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Demonstrating Foolishness

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

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From New Orleans, Louisiana [Note: There is a travelogue on the Secret Decoder Ring page about the trip down here yesterday.]
• The American news media - and their brethren in the European press - can't understand why George W. Bush is so closely focused on doing what he thinks is best for the U.S. and for the world, and refuses to do only what the news media think is best.

• There are many Europeans who do not like the United States. In Berlin, for example, there were demonstrations against the United States while President Bush was in Germany.

• First of all, if it hadn't been for the United States generally - and Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush in particular - Berliners would still be holding beer-and-schnitzel picnics in the shadow of that very lovely wall. Half their country would still be under the thumb of the East German Secret Police, affectionately known as the Stasi.

• On the other hand, to be fair, if it hadn't been for the United States, the national anthem of almost everyone from Siberia to the English Channel would be "Deutchland Uber Alles," so maybe this one is a draw.

• The French demonstrate against everyone. Every day. And no one cares. No one.

• The British demonstrate, but only about soccer which is harder for Americans to understand than the dialogue on the East Enders.

• Italians are going to demonstrate. Soon. Really. They're getting organized as we speak.

• The Swiss will never join in a demonstration. The verb "to join" doesn't exist in Swiss or whatever they speak over there.

• When George W. Bush presses the U.S. agenda, the news media run around in little circles yelling about how the President is a "Lone Ranger," how he "isn't consulting his allies," and how the Bush agenda might not be the agenda the rest of the world wants to follow.

• But lets go back to just a couple of months ago when the Israeli-Palestinian business got really ugly and the Bush Administration decided to let the situation develop for a little while before jumping in. The world news media were jumping up and down screaming that the Bush Administration had to DO SOMETHING!

• About a year ago the U.S. was voted off the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for the first time since the Commission was founded in 1947.

• This news was greeted with glee, with taunting laughter, with Liberals dancing about and singing the nanny-nanny-boo-boo song which would have been embarrassing if their embarrassment were possible, which it is not.

• By the way, you will remember that such stalwarts in the international human rights movement as Cuba, China, Lybia, and Syria were and still are members.

• The people who celebrated the U.S. losing its seat are largely the same group who regularly complain when the U.S. makes a decision and acts upon it. On the one hand they want us to cooperate with the rest of the world. On the other, they celebrate our being tossed off an important world organization.

• Guess what happened last month? The U.S. was voted back ON the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Why? Because nothing got done without the moral strength of the United States of America showing the way for the rest of the world.

• Our three strongest allies: the UK, France and Germany all kept their seats on the Commission. But without good old Uncle Sam, it just didn't work.

• What a surprise.

• Among the hundreds of very nice notes Mullings received on the re-write of the Memorial Day column from last year was this:

  Rich:
  As you listened to those remarkable letters from the 
  past - from the Alamo, from  Lincoln to the mother who 
  lost five sons, from a young Vietnam soldier who would 
  never return - you likely didn't know that the narrator 
  was a faithful Mullist.
  Yes, that was me.
  This year, I spent the Memorial Day weekend in Ohio 
  doing rounds of remembrance and parades in small towns 
  in the Heartland.  But the President's words from last 
  year stayed with me.  As does the respect servicemen 
  and women are again - finally - able to render to their 
  commander in chief.

• On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, a pretty funny travelogue about my trip to the Crescent City and the usual stuff.
  --END --
  Copyright © 2002 Richard A. Galen

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