I was in the process of preparing this for submission to Newsweek for their ‘My Turn’ section when the attack on the World Trade Center made the topic page one news everywhere. Submitting it suddenly seemed pointless….
Another week, another killing spree, or so it seems.
This comes back to the fundamental questions that are rarely addressed in any straightforward way: Who should we accept as immigrants? Who should we reject? What commitments, to civil behavior and to our national best interest, ought we require of those we accept? And what commitments, to civil behavior, to our national best interest, and to duty to our society and respect for our culture, ought we demand of those who would claim citizenship in our nation?
I found in Ted Rall’s editorial cartoon (Diversity Without Democracy, 28 Dec) a refreshingly frank self-exposure of the narrow-minded bigotry behind the modern ‘liberal’ conception of ‘diversity’. As Rall so clearly communicated diversity requires inclusion of only the right kind of blacks or the right kind of hispanics or the right kind of women, with the obvious implication that anyone politically ‘conservative’ (whatever that means in this era of ‘big tent’ politics) cannot possibly be ‘black enough’ or ‘hispanic enough’ or ‘woman enough’ really to be considered ‘diverse’.
The issue of abortion is once again forming the backdrop for the political show of our election cycle. And, as for the last thirty years, it is the bogeyman in the shadows, obsession of the few, ignored by the many until it is needed by politicians to frighten voters when they seem to be happy with the opposition. Abortion is universally recognized as divisive and intractable, a subject to be used for advantage among partisans but avoided in polite company, a fuse you can light but cannot control.
The case of Elián González, the 6-year-old Cuban boy whose mother drowned trying to get herself and her son to America, illustrated both the sanctimoniousness of the American Left in dismissing concerns about political and economic freedom under socialist governments, and the ineptitude of the American Right in articulating them.
Just as the whole mess was ending, I finally found a short, simple, elegant statement of why I, as so many others, was so angry with Bill Clinton: I detest a smart-ass. Bill Clinton is reckless, cowardly, and arrogant, starting trouble and running away, leaving those who trusted him to clean up the mess and pay for the damage, knowing he can get away with it because he is a smooth talker — and because he is in a position of power. It was distressing to have Bill Clinton as my President; it’s downright galling to have Eddie Haskell.
Here’s what I think of Bill Clinton: if he had a sense of shame the President would resign. But then, if he had a sense of shame, he wouldn’t need to.
That is also what I think of Kenneth Starr, of the congressional leadership, and of the entire national media.
Last week’s massacre in Chiapas, Mexico of dozens of people by a paramilitary strike-force involved in the Zapatista uprising has once again brought into our living rooms, accompanied by jaded shock, ignorant analysis, and color photographs, the man-made horrors that plague our world. We get the initial reports, rushed to us in a frenzy to be the first on-the-air, with contradictory eye-witness accounts, blustery and ignorant official positions, and the inevitable (but inaccurate) body counts. We get periodic updates, each contradicting its predecessor and claiming to be “the truth”. We get long-winded speculations on motivations and responsibility, and a running scorecard on who is helped and hurt in the political aftermath, as if it was all some kind of game, another edition of Monday Night War. And as with so many reports of such inhumanity, we are led to heights of indignation and despair by the revelation, in hushed and horrified tones, that some of the victims were women and children. They killed women and children! The bastards! Women and children!
I oppose the death penalty for reasons having nothing to do with the morality of state-sponsored execution and everything to do with the inherent fallibility of human institutions. Nonetheless, reading in David Sylvester’s commentary (Aug 4) about the death sentences commuted by former Governor Pat Brown reminds me why the death penalty has such an appeal for so many people interested in justice.
The general state of race-relations in America has recently been highlighted nationally by President Clinton’s “Dialogue on Race”, and in California by ballot propositions like 187 (limiting government benefits to illegal immigrants) and 209 (eliminating state-sponsored affirmative-action). The desire for an unemotional and realistic conversation on race — where we stand, where we are headed, and where we want to be — is noble and desirable. It seems, however, that our initial attempts have been thwarted as much by the terms of the conversation as by the subject itself: just as the underlying context, assumptions, and forms of historical discrimination were largely defined by its beneficiaries (to whom ‘race-relations’ were a closed issue), the underlying context, assumptions, and forms of the fight against discrimination — and, more generally, of our discussions about race — have been largely defined by those to whom ‘race-relations’ have historically meant ‘race-based oppression’ — to whom ‘race-relations’ were very much an open issue and a dominant factor of their lives. While this is understandable, and perhaps even just, it almost ensures that racial difference is viewed and debated as a chasm to be crossed — or into which to fall — rather than as a boundary to be transcended.