Hullabaloo

Friday, August 17, 2007

 
Chickens Roosting In The WSJ

by digby

Oh man, Ward Churchill is at it again, blaming Americans for the rise of Islamic terrorism, just like he did in that famous essay where he wrote:

To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in - and in many cases excelling at - it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions...

You'd think he'd have learned that attacking his fellow Americans only gets him out of town on a rail, no matter what he actually meant by it, even if you're an academic with lifetime tenure. But he's at it again, saying that Americans' materialism and obsession with money is causing terrorism. And now he's not just blaming the financial wizards he took issue with after 9/11. Now he's blaming the whole culture:

...all modern young people come from two environments. The first is the immediate family, which is human and therefore by definition imperfect, sometimes to a serious and destructive degree. The other is the broader culture in which we all live, and which includes everything from schools to the neighborhood to the media. It's not a new thing to say but it's still true that the latter, which is more powerful than ever, is wholly devoted to the material. People are money winners or luxury item enjoyers. They just want stuff. It is soulless.

The view we show of life to ourselves, and to whatever lost young men are watching, is not broad and inspiriting. It is limited and dispiriting. It is every man for himself.

We make it too easy for those who want to hate us to hate us. We make ourselves look bad in our media, which helps future jihadists think that they must, by hating us, be good. They hit their figurative garbage bin lids on the ground, and smirk, and promise to make a racket, and then more than a racket, a boom.

Oh wait, I'm sorry. That's Peggy Noonan in the pages of the Wall Street Journal today. (You can see why I made the error --- the turgid prose is quite similar.)

This has actually become a new rightwing theme: America asked for it. I think everyone can be pardoned for the extreme cognitive dissonance this new theme is causing after the last five years of "we're good 'n they're evil" and chanting about saving western civilization. It turns out the Islamofascists aren't all wrong, after all.

The last I heard Churchill was out of work. Maybe Regnery should give him a call.


h/t to Steve Benen

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digby 8/17/2007 01:36:00 PM |