Open Letter to Mia Farrow:
In your letter to President George W. Bush you demand that he stop the genocide in Darfur. Nat Hentoff of The Washington Times reports extensively on Farrow’s letter to Bush says “I believe Mr. Bush has this capacity within him not only to strengthen his legacy, but more deeply meaningful to him, to answer the renewed call of his conscience and save many thousands of lives in Darfur.”
The hypocrisy of both Farrow and Hentoff is unmitigated. Farrow’s liberal left has demanded that we never go to war for any reason. She and her liberal friends including Hentoff in this case have demeaned, degraded, called into question the intelligence of Mr. Bush at every opportunity and have perpetually and loudly trumpeted Mr. Bush’s alleged ineptitude but are demanded he has the “capacity” to instantly solve the Darfur problem.
Undoubtedly, Farrow was against the war against terror and terrorists. No Big Deal! Who cares, they were only killing Americans. I did an extensive comparison of the number of those killed by Saddam Hussein during his 25 years of power. It turns out, with the wars he started, he was killing an average of 450 people per day. Bush put an end to that. You’ve demanded we get immediately get out of Iraq which could leave the county to Islamofacists.
Now you are saying that America must go into Darfur and save the people there. OK, Miss Farrow, lets go, and let’s, put your sons and daughters in the front lines...and Mr. Hentoff’s sons and daughters, and if they can get beat Lt. Gen. Omar Bashir without the help of the American Congress, without American money or arms and without any bloodshed of any American blood, with the exception of Farrow and Hentoff’s children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, then by all means, lets go. And I can sit around calling you and Hentoff warmongers and haters.
Do you want American to become the world’s policemen Miss Farrow? Are you suggesting we go to war to do what you demand? Are you willing to sacrifice your own children for the cause. I have a son who is a soldier, and our soldiers get spit on by the likes of you and Mr. Hentoff. Why don’t you ask Saudi Arabia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Syria to do the job. They’re nations of the world!
But NO! you, with your hypocrisy, demand America do it. Why don’t you get troops from Zimbabwe, Germany, France, Japan, Belgium, South Africa, Indonesia, Russia, China, India, Pakistan or Egypt to help? Let those countries spend their money and shed the blood of their children....America has done enough.
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7 comments:
While I agree with the argument that sending American troops to Darfur is highly unwise, i do agree with the general spirit of Ms. Farrow's plea to the President. The United States does have at least some moral obligation to help stop the suffering in Darfur and other parts of Africa. While using American military power would be an extremely dicey proposition, the United States is certainly capable of using its diplomatic and financial strength to improve the lives of people who are suffering. And Darfur should not be our only target. The United States ought to place very heavy pressure on Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe to conform not only to international standards of behavior, but to the civil and election laws of his own country. The United States should stand with the rest of the world in forcing Mugabe to peacefully abide by the outcome of a fair and free election in that country. Not only is it a moral imperative for a country which has made spreading democracy a staple of its foreign policy, but it is our best financial and security interests.
Zimbabwe is the one central African country which still has enough rudimentary infrastructure upon which to build a stable and successful economy. With a stable government and a free citizenry, American investment could show real change and prosperity there, both improving the lives of the people there and opening a new market for American goods and services. Furthermore, improving the quality of life in Central Africa acts as a stopgap against the epidemic of religion and poverty fueled extremism of the Middle East becoming widespread there. Doing what we can to prevent an area from becoming a hotbed for extremism and terrorism should be as much a part of our national security policy as hunting down existing terrorists.
Rob, Several points. Why is it only America's place to police Africa when there are a host of countries who could do it without the stigma attached to America applied by liberals and dictators that America shouldn't be the world's policemen….WHY AMERICA?
Is it because the UN's peace keeping forces and operatives are too busy raping children, pillaging helpless countries, and taking bribes from the "food for oil" scam and being beyond inept with civil rights committee populated by murderous dictatorships just like Mugabe? LONELY seems to think Clinton was the "messiah" to solve all the world's problems. Obama is perceived the same way….and yet Clinton failed diplomatically in Somalia, Darbur, Kosovo, Sudan, and a host of other countries to do anything and Obama said he won't get us involved…that he can talk his way to peace….more cow pies.
Yet you use the phrase that America has a MORAL obligation. WHY, I ask again. What does that mean exactly if diplomacy fails, as it has 95 per cent of the time in cases? You say we should FORCE Mugabe…! Isn't that the exact problem you and fiberals hate President Bush for? John Kerry and Hillary Clinton both voted to use force to go get the "WMDs" out of Iraq. They had the same intelligence Bush had.
You suggest we use "pressure." We've tried that on, Cuba for 60 years, on Syria, Iran, Libya, did work then, wouldn't work now. Does that mean that military forces is next…and should it be America, since the UN is a worthless money pit.
Again, tell me precisely, what you propose when diplomacy, embargos and threats fail…which they nearly always do. Are you proposing we go to war to enforce your demands…and Mia Farrow has ignored a huge Bush diplomatic effort to engage more African counties in taking responsibility for their own continent…but they've refused.
What you're proposing, in the real world, is that we go to war to impose ours or Mia Farrow's definition of order. Does that make you or she a warmonger? It just blows my mind when the Mia's of the world demand we do something and then criticize us for doing what have to do to implement what they're demanding. Go to Egypt, South Africa, Nigeria, Libya, Morocco, or Algeria.
Myanmar is in just as bad a situation as Zimbabwe, should we go there too…the people are dying from the hurricane and we can't even deliver rescue relief.
What does it mean to "DO WHAT WE CAN?" What does that really mean when it is extended to the worst case scenario? Answer that, and you'll realize it's easy to say and sound like a good liberal should…but what does It mean?
I'm a big of Joyce's short story "The Dead" but other than that, not really--and I've read everything but his poems, his one play and Finnegan's Wake. I don't agree with the assessment of Ulysses being the best novel of the century in English, but I would say regardless of its quality, it has been one of the most influential (and I'm going to have a post sometime in the next couple weeks about that Modern Library list I always refer to in my reviews. So, we can save a Joyce debate for then.) As for Thomas Wolfe, I read Look Homeward Angel several years ago and only remember it for two things....being extremely long winded and for loving the introduction where Wolfe discusses the role of autobiography in the fiction writing process. Never read any of his short work. I hadn't planned on going this route at all when I started typing, but who are some of your favorite fiction writers by the way? Even if we don't agree most of the time, I'm starting to recognize that you have an expansive knowledge base and I'd been interested in knowing who you like.
I need to thank you for your comment about my lack of passion and I know exactly where it comes from. I used to author another blog about three years ago and it was nothing but passion. I would rant on any and everything that happened to me or entered my mind. I would often regret my posts later and so when I started this site I decided to try and be more reasoned with my entries. But I think you are write. That passion, which you rightly guess is in my more private works, would probably make my online writing better.
As for academia, I've actually quit my masters in literature without finishing it, opting to go to law school instead. I had a year and a half left on it because of administrative problems, all of the graduate work I did during my senior year of undergrad did not count, and I was basically going to have to redo a lot of tedious work. I also discovered through some research that having a humanities masters would not help me in the legal job market enough to justify another year of teaching (which I hated with a passion) and of low budget, loan saturated living. Originally I had planned on getting a PhD and teaching, but after a semester I knew that I could not be in academia. And I think you'll be proud of me for this, but the watershed moment was when my masters committee chair told me that "there are only three issues worth writing about in literature: race, class and gender" and that I needed to learn how to ask those questions. And I couldn't. Besides my ideological problems with the literary academy, I came to the conclusion that most professors were just interested in intellectual masturbation. I know that I borderline on that myself, but your distaste for my melancholy relativism is probably equal to the distaste I had for a greater degree of the same in most professor. The only point of that was to explain why I'm not in graduate school for literature anymore--which because of my innate fear of failure, I feel like I have to explain in detail whenever it comes up.
I'm probably going to stay away from politics for a while, because it's honestly not one of my huge passions. I was trying to verify some statistics I heard from an old acquaintance I ran into a couple weeks ago and my google search took me to your site. If you've read any of the older stuff on my blog, you might have noticed that I've sold my car and am living with my parents (mid 50s, the age I was assuming for you since their marriage is 31 years along and you mentioned 30 for yourself). So with lack of transportation in sub-urban Oklahoma(which means it takes nearly 15 minutes to walk to anywhere not in a neighborhood) I've spent an inordinate amount of time on my computer.
I'm probably going to go back to literary entries for a while, both reviews (I'm about to finish reading two novels) and I've written the beginnings to three new short stories. I have a feeling that you've read a lot, so I'd appreciate your feedback on any writing of that nature that I do post.
Good luck with your business dealings and your son's new workshop. Sorry, it's late, and I don't have it in me to edit this comment, so forgive me for the inevitable typos and grammatical thoughtlessness.
hehe....
and one postscript
as to Clinton being a messiah,
I read the unflattering portrait of him in Vanity Fair yesterday, and if all of that is true he's downgraded from messiah to apostle.
Bill Clinton is truly a tragic figure. With all the promise that he had going into the
White House and all the heartache he left leaving it is simply sad. I couldn't stand to listen him speak because I knew it was all an crock. When I kick the bucket, it will not be said of me that I cheated on my wife, pardoned terrorists and indicted criminals, or stole furniture from the America's house. I'm afraid my down grade of Clinton would not be to apostle…but to chief pooper scooper.
I watched a bio on Truman last night. He was not liked during his administration and had some of the lowest presidential ratings historically, but has become one of the more respected presidents we've ever had. I'm not a Bush 41 fan, and I like 43 for a few thing, most important of which is that he didn't allow one more American to die on American on American soil. I think he'll be closer to Truman than Clinton when judged through the lens of history. We'll see.
And history, I suspect, will not be kind to Bill.
Lonely, I want to spend some time answering your earlier post. I'll work on that.
I read Look Homeward Angel too. 500 plus page to say "you can't go home." Give me a break. One of the things I remember about the book is that one particular sentence was 160-plus words. It had a subject, verb and a string of adjectives that became so tedious it lost all meaning. Don't ask me anything else about Wolfe, with the exception his short story about a Tiger. Had he written with a more measured word use in Angel, I, at least, would have been more amenable to the message.
But I want to focus on something you said about ending your English Masters program. I started one myself, but I like you hit that “predetermined prejudice.” When you explained that “the watershed moment was when my masters committee chair told me that ‘there are only three issues worth writing about in literature: race, class and gender’ and that I needed to learn how to ask those questions. That’s exactly how I felt. There was no effort to encouraged exploration into anything other than the professorial view of the world. How incredibly myopic. I probably disagree with some of your views, but just reading a variety of your posts makes it obvious there’s a lot more that just race, class and gender that are worth focusing on. “21st Century Patriotism” is a critical subject given it could mean the end of the civilized world as we know it. I don’t agree with what appears to be way too much vacillation in your piece for me but I can’t disagree with the importance of the subject. I would probably disagree with half of your clever description of professorial “intellectual masturbation.” It assumes they have an intellect with which to masturbate and to restrict relevancy the those three subject is more than pathetic and confirms your point.
We are living in times where a wing of one major religion has the goal of genocide against anyone who doesn’t believe as they do....and the chair can’t see the critical nature of that fact....he exists in a total intellectual reality vacuum
. I can understand your distaste. I recall an interview with the human services director the NBC-O&O TV news department in LA where I was applying for a job. He said “son, you’re the wrong color, the wrong sex and with the wrong surname.” In those exact words. Must have been a similar feeling to the one you had with the chair.
You wondered about my “expansive knowledge base.” I read a lot of news being a former journalist/anchor. I also have a web page called NameSpellChecker which required me to read extensively to add names. Unfortunately, while the web page is still operational, I haven’t had the time to devote to it with other demands. Every name that I entered, and that was brutal because it’s all hand entry, required me to have shortened historical understanding of each individual. That was an education itself. I have a big project looming. If it comes to pass, when I get it finished, I want to devote some more time and resources to NSC on a major scale. It needs to have a lot of work on the web side, and constant name input. I entered more than 11-thousand names which was an unbelievable education in itself. There was a really interesting serendipitous side value.
I discovered a “name connection” which I want to expand. Every person is connected by names to others. So if I seem to have a little wider base, it’s probably the result of the historical searches for entry of those names.
One last point. I would encourage to use some passion...I know it’s there. I enjoy when a blogger takes a stand if they’re willing to kibitz. If they get too overbearing...so do I but it’s at least interesting.
Looking forward to checking in on your future blogs but not considering myself much of a literati...I may not do much commenting. NG
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