Duckworth, Roskam, and the fear factor
I sat through a sermon Sunday on fear. Ellen in the Tenth has a whole post on fear in this election. The bottom line with this frame (implicit at Church; explicit with Ellen) is Bush and Rove are trying to scare me to vote Republican.
I don't live in fear. On the other hand I respect threats and danger. Drive around Kane County and look at all the white crosses at intersections and you realize stuff happens.
You warn your kids. You worry. And the danger is scalable, from WMDs in the hands of Dictators in Iran, to traffic on Randall Rd. You respect threats and deal with them, but you don't become their prisoner. I like to think I deal with danger that way.
Which brings me to the latest Duckworth and Roskam ads. I watched them back-to-back last night in a restaurant. Unable to hear them, but just looking at the images, and they starkly contrast: Major Duckworth in flight suit, American flag behind her, and then Huey's flying; and followed by Roskam's ad: his kids in front of his suburban home.
I feel a little safer with the Duckworth ads; less fear knowing people like her serve today. With Roskam's ads, I just wondered if he realized there's a war against terror? He needs something new here.
He needs to talk about fears we all have. Fears we should have because we would be naive to ignore them. He needs to tell us how Republicans can do a better job of easing fear by rationally dealing with dangers that aren't going to disappear.
But please don't tell me it's Karl Rove playing the fear card. Not when we get images of Duckworth as warrior and Roskam living in a Donna Reed world.
9 comments:
BB - I think there is a difference between what you want and what Rove and Co. put out. You are right, having a rep. who makes you feel safe is a good thing. Having someone knowledgable and firm on national security is a good thing.
But the problem I see with Rove and the Fox News type media coverage is that they turn absolutely everything into a threat. Breaking news 'blowing bubbles may be linked to cancer' or 'using shoelaces leads to increased terrorism.' Now in my over the top fashion those examples are of course merely examples, but I feel that it is indeed the case.
They try to constantly scare us into thinking things are SO bad that only THEY are capable of keeping us safe. That's why I am glad that there is the current discussion on the Iraq war creating a new generation of terrorists. I personally feel that is/will be the case. So in that sense I feel that ironically the Bush/Rove era has made us less safe.
He's not the first to use scare tactics and certainly not the last. It isn't a tactic thats party specific. Both have used it at times. But in the current era, they certainly have a monopoly on fear mongoring. (sp?)
Karl Rove is playing the "fear card" -- why else do you think, of all the issues are nation is facing right now this very moment -- Bush, McCain, Warner and Graham had their little square dance on whether or not America is a nation that tortures people.
Bush won that non-compromise (there was no compromise because Bush still can, as president, do what he wants to "enemy combatants").
The only problem is that in doing this Bush and the Republicans are promoting torture.
Torture is why we fought to make sure John McCain would be freed from a POW camp.
Torture is why we fought with our allies against Nazi Germany.
Torture is what terrorists do.
...And yet the Republicans want America to be a nation that tortures people.
Why do Republicans thing running square against American values is a winning campaign strategy?
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Bill, you subconciously feel "safer" just watching (not hearing) the ad from Major Duckworth (I've seen it too) because you realize she "gets it."
Watching the ad you can see that she's been there, has the experience and knows what's at play in this fight in Iraq and, more widely, in the struggle against terrorism -- including all the NIE findings Republicans are trying to sweep under the rug or explain away.
Watching her ad you realize that she knows what it will take, what it will honestly take, to do what we have to do and do it right.
....You don't get any of that sense from Roskam's ad. His family ad is almost as pointless as the endorsement McSweeney got from his wife before the primary. Roskam's kids are supposed to love him -- it would a story if they didn't, not if they do.
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The Republican approach til now has been to mow terrorists down. Rumsfeld plan all along has been to kill more terrorists faster than new ones can be recruited.
The National Intelligence Estimate puts the lie to that theory (as did our experience in Vietnam, but that lesson was obviously either forgotten or ignored).
But if the Republican plan has been to mow them down (think of terrorists like weeds) the Democratic plan has been to uproot them. Problem is Dems can't get anything through committee because the Republican majority keeps blocking their initiatives (port security, special ops to capture/kill bin Laden, etc).
After you mow a weedpatch down it grows back, usually faster than before. After you uproot a weedpatch and destroy the weeds they are done and gone.
You tell me which plan is better, Republican "staying the course" (keep mowing down the weeds only to have them grow back faster and stronger) or Democratic "strategic focus" (uproot the weeds and destroy them).
I'd like to see victory in Iraq meaning a Democracy able to protect it self, and a moderate force in Islam that offers an alternative.
If that's not achievalbe (and right now I believe it is) I'm for cut-and-run, and hunker down to wait for Kerry's War of Last resort.
I don't see many options in between. God help the middle east if it comes to war of last resort.
Bill says, "I don't see many options in between."
That's the problem. There is an option in between.
Why weren't Muslims becoming radicalized at an ever-growing rate under Clinton? He bombed Syria. He pulled out of Somalia. He was president during al Quaeda sponsored terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
The only difference is Clinton didn't invade a country that had nothing to do with al Quaeda.
That also means he didn't keep us in that country trying to keep some semblance of peace in the middle of a boiling civil war.
That also means he didn't leave our brave troops hanging out to dry like tin-can targets for the enemy; thereby allowing a generation of radical jihadists to become trained and skilled at terrorism and guerilla war tactics and gettting nearly 3000 of our honorable soldiers killed in the process.
Your argument holds less and less water Bill because you fail to realize that for every radical jihadist killed in Iraq the very nature of the Iraq War itself is creating two or three new radicals.
It's rare you can achieve a lasting peace through war. Just ask Israelis.
The option "in-between" that you're looking for involves setting goals and dates for the Iraqis to take over their nation. After the War for Independence France and the others nations that helped us didn't stay and occupy the 13 States.
Once the Iraqis are in charge, we need to truly promote peace and democracy by creating a new Marshall Plan for the Middle East to get Iraq and Afghanistan and any other democracy needing a bridge back on their feet.
And, we need to work to end the dictatorial rule in the area of the "royalty" and junta alike. Saudi Arabia and Jordan never had "kings" til some guy came along a century or so ago and declared himself "king". The "street" in the Middle East knows these people are a farce and yet if they want to oppress you they have the money to do so (and worse, ask any woman from the region what happens if a "prince" takes a fancy to you).
All of this is unlikely to happen under a president who calls Saudi princes "Uncle" and who gives F-16s to a nuclear-armed nation that harbors bin Laden and the Taliban.
Bill says, "I don't see many options in between."
That's the problem. There is an option in between.
Why weren't Muslims becoming radicalized at an ever-growing rate under Clinton? He bombed Syria. He pulled out of Somalia. He was president during al Quaeda sponsored terrorist attacks at home and abroad.
The only difference is Clinton didn't invade a country that had nothing to do with al Quaeda.
That also means he didn't keep us in that country trying to keep some semblance of peace in the middle of a boiling civil war.
That also means he didn't leave our brave troops hanging out to dry like tin-can targets for the enemy; thereby allowing a generation of radical jihadists to become trained and skilled at terrorism and guerilla war tactics and gettting nearly 3000 of our honorable soldiers killed in the process.
Your argument holds less and less water Bill because you fail to realize that for every radical jihadist killed in Iraq the very nature of the Iraq War itself is creating two or three new radicals.
It's rare you can achieve a lasting peace through war. Just ask Israelis.
The option "in-between" that you're looking for involves setting goals and dates for the Iraqis to take over their nation. After the War for Independence France and the others nations that helped us didn't stay and occupy the 13 States.
Once the Iraqis are in charge, we need to truly promote peace and democracy by creating a new Marshall Plan for the Middle East to get Iraq and Afghanistan and any other democracy needing a bridge back on their feet.
And, we need to work to end the dictatorial rule in the area of the "royalty" and junta alike. Saudi Arabia and Jordan never had "kings" til some guy came along a century or so ago and declared himself "king". The "street" in the Middle East knows these people are a farce and yet if they want to oppress you they have the money to do so (and worse, ask any woman from the region what happens if a "prince" takes a fancy to you).
All of this is unlikely to happen under a president who calls Saudi princes "Uncle" and who gives F-16s to a nuclear-armed nation that harbors bin Laden and the Taliban.
Marshall Plan for the middle east? With where the price of oils been?
The middle east should be funding the Marshall Plan for Africa and other countries devasted by what they have to pay to get their crops in.
The Jihadists were motivated by the thought they could defeat us... the talk about Somalia, the barracks in Beruit.
Read Lee Smith's Fighting them Over There.
But a Marshall plan....geez... Reconstruction for a War torn Iraq ok, but the root of this problem is derivitive economies; no productive class, just people living off oil wealth and mafia regimes controlling the dole.
You presume every nation in the Middle East sits on top of an oil reserve and that even they do they can get the stuff out of the ground and into tankers or processing facilities.
The sale of oil was supposed to fund the Iraq War, remember?
The conservatives' War in Iraq is costing $2 billion a week, and climbing exponentially. Not a drop of oil "funding" it. Meanwhile, funding for the Afghanistan battlefront has remained steady, about $20bil/year ... all the more evidence that Bush could care less about finding the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Forgotten.
I don't know where you get your facts, Bill, but you might want to reconsider grounding your thoughts on these "facts" you have.
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PS: I have read Smith's article. He's got it wrong.
We're training them over there, with live target practice (on our brave troops, no less). There's nothing to stop them from hopping in a boat, washing up on an open shore and doing whatever they want. (In fact, if Bush and the Republicans had gotten their way on the Dubai ports deal al Quaeda could have just leaned on some Dubai businessmen to get work visas and enter the US "legally".)
PPS Bill, As I understand it, America earned back the money it spent on the Marshall Plan, and then some, through the business and economic expansion the Plan created.
I will say you are right about there being little to no productive class (look at unemployment rates) and a mafia-like "royalty" and "dictatorial presidential" classes controlling the flow of money to preferred citizens as I alluded to earlier.
But, as I also said, little of that will change under the current administration which makes nice with those mafia-like royals and dictators.
And if little of that situation will change, the ire of the have-nots will continue to be focused on the haves and those which prop the haves up -- as it was in the late 70s with the Shah of Iran.
Roskam does live in a Donna Reed world...it's called Wheaton, and I live there too.
Some of us can face reality while living here - that's why I am voluteering for and voting for Duckworth!
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