©01 The Media Desk
http://themediadesk.com
OK. The Desk is All For World Peace.
Yes it is, sure thing. All for it. Amen.
Like the Ferringi in Star Trek say, "Peace is good for trade. Unless you're an arms dealer."
And you knew this was coming...
BUT!
What good does it do for some ditz in Hollywood to announce on national TV during a Christmas Parade that they think (it matters not a whit whether the ditz in question was male or female) everybody should remember the Christmas Spirit by uniting for World Peace? The Desk is sure ossama and Saddam and Mr. Arrafat and that crowd are all about remembering the Christmas Spirit.
The Desk would love the opportunity to ask said Hollywood type to explain exactly what flavor of Christmas Spirit the Taliban partook of? What was Christmas to Islamic Jihad or Hamas besides just another excuse to blow people up? On the Pakistan - India border, would they have a Christmas Truce since one side is Muslim and the other side Hindu?
For that matter... could this airhead from Hollywoodland even FIND Kashmir on the map?
Sometimes some of these people forget that everybody else in the World is NOT an American. They may not realize that there are countries in the world with not one, not two or three, but over a Dozen recognized semi-official languages, and maybe twice that in local dialects and variations. That there really are places where people that can read and write with some competence are actually a minority. And that there are countries in the world where what this Dingbat in the Parade spent on their hair would account for about half a family's yearly income.
The Desk realizes there are still wide-eyed liberals out there. Although most of them have at least stopped their whining for the time being.
Kathi Lee seems to have crawled into a hole. Rosie and the other 'I'm leaving the country' crowd has backed off their bellyaching. The only one still publicly proclaiming exactly how stupid he really is would be Phil Donahue, but nobody seems to be taking him seriously right now, they are just trotting him out as a sideshow act.
But they are still out there. The Political Correctness movement is still in full force, the anti-Jesus movement (dare the Desk call it the Anti-Christ Movement?) before Christmas became painfully obvious. We darenst offend anybody, lest they not like us.
How about a flash from the news division of the Desk?
Something like about a third of the world not only doesn't like us, they absolutely hate us and consider our breathing a waste of perfectly good air pollution. And on top of that, another third of the population of the world isn't worried about the US either way.
That and nothing, absolutely NOTHING an American Liberal says, be they The Reverend Jackson, or anybody else for that matter, is going to change that fact.
Face it. Muslim extremists that are willing to wear sneakers made out of plastic explosives or to drive a small boat up to the side of a US Navy ship and then blow themselves to pieces are not worried about the resulting air and water pollution from the act. The Taliban never considered there might be an endangered wild goat in the mountains of Tora Bora when they decided to make their last stand there. Good Mr. Arafat has most likely never even considered whether or not dynamite explosions in crowded nightclubs might add ozone to the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
You might as well ask some South American Jungle Tribe if they are worried about it.
But the bad thing about it is that these flaky types over here broker no argument. If you even try to engage them in intellectual debate about their causes, and ask for clear evidence and scientific proofs for what they are saying, you are branded as 'not caring' and 'intolerant' and 'brainwashed by the far right fanatics'. Never do they bury you under indisputable facts and observations dating back to the voyage of the Beagle.
It was easier to debate the Talib. They just shot you.
The only people out showboating for these causes are those that don't have to work two jobs to keep the power on and the bill collectors from towing something away. They are not worried about loosing their jobs, there is plenty of food in the fridge, nobody is telling them their kid is flunking out of school. Most likely none of their relatives are in jail or seriously ill. In their world, everything is hunky-dory, and they can get their shorts all twisted in a knot about some ugly little goat halfway up some mountain they can't pronounce in a country they wouldn't visit on a dare (they don't have concierge service at Hotel Tora Bora).
Look at the protesters at the World Bank Meetings. Nobody out there screaming about injustice for three days in a row had to punch a time clock at six in the morning to earn their daily bread. How many of them have had to apply for a secured credit card or post date a check to pay a bill?
Is it only the Idle Rich, the Upper Middle Class Gen X-ers, those bred of Old Money and Self Made Men that are out there hooting and hollering about all the ills of the world?
No. Not all. A lot of them are, but not all of them.
But they are the most annoying.
People actually involved on the ground floor of a cause... renter's rights, those forced out of jobs, those being screwed by the system... have every right to protest and draw attention to their cause. Those stewing about the plight of Afghan Women over brunch at some four and a half star café have no right to demand anybody else's tax money support the cause.
So who was this Hollywood 'that face and great hair' that got the Desk all worked up?
Does it matter?
Actress A, Actor B, Spokesmodel C, Fashion Plate D? They are all the same. The Bill and Hillary and Tom and Barbara and all the rest axis. When it comes to inflicting their ideals on the rest of us these people make the Moral Majority look like Social Drinking Line Dancers.
For the Desk's stand on the issues...
Thank you. The Desk feels better now...
There is one central idea to our system they cannot stand. Neither the Talib, nor the Liberals, nor the Social Engineers.
The Desk sees the root ideal of American Politics as: the Right to Be Left Alone.
They Disagree.
and loudly too