In a recent interview in the LA Weekly Gore Vidal manages his usual political/ideological contortionist act, managing to be both the personification of nativism and cosmopolitan elitism. This has to be the zenith of self-parody. According to this fellow who clearly thinks it's impossible to be too European, too German, or too French, and who has lived most of his recent life as an expatriate in Italy within a cocoon of anti-Americanism, "we Americans" ought to be "bugged" about journalists "coming over here from Ireland and such places... like Andrew Sullivan... telling us how to be." Nevertheless, believing his own countrymen too corrupt and foolish to preserve the liberties guaranteed in their Bill of Rights he preposterously advises, in his most recent book as well as in this interview, that the founding document ought to be routinely revised, Jefferson-fashion. By whom? He claims on the one hand to be outraged by the elitism of Bush, but who would he volunteer for such a condescendingly revisionist project? Surely not "the people" who are too stupid and corruptible? Who but a competing anti-American and Europeanized elite, myopically preoccupied with "little democracy."
And what must be an additional unintentional parody is Vidal's notion that the Patriot Act is a program of creeping despotic repression, while it nevertheless allows people like Ted Rall (whom Vidal must regard as one of the elite entitled to rewrite our Constitution for us) to seemingly not only cheer for the Baath and Al Qaeda as they kill American soldiers, but even to apparently urge them to murder UN and NGO aid workers:
In recent months we have opened a second front, against such non-governmental organizations as the United Nations (news - web sites) and Red Crescent. A typical response of the Bush junta to these actions was issued by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice: "It is unfortunate in the extreme that the terrorists decided to go after innocent aid workers and people who were just trying to help the Iraqi people." Do not listen to her. True, many aid workers are well intentioned. [Many? As in a significant number have evil intentions?] However, their presence [The well intentioned ones or the evil intentioned ones?] under American military occupation tacitly endorses the invasion and subsequent colonization of Iraq. Their efforts to restore "normalcy" deceives weak-willed Iraqi civilians and international observers into the mistaken belief that the Americans are popular here. There can be no normalcy, or peace, until the invader is driven from our land. From the psychological warfare standpoint, the NGOs represent an even more insidious threat to fight for sovereignty than the U.S. army.In this vein we must also take action against our own Iraqi citizens who choose to collaborate with the enemy. Bush wants to put an "Iraqi face" on the occupation. If we allow the Americans to corrupt our friends and neighbors by turning them into puppet policemen and sellouts, our independence will be lost forever. If someone you know is considering taking a job with the Americans, tell him that he is engaging in treason and encourage him to seek honest work instead. If he refuses, you must kill him as a warning to other weak-minded individuals.
But in Rall's defense (though not Vidal's), his article "Why We Fight" might not be as offensive as Andrew Sullivan asserts, because I'm pretty sure it's a satirical criticism aimed not at encouraging terrorists, but at discouraging an American counter-insurgency campaign that he feels encourages Iraqi terrorists. While it's more than a little insensitive and insufferably self-righteous to publish such a satire on Veteran's Day, it's not quite as depraved as it appears. Andrew must not have had his morning coffee before he penned that post. Well, it happens to all of us. If it were me, I'd do some quick editing.
Posted by Demosophist at November 13, 2003 10:38 AM | TrackBack