are free to devise their own coarse into the 21st century, and the world is immeasurably better off as the once dictatorship now takes its first steps towards Democracy. As one war comes to a slow close, another remains fierce and rages on. The chattering class and their allies the western media have begun yet another counter attack. Their targets are anything-positive coming out of or in Iraq, and the chief architect of operation Iraqi Freedom, George W. Bush.
The modern left's fascination with doom and gloom extends throughout all their relatively recent history. LBJ's "Great Society", which in legislative form seemed noble, was in reality Johnson's selfish fear that Americans would not know what his Presidency stood for. So he created his legacy of big Government handholding and control, which still emasculates segments of society today. President Carter's chastising of the electorate for their "inordinate fear of communism" in reality focused America against the communist threat and carried Ronald Reagan to office. And the predictable play book pattern continued, all the way to the Clinton/Gore days of fear mongering. Who will forget the senseless attacks on Newt Gingrich claiming he was trying to destroy Medicaid/Medicare by hastening its "withering on the vine". It is this fear and the all pervasive doom and gloom that comprise the Democratic Party's platform, a platform bereft of idea or positive will. Daily, an almost eager negativity is paraded for the media and the masses in hopes of scaring voters into pulling the Democratic lever in November.
All these "qualities" are on display yet again, as well as a near debilitating hate at the mere mention of President Bush. Victory is assured in Iraq, yet that is last week's news. Where are the weapons of mass destruction, demands the editorial board of the NY Times? How could you "allow" the looting of the Iraqi museum, asks Tim Russert of Donald Rumsfeld on Sundays "Meet the Press". CNN laments the "orgy" of anarchy in Baghdad, as looters run amok, causing chief Middle East correspondent Christiane Amanpour to remark how at least Saddam had held the country in order. In truth, all of these "crises" the media does a death dance over are well on the way to being resolved in relatively short order. For Liberal Democrats sacrificing over the altar of doom, they will once again be bested by a President who has the nerve to actually do what he says he will.
Still, we can point out just how fearful and out of control our "tolerant" Liberal friends really are. Politically panic stricken Gary Kamiya, executive editor of the progressive Salon.com, expresses what many are coming to believe to be the boiled over frustrations of liberalism over the Presidency of George W. Bush: "I have a confession to make. I have at times, as the war unfolded, secretly wished for things to go wrong. Wished for the Arab world to rise up in rage. Wished for all the things we feared would happen". I can only assume, through my own common sense, that these "wished for things" included American Military deaths on the battlefield. At this point, stop and think about that. Here you have an executive editor, responsible to a degree for his publication's commentary {in Salon's case, political, and considered a staple of liberal ideology}, and very likely has sway over those under his responsibilities. After consulting my lexicon, the only word that fits such incredible sentiment as expressed by Gary Kamiya is demented, for one has to be in order publicly express such destructive desires. Literally, a yearning for chaos in hope of damaging a popular President. Price, it seems to modern day Liberalism, is no object. It is the pursuit of power that overshadows all.
Kamiya, not one to feel singled out, made sure to demonstrate the hallmark of Liberals, inclusiveness: "I'm not alone…more casualties would have been a preferred alternative to the larger moral negative of a victory." "Wishing for things to go wrong is the logical corollary of the postulate that the better things go for Bush, the worse they will go for America and the rest of the world," Kamiya wrote. To see Kamiya use the word "moral" in the context of his commentary is the equivalent of a habitual child molester running a day care center. One cannot coexist with the other. The "moral negative", of course, is the Bush Presidency. There is more to Mr. Kamiya's demented rodomontade, but by now you get the point.
So it's up to us to think one or two things that are happening here. First, that Kamiya is an outspoken anomaly among liberals. We all now know his hatred for the Bush Administration runs deep, but to actually put it on paper, for the entire world to see now and forever, is nothing less than stunning. Mr. Kamiya might just be bolder {or suicidal} than the rest of his liberal brethren in the press. For there it is, and there it will always be. Than again, maybe it's as simple as Gary Kamiya being a few fries short of a happy meal.
A third option is that this is the core of liberalism when frustrated. And it is the one I opt to believe. Not because I'm a Conservative, or back the Administration, but because I see it demonstrated on a continuous basis. Case in point: On March 26th, Nicholas DeGenova, a Columbia anthropology professor, told an audience of 3,000 at an antiwar "teach in" what he wishes for in life. "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military," "I wish…" for a million Mogadishu's". {NOTE: Eighteen US soldiers were killed in Mogadishu in 1993} For good measure, he added that those Americans who call themselves "patriots" are nothing but white supremacists. You wonder how this could be tolerated, even with free speech as the banner Professor DeGenova hides under. You look for Democratic leaders to come out and condemn the words and the man who said them, but none step forward. Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle are too busy preaching the politics of fear.
So what's next for Democrats? Nothing that will be of good news, I predict. The Liberal Cassandra's will continue their proclamations of doom and gloom, and hate. Remember all the prewar predictions? Arab street rising, Israel attacked, mass US casualties, mass Iraqi civilian casualties, region wide conflict, use of WMD's, more terrorist attacks on US soil, etc. None of these predictions came true, even remotely. Liberal disappointment in this regard is palpable. The sun is shinning, but it will always be raining for Democrats and Liberals forever.
Lemmings are peculiar creatures. During their mass migrations, they follow one another right over the cliff and perish in huge numbers. To listen to the left, I think of tall cliffs to leap off of, in mass like the lemmings, or poison tooth's to bite down on and expire. Liberals, and Liberalism, and the Democrats that support them are fast approaching the cliff. Some have already took the plunge, and many are at the precipice. Americans do not want to be frightened into the voting booth, nor do they wish for death for her soldiers. The politics of hate and fear will only set the Democrats back a generation as a viable party in American politics. The more Machiavellian negativity they espouse, the more unbalanced they will look to the public as a whole. Maybe this "the sky is falling" outlook has always been there, and we have never seen it for what it truly is. Plainly, it is the first line on page one of the Democratic handbook: When idea's and policy are hard in coming, just shout fire, for that will get you attention.
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