Sunday, November 28, 2004
My apologies for the lack of posting. I'll try to get back into it in the weeks to come.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
The View From Overseas isn't pretty, according to Chris Allbritton.
This is the view from overseas. I'm in Beirut now, and I've had a couple of people -- Lebanese and British -- tell me that the American people have validated the last three years, years which are seen as universally disastrous. Before, there was a distinction drawn between the American government and the American people. A few nights ago, one cabbie told me that he thinks American people are very nice, but the American government is “very bad.” Now, as one of my friends said, “The American people are the problem.”
This will translate into increased hostility against Americans, especially in the Middle East. (I'm in Beirut at the moment.) The American government is seen as hopelessly biased against Arabs and Palestinians, but now the American people are culpable as well. I long thought America's European allies would welcome her back into the family of nations if Kerry won. Instead, they will hold the American people in even greater contempt than they already do.
After 9/11 I was damned scared of the future. Now I'm even more anxious about what lies before the world.
I'd guess that most people who live or work abroad (especially in the Arab world) are thinking this way these days. Allbritton is in Iraq, of course, which is orders of magnitude worse than anywhere else, but as someone who's worked in Palestine and Cairo -- and who's considering going back -- it gives me pause, too. Three years ago, it was sometimes difficult to convince people that I wasn't the enemy. With Bush winning the popular vote (no mandate, but still, he won), it just got a lot tougher to argue that Washington's foreign policy doesn't represent the will of the American people. As Allbritton says, "If the world's populace now sees the American people as "collaborators" with the Bush administration, welcome to Baghdad. Trust me, you won't like it."
This will translate into increased hostility against Americans, especially in the Middle East. (I'm in Beirut at the moment.) The American government is seen as hopelessly biased against Arabs and Palestinians, but now the American people are culpable as well. I long thought America's European allies would welcome her back into the family of nations if Kerry won. Instead, they will hold the American people in even greater contempt than they already do.
After 9/11 I was damned scared of the future. Now I'm even more anxious about what lies before the world.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Post-mortem. You should have seen San Francisco on Wednesday. From the glum faces on the train to the deflated mood at my office to the weather -- wind rain, hail -- it was a dark day. And this time around, we can't even take solace in the knowledge that victory was taken from us by partisans on the Supreme Court. We just straight-up lost. Billmon, as usual, came up with the perfect quote. It's from Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail," about the Nixon-McGovern race in 1972. I can remember reading this book back in high school; I didn't understand all of it, but one thing came through loud and clear: politics can be a very nasty business. Well, that goes double now:
This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it -- that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
