Dean's World

The latest Carnival of the Capitalists is available at Ashish's Niti.

Yesterday was a day that will be remembered in the history books only if our intervention in Iraq ends successfully. Indeed I will go further-- the elections yesterday were indicative not of success, but rather of the fact that we have not yet failed...

Imagine if no one showed up at the elections yesterday-- that would have been a failure. Alternately, had there been a million deaths yesterday, that would also have been a failure. Since we had relatively high turnout at the elections (though not as high a turnout as Saddam had [note: this is where sarcasm tags would be handy]), and a relatively low death toll, we can say that our Iraq policy has not yielded disaster-- though nothing more than that...

Elections qua elections are not good enough. The end goal, I think, is an independent Iraq which respects the basic human rights of all its inhabitants. Elections do not bring this about: [1] constitutions dedicated to human rights and [2] citizens and [3] armies dedicated to preserving those constitutions bring this about. Yesterday we saw the first step towards the beginning of the creation of the first of these, during that time; we saw the first signs of the second. The third is so nascent that it almost doesn't bear mentioning...

Yesterday's elections were certainly [!] a day for hopeful smiles, but not a day for triumphant back patting. There is still a lot of work that needs doing. Overconfidence at this point could be deadly...

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and admit you probably made a mistake. I'm doing that now. And I hope that's the end of it.

Mea Culpa, Boi From Troy.

Our friend Val Prieto was prominently profiled today in the Miami Herald.

That's too cool! (His blog is right here.)

One of Friends of Democracy's Questions for Our Readers asked:

Do you think the American people have a good understanding of what is happening in Iraq?

We don't understand what it's like live in a state where neighbors and co-workers will inform on you for cash, where the threat that your leadership could inflict another genocidal attack like Halabja is always present. We don't understand how the combination of state control and constant fear can deaden the lives of millions. We also don't understand what happens when that regime ends.

Mohammed of Iraq the Model expressed it this way:

2003; the year of freedom.
Before you I was mute, and here goes my tongue praying for the best,
Before you I was hand-cuffed, and here are my hands free to write,
Before you my mind was tied to one thought and here I find wide horizons and greater thoughts,
Before you I was isolated, and here I join the wide universe.
I will never forget you; you broke the chains for my people, and rid us from the big jail.

As David Brooks said, Saddam's Baath Party slogan was "Unity, Freedom, Socialism." Saddam was, first and foremost, a party man. His regime was part of a larger ideology that still thrives.

Immigrants to America who have lived under similar regimes, like Ceausescu's Romania, Soviet Russia or China understand. Many are willing to talk about lives lived in fear, but not everyone is willing to listen.

At Kesher Talk, Judith Weiss describes the reaction when these immigrants tried to speak their minds during the Inauguration.

At least half of those who called on the "Republican line" [for C-SPAN's Congressional Inaugural Luncheon & Presidential Review of Honor Guard] are immigrants, from Eastern Europe, Cuba, the Middle East. They are all fervent Bush supporters and understand and approve of his foreign policy ideals.

Judith points out that "Of course many immigrants did exactly that and ended up tortured or imprisoned without trial, or had to flee for their lives."

People around the world suffer from a less overt form of oppression. Activists will blame this suffering on `poverty' or, of course, capitalism, but from Zimbabwe to Libya, it's clear that even the worst corporate villains can't impoverish and oppress a population with the efficiency of a socialist-inspired regime.

In photographs, Michael Totten shows us a Libya where 99% of the people on the street are men, where even the mountains are plastered with state propaganda, where history is being erased and portraits of the great leader are everywhere. Despite Ghaddafi's apparent flakiness, his regime is very efficient.

Oppressive regimes are responsible for most of the starvation in the third world. According to Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution, "Africa could grow food for the world if its people were politically free to do so." Tyrants, not capitalism, are responsible for the twin scourges of poverty and starvation.

Although they claim to be anti-poverty and anti-oppression most Left-leaning activists don't seem to be able to handle the truth - or they actively suppress it. Amir Taheri describes this incident at a peace rally:

We managed to reach some of the stars of the show, including Reverend Jesse Jackson, the self-styled champion of American civil rights. One of our group, Salima Kazim, an Iraqi grandmother, managed to attract the reverend's attention and told him how Saddam Hussein had murdered her three sons because they had been dissidents in the Baath Party; and how one of her grandsons had died in the war Saddam had launched against Kuwait in 1990.

"Could I have the microphone for one minute to tell the people about my life?" 78-year-old Salima demanded.

The reverend was not pleased.

"Today is not about Saddam Hussein," he snapped. "Today is about Bush and Blair and the massacre they plan in Iraq." Salima had to beat a retreat, with all of us following, as the reverend's gorillas closed in to protect his holiness.

We next spotted former film star Glenda Jackson, apparently manning a stand where "antiwar" characters could sign up to become "human shields" to protect Saddam's military installations against American air attacks.

"These people are mad," said Awad Nasser, one of Iraq's most famous modernist poets. "They are actually signing up to sacrifice their lives to protect a tyrant's death machine."

Yesterday, Iraqis finally got their chance to have the microphone. We saw them weeping with joy at the ballot box, we saw them defy terror for their chance to be heard. Critics complain about Bush and the neo-con conspiracy, but they can't deny the power of those images. They can't deny the power that the once mute feel when they're finally allowed to speak.

...sometimes it isn't so obviously pretty. I do have a fair libertarian streak, and I usually favor gradualist reforms in government to move toward libertarian ideas (it's why I like much of what I see in President Bush's "Ownership Society" vision). But there can be pitfalls to such thinking.

Here's a thought, for example: let's say that if you're a generally libertarian-minded person, you may think prostitution should be legal. Maybe regulated so it can only be practiced in certain places and under certain circumstances. Maybe you even want to see it licensed and so on. Well those are very interesting ideas. When I was younger I enthusiastically would have embraced such an idea, and not because I use prostitutes' services. (Actually I never have, although I'd be a liar if I said there weren't times, when I was single and lonely, that I didn't think hard about it.) Instinctively I've always thought, "this is private business between consenting adults." The problem is I've seen the lives that many prostitutes live and it's pretty awful. There may be "happy hookers" in this world but they are almost certainly a distinct minority, and the number of 13, 14, 16 year old girls who get trapped in "the life" and are destroyed by it is rather horrifying.

The libertarian response is that if it were regulated and taxed, then law enforcement could spend its time going after abusers who use children, trap women into it, or whatever. Well, fine. But here's an interesting twist: our welfare laws now threaten to pull people off of welfare if they refuse jobs they are qualified to do. So, if prostitution is legal and regulated, could we threaten to pull a woman's Social Security or welfare benefits if she refused work as a prostitute?

Silly example you say? Uhm, no. It's apparently being debated now in Germany.

Hmm. I suppose the ultimate libertarian response is "completely do away with the welfare state and replace it entirely with private insurance." Uh huh. So should it be legal for private disability insurance to make such requirements? Me? I guess I'm enough of a statist to say "I don't think so."

(Via Lovely SondraK.)

My favorite the picture of the week--really there were several of these--was of the Iraqi woman holding her baby as she voted. This is probably the best of them all:

(Click image to enlarge)

But you know, this one comes a close second:

(Click image to enlarge)

Know who that is?

A member of Iraq's new armed forces. A man who's put his own life on the line to protect Iraqi lives from terrorist "insurgents" whose only mission is to deny freedom to his people.

Know what he's doing in this photo?

He's fighting fascism. He's fighting rabid religious fundamentalism.

He's VOTING!

(First noticed by Command Post's Alan Brain, who notes for Michael Moore and his vile apologists who Iraq's real Minute Men are.)

By the way, I also absolutely love Smash's photo-essay.

I already said this, but it's worth saying again and Roger Simon is saying it well: it's time to stop calling them "insurgents".

Joe Gandelman writes a very personal memoir about Auschwitz, and holocaust denialists, and how remembering these things is important more than anything because it makes us remember the evil that can be wrought in the name of ideology. Read it here.

Those of you looking for some kitchen fun will want to be sure to check out this week's Carnival of the Recipes over at Kin's Couch.

Iraq won. America won. The human race won.

Immediately after polls closed, the New York Times grudgingly released their big story: "Amid Attacks, A Party Atmosphere on Baghdad's Closed Streets." You almost had to admire the Times' pluck: they so wanted tragedy, but they were grudgingly admitting the truth.

But then, barely four hours after polls closed, they changed the headline on the exact same story to this: Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24

You have to laugh, don't you?

Millions upon millions voted despite being told that they and their families would be murdered--then walked the streets proudly waving their inked fingers, undeniable proof of their exercise of the franchise, showing everyone what they'd just done for themselves, their families, and their country.

Thousands of polling places were open and, despite our worst fears, only a handful saw any violence at all. At the few places that did see violence, people still showed up in droves to vote anyway.

Terrorists--and please, can we now dispense with the Orwellian term "insurgent?"--were openly defied and in some cases beaten senseless by enraged voters armed with nothing but their shoes.

Countless millions walked miles to vote. In one case, a polling place had to be opened over 10 miles away from its original location at the last moment--and people by the thousands streamed on foot, some of them on crutches, just to get there.

There's an old joke about walking a mile to smoke a camel. Well, these people walked ten miles on crutches just to smoke a terrorist.

How can your heart not burst with admiration?

Millions upon millions--including women and members of every minority group--voted for the first time in their lives. Even in neighboring Iran and Syria, expatriate Iraqis were able to vote while native Iranians and Syrians, still denied the right to vote in their own nations, looked on in wonder as freedom was exercised by their Iraqi friends.

And this is what the New York Times thought the most important, take-home message was: "Insurgent Attacks in Baghdad and Elsewhere Kill at Least 24."

They couldn't even call them terrorists.

I'm sure it'll get worse in the coming days. After all, these are the people who for two years now have consistently painted the greatest American military success story since 1945, and the lowest casualty rate in world history, as a "quagmire" that's "spinning out of control." These are the people who've given free voice to the modern reactionaries who speak of "imperialism" and "hubris," who demand that our poltical leaders "admit" failure, and compare terrorists who bomb hospitals and cut civilians' heads off to America's minutemen.

For two years, despite all of this anti-American propagandizing from our own press corps, our brave men and women in the armed forces have been protecting human rights, opening schools and hospitals and power plants and water and sewage treatment centers, stringing telephone and internet wires and helping to open free radio and television stations and newspapers. All while the naysayers just sneered. Then the naysayers and the petty, carping critics could do nothing but bite at GI Joe's ankles while he was setting up safety zones so that the Iraqis could hold free elections.

Then, while native Iraqi police and army did most of the security work, millions upon millions defied the terrorist threats and voted--while GI Joe stood quietly aside, blocks away from the polling stations and careful to stay out of the way. Our boys and girls were there, ready to help but only if called upon by the Iraqis themselves. And for the most part, they weren't needed. So they stayed out of sight all over the country, while the Iraqis had their much-deserved day of freedom without our intrusion.

Yes yes. "Insurgents In Baghdad And Elsewhere Kill 24." That's the take-home message. You have to laugh, don't you?

Well, soon it'll be back to talk of our imperialism and our hubris and our inability to "admit failure." We'll see prominent interviews with sullen Iraqis who didn't vote, or who complain that things still aren't perfect. Rarely will anyone note the irony that the freedom to complain is something these people never used to have, and that the freedom to vote includes the freedom not to vote if you don't want to.

Almost two years ago, on February 15, 2003, long before our military action to liberate Iraq from fascist tyrannty began, I started the following internet button campaign:

I remember the names I got called for that. The sneers at my character and at anyone who would display such a button. I remember being called an imperialist, a "Bush apologist," a right-wing propagandist, a liar, and worse by the kind of people who read things like Daily Kos and Metafilter and Democratic Underground and Truthout and Indymedia and The Nation. By the kind of people who make excuses for lying hate-propagandists like Michael Moore. But those voices, they just get smaller, and tinnier, and funnier, and sadder, all the time.

Today, with the exception of the days my sons were born, I have never felt prouder. All of us bloggers who supported Iraq's liberation from fascism, all of us who worked against the relentlessly defeatist American press corps, have something to be proud of. We were nowhere near as important as those who served in the military, nowhere near as important as the countless Iraqis who took control of their own fate despite the those who said the Iraqis "didn't want" or were "incapable of" democracy. Our role was small.

But we mattered. We let people know that most of the press wasn't telling the full story. We let people know that the press wanted us to fail, wanted us to lose. We let people know there was reason for hope and optimism. We let people know this was a fight worth fighting, a cause worthy of American blood and treasure.

By the way, remember this?

I never forgot.

We were right.

This list is obviously biased in favor of the famous. Still, it's a nice way to kill time...

Message for the Whiny Crybaby Losers who've done nothing but sneer and piss on these historic elections in Iraq for the last year:

72% turnout, you reactionary, anti-progressive, anti-humanist pissants.

Even Reuters can't deny it:

Some came on crutches, others walked for miles then struggled to read the ballot, but across Iraq, millions turned out to vote Sunday, defying insurgents who threatened a bloodbath.

Suicide bombs and mortars killed at least 27 people, but voters still came out in force for the first multi-party poll in 50 years. In some places they cheered with joy at their first chance to cast a free vote, in others they shared chocolates.

Even in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited to vote.

"We want to be like other Iraqis, we don't want to always be in opposition," said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after he voted.

But the best set of quotes by far are these from Iraqi bloggers.

The WCLs must be practically turning themselves into pretzels trying to twist this all into tragedy and failure.

On January 14th, I wrote here that I didn't understand the flap over Prince Harry dressing as a Nazi for a costume party. I called people who were trashing him "oversensitive." I think I was wrong, because I don't think I quite thought it through.

I read a story on CNN today about a guy who was auctioning off his collection of Klan robes (my understanding is that the guy is not some big Klan sympathizer, but rather a person interested int he KKK's history - which is fine.) I wondered to myself while reading this if I would ever wear one of those robes to a costume party. I answered myself with a resounding "No."

Then I thought of a comment a fellow blogger, Alan, left on one of my posts about how his father's grandparents' home was parachute bombed by Nazis. Then I wondered how my friend Eliot and his family might feel if I showed up at their Halloween party wearing a Nazi uniform - knowing full well that they may have had relatives who died in Auschwitz or Bergen Belsen. And finally, I wondered how many of my Jewish relatives on my mother's side of my family died in the Holocaust? (My mom was a foster child, so we don't know the answer to this question. But still...)

Like KKK Robes, Nazi uniforms belong in museums. We should never forget that either group existed. And we should forever respect the fact that these uniforms have a profound effect on people whose destruction was the goal of the people who wore them.

I've changed my mind.

Well, I thought it was going surprisingly well in Iraq, but apparently some people don't seem to think so.

Here's the latest on Operation Give's Tsunami Relief effort.

Oh, and guess who won a cool award?

He made me look at this.

Aaaagh! It burns! It burns!!!!

It's interesting to see the early exit polling in Iraq. Apparently John Kerry has developed a decisive lead...

Okay just kidding. Still it's impressive. The press is also predictable: thousands of polling stations opened, millions people voting, and the only front page news from most sources online is the handful of violent incidents.

I'm not even going to go to the sickening places where I know they'll already be gloating over the violence. Some soi-disant "progressives" make me want to barf, they really do.

So far the word is that every group but the Sunnis is turning out in big big numbers. No surprise. Much still relies on the Sunnis, but not in my view as much as some think; the Shia Arabs and the Kurds will have much opportunity after the election to reach out to the Sunnis and prove that they're willing to give them a fair shake. Of course they may not do that, but I sense most of them realize they're better off hanging together.

Powerline is doing some good Iraqi election roundup work by the way. See for example Early Returns and The Cause For Which Fern Holland Died. Then just hit the top of their page, I'm sure they'll have more.

* Update * Also, don't miss this moving photo. And, PoliBlogger has a roundup of election links from all over.

Sometimes when companies try to seem hip and relevant in their marketing, they try a little too hard.

(Via Gerund.)

Blaster notes that Orson Scott Card seems to have foreseen blogging in his books on Ender.

Good point.

Joy: I just . . . everything seems so dark sometimes. And I don't always know what to do with my anger.

Mike: Me neither. But unlike me, you don't have to worry about killing people.

At that point, light dawned and I began to see how physical strength might actually be a curse.

On the other hand, I remember sitting in a 12-step meeting ten years ago or so and hearing an older woman I respected and admired—a lanky Texas lesbian—say that she wanted to be small and cute and feminine.

Cross-talk isn't allowed at 12-step meetings; we don't comment on what other people share. But I wanted to say, "no, really. You don't."

The grass is always greener, no?

Every man doesn't have lethal power over every woman, using only his bare hands. But many do men do have this power over their wives and girlfriends.
1) Is this physical power difference present in your relationship? Does it follow gender lines? Does it have an effect? No? Not ever?

And, 2) If you grew up in a household where physical punishment/abuse wasn't a factor, did you nonetheless find that your relationship with your parents changed once you got old enough that they could no longer dominate you physically? Even without the threat of force, did removing the theoretical possibility of force alter things?

In Australia, extremists harassed Iraqis leaving a polling station by threatening them and taking photographs. There was a fight and a bomb scare.

Mr Hogan said [the protesters] were holding the same black flag with white lettering that has appeared as a backdrop in videos released by Iraqi insurgents featuring foreign hostages.

International Organisation for Migration Iraqi adviser Thair Wali said the protesters' flag and Arabic slogans identified them as Wahabis, or followers of an austere brand of Sunni Islam practised mostly in Saudi Arabia.

Mr Wali said the fight was sparked by protesters taking photographs of voters leaving the station

Joe Gandelman has the weekend off--and I'm tired.

Anyone got any interesting links?

(Open thread.)

A recently returned marine is in desperate need of a liver donation. Not sure who can help, but, Chuck Simmins has the details.

I've often been called a cynic. Often, I am one. But there is something I've come to believe through long experience:

Cynicism is cheap and shallow.

Discuss.

Three cases of beer and an avalanche.

An inspiration to men everywhere.

(Via Gerund.)

This morning, two recent headlines at the New York Times regarding the elections in Iraq tell you all you need to know about the Times as a "news" organization:

"Shiite Faction Ready to Shun Sunday's Election in Iraq" By DEXTER FILKINS

...and:

"Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam" By TODD S. PURDUM

You know, I never thought I'd say I outright hate the people at the New York Times, but you know what?

I hate those reactionary, anti-progressive, anti-humanist, illiberal bastards. I really do.

In the late 20th century, the right was forced to confront Mussolini and Franco and, ultimately, Hitler. They had their noses rubbed in those men and the movements they represented. As reluctant as most of them were, most of them were honest enough--sooner or later--to confront all that full in the face.

Still to this day, the left has refused to allow itself to be confronted full in the face with Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. Instead, most of them still make excuses, or bloviate and act offended and change the subject when someone brings it up.

This may ultimately be the most important difference between left and right today.

• A note impaled in van Gogh’s chest threatened prominent politicians and vowed Islamic holy war, or jihad, against nonbelievers.

  A bystander who witnessed the crime yelled at van Gogh’s killer "You can’t do that!" to which the suspect replied: "Oh, yes I can. ... Now you know what’s coming for you."

• Bouyeri’s lawyer, Peter Plasman, said his client "wants to take responsibility for his actions" but gave no further explanation. He said Bouyeri agrees with the interpretation of Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm that van Gogh’s killing was a declaration of war.

The Dutch media believe that Bouyeri attended the El Tawheed mosque, an institution that shared Bouyeris views. It is considered to be the epicenter of extremism in Amsterdam.

This mosque was previously associated with a Saudi-based charity, Al Haramain. Recently, the mosque has been criticized for selling books espousing extremist views, including female circumcision and the punishment of homosexuals by throwing them off tall buildings. According to the IHT, "several legislators have called for the mosque to be shut down, but under the Dutch constitution it is difficult to do."

According to the German publication, Der Spiegel, the killer’s actual target was Dutch legislator Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali immigrant. She and other legislators were so unable to ensure their security against extremist death threats, they had to leave the Netherlands to hide in the United States.

In short, a Western nation can’t defend its legislators against an occupying paramilitary group.

Fortunately, Hirsi Ali has returned. According to Spiegel’s report:

Hirsi Ali made championing the cause of Muslim women her career and eventually got elected to parliament. When the ambassador of Saudi Arabia called for her to be removed from office because of her polemics against Islam she just scored even more points with Dutch voters. In a survey of the most-popular Dutch people in 2003, she landed in second place.

Hiris Ali’s homeland of Somalia understands something about Saudi influence. Somali journalist Bashir Goth wrote about the influence of Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi Islam in Somalia:

"Nowadays, it is sad to see… that the ideal harmony between Islam and Somali culture is swept aside by a new brand of Islam that is being pushed down the throat of our people - Wahhabism. Anywhere one looks, one finds that alien, perverted version of Islam that depends on punctilious manners more than it depends on deep-rooted faith. A strange uniformity… has crept into the social manners of our people. The unique fashion and identity of our people has changed forever. We have become a people without fashion, without culture, and without identity…

"It is a pity… to see that, at a time when Saudi Arabia, the home of Wahhabism, is reassessing the damage that Wahhabism and extremism had done to their country's name and to the reputation of Islam all over the world… that Wahhabism has to find a save-haven in our country."

… "These people love to live in the dark. They thrive on the silence of the unwilling intellectuals and the gullibility of the ignorant majority. They hide under the cloak of religion and scare people with their indiscriminate use of terms such as blasphemous, infidels, apostates, sacrilegious, atheists, westernized minds and many others. They use the available democratic atmosphere to herd us towards the abyss.

One result of the Wahhabi influence on the Somailis from the BBC:

Militias from the Islamic courts set up in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, are destroying a colonial Italian cemetery.

They are digging up the graves and dumping human remains near the airport.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan says he was horrified to see a large number of abandoned human skulls. Young boys were playing with one as a toy.

Saudi agents uprooted graveyards in Kosovo even before the war began there in the late 1990s, and Wahhabi missionaries have sought to demolish Sufi tombs in Kurdistan. Late in 2002, the Saudi government tore down the historic Ottoman fortress of Ajyad in Mecca, causing outrage in many Muslim countries.

Deep in all of us is a revulsion at certain behavior - torture, beheadings and the physical abuse of the weak and powerless, for example. Whether it's in our DNA or our souls, revulsion, I believe, makes us more human. By turning away with a feeling of violent disgust at certain acts, we shun the perpetrators. They are not recognizably part of anything with which we can identify. They are beyond the pale, outside the bounds of acceptable and civilized behavior.

But in Saudi Arabia these activities are an established part of their culture and their laws. World leaders know about this, but they don’t turn away from them in disgust. Instead, they encourage these Wahhabis to join our society.

Wahhabi 'charities' still contribute heavily to American Universities, mosques, pacifist groups and Muslim special interest groups.

So, who do these Wahhabis think they are? Apparently they think they have the right to influence and attempt to overthrow established governments around the world. And the world is not doing enough to prove them wrong.

First, no. I don't think Boi From Troy is a liar. I actually think he's a very nice guy, and I enjoy his site. But a post he wrote today illustrates perfectly what I said earlier about being honest when you write about your opponents. You cannot expect people to take you seriously in your criticism of them if they know you lie or mislead people about them - even a couple times. Today's post:

I knew most Democrats were opposed to Life for all humans, but now shocking poll results reveal most Democrats are also against Liberty!

In the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released yesterday (1/27/05), respondents were asked, "In George W. Bush's inauguration speech he said, "The survival of liberty our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." Do you agree or disagree with this statement?"

While 57% of the country agreed, a startling 55% of Democrats said, "NO."

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

• If you believe America will be free no matter what happens in other lands, you should vote "No."
• If do not believe that THE SUCCESS of liberty of other countries will increase our own, you must vote "No."

There are many situations because of that poorly-worded question where one would vote "No"...unless, of course, the respondent is so partisan that the only thing they think about when answering a polling question is not honesty, but how good it makes President Bush look, and how it will affect his numbers.

In any case, saying that "Most Democrats Oppose Liberty" is misleading at the very best, and a downright lie at its worst. I know Boi From Troy is smart. I know he knows how to read. And I know that the poll question was not that complex. So I can only conclude that his intent was to lie - and hope you'd overlook it.

Update: I've made an update to this post. Please read it.

The difference between men and women is: Men forget but never forgive. Women forgive but never forget.

I can never forget what he did in the Tawana Brawley case back in the 1980s, but... well... I hate to admit it, but...

I kinda like Al Sharpton.

(God help me, it's the truth. I just can't help myself.)

BWAHA! Point made, Bryan. Point made.

Heh. Heheh.

I always enjoy watching Evan Coyne Maloney's interviews of street protestors. They're sort of like what The Daily Show does but from the opposite political side. His latest is on soi-disant revolutionaries at the Presidential inauguration.

Now you can buy your own talk show host and help Fisher House too.

So far it looks like he's cheaper than Armstrong Williams, but there's 5 days to go on the bidding....

(Via Jeff Quinton.)

Chuck Simmins notes that Americans are withing striking distance of a billion dollars in private donations toward Tsunami relief.

That's not counting any of the U.S. government expenditures of course, which are huge and growing daily.

Bryan, a Christian himself, is annoyed by certain Christian t-shirts.

I can see where he's coming from, although part of me thinks, "enh, come on, it's just a joke right?"

Tell you what, Bryan: I'll help you abolish the "Jesus Cola" t-shirts if you'll help me abolish the "Left Behind" books.

While we're at it, can we abolish Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson? Also, just in the spirit of ecumenicism, Abe Foxman and Ron Barrier?

(Please note: use of the term "abolish" above is meant humorously and not literally.)

Quoth Ted Turner recently, when asked about why Fox News is so much more popular than his own or any competing cable news networks: "Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany in the early 1930s than people that were running against him."

Quoth Fox News: "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind - we wish him well."

My own take on Fox News: they are successful because they found a niche market that no one had ever served before: half of America.

(Yeah, yeah, before anyone starts lecturing me: I really don't watch the television news much, but it's clear to me that Fox News is moderate center-right and nothing more; anyone who says it's worse than that is just revealing their own biases. And anyone who compares it to Nazi propaganda looks as idiotic as people who fulminate that CBS News is nothing but communist propaganda.)

We don't get many art submissions around here. I'm not sure why, since we're always up for an interesting submission. I've been sitting on these for a while too, with no real excuse:

These are by Dr. B.:

Einstein's Yoyo (click image to view full size)

Einstein's Yoyo 2 (click image to view full size)

Einstein's Yoyo 3 (click image to view full size)

The Real Number Line According To Eccles (click image to view full size)

Our friend Smash got a copy of the first email sent out by the new Secretary of State to employees at Foggy Bottom. It doesn't say all that much but it's still interesting to read.

But then, I admit, I am a huge admirer of Secretary Rice.

Does anything good happen in the Islamic world? Well, how about:

* reformists stirring across the region

* Israel and Egypt signing the most important agreement since the peace deal 25 years ago

* explosion of blogs in Iran

* reform movement launched in Kuwait

* less forced burqa in Pakistan

* Palestinians - getting more peaceful and democratic?

* anti-jihad TV campaign in Saudi Arabia

* peace deal in Sudan leading to revival

You can read about all this and more in Art Chrenkoff's latest Good News From the Muslim World roundup.

In this essay sent to us from Robert Hightower, Mr. Hightower's colleague Vassar Bushmills reports what one old hand thinks about the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. It is a long essay, and one that requires close reading to pick up everything. Some will call it racist and sexist. I call it a damned fine piece of writing. --Dean

CLEANING UP DODGE

By Moses Sand — as told to Vassar Bushmills.

Most of this conversation was taped on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Staked Plains in the Texas Panhandle in May, 2004. Moses likes to use "God's Nature" as a backdrop for his observations, and has no compunction to drive two-three days while "writing." — V.B.

"Moses, you know Muslims all over the world. A lot of people say they are medieval, they have no desire for democracy, that democracy is neither in their nature nor their religion. Do you think Islam is amenable to democracy? Was it a good idea to try to steer them toward democracy?"

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pack of Toms, tore one corner with his mouth, and squeezed out a single peanut into his fingers. Putting it in his mouth, he said, "Sure they can. Good idea, too... though I suspect it could fall flat on its face.

"You know, used to, we gave parades for people who tried the hard things. Wrote books about 'em. We encouraged, even declared as noble the kind of people who, if they fell, would pick themselves up, dust off, and start out again."

"We don't do that any more.

"In fact, I'm not sure if America even likes that sort of person anymore. Hell, a lot of people downright hate it. In a world where common sense is considered radical thinking, you can see where courage might also be seen as a sign of poor upbringing.

"I guess you know that's what the real war's all about, by the way. In the end, I expect success or failure over there in Iraq depends on how we see ourselves these days, as much as it does on how well we can kill terrorists. That's the real vote going on in America's soul this year.

"Personally, I get a measure of amusement out of watching polls rise and fall based on daily news stories. If you have a memory, go back and you'll see that through it all ol' Bush's never varied in a thing he said from the first day. Nor has he lied. The first time America met the Germans head-on in World War Two, they kicked our ass. A place called Kasserine Pass in North Africa. I don't recall anyone asking for Ike's head after that fight, let alone FDR's. Ten times more Americans died there in a few hours than have died in over a year in Iraq. You can look it up.

"So, when I see that sixty percent of Americans say the Iraq war wasn't worth it one day, compared to sixty who said it was a helluva good idea a year earlier, that says more about America than it ever did about ol' Bush.

"What it really says is that anybody will lay a bet on a fight when it looks like a sure thing.

"Well, in wars, just like bar fights, there's two kinds of bystanders. First are those who take sides no matter what the outcome. They have a stake it in... could be family, philosophy, money. Who knows? Then there's those who just sort of naturally glide to the sideline, waiting to see which way the fight tilts. Them? Their most over-powering urge is to look like they came out on the winning side in the end. Both are natural human conditions. You see it everywhere. The stakes determine.

"What worries me is when the fight is about something as important as a person's stake in his own House, and his own House's stake in his own democracy, it makes you kinda worry... that so many, almost fifty percent now, are sidling off to the side to see who wins before they cast their vote. That means they don't know a damned thing about the real stakes in this fight. They don't know a damned thing about their democracy anymore, because they don't really know a damned thing about their own House.

"It's also probably why the people of Baghdad became so quiet after that shoe-slapping spree. Remember? Same as right out here a hunnerd and fifty years ago. It was why townsfolk, peeping out shop windows when the marshal was staring down outlaws in the street, didn't yell out, 'Look out, Sheriff, there's one up there on the roof!' Think about it. What if that guy on the roof nails the marshal... which was most likely in those days? What if ol' Bush really loses? Far too many people for my taste want to position themselves to damn his soul to hell if he does lose, but be able up to rush to his side if he wins, so they can say, 'We was always right there behind you, Dubyah.'

"The sad truth, Mr. Bushmills, it's those people that carry an election nowadays, for there's an overabundance of cowards, lawyers' wives and other reformed whores among 'em."

"Women?"

He picked out another peanut, and grinned.

"To my mind, the greatest threat to democracy today is women without men, and men without willies. Both vote more often than everyone else... and people striving to build real houses need to stop and ponder."

I laughed a little at the mental image of the people he was talking about, for we all know them.

"I'm not trying not to be funny here. It's a serious thing. This brood represents a large part of American society that has lost sight of their House... a bunch that takes the existence of prosperity and security as granted as a little girl sleeping in her mother's arms in church. And they've lost sight in part because they don't know where it came from, and in part because they think they're above it. They have pretensions of being civilized above democracy, sort of like the French... only ... and here's the rub... there ain't nothing above democracy that is permanent. Regular people know that.

"But war has a place in a woman's heart that goes beyond mere politics. A woman's hatred of fighting runs just as deep as a man's love for it. Only difference is, men have done a better job of channeling that into less deadly arenas, while still keeping the real thing in reserve when needed. Women still ain't figured sports out.

"A mother, as you know, will defend her brood more viciously than any man. Put her cubs in danger, look out. A man can't match a woman for sheer meanness when the kids are at risk. Right?"

I nodded.

"Problem is, while she'll give her neighbor a cup of sugar without blinking, she's far less apt to send her husband over next door to fend off thugs attacking her neighbor's house. It's in her nature to rebel against sending her men-folk to the edge of town, let alone the next county, or godferbid, across the sea, to defend her nest. She's not dumb, she can make the connection, she just don't want to. She'll paw around at the ground, clench her fist and shake it at the heavens, postpone and postpone, hoping God will relieve her of this worry. But she won't act preemptively.

"So in the end, she's more apt to wait 'til the front gate's been knocked down, the front door kicked in, and she's retreated to the basement in one corner, sheltering her cubs... before she finally decides to get mean. 'Course, by then, it's too late.

"That's why both a man and a woman make up the true House and why the true House is crucial to a surviving democracy. They decide together."

After a pause, "It would help if both voted," he said with a sigh.

"You see, most politicians are natural-born cowards, and the vote is how they get their oil checked. Politics is more emotional and less rational today because more man-less women and pecker-less men vote. Politicians just reflect the mood of the times. They woulda been on the wrong side in Gomarrah, too.

Taking another peanut, "Against an enemy who ain't gonna quit, and who will kill or be killed, in their heart of hearts mothers only see two options.

"One, wait 'til they get up on the porch... and I just described how that works. Well, terrorists already done that, in New York and Washington. Only this is where a type of woman is apt to water down just what it is to be an American. A gal down in Prescott figures that would be last place the terrorists would come to kill, so, whether she likes it or not, a little voice tells her that "America" don't include New York anymore. Arizona's home. That's called "parochialism" until a sophisticated lady thinks it.

"Well, once you admit that to your own heart, there's no question who's holding all the cards. The terrorists don't have to blow up Phoenix in order to get that woman to start re-ordering her loyalties. All they have to do is cause the re-location of her men.

"In a complete House, there's a counter-balance to this impulse. In cases of security, the husband always carries the trump, just as the wife does in other situations. Although a woman might stomp and screech, I never saw a home break up because of a husband or a son voted to go past the front gate to defend the House... or to help a neighbor.

"But a lot of American houses, all doomed to fall in a generation or two anyway, for other reasons, don't have that balance anymore, so they can't see the stakes. Those are the ones who worry me.

"I'm not demeaning women in general, as most women still won't succumb to that nagging little urge to remove America from their House. But you better believe a woman in Omaha, seeing her son march off to Iraq, secretly wonders if it's all worth it, since the terrorists seem to want to blow up places she don't really care that much about anyway. Imagine my mother if they'd blown up the Playboy mansion in Chicago.

"All I'm saying is that, in a pinch, with all the cards played, a mother would no more voluntarily send her son off to defend a neighbor than a lawyer would give a refund.

"And for looking down the road, you better know moms with ten-year olds today are looking there to. Which leads to the other option moms secretly lean to."

"What's that?"

"Incinerate 'em. The whole damned lot. Just like Phil Sheridan and George Custer. A good Injun is a dead Injun.

"'In victories he was swimmin', he killed children, dogs and wimmin', but the General, he don't ride well anymore.'

"Johnny Cash wrote that.

"It's been proved time and again that when people become so removed from violence as to no longer be able to see its curative power in the face of Evil or certain death, once they've used up their sparse arsenal of non-violent tools to do battle with Old Clootie... the over-civilized will usually try to bribe him or talk him to death... they almost immediately lunge to the extreme and go nuclear.

"Nope, there's a lotta ways to win this fight, but none of 'em include not putting some mother's son at risk, and too just many women hate that, and politicians don't know how to handle that.

"Funniest thing, too, since we don't have a draft anymore, everybody overlooks the fact these mothers' sons are all volunteers, of contract-making age. I've never understood the sheer idiocy of making a parent or wife a spokesman for an adult who made his own choice. If I was to be taken hostage over there... come close a couple a times in other parts of the world... the most horrible thought I could ever have is that my mother, God rest her, would suddenly have been asked to comment on foreign policy by some idiot with a microphone. That fear alone probably saved my life more than once."

He looked off into the darkening plains for maybe three, four minutes without saying a thing.

"This idea of America being at war with itself, the Untied States of America, it's been a long time coming, especially in your generation... and it figures prominently in whether the Middle East will actually get democracy or not.

"But just so you'll know, if this fight in Iraq fails, it won't be Mohammed's religion or Arabs who'll cause it to fail."

He paused and squeezed another peanut.

"Look out there", he said, pointing north toward badlands "When you see land this harsh you wonder just how anything as civilized as democracy could ever fan out over it. Ever wondered about that?"

Moses waved his hand over the horizon, but I looked a little quizzical.

"No, seriously, think about it. Have you ever paused to reflect what it took, in blood, sweat and tears to make it so that that family living out there," — he said, as he pointed to a distant telephone pole — "without a neighbor for miles, can actually read a book after dark, or go to sleep without a shotgun under the bed? Or get a wife to the hospital?

"It's a universal law that most people want, always have wanted, and always will want what those few ranchers out here in the llano estacado have right now...laws that organize and protect their water, their food, their livelihoods, and protect their peaceful intercourse with their neighbors."

I chimed in, "But that's because civilized people came here."

"That's just my point, son. They never were all that civilized, and out here it ain't all that civilized, even now. Can't be. The sky determines."

"Civilization isn't the same as democracy so they should never be used interchangeably, as some try. Most things come in twos, sometimes threes. Civilization's no different. There's high civilization, regular civilization, and barbarism, but how anyone sees civilization is always from the place he's standing. A five-hundred-an-hour lawyer eating squab and white wine in a penthouse restaurant in New York thinks a fellow eating beans in the Bowery is uncivilized... .whether he's using a napkin or not. But that fellow in the Bowery can watch an Arab on TV, squatting on the ground, reach out and grab some meat with his right hand and think, 'Damn, now that's backward.'

"To my mind, there's nothing uncivilized about any of those three... I have fond memories of each... but even a simpleton could see that there's something higher in all the things that allows a bird to be eaten on a clean tablecoth in a comfortable room that had regular electricity and hot and cold running water.

"The French could give you hours of lectures about high civilization without even once mentioning any personal virtue, so to my mind there's no sense in arguing the subject.

"Democracy is to high civilization what Spam is to sirloin... until you stop to think, before Spam, ninety five percent of the world couldn't have meat because they didn't have refrigeration.

"What I'm saying here is democracy isn't a product of high civilization, but of common sense and high-mindedness. In fact, that's probably why it is so despised among the management classes around the world. Democracy reflects where regular folks can take civilization, which means it leans more toward beans with napkins than wine on white tablecloth. The main difference between high civilization and regular civilization is that one is perishable, the other isn't.

"Now you're thinking 'Wait. Power and high civilization has lived hand-in-glove for ten thousand years while democracy is still in baby clothes. You think I've got it backwards.'

"Nope. High civilization requires a strong stable order, with very strict rules for admission. The French were so stuck on the idea, they even decided it required a bloodline... which is where elitist thinking will always take you in the end. The French see high civilization as a power unto itself, but in fact, it has to cling to something else for protection. High civilization always sits at a table someone else set. That's a law.

"But you're asking what this has to do with Iraq. Look out there over those badlands and you'll see. You're seeing the Middle East a hundred years from now... if we win. Democracy is out here in these badlands because civilized people wanted to live here... without having to pay a toll to barbarians. But this is a place high civilization would never come. High civilization would die of thirst out here in two, three days. Or get bit by a rattler. Democracy is that regular part of civilization that would dare come out here and try to build a thing from scratch.

"That's why democracy's the only thing that can do battle with barbarism, kings and aristocrats. High civilization can't survive against tyranny because it isn't the fighting kind. Often as not, if it can't build a wall around itself or hire its fighting done, it will try to cut a deal. And it can even sometimes get away with it for awhile. But Genghis Khan would sign just such a treaty in the morning, kill off the local society by noon, and have 'em all for supper that night. He used to build mountains of skulls made exclusively from the vanities of local high civilization. High civilization never takes that kind of person into account... which is why they are always getting eaten by them.

"To me it doesn't matter whether people like democracy or not. It's a fact. It's a product of natural law. It burns in the heart of every little man and woman in the world, so for a fellow to say he don't like democracy, he may as well be saying he don't like the rising of the moon.

"And although no one has ever bothered to record it, through all history, this yearning to be free has tipped the scales of history time and time again."

"So, it's the yearning of men to be free that is the most ancient. That's the great mistake people make about democracy.

"You see, tyranny can get a grip over a civilization say, up to ninety percent or so. In the most totalitarian states... Saddam's Iraq or Stalin's Russia... maybe even ninety eight. But what goes unseen, often for generations, is those remaining two percent who slip through the gill net. That's also a law. That's why all the best laid plans of Stalin always got wrecked. Never forget, there is one universal law of democracy that belongs to all people, no matter how shackled they are. Even if the people can't have what they want, they can still deny their masters everything they want. They can screw the pooch. It's that two-three percent that always wrecks the plan. That's why any system formed and operated from the top down always has to fail. It's a law.

"Democracy, on the other hand, can never get a grip like that. At no time in America will you find democracy in control of people, or even a single person, so completely. As long as free men have a choice, some will always choose the other path. And most will try both... for awhile.

"One of the problems I see with those who want America more civilized... political correctness, everyone walking and thinking more or less alike, sort of like Finns trying out for ballroom dancing, is that if we ever become that way, we will die.

"Our democracy's very strength is that it covers the full spectrum of civilization, from finger food on the thirty-fifth floor, to finger food on a dirt floor. What keeps it healthy is turnover, which you can only have with capitalism. Capitalism reminds me of a lake that turns over every few years, the bottom rising to the top, replacing the top water that rolls over to the bottom. After the silt has settled you'd never know which end was up. Some people hate that idea now."

He paused to take a drink of water.

"In every society there is a war between Good and Evil. Only democracy gets to cast the deciding vote. That's what this thing in the Middle East is all about.

"But in democracy there is also an eternal struggle... between vigilance and complacency... and that's what this thing in America is all about. Right now those two battles are joined at the hip. I hate to say it, but while we are debating how democracy might begin in the Middle East, America is also debating, whether it knows it or not, as to how it might end.

"But, you're right, some people say the Arabs don't really believe in freedom. They say they can't adapt to democracy. It's not in their history, or their blood. And certainly not in their religion.

"Bolshevik! For one, the same was true about Christianity until Martin Luther hung those papers on a church door. What he tapped then was that same two percent unease, which turned out to be more like ten, then twenty... all the time a nagging notion that 'things just ain't quite right here'... an unease that existed between the people and the Church since the day the Church first started promising eternal life to a bunch of bandits by crowning them kings and expecting land and protection in return for the favor.

"There isn't anyone in the world who doesn't want to be the owner of his own House... to be able to build it, to grow it and pass it on... and to be able to freely create arrangements with his neighbors so that whole system of house building will have some permanence to it... so as to protect his heirs. That's a law. In fact, that's the first law of democracy.

"So then, there isn't anyone in the world who doesn't want to be free of overlords, religious or worldly. And only democracy can give people that. But here you have to get more refined in what you're calling 'democracy'. Only a democracy from the bottom up. The hand-me-down bureaucracies of Europe just can't do it, because they were created by and for a management class. It's as much against their nature to give people the reins of their own freedom as it is for a dog to kiss a cat.

"America is the only democracy that was ever created from the bottom up... so it's the only one that represents the deepest dreams of the real majority of mankind.

"Hell, anybody can create a democracy when they have the power to give people rights. The UN could create a democracy a month... just copy the articles and by-laws of some high school history club, a bill of rights that says the government gives the people the freedom of speech, religion, and to assemble, etc, then send in a bunch of technocrats to build sewers and highways, set up the banks, get France to provide a bureaucracy, and China to send in an army that calls itself a national police force. Control the press so no one will ever report the lie, and you have democracy. Sometimes you have to squint your mind real hard to tell the difference between what the social democrats set up in Brussels and what Tito set up in Yugoslavia.

"But take that third ingredient, and instill in the bosom of every man and woman in Iraq that the foundations of their democracy is their House, and their right to build it and grow it and own it, and the whole picture changes. Now, that's something worth fighting for... not just now, but in generations to come. That's something worth tarring and feathering politicians for. Or for snitching out a rifle on the roof. When laws read that the people give certain powers to the law-makers, and not the other way around, and everybody knows it, then you have a true democracy in the making. When rights come from God, or Allah, and no man or government can rightfully take them away, and everybody knows it, then you have something.

"The trick is making people know this is how it is. The UN has a declaration of human rights, but they're secure in the knowledge that ninety percent of their constituents will never hear or read it... and generally have the power to make sure they never do. But just let the people of Kenya... or Baltimore... find out how they've been gypped these past few decades... then give 'em a map out... and see how quickly things can change.

"The problem in our democratic world today is that some... too many, especially from your generation... define their own House as being the bosses of other men's Houses. Just too damned many people now think they have a birthright to manage other men's lives. And as I told you, they vote.

"Think about it. It's one thing to work for a man, and for him to be your boss. It's quite another for him to think he has a birthright to be your boss. A person instinctively knows the difference, and while he may tolerate a bad boss... he finds the other kind repulsive, and will immediately rebel with every bone in his body. He will wreck. The wrecking soul is that great indefinable that can cause Forbes Magazine to declare a company to be among America's best-run companies one year, then have to eat crow a couple of years later when it goes bust. Happens all the time.

"But just look at who's saying this about the Arabs. I'm not sure who those guys are but they are either misinformed... ignorant... or liars. What I find curious is that the things those guys are saying about Arabs today is exactly what Jim Crow gringos was saying about black folks fifty years ago in Mississippi. 'Why them nigras don't want to have to make up their own minds. They need organization put into they lives. Three hundred years of being told what to do, why they couldn't even organize a good church supper. They need to be told where to be, what to do and how to do it. And then they are content.'

"I can't tell you how many times I heard that as a child... only it came from the barber shop philosophers... people like Verdell McCutchins, from the hardware store, and not the so-called educated elites of today. Verdell had a thigh the size of a pot belly stove, and would slap it as he crossed his legs, as an exclamation point to some luminous revelation about how the country was going to hell in a hand basket. Everybody knows somebody like this... except maybe Republicans, who don't seem to get out very much. But it's amazing to me how similar Verdell was to what passes as our most educated minds nowadays. Some men actually pay extra to send their kids to special colleges just to learn to be that stupid.

"Of course Arabs and Muslims can handle democracy. But, they're staring down the barrel of two different types, handed-down and handed up, not to mention a lot of guns.

"If we're going to offer an American-style democracy, we also have to find a way to let the Arab street know what this means to them individually. It's all about their House. The day that sinks in, they ain't just ahead of Syria and Jordan. They're ahead of Massachusetts."

"Do you think we're doing that now in Iraq?"

"I can't say, but I doubt it. I'm not sure we have people there who see liberty as a dirt farmer might see it. Most technocrats make the world out to be way too complex. The see almost everything top-down."

Knowing he was being taped, and knowing I already knew this part by heart, he waited a minute.

"In Russia I'd look at a factory built in the fifties and it would be just like a factory built in Missouri in the thirties. Same plumbing, wiring, brick and mortar. An American investment company might send over a thirty year-old kid who'd never seen a black and white television and ask him to assess it. He wouldn't recognize a damned thing he saw, then come home with a twenty million price tag to tear it down and build over the top of it. But I'd find an old fellow somewhere who remembered those old factories and take him in, and he'd look at the wiring and it would be old home week. I knew one fellow to cry he was so moved at seeing old friends. Then I'd report back with a three hundred thousand dollar tab."

"Any success?"

"Some, but I've backed out of more boardrooms than you have bars, I guess. The sadness is the inability of people to see outside the box they rose up in. That's the cancer of all bureaucracies. Most companies I dealt with couldn't see common sense solutions for their whole self- image was in being able to see only the complex. With your generation, un-complicating a thing almost causes it to lose its romance. You've spent your whole life making the simple seem complex... to my mind, in order to give you power over other men's Houses. Lawyers are the worst.

"So I doubt if the people we're sending over there have any sense of that one simple ingredient about democracy. But I could be wrong."

"How would you pull it off, then?"

"I don't know that much about how word spreads on the Arab street. I could probably do better inciting democracy in the villages of the Pathans than in Baghdad, for there it would have be a covert operation. I'm good at that.

"As I said, in America, this idea about the House was always central to our very soul... 'til your generation started taking it all for granted. It wasn't just understood, mind you, but with all those immigrants swarming in, the idea was always fresh and new, for there was always about a quarter of America in their first generation here. Fresh blood is important... and for my tastes, the poorer the better.

"Iraq's got nothing but fresh blood, but what they don't have is the idea brought out square in front of their noses about what their possibilities really are. Don't you find it curious that when an Arab moves to America, he instinctively knows what he's trying to do? Yet, while he's still back in Iraq, he hasn't a clue? Sky determines. We have to change the color of their sky over there.

"People in Russia or the Balkans are no different, and they're still looking for a starting point, even after fifteen years. We sent the wrong consultants. Being free don't matter that much if you don't have a map... and a ladder. The trouble with being semi-modern, when everything always came from the top down, you always think there was a template, written from on-high, about everything. You think there had to a grand plan. The thought just never enters the mind of a fellow that he can build his own way out by a new road. I can't tell you how many people I've met in Russia who read our Constitution like it was a Ford owner's manual.

"But read 'em the Bill of Rights and watch the tears flow. It's like the film's been lifted from their eyes. They find meanings you never imagined.

"I wouldn't know how to start a whisper campaign in Iraq. I know there's a radio station over there vying for ratings. I'd fill that station with that one theme, the one theme the other stations can't offer up... without losing their advertisers. The same for newspapers. But the notion has to connect directly to the people. We can't use the political leaders as exclusive conduits, for they all have their own plans, and while they may be democratic in nature, they are rarely freedom-oriented in the long run. We can't let the people think their democracy comes from their leaders. It has to be the other way around.

"If you don't believe me, look in your own back yard. Well, not out here so much as say, Cincinnati. The only people left in the United States who are legally denied the benefits of full democracy are those we decided to hand it down to, through the same sort of middle-man structure you're seeing trying to rise in Iraq. Personally, I wouldn't wish on anyone what we have done to the black people of this country. Middle-men are fine only so long as they know who they are working for.

"Only America can pass the fire in the belly for liberty because we're the only people who've had it. I know, it does seem like we're tripping ass over elbow to cull it out from our national memory, but in the end what we have to give to those people is something The Prophet, blessed be his name, would not disapprove of."

"Are you a fan of Mohammed's?" I asked.

"Of course. Remind me to talk about him sometime. Muslims have been sold the same bill of goods the Church and European kings conspired to sell back in the Middle Ages... that God placed in the hands of special men the power to order other men to come before God, as if they were cattle. The Koran doesn't say that anymore than the Good Book does. Mohammed never said it any more than Jesus. The power to come before God willingly and freely, which both faiths know is God's greatest desire... love freely offered... also means Man shall have the power to choose not to come before God at all. To choose Hell. Give Man that one power to choose, and mullahs become little more than Episcopalian parsons, baptizing children, attending teas, and flattering old ladies.

"Plant that one seed, and then make the common-sense argument that neither Sunni nor Shiite can live very long being the boss of the other, and the people will demand no less. On a scale of 10, I'd say the Iraqis have twice the common sense of the average American, so they'll see it a lot easier than say, your average student at Amherst.

"Once done, all America has to do is protect 'em while the seed's germinating. That's the long term investment."

He paused, anticipating my next question. "That's also the hard part, you know, surviving into the long term. You see, the real work of growing the seed can't be done in a single generation. The man and woman in Iraq starting out on that trek today know their goal won't be reached in their lifetime. They're pioneers.

"That was what always amazed me about the immigrants who came out here over a hundred years ago. The wagon pioneers who came here swatted flies, Comanche arrows and cholera bugs, and buried half their children The Europeans back east, who just got off the boat, took in wash, scrubbed floors, choked to death in mills, all the while insisting their children learn this new language, and get educated. Uprooted cast-offs, one and all, they grieved as kinfolk died back home, and they couldn't even go to the funeral... whether it was Indiana, or Slovakia. And what they got for all their effort was like what Moses got... a mere glimpse of the promised land.

"But their kids? Professors, teachers, engineers, doctors, captains of industry. The greatest generation came out of that brood.

"The greatest prize a man and woman can leave to the children is what they built themselves... .with something left over to build on. Those are the people who die happy. The nice thing about Iraq is they don't have to leave home to find it. That's one grief set aside.

"I know this is hard for you to understand, for you come from a generation who, if I'd told you to plant a tree that only your children would be able to admire, you'd've said 'Screw that.' and walked away."

He paused for a couple of minutes.

"Without you even asking, I know what you're thinking. Where people wear AK-47's like wristwatches, it ain't that easy.

"You may be too young, but we had a term we liked to use when I was young. 'Cleaning up Dodge.' That referred, of course, to Dodge City, when it was a rail head for Texas cattle coming up the trail. You need to know what 'cleaning up Dodge' really means, for it really is impossible for a man to build his house when men with guns are actively trying to prevent him... without someone doing certain things first.

"That's why America is so important. The only... not best, mind you... but only country in the world that can teach democracy in a places where there are guns is us. Our memory of cleaning up Dodge, and who it is has to do it, is still fresh. Never forget, our democracy was built by our hardest, not our softest men and women.

"Okay, you ask Who else could do it? The French? The Germans?

"The French can't spawn democracy for that is the antithesis of their very soul. Hell, they're still pining back for the divine right of kings, wishing the world was more or less the way it was the day before Bastille Day.

"And the Germans represent another type that democracy dislikes. They see people marching around according to some engineered plan.

"That's the difference between those two, but you see both, often intertwined in politics here. In fact, I'm damned if I can find anything American in modern American elitism... except a common dislike for Spam. You see, the French see others' misery as proof of their own nobility, admiring themselves because of what they ain't. So they are generally indifferent to the common human condition. The whole radical movement of the sixties was born out of that one belief, that anything common was banal... including, it turns out, common ground, common sense, common weal, and every other good common you can come up with. Make everyone in this world free, happy and content and you take away eighty-five percent of French self image.

"The Germans, on the other hand, see themselves as managers, feeling they have a birthright to tell others what to do because of superior intellects. Unlike the French, their self-worth is derived by making the world more perfect, but according to their template. This is also a popular trend among American elites.

"I used to think indifference was the meanest evil on earth, and had always given the French due credit for having mastered that fine art. But sometimes I wonder which is the greater... to totally ignore a man, or to put him under your control, then daily remind him he's as worthless as a cockroach? I visited factories that had once been American, but bought out by Germans. Perfectly worthwhile men, who had worked their way from a local farm to some importance by carrying out increasingly difficult duties around the factory... what they used to call 'working your way up'... suddenly found that they had to get permission from a fellow in Pittsburgh, who had to get permission from a fellow in Hamburg, just in order to move a goddam pallet six feet because it was in the way on the loading dock.

"The fly in the buttermilk is...neither the French way nor German way can hold sway for long, for both take a fixed order in the universe more of less for granted. Neither can react to unforeseen circumstances... and the greatest unforeseen circumstance to both is the irresistible trek of the common man toward independence. The wrecker."

I interrupted, "What about the English? You talk as if they've made no impact on the world."

"Well, the Brits are half-French, so that just about says it all. Half-man, half-woman. They've always sort of been at war with themselves. Some say the best of their English half came over here to North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But maybe Kipling would say they went to India... .only our Indians ain't thrown us out yet. The Brits do have a dual personality... which is why they failed in India. They tried to turn India into a colony of country squires, and lords and ladies, just like England... which is something the sons of blacksmiths, free farmers, and shop keepers just can't pull off. Just look at the council-women, lawyers' wives and other reformed whores trying to run Oregon. When low-borns try to emulate royalty, things such as the Great Mutiny and Gandhi... become just as inevitable as the Crucifixion... and both Martin Luthers.

"I've always said those things the English do well, they do better than anyone else, but those things they do poorly, they can even out muck-up the French. It remains to be seen whether India is one the best or worst of English achievements. But what the English have done that no other people have done... period... was to create a class of free men who could build their own House from scratch.

"They just couldn't do it in England.

"America is all about how ordinary people can go off on their own and create a totally new thing... not a skid row version of London or Vienna or Paris, but a totally new thing. Russians today want to know how we, not the Germans, built and ran our factories, because our men could still start out in the janitor's shop and rise to be plant manager. People all over the world, ordinary rice farmers in Indonesia, shop keepers in Brazil, all want to know what it is that allowed American farmers and tradesmen to shape their own world... and to solve the problems they confronted, from crime to paved roads to clean water, without the divine intervention of an overlord.

"Looking back over those times, some are trying to make everyone believe there had to be a grand plan. Hell, grand plans are like lawyers, they only come in after all sweating and work's been done.

"What Americans