Posted by
The Hermit Crab on Monday, December 01, 2008 4:41:30 PM
I'm in too tense a mood to write anything profound these days, so I'm just going to type up my notes, and see what happens. Here goes...
Some have been a bit bewildered by the whirlygigging of David Brooks during and after this election campaign.
Ann Coulter wrote of this in her column of November 12 (and wrote well), but she didn't quite offer the conclusion that I would have. David Brooks is supposedly a conservative, but keep in mind that he is the pet conservative of the
New York Times. Calling someone a New York Times Conservative is rather like calling someone a
Vidkun Quisling Norwegian.
Thinking of the liberals wanting to called progressives these days (since "liberal" has become a dirty word -- not without reason), I am reminded of an interview I read once with Ian Anderson, the front man/flautist of the veteran British folk-rock group Jethro Tull. He was asked by the interviewer how the band came to be named Jethro Tull. He told the interviewer that when the band was starting out, it was not at all good, and the only way you could get return "gigs" at a club was to change your name, so that the club owners would think that you were a different band. "Jethro Tull" happened to be the name that they were using when they finally started to create good music.
The parallel is not perfect, however. Jethro Tull eventually became one of the finest folk-rock band in rock history. The liberal/progressives never change and never improve. They just play the same old sheet music, always off-key, and they never get any better or any smarter. They're still a kazoo at a funeral, except that the kazooist does no real harm.
I recently was written up at work for missing days due to illness. Most places, I believe, don't write up (or even potentially fire) employees for taking their sick days, but I am "represented" by a particularly useless local of UNITE-HERE. In the years I've worked at my company, I have never heard of them going to bat for anyone who is having problems with management. However, after getting us pay raises so small that they amount to pay cuts (after inflation), they have no reluctance to immediately raise our union dues year after year. I am told that this is how our lovely little union shop has always been.
Personally, I think that my union, and unions in general, would be more effective if they spent less time trying to get illegal immigrants the right to stay in our country (and drive down wages) and elect Democratic candidates who want to raise our taxes, increase regulations (which drive American jobs overseas), and more time trying to advance the interests of their dues-paying members.
Or would that be too much like work?
I have a nasty feeling that the Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan are saving their best efforts for the day when our new, neophyte President takes office. They have learned through painful experience that they cannot drive President Bush to withdraw our troops by attacking them, so I think that they will wait for Baby Barry to raise his hand on January 20th, and then they will raise Hell.
I confess that I have had the I'm-sure futile hope that President Bush would call his military leaders together and tell them something like "I'm on my way out as President. What have I to lose now? I'm giving you perhaps my final order -- find the terrorists, and WIPE THEM OUT. Every one you can find. No negotiations. No prisoners. No borders. If they run to Iran or Pakistan, get them there. If they want to go to Allah, we should give them the express ticket. Let's see them call THAT a win!"
Alas, 'tis not to be...
End of Part I.