The Fall of the One-Party Empire
The Nation’s Jonathan Schnell has written an article that I can only describe as the rantings of a paranoid man. While there’s many examples of his paranoia, here are the rantings that caught my eye:
But where is the American empire now, where the new Rome? Where are its subject peoples, its provinces, its Macedonias and Carthages and Egypts, its victorious armies and triumphal parades? Where, for that matter, are its arts and letters, its Colossus of Rhodes, its Pyramids? Where is its Virgil? Would that be Bill O’Reilly, fountain of abusive misinformation, or Dan Bartlett, the White House Misspokesman? Can someone give me a tour of this realm? We might begin in Iraq. But perhaps we had better not. The tour would have to be cut short in the Green Zone, the American compound in downtown Iraq and the only “secure” territory in the country.
American empire? The new Rome? Bill O’Reilly as the “fountain of abusive misinformation? Dan Bartlett, the White House Misspokesman? Let’s hope, for his sake, that Mr. Scnell has stopped hyperventillating by now. This is one of the most extreme diatribes I’ve heard from a liberal and that’s saying alot, especially since Elisa and I have covered Barbara Boxer.
The first thing I’d do is recommend that Mr. Schnell take some history lessons so that he knows that America isn’t an empire in the sense of abiding conquerors. Unlike the British or French, when we’ve been part of winning coalitions, we’ve had a plan to turn control over to the inhabitants of that country.
Can someone give me a tour of this realm? We might begin in Iraq. But perhaps we had better not. The tour would have to be cut short in the Green Zone, the American compound in downtown Iraq and the only “secure” territory in the country.
According to Gen. Bob Scales, that’s no longer the case. Gen. Scales told Brit Hume a month ago that Iraqi troops are now patrolling the road between the airport and the Green Zone and that that stretch of road is no longer the danger zone that it once was. I still recall Brit saying “That’s the road where you drove 100 mph, right?” Gen. Scales said that that used to be the case but the Iraqi troops are so proficient at recognizing non-Iraqis that they’re eliminating those terrorists.
I’ve also wanted to point this out for a long time: There’s a pair of tactical reasons why the terrorists are positioned near the reporters’ hotels. The primary objective is to keep reporters from getting out into the parts of the city where improvements are taking place. The second objective is to hit enough soft targets so that the networks can film it and run it each night on the news.
And the one-party state at home? It was not the mirage that the empire was. The structure of the American state, and to a lesser extent the economy, really has been deeply altered. Real hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into the coffers of the GOP while real hundreds of billions poured into the pockets of the rich. Real laws were passed that tore gaping holes in the Bill of Rights. A real shift of the judiciary toward the radical right was set in motion. An unprecedented concentration of power, fusing government, corporations, the military, portions of the media and a hugely expanded secret police apparatus, was created. And yet this structure, too, has been shaken by recent events.
Well. I’m worried that this guy hasn’t taken his high blood pressure medication or his valium. Which “real laws were passed that tore gaping holes in the Bill of Rights”? What makes him think that there’s been a “real shift of the judiciary toward the radical right”? Is Mr. Schnell telling us that John Roberts sounded outside the mainstream of America? What verifiable information is Mr. Schnell using in support of his claims that “a hugely expanded secret police apparatus was created”? These aren’t the reporting of facts. They can’t even be considered the opinions of a well-informed pundit. They’re nothing short of the rantings of a paranoid, Bush-hating liberal who’s been let out of the Fever Swamp for awhile.
Cross-posted at BoxerWatch