www.thornwalker.com/ditch/dtw_santorum.htm


 

Wright from Washington City
May 3, 2003

 

Bizarro World apotheosis:
Neo-Trots in the ascendancy
 
By DAVID T. WRIGHT

 

Just when one thought things couldn't get any weirder in the festering mess that is today's "conservatism," monstrosities have hatched from it so hideous, so perverted, so wretchedly deformed, that one might take them for hallucinations — caused, perhaps, by Saddam's elusive chemical weapons, secretly infused by Osama bin Laden into one's breakfast orange juice. They're not, though. They're for real:

1. "... We will have to pursue the war against terror far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, into the heart of Western Europe." (Michael Ledeen, "What if there's method to the Franco-German madness?", National Review, March 10, 2003)

2. "A new law being proposed by Republican senators will serve to prohibit criticism of Israel on American college campuses." ("Criticizing Israel will be a taboo in United States," The Balochistan Post, April 24, 2003)

After my wife threw a glass of cold water in my face, I calmed down and realized that those news items merely signal the next logical steps along "conservatism's" careening flight into Mussolini-style fascism.

Take Michael Ledeen. If I hadn't actually met him in the flesh many years ago, I would be tempted to write him off as a made-up cartoon character, a sort of political Daffy Duck, whose columns are concocted as comic relief by clever National Review editors. I can assure you, however, that he actually exists — or did, anyway. In an earlier column on my own Web page (http://www.thornwalker.com/wright/011207 .html), I highlighted one of his unbalanced rants in National Review, in which he lost control of his syntax and gibbered that the United State needed to go to war with the entire Muslim world:

... We need to sustain our game face, we must keep our fangs bared, we must remind them daily that we Americans are in a rage, and we will not rest until we have avenged our dead, we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle.

(Pant, pant.)

The U.S.'s glorious victory over Saddam's decayed, badly led, under-equipped, and demoralized military has whetted Ledeen's appetite for more blood, and he's studying menus right along with the rest of the neo-Trot horde. [1] In fact, he's now raised his sights from merely subjugating all of Islam to vanquishing the filthy Europeans as well! It turns out that those devious, ungrateful little Frogs and Krauts are plotting to overthrow the Empire's enlightened plan for world domination:

They dreaded the establishment of an American empire, and they sought for a way to bring it down.... How could it be done? No military operation could possibly defeat the United States, and no direct economic challenge could hope to succeed. That left politics and culture. And here there was a chance to turn America's vaunted openness at home and toleration abroad against the United States. So the French and the Germans struck a deal with radical Islam and with radical Arabs: You go after the United States, and we'll do everything we can to protect you, and we will do everything we can to weaken the Americans. The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States.

Is this for real? More importantly, is Ledeen running around loose? Or does the American Enterprise Institute, where he holds the bizarrely named "Freedom Chair," prudently keep him chained to it in the basement, like the character "the Gimp" in "Pulp Fiction" — bringing him out every once in a while in a leather leotard and spiked collar to lumber about, roll his eyeballs, and shriek hideous threats? Good boy, Mikey! Have a piece of raw flank steak!

In any case, it takes a truly fevered brain to decide — with no evidence whatsoever — that French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder are "striking a deal with radical Islam" to "bring down" the Empire. Even a superficial look at European politics reveals a number of other legitimate reasons that the regimes of France and Germany might wish to publicly oppose U.S. imperialism in the Middle East — that is to say, as legitimate as the motives of any ruling regime ever are. Most conspicuous is the huge outcry against the Iraq invasion from their own voters. Another is the large numbers of Muslims that both regimes have arranged to have live in their countries. A third is the fact that Europe is much more dependent on Persian Gulf oil than America, and has more to lose if the supply is disrupted — not to mention the European oil interests that will be shouldered aside when Bush's friends take over production in Iraq.

Ledeen apparently doesn't consider that Chirac and Schroeder may be motivated by a desire simply to boost their domestic approval ratings using a can't-lose issue — while avoiding riots by their Muslim populations. But even if that were proven true, it wouldn't count for much to any of the neo-Trots. In fact, the very idea that other countries have interests different from those of the United State is intolerable to the new imperialists. As Steve Sniegoski pointed out to me recently: "The neocons claim that spreading democracy around the world will bring peace, but then find that America's enemies are — democratic countries!"

I think we can tentatively assume that the United State won't find it expedient to start a war with Europe — at least, not for a while. So if Ledeen's idea catches on, we'll probably just be subjected to more inane insults about cheese- and schnitzel-eaters, and more calls to boycott French and German goods by Limbaugh, Hannity, and other reductionist "conservative" charlatans. But a boycott or sanctions may present problems.

It's one thing to boycott French goods — after all, there are other sources of decent wine, cheese, and brandy — but the neo-Trots may be hard-pressed by a boycott of Germany. Besides beverages such as Beck's, St. Pauli Girl, and Liebfraumilch, Germany produces the BMWs, Audis, Mercedes-Benzes, and expensive Braun coffee-makers and shavers adorning the comfortable lives of many of those well-sinecured vicarious warriors. [2]

In addition, the diplomatic problems caused by such lunacy would undoubtedly lead to difficulties for the Bush administration — especially if they resulted in pressure to pull U.S. troops out of Europe, where there's no legitimate reason for them to be anyway.

***

But never mind: "conservatives" are cranking up other madness that's just as threatening. Rick Santorum is chairman of the Senate Republican Conference — the third-ranking position in the Republican-held Senate — and apparently considers himself conservative because he's so uptight he only goes to the toilet once a week.

Santorum recently caused a fuss because he decried a recent Supreme Court ruling regarding a Texas sodomy law: "If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." That's a straight quote, folks. Like so many other "conservatives," Mr. Santorum believes not in freedom, but in "rights" granted by the state, i.e., mere privileges. [3]

The result was the usual ritual cries of horror and demands for resignation by the usual designated victim groups, a controversy in which one could comfortably hate all sides. The best part was when somebody named Owen Allred — who, according to the Washington Times, is "head of the United Apostolic Brethren," a polygamous Mormon sect — complained that Mr. Santorum made polygamy sound "dirty."

Unfortunately, ranting about sex is not the only thing Senator Santorum has been up to. He and another conservo-fascist Republican senator with the curiously appropriate-sounding moniker of Sam Brownback, are ginning up new affirmative-action legislation. You read that right: These "conservatives" are pushing affirmative action!

Their legislation would amend the infamous Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which, according to the Department of Education's Website:

... bolsters this national agenda ["equal opportunity"] and prohibits sex discrimination in federally assisted education programs. Modeled on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting race, color, and national origin discrimination, it was followed by three other pieces of civil rights legislation: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibiting disability discrimination; the Age Discrimination Act of 1975; and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibiting disability discrimination by public entities.

Here's a cute little sidebar from the same Web page:

Everyone Benefits from Title IX

Title IX prohibits institutions that receive federal funding from practicing gender discrimination in educational programs or activities. [4] Because almost all schools receive federal funds, Title IX applies to nearly everyone. [Emphasis added.] The Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education is charged with enforcing the civil rights and regulations in education, extending protection to

• about 51.7 million elementary and secondary school students;

• about 14.4 million college and university students;

• almost 15,000 school districts;

• more than 3,600 colleges and universities;

• more than 5,000 proprietary schools; and

• thousands of libraries, museums, vocational rehabilitation agencies, and correctional facilities.

Isn't that nice. Everyone benefits. Colleges and universities have since learned how suffocating the dead hand of the state can be, as the threat of withdrawal of the government funding they are so dependent on has been used to make them conform to all kinds of draconian restrictions and mandates. Well, as it turns out, apparently not everyone benefits after all, because Messrs. Santorum and Brownback want to amend Title IX to prohibit ideological discrimination, also. Here's an excerpt from an article in the New York Sun, a small, very pro-Israeli daily (April 15, 2003):

WASHINGTON — Organizations representing thousands of universities are expressing concerns about a Senate effort to slash their federal funding if they don't promote "ideological diversity" — a legislative effort to remedy anti-Semitism on campus. The possibility of withholding funds arose at a March meeting between top Senate Republicans and Jewish activists who reported rising incidents of anti-Semitism and an increasingly anti-Israel agenda among college professors. [Emphasis added.] A legislative solution would alter the funding formula under Title IX of the Higher Education Act to include not only sexual equality but also "ideological diversity" as a precondition of receiving the funds.

... The no. 3 Republican in the Senate, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, is driving the examination of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and while he may be the one to formally introduce the legislative change, he is not alone. Several other top Republicans or staff representatives, including one for Senate Majority Leader Frist of Tennessee, attended the March meeting with Jewish activists. Senators at that meeting discussed an investigation or commission as alternatives to legislation. [5]

Apparently it's not only anti-Semitism this initiative wishes to suppress:

The inflammatory remarks of a Columbia University professor, Nicholas DeGenova, who said he was wishing for "a million Mogadishus," have only heightened the interest, Mr. [Wayne] Firestone (director of the Center for Israel Affairs for the Hillel Foundation) said.

The unspoken remedy, of course, is ideological quotas. The corruption and cynicism this reveals are mind-blowing. Race and sex quotas are one of the traditional bugbears of the Republicans and "conservatives," who have fought them (at least in public) tooth and nail ever since the Bakke case in the 1970s. At this very moment, the Bush regime is fighting a case in the Supreme Court over a quota system established by the University of Michigan. President Bush actually went on the telescreen to condemn the Michigan plan as "quotas." Says Solicitor General Theodore Olson: "The Michigan Law School admissions policy fails every test this court has established. Number 1, it's a thinly disguised quota. Number 2, it overtly employs stigmatizing characteristics."

And Senator Santorum himself, believe it or not, has actually spoken publicly in support of the administration's position, according to an article titled "At Rights Forum, the Target Is Bush" in the New York Times for January 18, 2003:

The Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, opened the session by saying Mr. Bush's opposition to the admissions system at the University of Michigan ''called into question'' his simultaneous claim of commitment to diversity.... After the forum, Mr. Daschle formally sought to get the Senate to file a brief in the case in support of the university. But Republicans objected, with Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania saying the White House position was the correct one. [6]

It takes little imagination to figure out what the result of such legislation would be. The state would monitor the ideological makeup of faculties, and, probably, of students as well. Everyone would be interviewed to determine their political views, and decisions about hiring and admission would be made accordingly.

But there's more. Such requirements would allow neo-Trot pressure groups to shake down universities over ideology in the same way race pimps such as Jesse Jackson mau-mau corporations over race. Thus the neo-Trots would finally get something they have been thirsting for, lo these many years: a tool to take over academia the way they've taken over "conservatism." Make no mistake, they choked with frustration as they watched the New Left conquer academia, and they have long sought an opening through which to begin their own "long march through the institutions." [7]

This is it, they hope. This is the path to cushy jobs in universities for their friends and relatives (the neo-Trots are big on nepotism), which they can use as a base to take over other institutions, and from which they can poison young minds the way the lib-lefties have been doing for years. And it would be only the thin end of the wedge: assured access to government jobs would follow.

Santorum and his friends are no doubt sniggering and slapping each other on the back for coming up with a way to beat the liberals with their own stick. But to the dwindling number of people who still believe in freedom, they are revealed as enemies even worse than the liberal Left. It may be that, smothered by the poisonous flowering of the neo-Trots, we may look back with nostalgia on the days when the liberals held the high ground.

© 2003 by WTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.


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