The Los Angeles Times Festival of Kooks
Writing by treason on Sunday, 29 of April , 2007 at 7:10 pm
I’ve developed the dangerous habit of spending entire weekends with C-SPAN – especially C-SPAN 2, or “Book TV.” I like to watch the book festivals and this weekend featured one sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. I knew I was in for some fun when I started getting the feeling that many of the panelists and participants were acting as if Christopher Hitchens was the event’s token right wing fanatic.
Another Chris was there — Chris Hedges — and he was quick to make the point that if the U.S. engages in a war with Iran he’ll stop paying his taxes. He has friends in the Middle East — friends in Gaza, Tehran, and Lebanon — and he just won’t support such a war. He will, however, support the impeachment of George Bush, because rules are important, laws are important, and Bush has violated rules and laws. If I stopped paying my taxes, I’d be violating certain rules and laws. Obviously these rules and laws don’t apply to Mr. Hedges.
But I fully understand his feelings. He has friends in the desert. The U.S. has friends in the desert, too, and they are called Israelis. Mr. Hedges has not fully explained how we are to support those friends, so I suspect an entire country is somehow less important than an assortment of his personal friends.
He dropped the I-word at the festival and received a standing ovation from a portion of the audience. I’m going to assume that it is all right for the Democrats to pursue impeachment because it’s no longer a bad thing. How can it be? Because if impeachment was bad, why would so many people be so hot to have an impeached Clinton back in the White House? It’s not bad – it’s just America’s way of saying that if they knew then what they know now they wouldn’t have voted the way they did. Impeachment is an easy fix for their mistake.
Robert Scheer was at the festival, too, and he and others applauded the November election because it really “means something.” It means, they submit, that the country is against the Republicans and against the war in Iraq. I like the way the Republicans get full credit for this war. Unlike many of my Democrat friends, I actually watched the “debate” in South Carolina, and some of those people voted for this war. A few of them even admitted that there is something called a “global war on terror.” If this war is a lie, if this war is illegal, if this war is an impeachable offense, then why isn’t Congress being held accountable?
The pacifists in the group seem to be more concerned about global warming. They’re anti-war and pro-planet. Humans, they say, are responsible for war and for the destruction of the planet. My question is this: If humanity is so bad, contributing to the death of our planet and all, why not then support this war and the annihilation of the species in order to save the planet?
The Democrats won the last election and pundits are quick to say: This is significant! They also say that 2008 will be a “slam dunk” — the country is so obviously against the Republicans and the war that they will overwhelmingly vote for a Democrat congress and president. This is strange, considering their argument in 2006 about the importance of “checks and balances,” but why rain on their parade?
But what if – by some weird chance – a majority votes for Republicans in 2008? What, then, will be the significance of that?
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