Posted by pancho from ? (64.79.4.3) on Friday, March 29, 2002 at 9:56AM :
Why oh why doesn't someone tell the Arabs they are being made the fools here. I mean in the way they sincerely and stupidly make goof after goof in the court of public opinion. No one CARES how morally right your position is...this is not a mosque or church...this is LIFE, ruled over by ad agencies and political think tanks and in this place perception and image is EVERYTHING!
If they had set out, thirty years and zillions of dollars ago, to influence public opinion in this country, and the world, they would have gotten much farther along. They come across as a big goofy sheep dog...clumsy but endearing in their floppy simplemindedness.
Everytime, and without fail, they field some college professor from a university in Lebanon or somewhere who, no matter how well versed in his field, no matter the 100 other languages he speaks, and no matter the righteousness of his cause, no matter the amount of injustice his people have suffered, no matter the weight of common sense, of legal claims, of ironic comparisons to the plight of the Jews themselves at one time...no matter all the considerable number of advantages to his position or the logic of his argument, STILL sounds like a sputtering, guttering, poster boy of a TERRORIST in the minds of his Western listeners who have been groomed by years of televison and film interpretations of A-rabs....with the added and delicious irony that said film and TV impersonations are ALSO brought to us, according to stereotype, by them JEWS!!!
The dilemna for the Saudis and others is that they too are dependent on American goodwill to remain in power. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are rank despotisms...just the kind the US has always supported in Latin America and Asia for only they have the means and the will to put their countries at the service of Uncle Sam. The Saudis were "saved" from Iraq by American intervention! Now there's a cute scenario.
For all the chest thumping about democracy and peace, the United States can not afford to have free and open societies in those areas of the world where its own interests compete. Tyrants keep their people poor and ignorant or at the least repressed and contolled, without the institutions for social and legal change or growth. In the case of Kuwait and Arabia there is enough money to go around so things look pleasant enough. But there is precious little opportunity for real personal or institutional growth and no effective means for opposing voices to be heard.
The Arab States are kept infantile by their represive regimes, an obscurantist clergy who have slimed and smeared the good name of Islam...as any Jerry Falwell has done with Christianity, or a Meir Kahane has with Judaism. Fundamentalism is stalking the earth everywhere...everywhere the common people are being turned against each other by leaders who don't buy this crap for a minute.
In America corporations, as the government, could give a shit about any American's well being or safety. Like the Christian Right that weeps blood at the thought of all those poor fetuses then turns a cold shoulder on those born unloved, unwanted, uneducated and uninsured...as they salute "brave" heros only to throw them out of work and onto the streets afterwards.
They care nothing about the forces that create disenchantment or domestic abuses that help make criminals, they care nothing about wasting plenty of your tax dollars on pay outs to their corporate friends who will make you all "safe" yet refuse a dime for health care or school programs. These are all "platform positions" with which to get elected...all the energy spent decrying crime, and welfare bums and extolling the virtues of religion and law and order...all of these are the devices by which they get your votes...then get down to the real work.
Take heart, the economy is improving...stock values for all companies involved in Defense are rising...hurry up and get in on the gravy train, rebuild those shattered portfolios...war is here, war is good for the economy...contracts will flow with the blood as your liberties will be curtailed and just like those dumb A-rabs...you will have coins to jingle in the well ordered camp this country is slowly turning into.
And maybe, as a bonus...your children will go off to fight the next war.
-- pancho
-- signature .