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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/.../ixopinion.html
In the 1960s, we marched for a reason
By Janet Daley
(Filed: 01/09/2004)
I watched Michael Moore's buffoon-ish reaction when he was attacked by John McCain at the Republican convention, over and over again yesterday.
Fox News showed it repeatedly, probably figuring that the sight of Moore behaving like a snotty 10-year-old defying the headmaster was the best gift the anti-war movement had presented to George W Bush since Howard Dean's "I Have a Scream" speech. (The BBC, which also ran it time after time, was presumably just overcome with admiration.)
And as I watched this puerile performance from a man who is regarded as the spiritual leader of American, and now British, conscientious protest, I thought "Has it come to this?" Is this how it ends, the great modern tradition of American dissidence launched by my generation of students in the 1960s?
In my day, protesters were mostly bearded, lithe and sensitive. Now they are bearded, fat and smug. Back then, demonstrators had firehoses directed at them, not fawning television interviewers. Did you see those jolly marchers in New York, staging their anti-Bush carnival of absolutely safe, no-risk, self-congratulatory dissent?
When we marched against the Vietnam War, and the young men among us publicly burnt their draft cards, we could expect real punishment and victimisation, not lionisation by the Cannes Film Festival. The draft-defying men were committing a federal crime and risking imprisonment. Some of them had to live in exile in Canada for years - a truly awesome punishment - as the price of their youthful conscience.
But the biggest difference between then and now, of course, is that we marched against our government when it supported dictators, not when it removed them. The logic of the anti-Vietnam War movement was that America, in its ferocious determination to hold back the spread of communism, was prepared to back the tyrannical Diem regime in South Vietnam even to the extent of thwarting democratic elections when they threatened to put communists into power.
Our complaint was that America's foreign policy was deeply hypocritical and self-serving: committed unswervingly to democracy and liberty at home, while supporting any murderous despot abroad who was prepared to be "our son of a *****" rather than the other side's. The ultimate paradox is that the country that still behaves in this way - prepared to do business with pretty much any murderous regime or criminal dictator who will cater to its interests - is France: the nation that today's anti-war protesters regard as the epitome of wisdom and restraint.
But the "warmonger" Bush, supported by the "liar" Blair, is doing precisely the opposite in Iraq, where a peculiarly vicious tyrant has been overthrown and subsequently arrested with due legal process, in the hope - idealistic and even naïve, perhaps, but unquestionably sincere - of introducing democracy and freedom to his country.
As John McCain said in his speech to the convention, Saddam's regime was based on torture and indescribable cruelty: a fact that Moore's anti-Bush propaganda film utterly ignores. So wherever this generation of refuseniks is coming from, it certainly isn't where we were in the 1960s.
But we, alas, are the historical model for what constitutes glamorous rebellion. Stirred by a half-baked, half-understood fixation with what our generation did and said, comfortable self-satisfied liberals can talk the talk, knowing that, 40 years down the line, they will lose nothing by it.
Whatever the political or legal, or even tactical, arguments against the invasion of Iraq might have been, how can anyone in his right mind equate what America intended there with its shameless support for Third World gangster regimes half a century ago? Even the scandals of the Iraqi occupation - such as Abu Graib prison - are footling by comparison to the dropping of napalm on civilians as routinely happened in Vietnam. How has the logic of protest become so inverted, and the language of condemnation so debased?
Is there something about the conformist culture and predictable prosperity of American life that makes rebellion so attractive that everybody wants to find a pretext in his own time? Since the 1960s, is this simply the way to be young and smart and fashionable?
Perhaps you think I am being too dismissive, too reluctant to admit that people I disagree with could be perfectly sincere and committed. Maybe. But there is something about the tone, something about the mood and manner of this movement, that strikes me as unauthentic and second-hand. Like Moore's response to John McCain's criticism, it is somehow unserious and babyish. Which does not stop it from having profound effects.
In America, politics is often (by British standards especially) childish and simplistic and, considering how little actual policy difference there is between the parties, remarkably partisan and nasty.
This may have something to do with the fact that America takes political power, and its own institutions, very seriously and that running the United States really puts you in charge of the world.
But whatever it is, American politicians visiting here are struck by the good-natured, benign parochialism of our debates. I remember one Democrat coming here in the early 1970s, at a time when America was tearing itself to pieces over Vietnam. Edward Heath and Harold Wilson were embroiled in an election campaign that revolved around the cost of food. "It's fantastic," said the American enviously. "You've got guys arguing about the price of eggs."
I thought of that yesterday when I turned back to the British news channels, where the lead story was the failure of Royal Mail to meet any of its targets on postal delivery. Happy is the land whose biggest concern is whether the post arrives in one day or three.
In the 1960s, we marched for a reason
By Janet Daley
(Filed: 01/09/2004)
I watched Michael Moore's buffoon-ish reaction when he was attacked by John McCain at the Republican convention, over and over again yesterday.
Fox News showed it repeatedly, probably figuring that the sight of Moore behaving like a snotty 10-year-old defying the headmaster was the best gift the anti-war movement had presented to George W Bush since Howard Dean's "I Have a Scream" speech. (The BBC, which also ran it time after time, was presumably just overcome with admiration.)
And as I watched this puerile performance from a man who is regarded as the spiritual leader of American, and now British, conscientious protest, I thought "Has it come to this?" Is this how it ends, the great modern tradition of American dissidence launched by my generation of students in the 1960s?
In my day, protesters were mostly bearded, lithe and sensitive. Now they are bearded, fat and smug. Back then, demonstrators had firehoses directed at them, not fawning television interviewers. Did you see those jolly marchers in New York, staging their anti-Bush carnival of absolutely safe, no-risk, self-congratulatory dissent?
When we marched against the Vietnam War, and the young men among us publicly burnt their draft cards, we could expect real punishment and victimisation, not lionisation by the Cannes Film Festival. The draft-defying men were committing a federal crime and risking imprisonment. Some of them had to live in exile in Canada for years - a truly awesome punishment - as the price of their youthful conscience.
But the biggest difference between then and now, of course, is that we marched against our government when it supported dictators, not when it removed them. The logic of the anti-Vietnam War movement was that America, in its ferocious determination to hold back the spread of communism, was prepared to back the tyrannical Diem regime in South Vietnam even to the extent of thwarting democratic elections when they threatened to put communists into power.
Our complaint was that America's foreign policy was deeply hypocritical and self-serving: committed unswervingly to democracy and liberty at home, while supporting any murderous despot abroad who was prepared to be "our son of a *****" rather than the other side's. The ultimate paradox is that the country that still behaves in this way - prepared to do business with pretty much any murderous regime or criminal dictator who will cater to its interests - is France: the nation that today's anti-war protesters regard as the epitome of wisdom and restraint.
But the "warmonger" Bush, supported by the "liar" Blair, is doing precisely the opposite in Iraq, where a peculiarly vicious tyrant has been overthrown and subsequently arrested with due legal process, in the hope - idealistic and even naïve, perhaps, but unquestionably sincere - of introducing democracy and freedom to his country.
As John McCain said in his speech to the convention, Saddam's regime was based on torture and indescribable cruelty: a fact that Moore's anti-Bush propaganda film utterly ignores. So wherever this generation of refuseniks is coming from, it certainly isn't where we were in the 1960s.
But we, alas, are the historical model for what constitutes glamorous rebellion. Stirred by a half-baked, half-understood fixation with what our generation did and said, comfortable self-satisfied liberals can talk the talk, knowing that, 40 years down the line, they will lose nothing by it.
Whatever the political or legal, or even tactical, arguments against the invasion of Iraq might have been, how can anyone in his right mind equate what America intended there with its shameless support for Third World gangster regimes half a century ago? Even the scandals of the Iraqi occupation - such as Abu Graib prison - are footling by comparison to the dropping of napalm on civilians as routinely happened in Vietnam. How has the logic of protest become so inverted, and the language of condemnation so debased?
Is there something about the conformist culture and predictable prosperity of American life that makes rebellion so attractive that everybody wants to find a pretext in his own time? Since the 1960s, is this simply the way to be young and smart and fashionable?
Perhaps you think I am being too dismissive, too reluctant to admit that people I disagree with could be perfectly sincere and committed. Maybe. But there is something about the tone, something about the mood and manner of this movement, that strikes me as unauthentic and second-hand. Like Moore's response to John McCain's criticism, it is somehow unserious and babyish. Which does not stop it from having profound effects.
In America, politics is often (by British standards especially) childish and simplistic and, considering how little actual policy difference there is between the parties, remarkably partisan and nasty.
This may have something to do with the fact that America takes political power, and its own institutions, very seriously and that running the United States really puts you in charge of the world.
But whatever it is, American politicians visiting here are struck by the good-natured, benign parochialism of our debates. I remember one Democrat coming here in the early 1970s, at a time when America was tearing itself to pieces over Vietnam. Edward Heath and Harold Wilson were embroiled in an election campaign that revolved around the cost of food. "It's fantastic," said the American enviously. "You've got guys arguing about the price of eggs."
I thought of that yesterday when I turned back to the British news channels, where the lead story was the failure of Royal Mail to meet any of its targets on postal delivery. Happy is the land whose biggest concern is whether the post arrives in one day or three.