Adding to an Instalanche is more than a little like pissing into a rainstorm. But on the off chance you missed this link over at the big guy's blog, click and read it now.
Thank you sir. I'll drink to that, but make mine Beefeater!
Surprises me not to hear comparisons of these events with 1848. True, the peoples agitating then did re-subside to puddles, but the world is different now. Then we had, in the West, a doofus Manifesto by the dystopian crank Karl Marx; where is his positive, sensible, generous-spirited analogue today? I hereby invoke Tom Paine, and urge his re-reading by megaphone in public squares from Beirut to Kandahar. Islam need not remain a cryptofascist excuse for tyranny and violence; when the Mullahs attain requisite modesty, if not humility, under their own Law, maybe they'll deign to accommodate Jefferson's "decent respect for the opinions of Mankind."
I do believe the abiding power of America's liberating message is, at base, one with the Europe of Goethe, the Dreyfusards, Orwell's Spanish Republicans in their doomed Civil War against Franco on the Right, Stalin on the Left. Surely Europe will regain its roots, because it must; for inspiration, look beyond 1989 to Georgia, Ukraine; Iraq; now Lebanon and Syria. By 2006, may Mubarak's phony Nasserism, plus the deluded Caliph-ites of Teheran, lie broken and shattered, on rueful display like Lenin's statues pointing out crap-tables in Las Vegas.
As for Saudi Arabia: A colonial construct, preserved by geography and a diminishing extraction industry, hopelessly mired in its Wahabi death-cult. Like Pharaonic dung-beetles, like fleas infesting diseased camels, the regime's tribal elements burr and buzz in terrorist manure piles overdue for pickup by global Sanitation Squads.
Kudos to George Bush for undertanding One Big Thing, and acting on it. Shame, real shame, attend his opposition, which shuns legitimate debate on today's Great Issues in favor of (am I wrong?) their wardheelers' talking-points pegged solely to partisan political advantage.
America is winning the War on Terror thanks to Bush, no thanks to Reid, JFK, Boxer, Peolsi and Teddy. SOTU was right people want to be free - even Muslim people.
A must site! Also in awe of John Blake's grasp and phrase-turning! Wow!
