Peeve Farm

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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

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Sunday, December 14, 2003

21:13 - Le malaise existential

(top)

You know, I've been weirdly irritable all day over the news of Saddam's capture. Every news report just makes me frown more, and grit my teeth more, and rub my forehead in more pain.

Why? Probably because of things like this (via LGF): an entry, not unrepresentative of the whole, at the official blog of the Democratic National Committee.

Well, tha capture of Sadaam takes the �failure to capture� issue off the table.

Now that the economy is picking up (mall was packed yesterday), Iraq is getting better, prescription drugs on the way, education spending at an all-time high, no further terrorist attacks�what is left?

Oh, yes, the capture of Bin Laden.

If that happens, we are completely sunk.

Yeah? You wouldn't be sunk if you could bring yourself to express approval of just one extremely good thing that America does, in spite of the fact that it's a Republican who did it.

Has life in the post-9/11 world really become so petty? Can a victory this profound really mean nothing more to the Democrats than a big setback on their road back to power?

I've felt saddened all day by things like this (and there were dishearteningly many). It means that I can no longer even pretend to sympathize with the goals of the Democratic party, because those goals seem to have devolved into nothing more noble than getting into power. As a Democratic voter on most issues and in most elections for the first seven years of my voting eligibility, I feel heartsick that this is what the party has reduced itself to. I mean, they were honestly hoping we wouldn't catch Saddam, for God's sake.

I feel no vindictive joy over what now seems to be the imminent death or splitting-up of the Democrats. Rather, I feel as though the country's left arm has become paralyzed. Sure, I agree more with what the right arm does these days, and more so each day. But balance is crucial to this country's operation. Each party needs the other in order to remain hungry and to operate efficiently toward goals that are universally in the interest of America. On the one-dimensional political axis that we use, flawed as it may be, the two-party system is more than a means of creating busy-work for the country's political machine: it's the fundamental balancing act that invariably drags public opinion back to the center, rather than allowing it to swing to one of the bizarre poles and transform America into a Nazi Germany or a USSR or a Talibanistan.

I fear that following the catastrophe that will be the Democrats' bid for the White House in 2004, the party will splinter; surely a new party will arise in its place, probably bearing the same name, but in the interim we'll be badly unbalanced as a nation, without surety in where our moral compasses point. Half the country's people will still feel as though the current administration doesn't represent them, but they won't have anything to call themselves-- and that's when groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R. and the denizens of IndyMedia and Democratic Underground will have their chance to make a serious bid for the niche left vacant in people's hearts by what had been the Democratic Party.

I honestly don't want to see things get to that point. If more Democrats can rally to Lieberman's call:

Hallelujah, praise the Lord. This is something that I have been advocating and praying for for more than twelve years, since the Gulf War of 1991. Saddam Hussein was a homicidal maniac, a brutal dictator, who wanted to dominate the Arab world and was supporting terrorists.

He caused the death of more than a million people, including 460 Americans who went to overthrow him. This is a day of glory for the American military, a day of rejoicing for the Iraqi people, and a day of triumph and joy for anyone in the world who cares about freedom, human rights, and peace. . . .

This news also makes clear the choice the Democrats face next year. If Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison, and the world would be a more dangerous place.

... then there might be a chance for sanity to prevail. But unless more people remember that this country is firmly at war, and has been for two years and three months, and that today's achievement is a victory in that war more major than any invasion or nominal overthrow-- that it makes the world far safer and freer of brutal dictators whose defiance inspires terrorism against the West than it was before-- then yes, Virginia, I'm afraid you're sunk.

This world is not so dismal a place. Let's learn to appreciate days like today for what they truly are.