Here is what I wrote as my Facebook status.
Deficit hawks are scum.
Why?
Because the same people who want to reduce the deficit by slashing unemployment benefits, cutting back on state aid that can save jobs, and opposing the economic stimulus programs that would put Americans back to work......THESE are the same people who bellow in rage when you suggest raising taxes on large corporations and the wealthy.
So I reiterate... deficit hawks are scum.
The following debate took place on June 16, 2010:
Tiguhs OndaBayou
The eurozone is presently demonstrating why you are wrong.
Kevin Brettell
Matt, this kind of generalization is just plain wrong. Not every person out there who is in favor of getting our deficit under control is also in favor of lower taxes for the wealthy and large corporations. For the record, I am currently in favor of economic stimulus programs, as I think they are required in our current situation. However, in the long term, I am definitely a deficit hawk. What we are doing right now is unsustainable in the long term.
Matthew Rozsa
To Kevin:
The term "deficit hawk", at least as it is frequently used in contemporary political vernacular, does not refer to people with the positions you've just articulated. Liberals as well as conservatives agree that the budget deficit needs to be reduced, and the national debt gradually paid off. That said, "deficit hawks" are those who believe that all other economic priorities must come second to the need to balance our budget right away, while non-hawks feel that this issue - though important - right now must take a backseat to more important policy concerns (like putting Americans back to work, or improving our economic competitiveness with nations like China, India, and Japan).
While taking this approach does not NECESSARILY mean that you support policies that favor the rich, the reality is that most "deficit hawks" are so obsessed with this issue because they're less concerned with the plight of the unemployed than they are with the gripings of Wall Street and the bond markets, which are more adversely effected by a sizeable deficit than they are by high unemployment - hence their vocal opposition to any programs that take money away from their chief constituency, the rich.
Tom:
Really? Because I see the flailing of the American economy - combined with the extent to which fiscal austerity has done nothing to solve the budget deficit while working wonders in worsening the economic plight of average Americans - as very clearly demonstrating why I'm right.
Once again, I am not saying that we shouldn't fix the budget deficit; claiming otherwise is a blatant (and, in my opinion, intentional) effort to distort my position. What I'm saying is that we need to reduce the deficit in a way that does not hurt America's working class, but instead cuts wasteful programs and demands greater sacrifices from the well-to-do. Because deficit hawks don't want the rich to pay more - and because they know perfectly well that this option is just as viable in reducing the deficit as forcing the middle-class and poor suffer - they attempt to make all advocates of increasing taxes on the wealthy seem like people who ignore the deficit problem altogether. This is a falsehood, and the people who try to present reality that way are liars.
Kevin Brettell
Just to be clear, Matt, I don't think that you think we shouldn't fix the budget deficit.
I'll chalk this one up to me misunderstanding what you meant in your first post. It sounds like we essentially agree on this subject.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
a lot of generalizations, little understanding of what's going down in Europe--IMF officials are presently visiting Spain--u know shits about to turn for the worst when the IMF shows up
Tiguhs OndaBayou
That first paragraph doesn't make any sense, spending on social programs has increased under every president since i've been alive and then some. So I don't know who's austere fiscal policy u are criticizing (i see it as a silly strawman argument)
Cliff Smith
I'd argue with you, but I don't really disagree.
You don't understand basic macro or micro economics, that seems pretty clear, but you're 100% correct on what I want to do.
Matthew Rozsa
To Tom:
A) Once again... I am not saying that we don't need to balance the budget. What I am saying is that this objective can, and should, be achieved by means other than cutting programs which affect the economically disadvantaged. When you bring up examples such as the IMF's involvement in Spain, you imply that I am ignorant of the dangers of our out-of-whack deficit. This is an intentional effort on your part to establish a false dichotomy regarding this issue - i.e., to make it seem like the two choices are between (1) cutting programs that help the working class in our economy while improving the budget deficit and (2) allowing the budget deficit to spiral out of control in order to have new spending programs. You deliberately ignore the third option, which is to increase taxes on the wealthy and cut wasteful spending in other programs, as well as rely on the fact that - when economic stimulus causes employment to go up - the increase in revenues from income taxes will further help us get the deficit under control.
B) Spending on social programs has increased under every president since you've been alive ONLY when you refuse to take inflation into account. In fact, plenty of social welfare programs were cut during the first four presidencies of your lifetime - not only with Reagan and the two Bushes, but Clinton as well.
C) The fiscal austerity to which I refer is the movement among conservative Democrats in Congress to stymie legislation that would extend unemployment benefits, increase economic stimulus, and provide aid to states that desperately need it (particularly for teachers, our education system, and state employees). It is, incidentally, the same fiscal austerity to which I referred when I began this conversation ("...the same people who want to reduce the deficit by slashing unemployment benefits, cutting back on state aid that can save jobs, and opposing the economic stimulus programs..."), so I don't know how you could have been unclear about what I was referring to. If you really think that this isn't a problem, and that I'm erecting a straw man, then you are out of touch with the news.
Matthew Rozsa
To Cliff:
Listen, I'm not going to object to your decision to insult me - in light of what I wrote about deficit hawks, that would be more than a little hypocritical. However, I am going to politely request that you follow up all insults with substantive, intelligent arguments, as I have attempted to do. If your approach is going to be one of insisting on your own expertise and ridiculing my presumed lack thereof - without, of course, actually backing up either of those assertions - then I'm not going to take you seriously.
Cliff Smith
You didn't present a serious argument. Excuse me if follow your example and also decline to do so.
Matthew Rozsa
To Kevin:
Having re-read our exchange, I realize that I was wrong in not being clearer in what I meant by the term "deficit hawks". It is understandable that you misunderstood what I was trying to say, and the fault for that misunderstanding is entirely mine.
Matthew Rozsa
To Cliff:
"Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong."
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau's quote, for the purposes of this debate, needs to be updated:
"Insults that are unaccompanied by arguments are used by those too stupid or lazy to construct a sound rationale for their opinions."
I may have insulted deficit hawks, but at least I explained why. You have used insults but haven't provided a single explanation, for reasons that my update of Rousseau's quote makes pretty clear.
In case I need further proof (which I don't)... if my argument is really so ridiculous, why are you unwilling to take the few minutes necessary to point out how? All you do is say things; you apparently view yourself as being above the fine art of actually having to prove them.
Addendum:
TiguhsOnDaBayou - better known as Tom - did include a response after the last comment which I mention here (Cliff, on the other hand, never offered a follow up, although he has had time to post extensively on other subjects). Because Tom's reply dealt more with the subject of my blog article "What We Should Do" then it did with the budget deficit debate, I posted it on the bottom of that piece instead of this one (http://riskinghemlock.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-we-should-do.html).
Two days after this conversation, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote the following about the motivations of American deficit hawks:
In America, many self-described deficit hawks are hypocrites, pure and simple: They’re eager to slash benefits for those in need, but their concerns about red ink vanish when it comes to tax breaks for the wealthy. Thus, Senator Ben Nelson, who sanctimoniously declared that we can’t afford $77 billion in aid to the unemployed, was instrumental in passing the first Bush tax cut, which cost a cool $1.3 trillion.
Paul Krugman's support of my position is not limited to my characterization of what motivates deficit hawks:
Suddenly, creating jobs is out, inflicting pain is in. Condemning deficits and refusing to help a still-struggling economy has become the new fashion everywhere, including the United States, where 52 senators voted against extending aid to the unemployed despite the highest rate of long-term joblessness since the 1930s...
The key point is that while the advocates of austerity pose as hardheaded realists, doing what has to be done, they can’t and won’t justify their stance with actual numbers — because the numbers do not, in fact, support their position.
Just to reiterate what I wrote two days ago:
That said, "deficit hawks" are those who believe that all other economic priorities must come second to the need to balance our budget right away, while non-hawks feel that this issue - though important - right now must take a backseat to more important policy concerns (like putting Americans back to work, or improving our economic competitiveness with nations like China, India, and Japan).
Need I say any more?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
What We Should Do
One of my main criticisms of liberal bloggers is that, while they are quick to criticize the policies of those in power, they are often much more reluctant to come forward with alternatives of their own. So as to avoid falling into this trap myself, I have outlined below the economic program that I would attempt to implement if I were in a position to do so.
I shall begin with a quote from Franklin Roosevelt:
“Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws — sacred, inviolable, unchangeable — cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”
- Franklin Roosevelt (1932)
Sadly, the primary difference between the America of 1932 (in which FDR uttered this line) and its 2010 counterpart is that today, far too many Democrats are becoming gelded echoes of deficit hawks, laissez-fairers, covert plutocrats, myopic shills of Wall Street (such as yourself), and other birds from the Republican economic aviary.
No one is denying that our budget deficit and national debt pose a great threat to our country's fiscal soundness, and that both will eventually need to be addressed. That said, our priority right now must be to alleviate the great human suffering that has been caused by the economic calamities of the Reaganite agenda (the same one brought to its unfortunate fruition under George W. Bush) - rising unemployment, stagnant and/or declining incomes, a deterioration in the quality of our education system, and a dwindling of our national competitiveness with other nations in clean energy, biotechnology, and other industries of the future. These are not problems that can be solved while simultaneously trying to fight the budget deficit and reduce our national debt. Therefore we must accept three hard truths about what our policies need to be, at least temporarily:
1) We will need to drastically increase spending, and with it the deficit and our national debt, until the aforementioned side effects of this economic disaster have subsided. These spending increases should include a comprehensive latter-day New Deal, one which emphasizes modern equivalents to the Works Progress Administration and National Recovery Act; increased regulations on Wall Street and big business; legislation strengthening the power of labor unions to control employee wages; a law that mandates annual increases in the minimum wage in accordance with the national cost of living; state aid to help local government save public sector jobs - and especially teaching positions, thereby guaranteeing that a decline in our education system does not force future generations to pay for today's recession; a job training program to help those who are out-of-work acquire the skills needed to become employed in industries that are creating jobs; and federal investments in future industries that are likely to increase America's worldwide prestige and serve as engines of job creation for years to come.
2) To offset the deleterious impact those spending increases will have on our deficit and national debt, we will need to make dramatic cuts NOT in social programs, but in areas where government spending is either necessary but currently excessive (such as with the military-industrial complex) or a moral as well as fiscal affront (such as the war on drugs, particularly as it is made manifest in the ongoing prohibition of marijuana, and its concurrent proliferation of our prison system).
3) After unemployment is down, wages are up, and the other policies necessary to secure America's economic future have been put in place, we will then need be able to wage a full-frontal assault against the budget deficit and national debt by raising taxes. To accomplish this in a way that brings in enough revenue to actually make a dent in solving these problems, while simultaneously not thrusting the burden onto those Americans least capable of shouldering it, we should raise taxes on both non-essential goods and services (one great example of this would be to not only legalize marijuana, but impose a considerable tax rate on it) and on the individuals and financial entities most capable of affording it (such as by raising taxes on large corporate earnings and the incomes of wealthy Americans back to Eisenhower-era levels).
I am not under the illusion that any of this will be easy. That said, it must be done, not simply because it's financially sound, but because it's morally right.
Addendum:
In a later conversation that I had about deficit hawks (which I have posted in the article after this one), my friend and I had a brief exchange about the value of creating "policy wishlists". The dialogue seemed far more appropriate for this article than its predecessor, which is why I pasted it below as a conclusion to this piece.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Matt, think that you might be wrong, if just for a few minutes as a thought exercise.
Oh, and u can adjust for inflation and the increase is still there lolalso, I'm all for cutting wasteful programs as you suggested we do. That's a no-brainer. Miltary, war on drugs etc, let's slash spending in half (or eliminate re war on drugs). Do I think these measures are politically feasible at this point in time? About a snowball's chance in hell. we can revert to making policy wishlists whist raising our fists at the man, but I thought we got that out if our system in undergrad
Matthew Rozsa
1) It is pretty condescending of you to assume that I haven't tried to imagine this case from the other point-of-view, not merely because it insults my open-mindedness, but because it operates on the premise that no one who understands your position could possibly come to an intelligent disagreement with it.
2) Adjust for inflation and the increase is not there. Trust me, I've done my research too.
3) That's the problem with so-called centrists - they have a cynical contempt for the practical value of idealism. History has shown that people usually wind up landing a little bit lower than the highest point toward which they shoot. That is why it is important to aim for the ideal in all things, rather than make concessions as to what you can accomplish before you even try; those who adopt the latter approach may take comfort in being smugly assured of their own "pragmatism", but it is those in the former category who change the world.
I shall begin with a quote from Franklin Roosevelt:
“Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws — sacred, inviolable, unchangeable — cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”
- Franklin Roosevelt (1932)
Sadly, the primary difference between the America of 1932 (in which FDR uttered this line) and its 2010 counterpart is that today, far too many Democrats are becoming gelded echoes of deficit hawks, laissez-fairers, covert plutocrats, myopic shills of Wall Street (such as yourself), and other birds from the Republican economic aviary.
No one is denying that our budget deficit and national debt pose a great threat to our country's fiscal soundness, and that both will eventually need to be addressed. That said, our priority right now must be to alleviate the great human suffering that has been caused by the economic calamities of the Reaganite agenda (the same one brought to its unfortunate fruition under George W. Bush) - rising unemployment, stagnant and/or declining incomes, a deterioration in the quality of our education system, and a dwindling of our national competitiveness with other nations in clean energy, biotechnology, and other industries of the future. These are not problems that can be solved while simultaneously trying to fight the budget deficit and reduce our national debt. Therefore we must accept three hard truths about what our policies need to be, at least temporarily:
1) We will need to drastically increase spending, and with it the deficit and our national debt, until the aforementioned side effects of this economic disaster have subsided. These spending increases should include a comprehensive latter-day New Deal, one which emphasizes modern equivalents to the Works Progress Administration and National Recovery Act; increased regulations on Wall Street and big business; legislation strengthening the power of labor unions to control employee wages; a law that mandates annual increases in the minimum wage in accordance with the national cost of living; state aid to help local government save public sector jobs - and especially teaching positions, thereby guaranteeing that a decline in our education system does not force future generations to pay for today's recession; a job training program to help those who are out-of-work acquire the skills needed to become employed in industries that are creating jobs; and federal investments in future industries that are likely to increase America's worldwide prestige and serve as engines of job creation for years to come.
2) To offset the deleterious impact those spending increases will have on our deficit and national debt, we will need to make dramatic cuts NOT in social programs, but in areas where government spending is either necessary but currently excessive (such as with the military-industrial complex) or a moral as well as fiscal affront (such as the war on drugs, particularly as it is made manifest in the ongoing prohibition of marijuana, and its concurrent proliferation of our prison system).
3) After unemployment is down, wages are up, and the other policies necessary to secure America's economic future have been put in place, we will then need be able to wage a full-frontal assault against the budget deficit and national debt by raising taxes. To accomplish this in a way that brings in enough revenue to actually make a dent in solving these problems, while simultaneously not thrusting the burden onto those Americans least capable of shouldering it, we should raise taxes on both non-essential goods and services (one great example of this would be to not only legalize marijuana, but impose a considerable tax rate on it) and on the individuals and financial entities most capable of affording it (such as by raising taxes on large corporate earnings and the incomes of wealthy Americans back to Eisenhower-era levels).
I am not under the illusion that any of this will be easy. That said, it must be done, not simply because it's financially sound, but because it's morally right.
Addendum:
In a later conversation that I had about deficit hawks (which I have posted in the article after this one), my friend and I had a brief exchange about the value of creating "policy wishlists". The dialogue seemed far more appropriate for this article than its predecessor, which is why I pasted it below as a conclusion to this piece.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Matt, think that you might be wrong, if just for a few minutes as a thought exercise.
Oh, and u can adjust for inflation and the increase is still there lolalso, I'm all for cutting wasteful programs as you suggested we do. That's a no-brainer. Miltary, war on drugs etc, let's slash spending in half (or eliminate re war on drugs). Do I think these measures are politically feasible at this point in time? About a snowball's chance in hell. we can revert to making policy wishlists whist raising our fists at the man, but I thought we got that out if our system in undergrad
Matthew Rozsa
1) It is pretty condescending of you to assume that I haven't tried to imagine this case from the other point-of-view, not merely because it insults my open-mindedness, but because it operates on the premise that no one who understands your position could possibly come to an intelligent disagreement with it.
2) Adjust for inflation and the increase is not there. Trust me, I've done my research too.
3) That's the problem with so-called centrists - they have a cynical contempt for the practical value of idealism. History has shown that people usually wind up landing a little bit lower than the highest point toward which they shoot. That is why it is important to aim for the ideal in all things, rather than make concessions as to what you can accomplish before you even try; those who adopt the latter approach may take comfort in being smugly assured of their own "pragmatism", but it is those in the former category who change the world.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
American Zeitgeist Rhetoric (1970-2010)
First, some clarification:
zeitgeist –noun, German
the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time
I have long been fascinated by the power of rhetoric and, more specifically, the capacity of words to capture the "essence" of specific periods in history. It is from this interest that I have created a list of "American Zeitgeist Rhetoric" - i.e., individual pieces of rhetoric that summed up the zeitgeist of the years from American history in which they were produced. They come from speeches, movies, songs, interviews, newspaper headlines, and even commercials; they range in length from a few words to several pages of text; some are among the most famous utterances of our time, while others are relatively obscure. Each selection is accompanied by a brief explanation as to its history and why I saw fit to include it on this list. Of course, given the passionate feelings that this subject is bound to arouse, I more than expect there to be ample disagreement on many of my choices - and I welcome the debate!
1970: President Richard Nixon, “Cambodian Incursion” Speech (April 30, 1970)
The Vietnam War was one of the defining political issues of the late-1960s and early-1970s, and although Richard Nixon claimed, during the 1968 presidential campaign that led to his election, that he had a "secret plan" for peacefully ending the war, it soon became abundantly clear that his policies were not going to be substantively different from those of his predecessors. That said, his decision to expand America's bombing program OUTSIDE the boundaries of Vietnam itself - by bombing the adjacent nation of Cambodia in the spring of 1970 - marked a turning point not only in the war itself, but in the reaction to it at home. The announcement of his escalation was greeted with cheers by hawks and cries of outrage by doves; it led to the protests at Kent State University which prompted the Ohio National Guard to lash out in horrifying violence against unarmed students; and it enhanced Nixon's status among right-wing reactionaries whose support he would need to be re-elected.
1971: John Lennon, "Imagine" song (October 11, 1971)
Those who had hoped that the dissolution of The Beatles in 1970 would silence its most outspoken political activist, John Lennon, would be proven mistaken. Indeed, Lennon soon emerged as one of the leading voices of the protest movement, an individual who mobilized millions of Baby Boomers during the late-1960s and early-1970s and inspired future generations of progressive activists. While the themes covered in his song "Imagine" had been addressed before - both by himself and by dozens of other prominent countercultural figures of the time - the lyrical beauty and melodic simplicity of this piece embodied the spirit of "the movement" that was such a defining aspect of both 1971 and the larger period known as "The Sixties".
1972: Al Pacino as Michael Corleone,“Powerful Man” monologue from movie “The Godfather” (March 15, 1972)
The quixotic idealism that John Lennon so eloquently captured in 1971 came hand-in-hand with a seemingly paradoxical reaction that was born from the same wellspring of dissent - pure, unadulterated cynicism. It is appropriate that the most perfect encapsulation of the jadedness toward established institutions which was felt at the time came from one of the most acclaimed motion pictures released in both the 1970s or any other decade - Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather". In a single brief and oft-overlooked explanation delivered by Al Pacino's Michael Corleone to his girlfriend, Diane Keaton's Kay Adams, the future mobster constructs a shockingly simple rationalization for the actions of the mafia by comparing them to other "powerful men" whose actions are quickly justified and dismissed by society. Although the brutal realism from Coppola's magnum opus seems to exist in stark contrast to the hopefulness embodied by Lennon's music, both brilliantly summarize the spirit of disenchantment and rebellion felt in their respective years.
1973: President Richard Nixon, "I Am Not A Crook" statement (November 17, 1973)
Although the Watergate fiasco technically began exactly seventeen months before Nixon's famous declaration of innocence - with the botched burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972 - it wasn't until 1973 that the political scandal truly started coming to a head. The controversy that eventually led to the disgrace and unprecedented resignation of President Richard Nixon better epitomized the growing loss of faith in previously-untouchable figures and institutions then perhaps any other event within the last half-century. When one takes into account just how deeply Watergate dominated America's political and even cultural life at the time - and considering how apparent the multi-layered irony of Nixon's famously shifty insistence in his own trustworthiness was to those who witnessed it - the selection of a "zeitgeist rhetoric" for 1973 was self-evident.
1974: President Gerald Ford, "Inaugural Address" (August 9, 1974)
Less remembered for its irony and false reassurance was the inaugural address of Richard Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford. On the same day that Richard Nixon's dishonor culminated in his stepping down from the White House, the newly-sworn in Gerald Ford - the first, and so far only, unelected president in American history - famously comforted the American people by proclaiming that "our long national nightmare is over". Given Ford's humble and down-to-earth personality, as well as his clear discomfort with the power that had just been thrust upon him, many Americans did indeed believe that their new president might usher in a great restoration of faith and trust in national institutions, beginning with the presidency itself. That promise was soon dashed, however, with President Ford's decision - made exactly one month later - to unconditionally pardon Richard Nixon of all crimes committed regarding the Watergate cover-up. Although historians today agree that Ford was motivated by a misguided sympathy for his predecessor rather than any self-serving ulterior motives, at the time public sentiment overwhelmingly turned against the new president, as more and more people suspected that Ford had arranged a covert deal with Nixon to trade the presidency in return for a pardon. No restoration would occur.
1975: Associated Press headline "Mihn Surrenders, Vietcong in Saigon" (April 30, 1975)
Just as the resignation and pardoning of Richard Nixon solidified the large-scale embarrassment of our domestic political establishment, so too did the fall of Saigon to the Communist-backed Vietcong movement officially bring about the humiliation of America's international establishment - namely, its military. The same country that had turned the tide in two world wars, held back Communist advances from Korea to Germany, and single-handedly become an international superpower in one-third of a century had now been defeated - in a war that spanned more than a decade - by a handful of guerrillas. The news that conveyed this to the American people, and thus the rhetoric capturing the zeitgeist of 1975, needed no embellishment, which is why the Associated Press report will more than suffice.
1976: Peter Finch as Howard Beale, "Mad as hell" monologue from movie "Network" (November 27, 1976)
By 1976, Americans were angry. The economy had entered an interminable state of hyperinflation and recession, violence was rampant in our cities, faith had been shattered in virtually all major governmental, business, and cultural institutions, and no one knew where to turn for solace. The collective cry of frustration and rage was brilliantly evoked in a speech delivered by the fictional protagonist of Paddy Chayefsky's classic film, "Network" - an ex-news anchor named Howard Beale, whose rapid descent into insanity helped him tap into the outrage and despair of the American people better than any real-life, sane human being. Although "Network" is best remembered today for its eerily prophetic vision of the exploitative dumbing down of the American news industry, it is the ranting and raving of Peter Finch (who won a rare posthumous Oscar for his performance) in the Zeitgeist-capturing "Mad as hell" speech that gives this movie its transcendent genius.
1977: Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, "May the force be with you" line from movie "Star Wars" (May 25, 1977)
People needed a form of escape from reality, and in 1977 that thirst was quenched with the release of a motion picture that revolutionized the film industry - "Star Wars". Although movies had been popular prior to George Lucas' masterpiece, never before had a single movie completely swept up the country in its thrall. From its eye-popping special effects and brisk cinematic pacing to its mesmerizingly-evoked fantasy world and crisp dialogue (the last feature which would, sadly, deteriorate quite noticeably in subsequent franchise installments), "Star Wars" dominated the ethos of the year in which it was released.
1978: Cardinal Karol Wojtyla's Address to the Crowd (October 16, 1978)
When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was chosen by the Papal Conclave to become Pope John Paul II - the third pope to serve in 1978, as the great Pope Paul VI had died earlier that year and his successor, Pope John Paul I, died after a papacy of only thirty-three days - he shocked the world by breaking centuries of precedent and addressing the crowd which had assembled beneath the Vatican balcony to greet him. Even more surprisingly, he opted to speak to them not in Latin - the language preferred by clergy in the Catholic church - but in their own native tongue, Italian (interestingly, this was not the natural language of the pontiff himself, who as a Polish citizen had become the first non-Italian to become Pope in more than 450 years). This action inspired Americans as much as it did the rest of the world, which is why the bold egalitarianism of Wojtyla's words - despite being delivered by a non-American in a foreign country - better captured the zeitgeist of 1978 for America than did anything uttered by one of our own citizens.
1979: President Jimmy Carter, "Crisis of Confidence" Speech (July 15, 1979)
On July 5, 1979, as President Jimmy Carter found himself scheduled to deliver a national address on the oil crisis - yet another installment in a long series of speeches which had been devoted to that subject - he came to the realization that, if he were a normal citizen instead of the president, he would have long since grown weary of hearing America's leaders drone on endlessly with solutions that didn't work and reassurances that rang hopelessly false. Consequently, he cancelled his expected speech and retreated to Camp David for ten days, reading the works of prominent sociologists and philosophers and engaging in conversations with Americans from all walks of life - from politicians and business leaders to small-town clergymen and working-class citizens. Carter then did something that few other presidents have seen fit to do ever since - he spent some time by himself and reflected on what he had learned. The ultimate product of those contemplations is a speech of remarkable profundity and insight, one that cuts to the heart of America's loss of confidence - in established political and social institutions, in the future, and in itself - better than any other piece of rhetoric delivered before or since. Although the speech temporarily revived Carter's flailing political fortunes, he soon undermined its impact by arbitrarily demanding that all of his Cabinet officers submit letters of resignation, eventually firing four of them. While the speech itself was popular, the dismay people felt at President Carter for his cabinet purging was soon conflated with the rhetoric of the "Crisis of Confidence" address, eventually enabling Republicans to deride Carter's observations as being "the malaise speech" (even though Carter hadn't actually used the word "malaise") and discrediting, in the eyes of many, everything Carter had to say. Despite this, the "Crisis of Confidence" speech better captures the zeitgeist of its year - as well as, arguably, the mood of an entire generation - than any other political oration in recent history.
1980: Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, "There you go again" statement at presidential debate (October 28, 1980)
In 1960, and in every subsequent presidential election since 1976, the two major party candidates have faced each other in national debate on multiple occasions throughout the year. 1980 has been the sole exception to this rule - in it, Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Jimmy Carter debated each other only once, exactly one week before Election Day itself, on October 28, 1980. Although Carter dominated his opponent on substantive matters, Reagan's ready arsenal of memorable quips and telegenic expressions of amused disdain caused him to win the perceptual war over his hapless opponent. This approach was exemplified by Reagan's decision to interrupt, and glibly dismiss, one of Carter's main arguments by condescendingly chiding him, "There you go again." The fact that the audience applauded, and the American people were impressed, does not reflect well on either group, considering that Carter's point - which was that, as governor of California, Reagan had voted against Medicare and Social Security benefits, with disturbing implications of what his social policies would be as president -was one that the American people should have listened to. Unfortunately, this preference for style over substance, as well as the public's misguided fleeing into the arms of the New Right for political salvation, was the essence of America in 1980.
1981: President Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981)
By declaring in his inaugural address that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem", President Ronald Reagan was able to pull off one of the great paradoxical achievements of modern American political history. He became a president who expanded the powers of government over the lives of citizens as never before, even as he claimed to be getting that same government "off the backs of the people"; he ushered an era of ostensible fiscal responsibility, even as he ran up unprecedented budget deficits; and he created a climate in which conservatism adopted a populist ring through its use cultural reactionism and knee-jerk fear of socialism, even as its policies caused a deterioration in the standard of living for middle-class and working-class Americans. All of this was symbolized in the rhetoric of the inaugural address that ushered in not only Reagan's own presidency, but a new era in the ideological paradigm of American politics.
1982: Letter from Samantha Smith to Soviet President Yuri Andropov (December 1982)
After hawks took over the governments of the world's two great superpowers - first Ronald Reagan in the United States, then Yuri Andropov in the Soviet Union - concerns flared up, and dominated American's psychological life, about the possibility of nuclear war. In response to this, a ten-year-old girl from Maine named Samantha Smith wrote a letter to the leader of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party Yuri Andropov, asking him to do what he could to create peace in the world. Her letter not only received a tender response from the hardened 68-year-old politician - eventually prompting him to invite Smith on a tour of his country - but brought international recognition to the cause of world peace, particularly for those concerned with the increasing threat of nuclear annihilation.
1983: President Ronald Reagan, "The Evil Empire" Speech (March 8, 1983)
Although American foreign policy had taken a hard-line approach against the Soviet Union, and international communism overall, since the Russian Revolution had taken place in 1917, Ronald Reagan was nevertheless able to bolster his standing among far right-wingers and other hawks - as well as dramatically increase the profit margins of the corporations fueling America's military-industrial complex - by casting himself as the originator of a newer, tougher stand against the USSR. This bellicosity was encapsulated in Reagan's famous "Evil Empire" speech, which came to define much of America's political ethos during the 1980s.
1984: Apple's "1984 - Big Brother" commercial (January 22, 1984)
Another key development of the 1980s was the birth of the personal computer, which revolutionized the way Americans - and, eventually, the rest of the world - lived. This event neatly dovetailed with the rise of Apple Computers as an economic and technological powerhouse, which in turn coincided with the airing of the legendary "1984 - Big Brother" commercial during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. In ways that perhaps only Apple CEO Steve Jobs fully appreciated, personal computers truly did change the world - not only in the way we process information, but in the very way we think and live. In retrospect, the Big Brother commercial can be remembered not only as a brilliant piece of advertising, but as a remarkably prescient harbinger of the computer boom to come.
1985: Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie (with the help of supergroup USA for Africa), "We Are The World" song (March 7, 1985)
The technological optimism of the 1980s was matched with an equally potent optimism - albeit one set against the backdrop of dissatisfaction with the policies of the Reagan administration - in the world of pop culture. This was best demonstrated by the release of "We Are The World", a song written by musical behemoths Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie in order to raise funds to fight disease and famine in Africa. It was performed by musical legends, under the aegis of a supergroup called "USA for Africa", including not only Jackson and Richie themselves, but Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Hall & Oates, Bette Midler, Willie Nelson, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, and Stevie Wonder. Although the song made a considerable amount of money, much of its total profit wound up going to the governments of the affected countries instead of the people they intended to help - a fact that tragically underscored how even musicians with the best intentions can fail to achieve their desired goals unless they couple their idealism with political savvy (a lesson understood by John Lennon, though not by his many would-be successors). This disconnect between the motivations of progressive movements and their efficacy was, sadly, another noteworthy element of the 80s zeitgeist.
1986: Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast..." line from movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (June 11, 1986)
Despite all the serious topics dealt with on this list, there is a lighter, even happier side to the zeitgeist of certain eras. Such is the case with 1986, a year in which the whimsical joie de vivre of youth - a quality that made itself evident in pop culture throughout the 1980s - was captured with a single line from the cult classic, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". You know which one I'm talking about.
1987: Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, "Greed is good" monologue from movie "Wall Street" (December 11, 1987)
Although America's middle-class and working-class took a significant economic hit during the 1980s, the deregulation and overall laissez-faire policies implemented by Ronald Reagan caused a period of dizzying prosperity for Wall Street, big business, and others in America's upper class. Fueling this development was a materialistic ethos that permeated our country's moral and cultural, as well as economic, life throughout the decade. It was most brilliantly evoked, and skewered, in a scene in Oliver Stone's classic film "Wall Street", wherein stockbroker leviathan Gordon Gekko (played to perfection by Michael Douglas) explains to a rapt audience that - all assertions to the contrary notwithstanding - "greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
1988: Lee Atwater, presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush, "Willie Horton Ad" (September 21, 1988)
Although there were real problems in 1988 - economic decline, staggering national debt, growing discontent in an increasingly-militant Third World - political professionals realized that the way to win elections was by playing on the public's most irrational fears, preferably (if possible) by focusing on irrelevancies. This technique was turned into an art during the 1988 presidential election, in which Vice President George H. W. Bush - finding himself seventeen points behind his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis - drew attention to a prison furlough program supported by his rival that had inadvertantly led to the escape of murderer Willie Horton, who went on to savagely rape a young woman in Maryland after knifing and binding up her fiance. Horrifying though the story was, it had no real bearing either on Dukakis' qualifications to be president or on the welfare of the nation as a whole. In spite of this, it did play on latent racial concerns harbored by millions of white Americans, causing the advertisement aired by the Bush campaign - and masterminded by its great strategist, Lee Atwater - to play a decisive role in reversing Dukakis' lead and ultimately getting Bush elected by a nine-point margin. Its immediate impact aside, however, the advertisement embodied much of the pettiness that characterized American politics throughout the entire decade - perhaps explaining why the 1988 presidential election saw the lowest voter turnout in sixty-four years (although an even lower turnout would take place, due to disinterest rather than disgust, during the Clinton-Dole election eight years later).
1989: Hanns Friedrichs, newscasting "This ninth of November is a historic day..." (November 9, 1989)
Since the end of World War II forty-four years earlier, America had defined itself, internationally speaking, by the Cold War. When the Berlin Wall was torn down on November 9, 1989, the Cold War came to an abrupt end - an end best summarized by the statement of Hann Friedrichs, Germany's most well-respected newscaster, when he issued the simple declaration that "this ninth of November is a historic day." This declaration thus earns its place as one of the three pieces of "American Zeitgeist Rhetoric" to not take place within this country, due to the manner in which the fall of the Berlin Wall transformed how America viewed its role in the world community.
1990: Nelson Mandela, "Speech on Release from Prison" (February 11, 1990)
The sense of hope regarding world affairs that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall continued in early 1990, when Nelson Mandela was released from the jail cell where, as punishment for his outspoken opposition to South African apartheid, he had spent the previous twenty-seven years of his life. Along with being a signficant international event in its own right, Mandela's liberation struck a deep personal chord with the American public due to the similarities between apartheid and the system of segregation that, until relatively recently, had prevailed in America itself.
1991: President George H. W. Bush, "New World Order" Speech (January 10, 1991)
1991 was the third consecutive year of good news on the international stage - and this time, the news directly involved the actions of America itself. After issuing multiple warnings to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to cease developing nuclear weapons, President George H. W. Bush - with the full support of the United Nations and larger international community - declared war on that country. America's swift and decisive military victory restored faith in the supremacy of our armed forces, a faith that had been shattered more than a decade earlier by our defeat in Vietnam. More significant than this, though, was the speech President Bush delivered as the war drew to a close, one in which he laid out a vision for a "New World Order" of international cooperation and peacekeeping efforts that would exist in the wake of our military victory in Iraq and the rapid decline of Soviet geopolitical influence. This speech also marked the high point in Bush's presidency - his approval ratings peaked at more than 90%, by far the highest of any president in American history up to that point, rendering his re-election the following year a seeming inevitability.
1992: James Carville, presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, "It's the economy, stupid" haiku (1992)
Although President Bush assumed his triumph in the Persian Gulf would help him coast to victory in the presidential campaign of 1992, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton recognized that the economic hardships suffered by the American people over the last twelve years would become increasingly prominent in people's minds as foreign policy receded from the fore of public attention. This realization was best captured by a "haiku" written by Clinton's campaign manager, James Carville, for the use of his staffers. Including the memorable line "It's the economy, stupid," it would up proving remarkably adept at identifying the chief concerns of the American people in 1992. Not only would Clinton decisively defeat President Bush that year, but voter turnout reached the highest America had seen in twenty years.
1993: Denzel Washington as Joe Miller, courtroom monologue on AIDS discrimination from movie "Philadelphia" (December 23, 1993)
The AIDS epidemic, which devastated homosexual and minority communities since for more than a decade, had been brushed under the table during the 1980s thanks in no small part to the diffidence and contempt in which its victims were held by the (then) reigning conservative majority. In 1993, however, Hollywood released its first mainstream feature film to directly address the humanitarian ramifications of this disease. Boasting among its all-star cast such prominent names as Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, and (of course) Tom Hanks, the movie contains a particularly powerful monologue by Washington that provided defenders of AIDS discrimination with the condemnation they so rightly deserved - and which captured the spirit of assault against AIDS that so dominated much of the public mindscape in 1993.
1994: Weird Al Yankovic, "Headline News" song (September 27, 1994)
By 1994, the economy had entered one of the greatest periods of prosperity in American history. This boom - accompanied by unprecedented peace abroad and a general sense of American military, political, economic, and even cultural supremacy throughout the world - caused the attention of the mainstream news to shift away from matters of consequence and focus instead on trivial-but-sensational stories that would have been relegated to the sphere of tabloid journalism only a few years earlier. The absurdity of this development was identified and irreverently ridiculed by America's leading parodyist, Alfred "Weird Al" Yankovic, in his music video "Headline News". Little could Yankovic have known that he was diagnosing an element of the American spirit that would dominate the remainder of the decade.
1995: Johnnie Cochran, "If the glove don't fit..." closing remarks (September 27, 1995)
The obsessive focus on the lurid-and-petty that characterized so much of the 1990s reached its apex with the trial of football star and television personality O. J. Simpson. The story itself was a perfect storm of journalistic sensationalism, one that contained murder, illicit sex, celebrity, and race relations. Appropriately, the story was best summed up not by such factors as the guilt or innocence of its main character, but rather by a memorably delivered line from the main character's colorful attorney.
1996: "Seasons of Love" song, by Jonathan Larson, sung by the cast in the musical "Rent" (April 29, 1996)
The youth of the 1990s felt a sense of ennui that they could not shake - and that feeling, with its beautifully paradoxical mixture of romantic idealism and cynical frustration, was best evoked in the opening song from Jonathan Larson's musical "Rent", which debuted on Broadway in 1996 (although it had been first performed Off-Broadway two years earlier). Even though the story of "Rent" was set in 1989 and 1990, its ability to combine Bohemian frivolity with the more serious (and under-recognized) issues of the day (the AIDS epidemic, lingering racial and economic inequalities, the burgeoning gay rights movement) made it especially relevant to the era in which it was released.
1997: Robert DeNiro as Conrad Breen, "There Ain't No War But Ours" monologue from movie "Wag the Dog" (December 17, 1997)
Despite the peace and prosperity which marked the 1990s, an air of cynicism toward major institutions - particularly those in government and media - continued to dominate American life. This was perhaps embodied best by the movie "Wag the Dog", in which a scandal-ridden president desperate for a boost in his approval ratings pretends to wage war against Albania. The monologue delivered by media consultant Conrad Breen (played by Robert DeNiro) about how "there ain't no war but ours" says just as much about the attitude held by the American people at that time toward opinion-shapers as it does about the shapers themselves.
1998: President Bill Clinton, Denial of Infidelity (January 26, 1998)
The O. J. Simpson trial was not, unfortunately, the greatest trivial news event of the 1990s. No, that distinction belongs to the sex scandal of President Bill Clinton, one blown grossly out of proportion by a news media that craved high ratings and exploited by a conservative majority in Congress which salivated at the prospect of disgracing a president they detested. Even though Clinton eventually emerged as the winner in this debacle - not only by avoiding forced removal from office but by being the beneficiary of extraordinarily high approval ratings from a sympathetic public - his famous denial of having ever had "sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" became one of the defining statements of his presidency - on par with another zeitgeist-capturing denial, from a different president, nearly a quarter-century earlier.
1999: Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, "No Great Wars" monologue from movie "Fight Club" (October 15, 1999)
If "Rent" addressed the plight of 1990s ennui with music devoted to love, passion, and artistic expression, then the movie "Fight Club" responded to those same problems with a middle finger and a punch in the face. In a highly quotable monologue, the character of Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) captured the feelings of a whole generation of Americans by pointing out how - with no "great wars" to win and no "great depressions" to conquer - men everywhere lacked a sense of greater purpose. Much of the frustration that existed as an undercurrent since the beginning of the decade was given its most eloquent expression in Pitt's monologue from this movie.
2000: Vice President Al Gore, Concession Speech (December 13, 2000)
Americans entered the new millenium with the first presidential election in 112 years in which the victorious candidate had failed to receive the most popular votes. Despite strong evidence of electoral fraud in Florida - evidence that, if properly accounted for, would have caused Vice President Al Gore to be declared the winner instead of his opponent, Governor George W. Bush - the Supreme Court of the United States, in a transparently partisan decision, decided to favor Bush's case over the one presented by Al Gore. Even though Gore was thus fated to never become president, he still had the distinction of becoming that year's greatest leader, by delivering a concession speech after the Supreme Court's decision that handled his injustice with grace and sage perspective. While the speech failed to remove the sting of democracy thwarted, it at least allowed the long-awaited year 2000 to end on a somewhat upbeat note - and allowed Gore, who prior to then had been widely criticized for his overly-cerebral and lackluster speaking style, to reveal surprising gifts as an orator.
2001: President George W. Bush, Bullhorn Speech (September 14, 2001)
The rest of the 2000s would be defined by a single event - the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Although President George W. Bush had, up until then, suffered from low approval ratings and even lower public esteem, his popularity quickly became the highest of any president's in history after he was perceived as unifying the country and taking charge following the tragedy of that day. Bush was even able to rise to the occasion in a spontaneous moment - when addressing a crowd of firefighters from the rubble of one of the World Trade Center buildings three days after the attack, he heard a voice shout "I can't hear you". In response, the new president Bush replied:
"I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"
Had Bush followed through on his encouraging words from that day - had he brought Osama bin Laden to justice and increased America's prestige throughout the world, instead of capitalizing on the 9/11 attacks to wage an unnecessary war against Iraq - his bullhorn speech might have captured the zeitgeist of 2001 as a moment of inspiration. Instead, those words captured not only the horror of that time, but the failures of the man fate (and the Supreme Court) had chosen to lead us through it.
2002: President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address (January 29, 2002)
The first State of the Union address delivered by President Bush after the September 11th terrorist attacks, this speech set the policies and general tone which would define the remainder of Bush's presidency. Along with condemning the perpetrators of the World Trade Center and Pentagon murders, Bush proceeded to label the nations of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea "an axis of evil". Just as Bush's speeches immediately after September 11th helped establish him, in the minds of most Americans, as a leader, so too did this speech convince lay the psychological foundations that would persuade most Americans to follow their president into an eventual war with Iraq, as well as an unprecedented estrangement from much of the international community.
2003: Secretary of State Colin Powell, Address to the United Nations Security Council (February 5, 2003)
By 2003, the zeitgeist of the times had evolved from one of unwavering support of President Bush and his agenda to one of cautious-but-growing skepticism with his single-minded insistence on toppling the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. As a means of winning the support not just of the rest of the world, but of the holdouts among the American public, President Bush dispatched the most widely-trusted figure of his administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell, to make the case for war to the United Nations Security Council. Although history has since then revealed that Powell had grave doubts about the veracity of the argument he was presenting to the world, he dutifully performed as he was told. There can be no doubt that the war would have taken place even if Powell had abstained from delivering his speech to the UN; even so, the fact that a man of Powell's renowned pragmatism opted to throw his credibility behind the war effort instead of resigning in protest (as one Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, had done in opposition to America's growing involvement in World War I) epitomized the larger national trend of falling in line.
2004: Democratic Senate candiate Barack Obama, Keynote Address at Democratic National Convention (July 27, 2004)
The outrages of Bush's stolen election in 2000, the climate of fear that had been stoked by the Bush administration after September 11th, the gradual abridgement of American freedoms as made manifest by the USA Patriot Act, and the unjust war in Iraq all fired up the liberal movement in ways that had not been seen in more than thirty years. Yet although the Democratic party nominated as its candidate a man believed to be a surefire winner - John Kerry, whose war heroism was felt to make him an ideal opponent to the increasingly bellicose (and chickenhawk packed) Bush administration - Kerry's incompetently-managed campaign, combined with the effective scurrility of the Bushies in casting false doubt on his military record, ultimately rendered the Massachusetts Senator a poor spokesman for the liberal movement. Fortunately, the cause of the left was not without its zeitgeist-capturing advocates; that honor went instead to the Democratic party's Senate candidate in Illinois, Barack Obama, whose eloquent speech at that year's Democratic National Convention made him an overnight star in the political world. Although Kerry would lose to Bush in that election year, Obama's speech made him the voice of a political movement that Kerry was never able to become.
2005: Kanye West, protest at Hurricane Katrina benefit concert (September 2, 2005)
After Bush's re-election, his administration seemed unstoppable - until the bungling of its response to Hurricane Katrina caused many to take the first, tentative steps toward confronting their president on his record. The outcry against the incumbent reached its climax that year at a televised benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims, during which then-unknown rapper Kanye West spontaneously blurted out that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." West's statement seemed to symbolize the emergence of an increasingly empowered voice of opposition to the president - a symbolism further highlighted by the split-second decision of the producers to cut off West rather than allow him airtime to further criticize the president. Yet West's words showed that, after Hurricane Katrina, more than one tide had been turned.
2006: Stephen Colbert, comedy routine at White House Correspondents' Dinner (April 29, 2006)
Hurricane Katrina might have marked the turning of the tide against President Bush, but Stephen Colbert's roasting of the president during the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner was the most cutting - and hilarious - condemnation of everything the Bush administration represented during that decade. Along with giving brilliantly edgy expression to the sentiments of millions of Americans, Colbert's performance also managed to catapult him to iconic status as a court jester whose unique method of offering faux support for his targets could bring the great and powerful to their knees.
2007: Al Gore, Academy Awards Acceptance Speech for movie "An Inconvenient Truth" (February 25, 2007)
After spending more than half-a-decade out of the public limelight following his historic defeat in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore's career experienced an unexpected renaissance with the release of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth", in 2006. By focusing public attention on the growing threat of global warming - an issue that, despite its increasing relevance, had been largely ignored by a war-and-terrorism obsessed public since 2001 - Gore not only managed to reassert his own relevance, but forced political dialogue to end its single-minded obsession with the issues pre-selected by the Bush administration. The success of Gore's efforts would be made clear in 2007 - eventually, late in the year, by his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, but first (and more importantly insofar as his influence on the American public is concerned) in February by his receiving an Academy Award for Best Documentary. His acceptance speech during the awards ceremony, while only repeating the basic message of his film, nevertheless revived the spark of public interest in the need to address global warming. One year later, the presidential candidates of both major parties were acknowledging the validity of global warming as a direct result of the accolades Gore received for his movie.
2008: Senator Barack Obama, "Yes We Can" Speech (January 8, 2008)
After besting his two chief rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination - Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina - in an upset victory at the Iowa caucuses earlier that month, Senator Barack Obama seemed unstoppable in his quest to be his party's standard bearer in that presidential election. That image suffered a setback on January 8th, when Clinton defeated Obama (just as unexpectedly) in the Democratic party's New Hampshire primary. Yet despite this serious blow to his presidential ambitions, Obama managed to use his misfortune to deliver a concession speech that would define not only his presidential campaign, but the sense of hope and change that would characterize American politics through most of that election year - i.e., the "Yes We Can" speech.
2009: Jon Stewart's confrontational with Jim Cramer (March 12, 2009)
In late 2008, the bottom of an economy that had been declining for seven years finally fell out in a stock market crash and mass mortgage crisis that still rattles us today. Americans were livid at the manner in which their lives, to say nothing of the prestige of the country they loved, were destroyed by the financial titans of Wall Street. The pervading sense that the people responsible for getting the United States into its current mess were managing to not only avoid accountability, but walk away with record profits, was made manifest when comedian and satirist Jon Stewart received an opportunity to interview Jim Cramer, a prominent economic pundit who had been one of the most passionate shills for the interests of big business. By admonishing Cramer for neglecting his duties as a supposed reporter, and instead contributing to the mentality and practices that made the financial crisis possible, Stewart emerged as one of the few public figures capable of effectively demanding some sort of responsibility from the self-entrusted keepers of America's economic health.
2010 (tentatively): Matt Stone as Kyle Broflovski, bleeped monologue at conclusion of "South Park 201" (April 21, 2010)
The year 2010 is young, and therefore no final zeitgeist-capturing rhetoric can be designated. That said, I feel the bleeped monologue delivered by "South Park" character Kyle Broflovski is a strong contender, not only for the statement it makes about America's willingness to capitulate to the coercive tactics of terrorists, but also for the manner in which it shows how real free speech, as well as the courage it takes to employ it, is stifled far more often than it is rewarded in America today.
So... what do you think?
zeitgeist –noun, German
the spirit of the time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time
I have long been fascinated by the power of rhetoric and, more specifically, the capacity of words to capture the "essence" of specific periods in history. It is from this interest that I have created a list of "American Zeitgeist Rhetoric" - i.e., individual pieces of rhetoric that summed up the zeitgeist of the years from American history in which they were produced. They come from speeches, movies, songs, interviews, newspaper headlines, and even commercials; they range in length from a few words to several pages of text; some are among the most famous utterances of our time, while others are relatively obscure. Each selection is accompanied by a brief explanation as to its history and why I saw fit to include it on this list. Of course, given the passionate feelings that this subject is bound to arouse, I more than expect there to be ample disagreement on many of my choices - and I welcome the debate!
1970: President Richard Nixon, “Cambodian Incursion” Speech (April 30, 1970)
The Vietnam War was one of the defining political issues of the late-1960s and early-1970s, and although Richard Nixon claimed, during the 1968 presidential campaign that led to his election, that he had a "secret plan" for peacefully ending the war, it soon became abundantly clear that his policies were not going to be substantively different from those of his predecessors. That said, his decision to expand America's bombing program OUTSIDE the boundaries of Vietnam itself - by bombing the adjacent nation of Cambodia in the spring of 1970 - marked a turning point not only in the war itself, but in the reaction to it at home. The announcement of his escalation was greeted with cheers by hawks and cries of outrage by doves; it led to the protests at Kent State University which prompted the Ohio National Guard to lash out in horrifying violence against unarmed students; and it enhanced Nixon's status among right-wing reactionaries whose support he would need to be re-elected.
1971: John Lennon, "Imagine" song (October 11, 1971)
Those who had hoped that the dissolution of The Beatles in 1970 would silence its most outspoken political activist, John Lennon, would be proven mistaken. Indeed, Lennon soon emerged as one of the leading voices of the protest movement, an individual who mobilized millions of Baby Boomers during the late-1960s and early-1970s and inspired future generations of progressive activists. While the themes covered in his song "Imagine" had been addressed before - both by himself and by dozens of other prominent countercultural figures of the time - the lyrical beauty and melodic simplicity of this piece embodied the spirit of "the movement" that was such a defining aspect of both 1971 and the larger period known as "The Sixties".
1972: Al Pacino as Michael Corleone,“Powerful Man” monologue from movie “The Godfather” (March 15, 1972)
The quixotic idealism that John Lennon so eloquently captured in 1971 came hand-in-hand with a seemingly paradoxical reaction that was born from the same wellspring of dissent - pure, unadulterated cynicism. It is appropriate that the most perfect encapsulation of the jadedness toward established institutions which was felt at the time came from one of the most acclaimed motion pictures released in both the 1970s or any other decade - Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather". In a single brief and oft-overlooked explanation delivered by Al Pacino's Michael Corleone to his girlfriend, Diane Keaton's Kay Adams, the future mobster constructs a shockingly simple rationalization for the actions of the mafia by comparing them to other "powerful men" whose actions are quickly justified and dismissed by society. Although the brutal realism from Coppola's magnum opus seems to exist in stark contrast to the hopefulness embodied by Lennon's music, both brilliantly summarize the spirit of disenchantment and rebellion felt in their respective years.
1973: President Richard Nixon, "I Am Not A Crook" statement (November 17, 1973)
Although the Watergate fiasco technically began exactly seventeen months before Nixon's famous declaration of innocence - with the botched burglary of Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972 - it wasn't until 1973 that the political scandal truly started coming to a head. The controversy that eventually led to the disgrace and unprecedented resignation of President Richard Nixon better epitomized the growing loss of faith in previously-untouchable figures and institutions then perhaps any other event within the last half-century. When one takes into account just how deeply Watergate dominated America's political and even cultural life at the time - and considering how apparent the multi-layered irony of Nixon's famously shifty insistence in his own trustworthiness was to those who witnessed it - the selection of a "zeitgeist rhetoric" for 1973 was self-evident.
1974: President Gerald Ford, "Inaugural Address" (August 9, 1974)
Less remembered for its irony and false reassurance was the inaugural address of Richard Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford. On the same day that Richard Nixon's dishonor culminated in his stepping down from the White House, the newly-sworn in Gerald Ford - the first, and so far only, unelected president in American history - famously comforted the American people by proclaiming that "our long national nightmare is over". Given Ford's humble and down-to-earth personality, as well as his clear discomfort with the power that had just been thrust upon him, many Americans did indeed believe that their new president might usher in a great restoration of faith and trust in national institutions, beginning with the presidency itself. That promise was soon dashed, however, with President Ford's decision - made exactly one month later - to unconditionally pardon Richard Nixon of all crimes committed regarding the Watergate cover-up. Although historians today agree that Ford was motivated by a misguided sympathy for his predecessor rather than any self-serving ulterior motives, at the time public sentiment overwhelmingly turned against the new president, as more and more people suspected that Ford had arranged a covert deal with Nixon to trade the presidency in return for a pardon. No restoration would occur.
1975: Associated Press headline "Mihn Surrenders, Vietcong in Saigon" (April 30, 1975)
Just as the resignation and pardoning of Richard Nixon solidified the large-scale embarrassment of our domestic political establishment, so too did the fall of Saigon to the Communist-backed Vietcong movement officially bring about the humiliation of America's international establishment - namely, its military. The same country that had turned the tide in two world wars, held back Communist advances from Korea to Germany, and single-handedly become an international superpower in one-third of a century had now been defeated - in a war that spanned more than a decade - by a handful of guerrillas. The news that conveyed this to the American people, and thus the rhetoric capturing the zeitgeist of 1975, needed no embellishment, which is why the Associated Press report will more than suffice.
1976: Peter Finch as Howard Beale, "Mad as hell" monologue from movie "Network" (November 27, 1976)
By 1976, Americans were angry. The economy had entered an interminable state of hyperinflation and recession, violence was rampant in our cities, faith had been shattered in virtually all major governmental, business, and cultural institutions, and no one knew where to turn for solace. The collective cry of frustration and rage was brilliantly evoked in a speech delivered by the fictional protagonist of Paddy Chayefsky's classic film, "Network" - an ex-news anchor named Howard Beale, whose rapid descent into insanity helped him tap into the outrage and despair of the American people better than any real-life, sane human being. Although "Network" is best remembered today for its eerily prophetic vision of the exploitative dumbing down of the American news industry, it is the ranting and raving of Peter Finch (who won a rare posthumous Oscar for his performance) in the Zeitgeist-capturing "Mad as hell" speech that gives this movie its transcendent genius.
1977: Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi, "May the force be with you" line from movie "Star Wars" (May 25, 1977)
People needed a form of escape from reality, and in 1977 that thirst was quenched with the release of a motion picture that revolutionized the film industry - "Star Wars". Although movies had been popular prior to George Lucas' masterpiece, never before had a single movie completely swept up the country in its thrall. From its eye-popping special effects and brisk cinematic pacing to its mesmerizingly-evoked fantasy world and crisp dialogue (the last feature which would, sadly, deteriorate quite noticeably in subsequent franchise installments), "Star Wars" dominated the ethos of the year in which it was released.
1978: Cardinal Karol Wojtyla's Address to the Crowd (October 16, 1978)
When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla was chosen by the Papal Conclave to become Pope John Paul II - the third pope to serve in 1978, as the great Pope Paul VI had died earlier that year and his successor, Pope John Paul I, died after a papacy of only thirty-three days - he shocked the world by breaking centuries of precedent and addressing the crowd which had assembled beneath the Vatican balcony to greet him. Even more surprisingly, he opted to speak to them not in Latin - the language preferred by clergy in the Catholic church - but in their own native tongue, Italian (interestingly, this was not the natural language of the pontiff himself, who as a Polish citizen had become the first non-Italian to become Pope in more than 450 years). This action inspired Americans as much as it did the rest of the world, which is why the bold egalitarianism of Wojtyla's words - despite being delivered by a non-American in a foreign country - better captured the zeitgeist of 1978 for America than did anything uttered by one of our own citizens.
1979: President Jimmy Carter, "Crisis of Confidence" Speech (July 15, 1979)
On July 5, 1979, as President Jimmy Carter found himself scheduled to deliver a national address on the oil crisis - yet another installment in a long series of speeches which had been devoted to that subject - he came to the realization that, if he were a normal citizen instead of the president, he would have long since grown weary of hearing America's leaders drone on endlessly with solutions that didn't work and reassurances that rang hopelessly false. Consequently, he cancelled his expected speech and retreated to Camp David for ten days, reading the works of prominent sociologists and philosophers and engaging in conversations with Americans from all walks of life - from politicians and business leaders to small-town clergymen and working-class citizens. Carter then did something that few other presidents have seen fit to do ever since - he spent some time by himself and reflected on what he had learned. The ultimate product of those contemplations is a speech of remarkable profundity and insight, one that cuts to the heart of America's loss of confidence - in established political and social institutions, in the future, and in itself - better than any other piece of rhetoric delivered before or since. Although the speech temporarily revived Carter's flailing political fortunes, he soon undermined its impact by arbitrarily demanding that all of his Cabinet officers submit letters of resignation, eventually firing four of them. While the speech itself was popular, the dismay people felt at President Carter for his cabinet purging was soon conflated with the rhetoric of the "Crisis of Confidence" address, eventually enabling Republicans to deride Carter's observations as being "the malaise speech" (even though Carter hadn't actually used the word "malaise") and discrediting, in the eyes of many, everything Carter had to say. Despite this, the "Crisis of Confidence" speech better captures the zeitgeist of its year - as well as, arguably, the mood of an entire generation - than any other political oration in recent history.
1980: Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, "There you go again" statement at presidential debate (October 28, 1980)
In 1960, and in every subsequent presidential election since 1976, the two major party candidates have faced each other in national debate on multiple occasions throughout the year. 1980 has been the sole exception to this rule - in it, Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Jimmy Carter debated each other only once, exactly one week before Election Day itself, on October 28, 1980. Although Carter dominated his opponent on substantive matters, Reagan's ready arsenal of memorable quips and telegenic expressions of amused disdain caused him to win the perceptual war over his hapless opponent. This approach was exemplified by Reagan's decision to interrupt, and glibly dismiss, one of Carter's main arguments by condescendingly chiding him, "There you go again." The fact that the audience applauded, and the American people were impressed, does not reflect well on either group, considering that Carter's point - which was that, as governor of California, Reagan had voted against Medicare and Social Security benefits, with disturbing implications of what his social policies would be as president -was one that the American people should have listened to. Unfortunately, this preference for style over substance, as well as the public's misguided fleeing into the arms of the New Right for political salvation, was the essence of America in 1980.
1981: President Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address (January 20, 1981)
By declaring in his inaugural address that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem", President Ronald Reagan was able to pull off one of the great paradoxical achievements of modern American political history. He became a president who expanded the powers of government over the lives of citizens as never before, even as he claimed to be getting that same government "off the backs of the people"; he ushered an era of ostensible fiscal responsibility, even as he ran up unprecedented budget deficits; and he created a climate in which conservatism adopted a populist ring through its use cultural reactionism and knee-jerk fear of socialism, even as its policies caused a deterioration in the standard of living for middle-class and working-class Americans. All of this was symbolized in the rhetoric of the inaugural address that ushered in not only Reagan's own presidency, but a new era in the ideological paradigm of American politics.
1982: Letter from Samantha Smith to Soviet President Yuri Andropov (December 1982)
After hawks took over the governments of the world's two great superpowers - first Ronald Reagan in the United States, then Yuri Andropov in the Soviet Union - concerns flared up, and dominated American's psychological life, about the possibility of nuclear war. In response to this, a ten-year-old girl from Maine named Samantha Smith wrote a letter to the leader of the Soviet Union, General Secretary of the Communist Party Yuri Andropov, asking him to do what he could to create peace in the world. Her letter not only received a tender response from the hardened 68-year-old politician - eventually prompting him to invite Smith on a tour of his country - but brought international recognition to the cause of world peace, particularly for those concerned with the increasing threat of nuclear annihilation.
1983: President Ronald Reagan, "The Evil Empire" Speech (March 8, 1983)
Although American foreign policy had taken a hard-line approach against the Soviet Union, and international communism overall, since the Russian Revolution had taken place in 1917, Ronald Reagan was nevertheless able to bolster his standing among far right-wingers and other hawks - as well as dramatically increase the profit margins of the corporations fueling America's military-industrial complex - by casting himself as the originator of a newer, tougher stand against the USSR. This bellicosity was encapsulated in Reagan's famous "Evil Empire" speech, which came to define much of America's political ethos during the 1980s.
1984: Apple's "1984 - Big Brother" commercial (January 22, 1984)
Another key development of the 1980s was the birth of the personal computer, which revolutionized the way Americans - and, eventually, the rest of the world - lived. This event neatly dovetailed with the rise of Apple Computers as an economic and technological powerhouse, which in turn coincided with the airing of the legendary "1984 - Big Brother" commercial during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. In ways that perhaps only Apple CEO Steve Jobs fully appreciated, personal computers truly did change the world - not only in the way we process information, but in the very way we think and live. In retrospect, the Big Brother commercial can be remembered not only as a brilliant piece of advertising, but as a remarkably prescient harbinger of the computer boom to come.
1985: Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie (with the help of supergroup USA for Africa), "We Are The World" song (March 7, 1985)
The technological optimism of the 1980s was matched with an equally potent optimism - albeit one set against the backdrop of dissatisfaction with the policies of the Reagan administration - in the world of pop culture. This was best demonstrated by the release of "We Are The World", a song written by musical behemoths Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie in order to raise funds to fight disease and famine in Africa. It was performed by musical legends, under the aegis of a supergroup called "USA for Africa", including not only Jackson and Richie themselves, but Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Hall & Oates, Bette Midler, Willie Nelson, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, and Stevie Wonder. Although the song made a considerable amount of money, much of its total profit wound up going to the governments of the affected countries instead of the people they intended to help - a fact that tragically underscored how even musicians with the best intentions can fail to achieve their desired goals unless they couple their idealism with political savvy (a lesson understood by John Lennon, though not by his many would-be successors). This disconnect between the motivations of progressive movements and their efficacy was, sadly, another noteworthy element of the 80s zeitgeist.
1986: Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast..." line from movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (June 11, 1986)
Despite all the serious topics dealt with on this list, there is a lighter, even happier side to the zeitgeist of certain eras. Such is the case with 1986, a year in which the whimsical joie de vivre of youth - a quality that made itself evident in pop culture throughout the 1980s - was captured with a single line from the cult classic, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". You know which one I'm talking about.
1987: Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, "Greed is good" monologue from movie "Wall Street" (December 11, 1987)
Although America's middle-class and working-class took a significant economic hit during the 1980s, the deregulation and overall laissez-faire policies implemented by Ronald Reagan caused a period of dizzying prosperity for Wall Street, big business, and others in America's upper class. Fueling this development was a materialistic ethos that permeated our country's moral and cultural, as well as economic, life throughout the decade. It was most brilliantly evoked, and skewered, in a scene in Oliver Stone's classic film "Wall Street", wherein stockbroker leviathan Gordon Gekko (played to perfection by Michael Douglas) explains to a rapt audience that - all assertions to the contrary notwithstanding - "greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
1988: Lee Atwater, presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush, "Willie Horton Ad" (September 21, 1988)
Although there were real problems in 1988 - economic decline, staggering national debt, growing discontent in an increasingly-militant Third World - political professionals realized that the way to win elections was by playing on the public's most irrational fears, preferably (if possible) by focusing on irrelevancies. This technique was turned into an art during the 1988 presidential election, in which Vice President George H. W. Bush - finding himself seventeen points behind his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis - drew attention to a prison furlough program supported by his rival that had inadvertantly led to the escape of murderer Willie Horton, who went on to savagely rape a young woman in Maryland after knifing and binding up her fiance. Horrifying though the story was, it had no real bearing either on Dukakis' qualifications to be president or on the welfare of the nation as a whole. In spite of this, it did play on latent racial concerns harbored by millions of white Americans, causing the advertisement aired by the Bush campaign - and masterminded by its great strategist, Lee Atwater - to play a decisive role in reversing Dukakis' lead and ultimately getting Bush elected by a nine-point margin. Its immediate impact aside, however, the advertisement embodied much of the pettiness that characterized American politics throughout the entire decade - perhaps explaining why the 1988 presidential election saw the lowest voter turnout in sixty-four years (although an even lower turnout would take place, due to disinterest rather than disgust, during the Clinton-Dole election eight years later).
1989: Hanns Friedrichs, newscasting "This ninth of November is a historic day..." (November 9, 1989)
Since the end of World War II forty-four years earlier, America had defined itself, internationally speaking, by the Cold War. When the Berlin Wall was torn down on November 9, 1989, the Cold War came to an abrupt end - an end best summarized by the statement of Hann Friedrichs, Germany's most well-respected newscaster, when he issued the simple declaration that "this ninth of November is a historic day." This declaration thus earns its place as one of the three pieces of "American Zeitgeist Rhetoric" to not take place within this country, due to the manner in which the fall of the Berlin Wall transformed how America viewed its role in the world community.
1990: Nelson Mandela, "Speech on Release from Prison" (February 11, 1990)
The sense of hope regarding world affairs that began with the fall of the Berlin Wall continued in early 1990, when Nelson Mandela was released from the jail cell where, as punishment for his outspoken opposition to South African apartheid, he had spent the previous twenty-seven years of his life. Along with being a signficant international event in its own right, Mandela's liberation struck a deep personal chord with the American public due to the similarities between apartheid and the system of segregation that, until relatively recently, had prevailed in America itself.
1991: President George H. W. Bush, "New World Order" Speech (January 10, 1991)
1991 was the third consecutive year of good news on the international stage - and this time, the news directly involved the actions of America itself. After issuing multiple warnings to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to cease developing nuclear weapons, President George H. W. Bush - with the full support of the United Nations and larger international community - declared war on that country. America's swift and decisive military victory restored faith in the supremacy of our armed forces, a faith that had been shattered more than a decade earlier by our defeat in Vietnam. More significant than this, though, was the speech President Bush delivered as the war drew to a close, one in which he laid out a vision for a "New World Order" of international cooperation and peacekeeping efforts that would exist in the wake of our military victory in Iraq and the rapid decline of Soviet geopolitical influence. This speech also marked the high point in Bush's presidency - his approval ratings peaked at more than 90%, by far the highest of any president in American history up to that point, rendering his re-election the following year a seeming inevitability.
1992: James Carville, presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, "It's the economy, stupid" haiku (1992)
Although President Bush assumed his triumph in the Persian Gulf would help him coast to victory in the presidential campaign of 1992, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton recognized that the economic hardships suffered by the American people over the last twelve years would become increasingly prominent in people's minds as foreign policy receded from the fore of public attention. This realization was best captured by a "haiku" written by Clinton's campaign manager, James Carville, for the use of his staffers. Including the memorable line "It's the economy, stupid," it would up proving remarkably adept at identifying the chief concerns of the American people in 1992. Not only would Clinton decisively defeat President Bush that year, but voter turnout reached the highest America had seen in twenty years.
1993: Denzel Washington as Joe Miller, courtroom monologue on AIDS discrimination from movie "Philadelphia" (December 23, 1993)
The AIDS epidemic, which devastated homosexual and minority communities since for more than a decade, had been brushed under the table during the 1980s thanks in no small part to the diffidence and contempt in which its victims were held by the (then) reigning conservative majority. In 1993, however, Hollywood released its first mainstream feature film to directly address the humanitarian ramifications of this disease. Boasting among its all-star cast such prominent names as Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, and (of course) Tom Hanks, the movie contains a particularly powerful monologue by Washington that provided defenders of AIDS discrimination with the condemnation they so rightly deserved - and which captured the spirit of assault against AIDS that so dominated much of the public mindscape in 1993.
1994: Weird Al Yankovic, "Headline News" song (September 27, 1994)
By 1994, the economy had entered one of the greatest periods of prosperity in American history. This boom - accompanied by unprecedented peace abroad and a general sense of American military, political, economic, and even cultural supremacy throughout the world - caused the attention of the mainstream news to shift away from matters of consequence and focus instead on trivial-but-sensational stories that would have been relegated to the sphere of tabloid journalism only a few years earlier. The absurdity of this development was identified and irreverently ridiculed by America's leading parodyist, Alfred "Weird Al" Yankovic, in his music video "Headline News". Little could Yankovic have known that he was diagnosing an element of the American spirit that would dominate the remainder of the decade.
1995: Johnnie Cochran, "If the glove don't fit..." closing remarks (September 27, 1995)
The obsessive focus on the lurid-and-petty that characterized so much of the 1990s reached its apex with the trial of football star and television personality O. J. Simpson. The story itself was a perfect storm of journalistic sensationalism, one that contained murder, illicit sex, celebrity, and race relations. Appropriately, the story was best summed up not by such factors as the guilt or innocence of its main character, but rather by a memorably delivered line from the main character's colorful attorney.
1996: "Seasons of Love" song, by Jonathan Larson, sung by the cast in the musical "Rent" (April 29, 1996)
The youth of the 1990s felt a sense of ennui that they could not shake - and that feeling, with its beautifully paradoxical mixture of romantic idealism and cynical frustration, was best evoked in the opening song from Jonathan Larson's musical "Rent", which debuted on Broadway in 1996 (although it had been first performed Off-Broadway two years earlier). Even though the story of "Rent" was set in 1989 and 1990, its ability to combine Bohemian frivolity with the more serious (and under-recognized) issues of the day (the AIDS epidemic, lingering racial and economic inequalities, the burgeoning gay rights movement) made it especially relevant to the era in which it was released.
1997: Robert DeNiro as Conrad Breen, "There Ain't No War But Ours" monologue from movie "Wag the Dog" (December 17, 1997)
Despite the peace and prosperity which marked the 1990s, an air of cynicism toward major institutions - particularly those in government and media - continued to dominate American life. This was perhaps embodied best by the movie "Wag the Dog", in which a scandal-ridden president desperate for a boost in his approval ratings pretends to wage war against Albania. The monologue delivered by media consultant Conrad Breen (played by Robert DeNiro) about how "there ain't no war but ours" says just as much about the attitude held by the American people at that time toward opinion-shapers as it does about the shapers themselves.
1998: President Bill Clinton, Denial of Infidelity (January 26, 1998)
The O. J. Simpson trial was not, unfortunately, the greatest trivial news event of the 1990s. No, that distinction belongs to the sex scandal of President Bill Clinton, one blown grossly out of proportion by a news media that craved high ratings and exploited by a conservative majority in Congress which salivated at the prospect of disgracing a president they detested. Even though Clinton eventually emerged as the winner in this debacle - not only by avoiding forced removal from office but by being the beneficiary of extraordinarily high approval ratings from a sympathetic public - his famous denial of having ever had "sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" became one of the defining statements of his presidency - on par with another zeitgeist-capturing denial, from a different president, nearly a quarter-century earlier.
1999: Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, "No Great Wars" monologue from movie "Fight Club" (October 15, 1999)
If "Rent" addressed the plight of 1990s ennui with music devoted to love, passion, and artistic expression, then the movie "Fight Club" responded to those same problems with a middle finger and a punch in the face. In a highly quotable monologue, the character of Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) captured the feelings of a whole generation of Americans by pointing out how - with no "great wars" to win and no "great depressions" to conquer - men everywhere lacked a sense of greater purpose. Much of the frustration that existed as an undercurrent since the beginning of the decade was given its most eloquent expression in Pitt's monologue from this movie.
2000: Vice President Al Gore, Concession Speech (December 13, 2000)
Americans entered the new millenium with the first presidential election in 112 years in which the victorious candidate had failed to receive the most popular votes. Despite strong evidence of electoral fraud in Florida - evidence that, if properly accounted for, would have caused Vice President Al Gore to be declared the winner instead of his opponent, Governor George W. Bush - the Supreme Court of the United States, in a transparently partisan decision, decided to favor Bush's case over the one presented by Al Gore. Even though Gore was thus fated to never become president, he still had the distinction of becoming that year's greatest leader, by delivering a concession speech after the Supreme Court's decision that handled his injustice with grace and sage perspective. While the speech failed to remove the sting of democracy thwarted, it at least allowed the long-awaited year 2000 to end on a somewhat upbeat note - and allowed Gore, who prior to then had been widely criticized for his overly-cerebral and lackluster speaking style, to reveal surprising gifts as an orator.
2001: President George W. Bush, Bullhorn Speech (September 14, 2001)
The rest of the 2000s would be defined by a single event - the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Although President George W. Bush had, up until then, suffered from low approval ratings and even lower public esteem, his popularity quickly became the highest of any president's in history after he was perceived as unifying the country and taking charge following the tragedy of that day. Bush was even able to rise to the occasion in a spontaneous moment - when addressing a crowd of firefighters from the rubble of one of the World Trade Center buildings three days after the attack, he heard a voice shout "I can't hear you". In response, the new president Bush replied:
"I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"
Had Bush followed through on his encouraging words from that day - had he brought Osama bin Laden to justice and increased America's prestige throughout the world, instead of capitalizing on the 9/11 attacks to wage an unnecessary war against Iraq - his bullhorn speech might have captured the zeitgeist of 2001 as a moment of inspiration. Instead, those words captured not only the horror of that time, but the failures of the man fate (and the Supreme Court) had chosen to lead us through it.
2002: President George W. Bush, State of the Union Address (January 29, 2002)
The first State of the Union address delivered by President Bush after the September 11th terrorist attacks, this speech set the policies and general tone which would define the remainder of Bush's presidency. Along with condemning the perpetrators of the World Trade Center and Pentagon murders, Bush proceeded to label the nations of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea "an axis of evil". Just as Bush's speeches immediately after September 11th helped establish him, in the minds of most Americans, as a leader, so too did this speech convince lay the psychological foundations that would persuade most Americans to follow their president into an eventual war with Iraq, as well as an unprecedented estrangement from much of the international community.
2003: Secretary of State Colin Powell, Address to the United Nations Security Council (February 5, 2003)
By 2003, the zeitgeist of the times had evolved from one of unwavering support of President Bush and his agenda to one of cautious-but-growing skepticism with his single-minded insistence on toppling the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. As a means of winning the support not just of the rest of the world, but of the holdouts among the American public, President Bush dispatched the most widely-trusted figure of his administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell, to make the case for war to the United Nations Security Council. Although history has since then revealed that Powell had grave doubts about the veracity of the argument he was presenting to the world, he dutifully performed as he was told. There can be no doubt that the war would have taken place even if Powell had abstained from delivering his speech to the UN; even so, the fact that a man of Powell's renowned pragmatism opted to throw his credibility behind the war effort instead of resigning in protest (as one Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, had done in opposition to America's growing involvement in World War I) epitomized the larger national trend of falling in line.
2004: Democratic Senate candiate Barack Obama, Keynote Address at Democratic National Convention (July 27, 2004)
The outrages of Bush's stolen election in 2000, the climate of fear that had been stoked by the Bush administration after September 11th, the gradual abridgement of American freedoms as made manifest by the USA Patriot Act, and the unjust war in Iraq all fired up the liberal movement in ways that had not been seen in more than thirty years. Yet although the Democratic party nominated as its candidate a man believed to be a surefire winner - John Kerry, whose war heroism was felt to make him an ideal opponent to the increasingly bellicose (and chickenhawk packed) Bush administration - Kerry's incompetently-managed campaign, combined with the effective scurrility of the Bushies in casting false doubt on his military record, ultimately rendered the Massachusetts Senator a poor spokesman for the liberal movement. Fortunately, the cause of the left was not without its zeitgeist-capturing advocates; that honor went instead to the Democratic party's Senate candidate in Illinois, Barack Obama, whose eloquent speech at that year's Democratic National Convention made him an overnight star in the political world. Although Kerry would lose to Bush in that election year, Obama's speech made him the voice of a political movement that Kerry was never able to become.
2005: Kanye West, protest at Hurricane Katrina benefit concert (September 2, 2005)
After Bush's re-election, his administration seemed unstoppable - until the bungling of its response to Hurricane Katrina caused many to take the first, tentative steps toward confronting their president on his record. The outcry against the incumbent reached its climax that year at a televised benefit concert for Hurricane Katrina victims, during which then-unknown rapper Kanye West spontaneously blurted out that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." West's statement seemed to symbolize the emergence of an increasingly empowered voice of opposition to the president - a symbolism further highlighted by the split-second decision of the producers to cut off West rather than allow him airtime to further criticize the president. Yet West's words showed that, after Hurricane Katrina, more than one tide had been turned.
2006: Stephen Colbert, comedy routine at White House Correspondents' Dinner (April 29, 2006)
Hurricane Katrina might have marked the turning of the tide against President Bush, but Stephen Colbert's roasting of the president during the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner was the most cutting - and hilarious - condemnation of everything the Bush administration represented during that decade. Along with giving brilliantly edgy expression to the sentiments of millions of Americans, Colbert's performance also managed to catapult him to iconic status as a court jester whose unique method of offering faux support for his targets could bring the great and powerful to their knees.
2007: Al Gore, Academy Awards Acceptance Speech for movie "An Inconvenient Truth" (February 25, 2007)
After spending more than half-a-decade out of the public limelight following his historic defeat in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore's career experienced an unexpected renaissance with the release of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth", in 2006. By focusing public attention on the growing threat of global warming - an issue that, despite its increasing relevance, had been largely ignored by a war-and-terrorism obsessed public since 2001 - Gore not only managed to reassert his own relevance, but forced political dialogue to end its single-minded obsession with the issues pre-selected by the Bush administration. The success of Gore's efforts would be made clear in 2007 - eventually, late in the year, by his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, but first (and more importantly insofar as his influence on the American public is concerned) in February by his receiving an Academy Award for Best Documentary. His acceptance speech during the awards ceremony, while only repeating the basic message of his film, nevertheless revived the spark of public interest in the need to address global warming. One year later, the presidential candidates of both major parties were acknowledging the validity of global warming as a direct result of the accolades Gore received for his movie.
2008: Senator Barack Obama, "Yes We Can" Speech (January 8, 2008)
After besting his two chief rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination - Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina - in an upset victory at the Iowa caucuses earlier that month, Senator Barack Obama seemed unstoppable in his quest to be his party's standard bearer in that presidential election. That image suffered a setback on January 8th, when Clinton defeated Obama (just as unexpectedly) in the Democratic party's New Hampshire primary. Yet despite this serious blow to his presidential ambitions, Obama managed to use his misfortune to deliver a concession speech that would define not only his presidential campaign, but the sense of hope and change that would characterize American politics through most of that election year - i.e., the "Yes We Can" speech.
2009: Jon Stewart's confrontational with Jim Cramer (March 12, 2009)
In late 2008, the bottom of an economy that had been declining for seven years finally fell out in a stock market crash and mass mortgage crisis that still rattles us today. Americans were livid at the manner in which their lives, to say nothing of the prestige of the country they loved, were destroyed by the financial titans of Wall Street. The pervading sense that the people responsible for getting the United States into its current mess were managing to not only avoid accountability, but walk away with record profits, was made manifest when comedian and satirist Jon Stewart received an opportunity to interview Jim Cramer, a prominent economic pundit who had been one of the most passionate shills for the interests of big business. By admonishing Cramer for neglecting his duties as a supposed reporter, and instead contributing to the mentality and practices that made the financial crisis possible, Stewart emerged as one of the few public figures capable of effectively demanding some sort of responsibility from the self-entrusted keepers of America's economic health.
2010 (tentatively): Matt Stone as Kyle Broflovski, bleeped monologue at conclusion of "South Park 201" (April 21, 2010)
The year 2010 is young, and therefore no final zeitgeist-capturing rhetoric can be designated. That said, I feel the bleeped monologue delivered by "South Park" character Kyle Broflovski is a strong contender, not only for the statement it makes about America's willingness to capitulate to the coercive tactics of terrorists, but also for the manner in which it shows how real free speech, as well as the courage it takes to employ it, is stifled far more often than it is rewarded in America today.
So... what do you think?
Friday, June 11, 2010
My Top Tens
The top three are listed in order of preference; the last seven in each category are arranged chronologically.
Matthew Rozsa's Top Ten (#1-3 in each category):
Favorite President: Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945), Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897), Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969)
Favorite Book: "The Age of Jackson" by Arthur Schlesinger (1945), "Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson - 1952" by Adlai Stevenson (Written in 1952, Compiled in published book form in 1953), "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley (1818)
Favorite Play: "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller (1949), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams (1955), "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen (1882)
Favorite Short Story: "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy (1886), "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol (1842), "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe (1846)
Favorite Movie: And Justice For All (1979), Life Stinks (1991), About Schmidt (2002)
Favorite Television Show: The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), Trailer Park Boys (2001-2008), Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999)
Favorite Website: http://www.homestarrunner.com/, http://www.nytimes.com/, http://www.pollingreport.com/
Favorite Song: "Squidbillies Power Ballad" by Shawn Coleman, "Come Together" by The Beatles (1969), "White & Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovic (2006)
Favorite Essay: "J'Accuse" by Emile Zola (1898), "A Humorist's Confession" by Mark Twain (1905)*, "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" by Stephen Jay Gould (1997)
Favorite Speech: "Speech Nominating John Sherman for President" by James Garfield (1880), "Nobel Prize Acceptance Address" by William Faulkner (1950), "The First Inaugural" by Franklin Roosevelt (1933)
Presidents, #4-10:
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
Chester Arthur, 1881-1885
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Barack Obama, 2009-Present
Books, #4-10:
"Candide" by Voltaire (1759)**
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain (1884)
"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey (1962)
"An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968" by Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page (1969)
"Education of a Public Man" by Hubert Humphrey (1976)
"Aliens Ate My Homework" by Bruce Coville (1993)
"Green Bay Replay" by Dick Schaap (1997)
Plays, #4-10:
"Life of Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht (1943)
"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennesee Williams (1944)
"The Crucible" by Arthur Miller (1953)
"Inherit the Wind" by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee (1955)
"A Man For All Seasons" by Robert Bolt (1961)
"Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn (1998)
"The Pillowman" by Martin McDonagh (2003)
Short Stories, #4-10:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1877)
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce (1890)
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
"The Adventure of the Yellow Face" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1894)
"The Unnamable" by H. P. Lovecraft (1925)
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet (1937)
Movies, #4-10:
The Producers (1968)
Network (1976)
RoboCop (1987)***
Batman Returns (1992)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Saw VI (2009)****
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Television Shows, #4-10:
Seinfeld (1989-1998)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno/The Jay Leno Show (1992-Present)
King of the Hill (1997-2009)
SpongeBob Squarepants (1999-Present)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2000-Present)
The Venture Brothers (2004-Present)
The Mighty Boosh (2004-2007)
Websites, #4-10:
http://www.adultswim.com/
http://bigislandrachel.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://robertreich.org/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Songs, #4-10:
"I Am The Walrus" by The Beatles (1967)
"Hey Jude" by The Beatles (1968)
"Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas (1975)
"Epiphany" by Stephen Sondheim (1979)
"The Galaxy Song" by Eric Idle (1983)
"Experimental Film" by They Might Be Giants (2004)
"21 Guns" by Green Day (2009)
Essays, #4-10:
"The Progressive World Struggle of the Jews for Civil Equality" by William Howard Taft (1919)
"Gamalielese" by H. L. Mencken (1921)
"The Battle of Athens, Tennessee" by Theodore H. White (1947)
"Letter to Robert J. Biggs" by Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959)*****
"Why I Wrote The Crucible" by Arthur Miller (1996)
"A Bouquet Arrives..." by Roger Ebert (2007)
"Women at Risk" by Bob Herbert (2009)
Speeches, #4-10:
"Suicide Speech" by Otho (69)
"Bunker Hill Oration" by Daniel Webster (1825)
"The Gettysburg Address" by Abraham Lincoln (1863)
"The Economic Bill of Rights" by Franklin Roosevelt (1944)
"Pro-Civil Rights Plank at the 1948 DNC" by Hubert Humphrey (1948)
"We Shall Overcome" by Lyndon Johnson (1965)
"Eulogy for Gerald Ford" by Jimmy Carter (2007)
Other Favorites:
Favorite Football Team: Green Bay Packers
Favorite Baseball Team: New York Yankees
Favorite Food: Fried chicken
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Commercial: Bacardi Commercial (with theme song "Daylight")
Footnotes:
* - Technically "A Humorist's Confession" is an interview that Mark Twain had with a reporter from The New York Times in 1905. Even so, I decided to count it as an essay rather than as a speech.
** - Technically a novella, but it's more of a book than a short story.
*** - Although "RoboCop" is commonly derided as a cheesy B-movie, the actual film is a synthesis of intellectually provocative science fiction, poignant drama, thrilling action and biting social commentary. While I don't wish to elaborate any further than this (and thus spoil the plot for those who haven't seen it), suffice to say that I would highly recommend it (and NOT its two sequels) to anyone whose tastes haven't been narrowed by conventional wisdom and sheer snobbery.
**** - Fuck the critics; see http://riskinghemlock.blogspot.com/2010/03/excellent-scene-from-saw-vi.html and http://riskinghemlock.blogspot.com/2009/09/future.html
***** - Technically a private letter written by the president to a veteran.
Matthew Rozsa's Top Ten (#1-3 in each category):
Favorite President: Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945), Grover Cleveland (1885-1889, 1893-1897), Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969)
Favorite Book: "The Age of Jackson" by Arthur Schlesinger (1945), "Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson - 1952" by Adlai Stevenson (Written in 1952, Compiled in published book form in 1953), "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley (1818)
Favorite Play: "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller (1949), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams (1955), "Ghosts" by Henrik Ibsen (1882)
Favorite Short Story: "The Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy (1886), "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol (1842), "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe (1846)
Favorite Movie: And Justice For All (1979), Life Stinks (1991), About Schmidt (2002)
Favorite Television Show: The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), Trailer Park Boys (2001-2008), Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988-1999)
Favorite Website: http://www.homestarrunner.com/, http://www.nytimes.com/, http://www.pollingreport.com/
Favorite Song: "Squidbillies Power Ballad" by Shawn Coleman, "Come Together" by The Beatles (1969), "White & Nerdy" by Weird Al Yankovic (2006)
Favorite Essay: "J'Accuse" by Emile Zola (1898), "A Humorist's Confession" by Mark Twain (1905)*, "Nonoverlapping Magisteria" by Stephen Jay Gould (1997)
Favorite Speech: "Speech Nominating John Sherman for President" by James Garfield (1880), "Nobel Prize Acceptance Address" by William Faulkner (1950), "The First Inaugural" by Franklin Roosevelt (1933)
Presidents, #4-10:
Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
Chester Arthur, 1881-1885
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
Barack Obama, 2009-Present
Books, #4-10:
"Candide" by Voltaire (1759)**
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain (1884)
"One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey (1962)
"An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968" by Lewis Chester, Godfrey Hodgson, and Bruce Page (1969)
"Education of a Public Man" by Hubert Humphrey (1976)
"Aliens Ate My Homework" by Bruce Coville (1993)
"Green Bay Replay" by Dick Schaap (1997)
Plays, #4-10:
"Life of Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht (1943)
"The Glass Menagerie" by Tennesee Williams (1944)
"The Crucible" by Arthur Miller (1953)
"Inherit the Wind" by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee (1955)
"A Man For All Seasons" by Robert Bolt (1961)
"Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn (1998)
"The Pillowman" by Martin McDonagh (2003)
Short Stories, #4-10:
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
"The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1877)
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce (1890)
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
"The Adventure of the Yellow Face" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1894)
"The Unnamable" by H. P. Lovecraft (1925)
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Stephen Vincent Benet (1937)
Movies, #4-10:
The Producers (1968)
Network (1976)
RoboCop (1987)***
Batman Returns (1992)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Saw VI (2009)****
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Television Shows, #4-10:
Seinfeld (1989-1998)
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno/The Jay Leno Show (1992-Present)
King of the Hill (1997-2009)
SpongeBob Squarepants (1999-Present)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2000-Present)
The Venture Brothers (2004-Present)
The Mighty Boosh (2004-2007)
Websites, #4-10:
http://www.adultswim.com/
http://bigislandrachel.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.politico.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://robertreich.org/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Songs, #4-10:
"I Am The Walrus" by The Beatles (1967)
"Hey Jude" by The Beatles (1968)
"Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas (1975)
"Epiphany" by Stephen Sondheim (1979)
"The Galaxy Song" by Eric Idle (1983)
"Experimental Film" by They Might Be Giants (2004)
"21 Guns" by Green Day (2009)
Essays, #4-10:
"The Progressive World Struggle of the Jews for Civil Equality" by William Howard Taft (1919)
"Gamalielese" by H. L. Mencken (1921)
"The Battle of Athens, Tennessee" by Theodore H. White (1947)
"Letter to Robert J. Biggs" by Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959)*****
"Why I Wrote The Crucible" by Arthur Miller (1996)
"A Bouquet Arrives..." by Roger Ebert (2007)
"Women at Risk" by Bob Herbert (2009)
Speeches, #4-10:
"Suicide Speech" by Otho (69)
"Bunker Hill Oration" by Daniel Webster (1825)
"The Gettysburg Address" by Abraham Lincoln (1863)
"The Economic Bill of Rights" by Franklin Roosevelt (1944)
"Pro-Civil Rights Plank at the 1948 DNC" by Hubert Humphrey (1948)
"We Shall Overcome" by Lyndon Johnson (1965)
"Eulogy for Gerald Ford" by Jimmy Carter (2007)
Other Favorites:
Favorite Football Team: Green Bay Packers
Favorite Baseball Team: New York Yankees
Favorite Food: Fried chicken
Favorite Color: Green
Favorite Commercial: Bacardi Commercial (with theme song "Daylight")
Footnotes:
* - Technically "A Humorist's Confession" is an interview that Mark Twain had with a reporter from The New York Times in 1905. Even so, I decided to count it as an essay rather than as a speech.
** - Technically a novella, but it's more of a book than a short story.
*** - Although "RoboCop" is commonly derided as a cheesy B-movie, the actual film is a synthesis of intellectually provocative science fiction, poignant drama, thrilling action and biting social commentary. While I don't wish to elaborate any further than this (and thus spoil the plot for those who haven't seen it), suffice to say that I would highly recommend it (and NOT its two sequels) to anyone whose tastes haven't been narrowed by conventional wisdom and sheer snobbery.
**** - Fuck the critics; see http://riskinghemlock.blogspot.com/2010/03/excellent-scene-from-saw-vi.html and http://riskinghemlock.blogspot.com/2009/09/future.html
***** - Technically a private letter written by the president to a veteran.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Anti-Semitism and the Gaza Flotilla Incident - Part Two
The following is a transcript of a conversation I had on Facebook.
Jacqueline Moss
I'm exceedingly proud of my own ability to piss people off.
Jacqueline Moss
This instance epitomizes what is wrong with the Israeli-Palestine relationship in the clash of free Palestine activists and the Israeli state. I myself am conflicted, because as a Jew, I cherish Judaism because it is a religion of compassion and charity, but when the Israeli state persecutes Arabs and Palestinians in much the same way they themselves were persecuted, I am overwhelmed with disgust and sorrow. As Jews, we are no better than our own persecutors in our treatment of the Palestinians. And while the actions of some who were a part of the Freedom Flotilla were provocative, the actions of the Israeli military are akin to swatting a fly with an Uzi. Both parties are at fault, but Israel shares more of that burden because it is such a powerful military force. I find the actions of the Israeli state deeply disturbing, and it only confirms my own anti-Israel feelings.
Matthew Rozsa
I couldn't agree more.
Ariel Assaraf
Your both totally wrong ,your understanding of the situation basiclyl comes from the media , which makes both of your opinions the same level of a 10 year old boy watching the news, if you lived here in israel and not judge from your comfortable seat at NY you would maybe have a clue of what its like being surounded by 500 milion people that want to practically destroy you . and as americans i'm sure you know [but may steel lie to yourself] that the american army would have killed atlist 200 people on the same situation . and i'm not exaggerating .each of the wars in iraq and afganistan killed more people than israel killed at all its wars! stop being so affected by the media. if somthing is similar to dark times in history than its the media supporting the hate of jews and we all saw it with not less than the official white house journalist ! why when the US desides to put a blockade on cuba its legitimate but israel cant after 5000 !!!! missiles shot over her desides on a blockade on gaza people which democraticlly ! chose hamas to be thier leader. hamas whos not ashamed to say he wants israel eradication .
dont let propaganda get to you, at list not you the jews .
Jacqueline Moss
Ariel, you are right in that we have never lived in Israel and do not know what it is like to be surrounded by people who want to destroy us. But I don't think most Arabs want to destroy Jews. I think most Palestinians want to just live their lives and support their families, and to live in their ancestral home (one shared by Jews). There is no denying that Hamas is a terrorist organization, but their is also no denying the suffering of the Palestinian people. And you know what, YOU need to stop being brainwashed by the media and try to see things from the Palestinians' point of view. And just because I am an American, does not mean I support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as I am sure there are Israelis who do not support wars in its sphere of influence. I would also like to point out that the US has been Israel's greatest ally since the formation of the Israeli state, and that most of the "propaganda" as you put it, is very much pro-Israel. And neither you nor I can say what would have happened if something similar to this had happened in US territory. Also, insulting our intelligence because you disagree with our opinion doesn't make your point any stronger. Israel has the right to protect itself and its people, but that does justify Israel valuing the life of Jews over the lives of Palestinians? Because from here, that is what it looks like, and it does nothing to make me more sympathetic to the serious issues Israel does face, it only solidifies the image of Israel as bully, and discredits the legitimate need for security.
Matthew Rozsa
To Ariel:
1) My understanding of this situation does not come predominantly from the media, but rather from my own independent research. You assume that, because Jackie and I disagree with you, we must by default be imbibing the propaganda of others rather than thinking for ourselves. This assumption is not only inaccurate (especially since you fail to substantiate it with a single piece of evidence), but highly condescending (which you more or less confirm by comparing us to "a 10 year old boy").
2) I do not deny that Israel is in constant peril for its very existence, and that it has half a billion neighbors who would revel in its destruction. That doesn't mean that the country is morally justified in doing whatever it wishes, or that it can use the cause of "self-defense" as an excuse for its actions when they are wrong. Indeed, you are walking down a slippery slope the instant you use security as a rationalization for the use of force that, increasingly, doesn't really seem warranted.
3) Your mentioning of America is logically flawed for two reasons:
i. It isn't relevant - what America has or hasn't done, or would or wouldn't do, isn't related to what Israel actually did.
ii. You assume that Jackie and I support both of America's wars. While I can't speak for Jackie, I do not support our presence in Iraq. I do support the war in Afghanistan, at least in principle, although I feel our focus (which should be on capturing bin Laden and bringing him, and the other perpetrators of 9/11, to justice) has become muddled.
4) Helen Thomas is not the "official" White House journalist. She is a reporter who has covered the American president since the last year of the Eisenhower administration - and, incidentally, she was fired for her remarks.
5) I don't support America's economic blockade of Cuba.
6) Once again, I do not support Hamas, but that doesn't mean that Israel was justified in economically punishing Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a blockade OR that Israel was right for shooting those protesters. You seem to believe that, by pointing out the various areas in which Arabs in this conflict are wrong, you can exonerate just about anything Israel does. Once again, a slippery slope.
By the way, neither Jackie nor I live in New York. I am in Pennsylvania and, the last time I checked, she is in Maine.
Matthew Rozsa
Jackie, I'm sorry that I didn't acknowledge your reply in my last post; Weborah (as I have named my computer) is being slow as hell today, so I didn't even receive notice that you had written anything until just now.
I agree with what you wrote.
Ariel Assaraf
some facts :
ahmadinejad - chosen democraticlly even after saying many times hes opinion on destroying israel
hamas -chosen democraticlly even after saying many times hes opinion on destroying israel,and commiting terror and suicide attacks
hizzballa - the second biggest party in lebanon and an equal member of the government there even after saying many times hes opinion on destroying israel,and commiting terror and suicide attacks
this are the only three democrat countries in the region .. is it suprising that those countries are the most extrimist ageinst israel ? or maybe i'm just a bit right about saying most arabs want to destroy us
by the way.. syria isent saying israel should be destroyed but thier too.. hate us .
and its not a matter of thinking that jews lives are more important.. its just that we dont intend to kill cevilians . and they do. so agein . after 5000(!!) missiles shot on israeli cities and cevilians. israel puted a blockade only on the gaza strip .. where hamas you should know.. is considered too pragmatic .
And trust me. i probeblly know more than anyone you know , i do not get my point of view from the media.
Matthew Rozsa
Once again, I am not denying (a) that virulent Jew-baiting is a serious problem in the Muslim world or (b) that Israel's very existence is in constant jeopardy. The problem is that you keep using those two facts to justify ANY human rights violation that is committed by Israel against the Palestinians or anti-Israel protesters. While I hate to resort to cliches, you leave me with no choice; two wrongs, Ariel, do not make a right. The fact that millions of Muslims perpetuate noxious anti-Jewish propaganda and want to destroy Israel - and are aided in both these goals by Jew-haters eveywhere, who use humanitarian criticism of Israel as a cover - is morally reprehensible, as are (obviously) Palestinian acts of terrorism. None of that adds righteousness to Israel's bulldozing of Palestinian homes, building of Jewish residential complexes in Arab neighborhoods, expansion of settlements in Arab territory, political oppression of Palestinians, and high-casualty military campaigns.
In your last post, you also trotted out a third argument - that Israel's military doesn't target civilians (not entirely true, given their retaliatory bombing campaigns, which inevitably kill civilians) and, by extension, that Israel could be much worse in its treatment of Palestinians than it actually is. That's a bit like defending South Africa's apartheid regime by pointing out that it wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany's Holocaust; while the statement is true, it kind of misses the larger point.
Once again, I do not receive all of my information from the media. You may remember that the two of us met while I was in Israel for a ten-day trip, during which time I frequently learned a great deal about this conflict from the Israeli perspective. It isn't that I am unaware of your point-of-view; it is that I disagree with it.
Ariel Assaraf
Well. . i thing that beliving 10 days makes you see the israeli prespective is very naive
in addition .israel did not kill "protesters" !
http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx%20cid=36575&p=2&rid=2
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=722685
those pictures where taken before the soldiers used fire. noticed that soldiers are not armed!
and notice at the first pic your "protester" is holdin a knife! you know that if the comando would have used its full force no way you could have seen pictures like this .
Do not .call those terrorists protesters . their familly's said they allways wanted to be "shahids"
and telling me your not really from NY ? give me a break . you know its not the point
Matthew Rozsa
1) I never said that my Birthright Israel trip made me an expert on the Israeli perspective. That said, it did teach me a lot about how Israelis view the world, and particularly this conflict. At least, I hope it did, particularly since that was one of the main goals articulated by our tour guide and the various other people we met along the way. If I left your country WITHOUT acquiring a great knowledge and understanding of how Israelis view the world, then I'd say about 40% of the purpose of that trip - not just from my perspective, but from the perspective of the people who run Birthright Israel - was a failure.
2) The Israeli soldiers were clearly armed, even if the ones in that picture were not. After all, how exactly did protesters wind up with bullets in their bodies? Did the soldiers throw them?
3) I can't even make sense of the context in which the knife picture was taken. Regardless, the idea that a picture of a protester holding a knife proves that commandos hadn't used full force seems a bit silly. Wouldn't they be MORE likely to brandish knives if the commandos were posing a serious threat?
Oh, and I agree that whether or not I'm from New York isn't the point. Why did you bring it up?
Jacqueline Moss
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/opinion/06chabon.html
Ariel Assaraf
those picturs were taken from turkish paper. they are in the perfect c is not enoughontext. and the first soldiers to get on the boat werent armed. only after two were sevirelly wounded the armed comando got on the boat. if you dident even know that those are not protesters then im sorry, your knowladge is not enougth for us to argue. go study
Jacqueline Moss
Your dismissiveness and condescension of those whose opinions are not the same as yours is insulting and only further illustrates your ignorance, lack of intellectual curiosity, and outright hate of those who do not share your position. Instead of engaging in respectful discussion, you chose to insult and accuse.
Matthew Rozsa
I'm not quite comfortable criticizing someone for intellectual condescension, since I am guilty of that particular shortcoming myself. However, I am PERFECTLY comfortable MATCHING his condescension huffalump for huffalump, which I am going to do below:
Ariel... have you ever heard of a dictionary? Maybe spell-check? Do you know how to write complete words without unintentionally inserting other words in between them (see: "c is not enoughontext")? I know that English grammar is considered to be among the most complex in the world, but could you at least give its proper usage the old "scout's try"?
Oh, and your comment, "if you dident even know that those are not protesters..."
What the hell are you talking about?
A continuation of the dialogue from the next day...
Idan Chesler
British Naval analyst on Flotilla lynch of Israelis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0EfG8mnAo
Matthew Rozsa
This video does go a long way toward suggesting that the protesters on board the ship contributed to the violence. At the same time, the British interviewer asks a question which even the military analyst - whose position, ostensibly, defends the Israeli reaction - is unable to effectively answer: Why, if the Israelis only used non-lethal tactics, were ten people killed?
To me, the fact that this question isn't answered by the footage on the tape suggests that events transpired which were not captured on video - events that, it stands to reason, would not support the position of innocence being espoused by the Israelis.
Jacqueline Moss
I'm exceedingly proud of my own ability to piss people off.
Jacqueline Moss
This instance epitomizes what is wrong with the Israeli-Palestine relationship in the clash of free Palestine activists and the Israeli state. I myself am conflicted, because as a Jew, I cherish Judaism because it is a religion of compassion and charity, but when the Israeli state persecutes Arabs and Palestinians in much the same way they themselves were persecuted, I am overwhelmed with disgust and sorrow. As Jews, we are no better than our own persecutors in our treatment of the Palestinians. And while the actions of some who were a part of the Freedom Flotilla were provocative, the actions of the Israeli military are akin to swatting a fly with an Uzi. Both parties are at fault, but Israel shares more of that burden because it is such a powerful military force. I find the actions of the Israeli state deeply disturbing, and it only confirms my own anti-Israel feelings.
Matthew Rozsa
I couldn't agree more.
Ariel Assaraf
Your both totally wrong ,your understanding of the situation basiclyl comes from the media , which makes both of your opinions the same level of a 10 year old boy watching the news, if you lived here in israel and not judge from your comfortable seat at NY you would maybe have a clue of what its like being surounded by 500 milion people that want to practically destroy you . and as americans i'm sure you know [but may steel lie to yourself] that the american army would have killed atlist 200 people on the same situation . and i'm not exaggerating .each of the wars in iraq and afganistan killed more people than israel killed at all its wars! stop being so affected by the media. if somthing is similar to dark times in history than its the media supporting the hate of jews and we all saw it with not less than the official white house journalist ! why when the US desides to put a blockade on cuba its legitimate but israel cant after 5000 !!!! missiles shot over her desides on a blockade on gaza people which democraticlly ! chose hamas to be thier leader. hamas whos not ashamed to say he wants israel eradication .
dont let propaganda get to you, at list not you the jews .
Jacqueline Moss
Ariel, you are right in that we have never lived in Israel and do not know what it is like to be surrounded by people who want to destroy us. But I don't think most Arabs want to destroy Jews. I think most Palestinians want to just live their lives and support their families, and to live in their ancestral home (one shared by Jews). There is no denying that Hamas is a terrorist organization, but their is also no denying the suffering of the Palestinian people. And you know what, YOU need to stop being brainwashed by the media and try to see things from the Palestinians' point of view. And just because I am an American, does not mean I support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as I am sure there are Israelis who do not support wars in its sphere of influence. I would also like to point out that the US has been Israel's greatest ally since the formation of the Israeli state, and that most of the "propaganda" as you put it, is very much pro-Israel. And neither you nor I can say what would have happened if something similar to this had happened in US territory. Also, insulting our intelligence because you disagree with our opinion doesn't make your point any stronger. Israel has the right to protect itself and its people, but that does justify Israel valuing the life of Jews over the lives of Palestinians? Because from here, that is what it looks like, and it does nothing to make me more sympathetic to the serious issues Israel does face, it only solidifies the image of Israel as bully, and discredits the legitimate need for security.
Matthew Rozsa
To Ariel:
1) My understanding of this situation does not come predominantly from the media, but rather from my own independent research. You assume that, because Jackie and I disagree with you, we must by default be imbibing the propaganda of others rather than thinking for ourselves. This assumption is not only inaccurate (especially since you fail to substantiate it with a single piece of evidence), but highly condescending (which you more or less confirm by comparing us to "a 10 year old boy").
2) I do not deny that Israel is in constant peril for its very existence, and that it has half a billion neighbors who would revel in its destruction. That doesn't mean that the country is morally justified in doing whatever it wishes, or that it can use the cause of "self-defense" as an excuse for its actions when they are wrong. Indeed, you are walking down a slippery slope the instant you use security as a rationalization for the use of force that, increasingly, doesn't really seem warranted.
3) Your mentioning of America is logically flawed for two reasons:
i. It isn't relevant - what America has or hasn't done, or would or wouldn't do, isn't related to what Israel actually did.
ii. You assume that Jackie and I support both of America's wars. While I can't speak for Jackie, I do not support our presence in Iraq. I do support the war in Afghanistan, at least in principle, although I feel our focus (which should be on capturing bin Laden and bringing him, and the other perpetrators of 9/11, to justice) has become muddled.
4) Helen Thomas is not the "official" White House journalist. She is a reporter who has covered the American president since the last year of the Eisenhower administration - and, incidentally, she was fired for her remarks.
5) I don't support America's economic blockade of Cuba.
6) Once again, I do not support Hamas, but that doesn't mean that Israel was justified in economically punishing Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a blockade OR that Israel was right for shooting those protesters. You seem to believe that, by pointing out the various areas in which Arabs in this conflict are wrong, you can exonerate just about anything Israel does. Once again, a slippery slope.
By the way, neither Jackie nor I live in New York. I am in Pennsylvania and, the last time I checked, she is in Maine.
Matthew Rozsa
Jackie, I'm sorry that I didn't acknowledge your reply in my last post; Weborah (as I have named my computer) is being slow as hell today, so I didn't even receive notice that you had written anything until just now.
I agree with what you wrote.
Ariel Assaraf
some facts :
ahmadinejad - chosen democraticlly even after saying many times hes opinion on destroying israel
hamas -chosen democraticlly even after saying many times hes opinion on destroying israel,and commiting terror and suicide attacks
hizzballa - the second biggest party in lebanon and an equal member of the government there even after saying many times hes opinion on destroying israel,and commiting terror and suicide attacks
this are the only three democrat countries in the region .. is it suprising that those countries are the most extrimist ageinst israel ? or maybe i'm just a bit right about saying most arabs want to destroy us
by the way.. syria isent saying israel should be destroyed but thier too.. hate us .
and its not a matter of thinking that jews lives are more important.. its just that we dont intend to kill cevilians . and they do. so agein . after 5000(!!) missiles shot on israeli cities and cevilians. israel puted a blockade only on the gaza strip .. where hamas you should know.. is considered too pragmatic .
And trust me. i probeblly know more than anyone you know , i do not get my point of view from the media.
Matthew Rozsa
Once again, I am not denying (a) that virulent Jew-baiting is a serious problem in the Muslim world or (b) that Israel's very existence is in constant jeopardy. The problem is that you keep using those two facts to justify ANY human rights violation that is committed by Israel against the Palestinians or anti-Israel protesters. While I hate to resort to cliches, you leave me with no choice; two wrongs, Ariel, do not make a right. The fact that millions of Muslims perpetuate noxious anti-Jewish propaganda and want to destroy Israel - and are aided in both these goals by Jew-haters eveywhere, who use humanitarian criticism of Israel as a cover - is morally reprehensible, as are (obviously) Palestinian acts of terrorism. None of that adds righteousness to Israel's bulldozing of Palestinian homes, building of Jewish residential complexes in Arab neighborhoods, expansion of settlements in Arab territory, political oppression of Palestinians, and high-casualty military campaigns.
In your last post, you also trotted out a third argument - that Israel's military doesn't target civilians (not entirely true, given their retaliatory bombing campaigns, which inevitably kill civilians) and, by extension, that Israel could be much worse in its treatment of Palestinians than it actually is. That's a bit like defending South Africa's apartheid regime by pointing out that it wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany's Holocaust; while the statement is true, it kind of misses the larger point.
Once again, I do not receive all of my information from the media. You may remember that the two of us met while I was in Israel for a ten-day trip, during which time I frequently learned a great deal about this conflict from the Israeli perspective. It isn't that I am unaware of your point-of-view; it is that I disagree with it.
Ariel Assaraf
Well. . i thing that beliving 10 days makes you see the israeli prespective is very naive
in addition .israel did not kill "protesters" !
http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx%20cid=36575&p=2&rid=2
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=722685
those pictures where taken before the soldiers used fire. noticed that soldiers are not armed!
and notice at the first pic your "protester" is holdin a knife! you know that if the comando would have used its full force no way you could have seen pictures like this .
Do not .call those terrorists protesters . their familly's said they allways wanted to be "shahids"
and telling me your not really from NY ? give me a break . you know its not the point
Matthew Rozsa
1) I never said that my Birthright Israel trip made me an expert on the Israeli perspective. That said, it did teach me a lot about how Israelis view the world, and particularly this conflict. At least, I hope it did, particularly since that was one of the main goals articulated by our tour guide and the various other people we met along the way. If I left your country WITHOUT acquiring a great knowledge and understanding of how Israelis view the world, then I'd say about 40% of the purpose of that trip - not just from my perspective, but from the perspective of the people who run Birthright Israel - was a failure.
2) The Israeli soldiers were clearly armed, even if the ones in that picture were not. After all, how exactly did protesters wind up with bullets in their bodies? Did the soldiers throw them?
3) I can't even make sense of the context in which the knife picture was taken. Regardless, the idea that a picture of a protester holding a knife proves that commandos hadn't used full force seems a bit silly. Wouldn't they be MORE likely to brandish knives if the commandos were posing a serious threat?
Oh, and I agree that whether or not I'm from New York isn't the point. Why did you bring it up?
Jacqueline Moss
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/opinion/06chabon.html
Ariel Assaraf
those picturs were taken from turkish paper. they are in the perfect c is not enoughontext. and the first soldiers to get on the boat werent armed. only after two were sevirelly wounded the armed comando got on the boat. if you dident even know that those are not protesters then im sorry, your knowladge is not enougth for us to argue. go study
Jacqueline Moss
Your dismissiveness and condescension of those whose opinions are not the same as yours is insulting and only further illustrates your ignorance, lack of intellectual curiosity, and outright hate of those who do not share your position. Instead of engaging in respectful discussion, you chose to insult and accuse.
Matthew Rozsa
I'm not quite comfortable criticizing someone for intellectual condescension, since I am guilty of that particular shortcoming myself. However, I am PERFECTLY comfortable MATCHING his condescension huffalump for huffalump, which I am going to do below:
Ariel... have you ever heard of a dictionary? Maybe spell-check? Do you know how to write complete words without unintentionally inserting other words in between them (see: "c is not enoughontext")? I know that English grammar is considered to be among the most complex in the world, but could you at least give its proper usage the old "scout's try"?
Oh, and your comment, "if you dident even know that those are not protesters..."
What the hell are you talking about?
A continuation of the dialogue from the next day...
Idan Chesler
British Naval analyst on Flotilla lynch of Israelis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG0EfG8mnAo
Matthew Rozsa
This video does go a long way toward suggesting that the protesters on board the ship contributed to the violence. At the same time, the British interviewer asks a question which even the military analyst - whose position, ostensibly, defends the Israeli reaction - is unable to effectively answer: Why, if the Israelis only used non-lethal tactics, were ten people killed?
To me, the fact that this question isn't answered by the footage on the tape suggests that events transpired which were not captured on video - events that, it stands to reason, would not support the position of innocence being espoused by the Israelis.
Anti-Semitism and the Gaza Flotilla Incident
For those of you unfamiliar with the Gaza flotilla raid, allow me to quickly brief you on the story's salient points:
- After Hamas, a terrorist organization openly dedicated to the destruction of Israel, took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the Israeli government began a naval blockade around that region, allowing only one-quarter of the humanitarian relief into that region that had been allowed prior to their blockade, and implementing mandatory inspections of all such ships so as to prevent the importation of weapons. The intention of this blockade was to pressure Hamas to either moderate its position toward the Israeli state or to remove itself from power.
- On May 31, 2010, six ships - organized by the IHH, a Turkish non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian relief to victims of hunger, war, natural disaster, and political conflict, and Free Gaza Movement, an organization specifically dedicated to ending the Gaza blockade - attempted to break the blockade in order to provide relief to the Palestinians who reside in Gaza. They were stopped by the Israeli navy as soon as they approached the blockade, and all six ships were boarded; on one of those ships, the MV Mavi Marmara, violence broke out, resulting in the deaths of nine protesters, as well as dozens of injuries on both sides (thirty-four of the activists have been hospitalized, with nine in serious condition; ten Israeli soldiers have also been hospitalized, with two in serious condition).
As a humanitarian, I was immediately horrified by the actions of the Israeli military. Despite their subsequent claim that the ships were smuggling weapons to Hamas, virtually no evidence of such weaponry has materialized. The sole intention of the passengers of those vessels was to provide relief to the Palestinian citizens who were suffering in Gaza as a result of the blockade. As such, while Israel arguably had the right to arrest, detain, and deport the passengers on this flotilla as a result of their attempted violation of a military blockade, there was no just cause for engaging in violent reprisals.
That said, even the act of arresting them for trying to break the blockade is morally questionable, for the simple reason that the blockade HAS, as the protesters claimed, inflicted great suffering upon the Palestinians in Gaza. While the Israeli government's prohibition of weapons and weapons-making materials is both understandable and necessary, engaging in economic warfare against civilians as a means of exerting pressure on their terrorist government is unconscienable. Even though Israel likes to claim that it only targets individuals who pose a direct threat to their state's security, that argument is undermined the instant they implement policies which punish citizen and terrorist alike.
Yet there is another component to this story, one to which as a Jew I am particularly sensitive. It came out when tapes of the conflict on the Mavi Marmara were made public. As The Wall Street Journal reported:
In the tapes, an Israeli serviceman can be heard politely warning those on board that they are approaching a naval blockade and offering escort to a port where aid can be unloaded... Passengers on board the Mavi Marmara can be heard saying: “Shut up, go back to Auschwitz” and “We’re helping Arabs go against the U.S., don’t forget 9/11.”
Only one thought goes through my head when I read those comments - if I had been there, watching as a crowd of sanctimonious so-called "peace protesters" chanted that vile hate-speech, my first instinct would have been to shoot the bastards.
That feeling was exacerbated during the controversy over veteran Washington reporter Helen Thomas, who was fired this week - after half-a-century on the White House beat - for saying that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine... Go home. Poland. Germany. And America and everywhere else."
There is a significant irony to Thomas' statement: One of the main reasons Israel was founded is that, after the Holocaust, the millions of Jewish survivors who tried to return to their old homes in Poland and Germany were persecuted and murdered on a widespread scale, eventually causing them to be herded into refugee camps while nations like America - which refused to let all but a handful immigrate to their countries - decided what to do with them. Yet even if you sweep this historic myopia aside, the reality is that you are left with a statement so virulent in its bigotry that it only serves to further inflame Jewish anger toward, and fear of, anti-Semitism.
In his speech at Cairo University last year, President Obama summarized the essence of this problem better than any other prominent political figure today:
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.
Does that mean that the Israeli soldiers were right for behaving as they did toward the protesters? Of course not. At the end of the day, words - no matter how incendiary, infuriating, or downright hateful they might be - are not weapons, and the Israeli soldiers had no right to respond to them with violence.
At the same time, had I been on that ship, hearing those chants, I would have been tempted to lash out. That doesn't mean that I would have done so (at the very least, I'd like to believe that I would not), and it certainly doesn't mean that I would have been right. Yet the temptation would have been there, because as a Jew - one who is not only aware of the history of anti-Semitism, but has had personal encounters with it - I would have, at that moment, absolutely hated the people saying those things.
Hate begets hate. This is the one lesson that both sides of this conflict need to learn.
- After Hamas, a terrorist organization openly dedicated to the destruction of Israel, took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the Israeli government began a naval blockade around that region, allowing only one-quarter of the humanitarian relief into that region that had been allowed prior to their blockade, and implementing mandatory inspections of all such ships so as to prevent the importation of weapons. The intention of this blockade was to pressure Hamas to either moderate its position toward the Israeli state or to remove itself from power.
- On May 31, 2010, six ships - organized by the IHH, a Turkish non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian relief to victims of hunger, war, natural disaster, and political conflict, and Free Gaza Movement, an organization specifically dedicated to ending the Gaza blockade - attempted to break the blockade in order to provide relief to the Palestinians who reside in Gaza. They were stopped by the Israeli navy as soon as they approached the blockade, and all six ships were boarded; on one of those ships, the MV Mavi Marmara, violence broke out, resulting in the deaths of nine protesters, as well as dozens of injuries on both sides (thirty-four of the activists have been hospitalized, with nine in serious condition; ten Israeli soldiers have also been hospitalized, with two in serious condition).
As a humanitarian, I was immediately horrified by the actions of the Israeli military. Despite their subsequent claim that the ships were smuggling weapons to Hamas, virtually no evidence of such weaponry has materialized. The sole intention of the passengers of those vessels was to provide relief to the Palestinian citizens who were suffering in Gaza as a result of the blockade. As such, while Israel arguably had the right to arrest, detain, and deport the passengers on this flotilla as a result of their attempted violation of a military blockade, there was no just cause for engaging in violent reprisals.
That said, even the act of arresting them for trying to break the blockade is morally questionable, for the simple reason that the blockade HAS, as the protesters claimed, inflicted great suffering upon the Palestinians in Gaza. While the Israeli government's prohibition of weapons and weapons-making materials is both understandable and necessary, engaging in economic warfare against civilians as a means of exerting pressure on their terrorist government is unconscienable. Even though Israel likes to claim that it only targets individuals who pose a direct threat to their state's security, that argument is undermined the instant they implement policies which punish citizen and terrorist alike.
Yet there is another component to this story, one to which as a Jew I am particularly sensitive. It came out when tapes of the conflict on the Mavi Marmara were made public. As The Wall Street Journal reported:
In the tapes, an Israeli serviceman can be heard politely warning those on board that they are approaching a naval blockade and offering escort to a port where aid can be unloaded... Passengers on board the Mavi Marmara can be heard saying: “Shut up, go back to Auschwitz” and “We’re helping Arabs go against the U.S., don’t forget 9/11.”
Only one thought goes through my head when I read those comments - if I had been there, watching as a crowd of sanctimonious so-called "peace protesters" chanted that vile hate-speech, my first instinct would have been to shoot the bastards.
That feeling was exacerbated during the controversy over veteran Washington reporter Helen Thomas, who was fired this week - after half-a-century on the White House beat - for saying that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine... Go home. Poland. Germany. And America and everywhere else."
There is a significant irony to Thomas' statement: One of the main reasons Israel was founded is that, after the Holocaust, the millions of Jewish survivors who tried to return to their old homes in Poland and Germany were persecuted and murdered on a widespread scale, eventually causing them to be herded into refugee camps while nations like America - which refused to let all but a handful immigrate to their countries - decided what to do with them. Yet even if you sweep this historic myopia aside, the reality is that you are left with a statement so virulent in its bigotry that it only serves to further inflame Jewish anger toward, and fear of, anti-Semitism.
In his speech at Cairo University last year, President Obama summarized the essence of this problem better than any other prominent political figure today:
Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.
Does that mean that the Israeli soldiers were right for behaving as they did toward the protesters? Of course not. At the end of the day, words - no matter how incendiary, infuriating, or downright hateful they might be - are not weapons, and the Israeli soldiers had no right to respond to them with violence.
At the same time, had I been on that ship, hearing those chants, I would have been tempted to lash out. That doesn't mean that I would have done so (at the very least, I'd like to believe that I would not), and it certainly doesn't mean that I would have been right. Yet the temptation would have been there, because as a Jew - one who is not only aware of the history of anti-Semitism, but has had personal encounters with it - I would have, at that moment, absolutely hated the people saying those things.
Hate begets hate. This is the one lesson that both sides of this conflict need to learn.
Monday, May 31, 2010
I Become An Economic Policy Dick...
... and I regret nothing. Sometimes the skewed priorities of economic conservatives are so infuriating that I can't feel any remorse when I give them a tongue-lashing.
Matthew Rozsa
If you want to understand why the economic policy propounded by the "experts" in power displays such a shocking lack of sensitivity to the needs of the working class, just read Paul Krugman's latest editorial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/opinion/31krugman.html
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Guess he missed the news that Spain lost it's AAA rating... truth is we got some scary fiscal imbalances that are rooted in unsustainable entitlelment programmes, one day push is gonna come to shove
Matthew Rozsa
Arguments like yours, Tom, remind me of an important quote by Franklin Roosevelt:
“Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws — sacred, inviolable, unchangeable — cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”
Sadly, the primary difference between the America of 1932 (in which FDR uttered this line) and its 2010 counterpart is that today, far too many Democrats are becoming gelded echoes of deficit hawks, laissez-fairers, covert plutocrats, myopic shills of Wall Street (such as yourself), and other birds from the Republican economic aviary.
No one is denying that our budget deficit and national debt pose a great threat to our country's fiscal soundness, and that both will eventually need to be addressed. That said, our priority right now must be to alleviate the great human suffering that has been caused by the economic calamities of the Bush years - rising unemployment, stagnant or declining incomes, a deterioration of our education system, and a dwindling of our national competitiveness with other nations in the industries of the future. These are not problems that can be solved while simultaneously trying to fight the budget deficit and reduce our national debt. Therefore, we need to temporarily accept three hard truths about what our policies need to be:
1) We will need to drastically increase spending, and with it the deficit and our national debt, until the aforementioned side effects of this economic disaster have subsided.
2) To offset the deleterious impact those spending increases will have on our deficit and national debt, we will need to make dramatic cuts NOT in social programs, but in the military-industrial complex and war on drugs (such as by legalizing marijuana and de-criminalizing a host of other drugs), as well as raising taxes on the wealthy back to Eisenhower-era levels.
3) After unemployment is down, wages are up, and investments in our economic future (education, job training, growing industries that will improve our competitiveness with China, India, Japan, and so on) have all been put in place, we will then need to tackle the problem of the deficit and debt by raising taxes. Walter Mondale put it best in 1984: It needs to be done. A good politician will try to conceal this fact; a good leader will explain to the people that, unsavory though it may be, it is a necessary evil, one that will prevent a far greater one in the future.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Cliff notes?
Matthew Rozsa
Oh come now, Tom. It isn't that long.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
1960 percent of total spending:
49.5% national defense
2.9% Health (incl. Medicare)
13.4% social security
2004 percent of total spending
20.5% national defense
24.2% Health (incl. Medicare)
17.6% social security
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
Matthew Rozsa
I fail to see how your response - which consists of comparative cost percentages from the national budget, with the most recent example you cite being about half-a-decade out-of-date - in any way rebuts my initial argument.
My assertion is that, in order to offset (not entirely resolve, but at least temporarily address) the budget deficit and national debt crises, we should cut spending on the military-industrial complex and the drug wars, while simultaneously raising taxes on the wealthy. That said, we also need to acknolwedge that the deficit and debt WILL have to increase, at least temporarily, until the human suffering caused by the Great Recession is alleviated. Once that problem has been solved, we should THEN focus on raising taxes in order to pay off the debt.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
You raise taxes on the wealthy, the wealthy will setup shell corps to protect their income/expenditures from the govt.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
human suffering? lol, let's be real Matt, poor people in the US are fat!!!
Matthew Rozsa
That is why the government needs to enact laws - perhaps through Executive Orders, if Congress is uncompliant - to make it illegal for American citizens to move their assets in such a way as to immunize them from their tax obligations. The people who have for years been benefiting by their citizenship in this country have no right to find clever loopholes so as to avoid paying their fair share for the privileges of being in this great country.
Matthew Rozsa
Your second commment is beneath contempt. If you had any sense of decency, you would be ashamed of yourself for writing it.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
I'm all for cutting military spending and ending the war on drugs, neither are near the radar screen of what's on the agenda though.
Are u simply making a policy wish list?
Tiguhs OndaBayou
It would cost more to enforce such a financial regulatory regime than it'd get back. It's easy to hide money and you cannot reign in the transnational liberation of capital flows in any practical manner
Matthew Rozsa
I'm creating a list of policies that I believe would solve our economic problems. The fact that the two major parties do not propose these solutions - with the Republicans being entirely in the pocket of big business and Wall Street, and with Democrats being co-opted by the DLC and other so-called "centrist" groups - doesn't mean that they aren't valid. It's simply a sign that the Democratic Party of which I am a member - the one of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern - has been corrupted by the party of Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanche Lincoln.
Part of the blame for this lies with President Obama. While I suspect his heart is with the party of FDR, he is a weak leader, and as such has allowed the Baucuses to exert undue authority. The price for this unwillingness to use the bully pulpit of the presidency is one that the entire country is paying.
Matthew Rozsa
1) It would not be that expensive to enforce such regulatory mechanisms. In fact, many of the existing organizations could easily do this work, thus significantly reducing costs.
2) It is indeed easy to hide money, and transnational capital flows are hard to control. That doesn't mean that it's impossible. It just means you'd need a president who had the balls to stand up to the financial powers-that-be. We've had them before (see the Roosevelts), and we can have them again.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
So you're upset about the leverage the mod dems yield? certainly an impediment but politics is politics, as someone waiting for c&t to pass, I share your frustrations.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
We'll have to agree to disagree on the financial oversight bit. Read the Black Swan man, it's not so much related to any of the above and doesn't have an ideological angle, more philosophical/emprical. I think you'd enjoy it. At least look it up on amazon and read the reviews :)
Matthew Rozsa
I think we can end this debate on that note. It's about as close to friendly as this thing is likely to get. lol ;-)
Matthew Rozsa
If you want to understand why the economic policy propounded by the "experts" in power displays such a shocking lack of sensitivity to the needs of the working class, just read Paul Krugman's latest editorial.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/opinion/31krugman.html
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Guess he missed the news that Spain lost it's AAA rating... truth is we got some scary fiscal imbalances that are rooted in unsustainable entitlelment programmes, one day push is gonna come to shove
Matthew Rozsa
Arguments like yours, Tom, remind me of an important quote by Franklin Roosevelt:
“Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws — sacred, inviolable, unchangeable — cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”
Sadly, the primary difference between the America of 1932 (in which FDR uttered this line) and its 2010 counterpart is that today, far too many Democrats are becoming gelded echoes of deficit hawks, laissez-fairers, covert plutocrats, myopic shills of Wall Street (such as yourself), and other birds from the Republican economic aviary.
No one is denying that our budget deficit and national debt pose a great threat to our country's fiscal soundness, and that both will eventually need to be addressed. That said, our priority right now must be to alleviate the great human suffering that has been caused by the economic calamities of the Bush years - rising unemployment, stagnant or declining incomes, a deterioration of our education system, and a dwindling of our national competitiveness with other nations in the industries of the future. These are not problems that can be solved while simultaneously trying to fight the budget deficit and reduce our national debt. Therefore, we need to temporarily accept three hard truths about what our policies need to be:
1) We will need to drastically increase spending, and with it the deficit and our national debt, until the aforementioned side effects of this economic disaster have subsided.
2) To offset the deleterious impact those spending increases will have on our deficit and national debt, we will need to make dramatic cuts NOT in social programs, but in the military-industrial complex and war on drugs (such as by legalizing marijuana and de-criminalizing a host of other drugs), as well as raising taxes on the wealthy back to Eisenhower-era levels.
3) After unemployment is down, wages are up, and investments in our economic future (education, job training, growing industries that will improve our competitiveness with China, India, Japan, and so on) have all been put in place, we will then need to tackle the problem of the deficit and debt by raising taxes. Walter Mondale put it best in 1984: It needs to be done. A good politician will try to conceal this fact; a good leader will explain to the people that, unsavory though it may be, it is a necessary evil, one that will prevent a far greater one in the future.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Cliff notes?
Matthew Rozsa
Oh come now, Tom. It isn't that long.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
1960 percent of total spending:
49.5% national defense
2.9% Health (incl. Medicare)
13.4% social security
2004 percent of total spending
20.5% national defense
24.2% Health (incl. Medicare)
17.6% social security
Tiguhs OndaBayou
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
Matthew Rozsa
I fail to see how your response - which consists of comparative cost percentages from the national budget, with the most recent example you cite being about half-a-decade out-of-date - in any way rebuts my initial argument.
My assertion is that, in order to offset (not entirely resolve, but at least temporarily address) the budget deficit and national debt crises, we should cut spending on the military-industrial complex and the drug wars, while simultaneously raising taxes on the wealthy. That said, we also need to acknolwedge that the deficit and debt WILL have to increase, at least temporarily, until the human suffering caused by the Great Recession is alleviated. Once that problem has been solved, we should THEN focus on raising taxes in order to pay off the debt.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
You raise taxes on the wealthy, the wealthy will setup shell corps to protect their income/expenditures from the govt.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
human suffering? lol, let's be real Matt, poor people in the US are fat!!!
Matthew Rozsa
That is why the government needs to enact laws - perhaps through Executive Orders, if Congress is uncompliant - to make it illegal for American citizens to move their assets in such a way as to immunize them from their tax obligations. The people who have for years been benefiting by their citizenship in this country have no right to find clever loopholes so as to avoid paying their fair share for the privileges of being in this great country.
Matthew Rozsa
Your second commment is beneath contempt. If you had any sense of decency, you would be ashamed of yourself for writing it.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
I'm all for cutting military spending and ending the war on drugs, neither are near the radar screen of what's on the agenda though.
Are u simply making a policy wish list?
Tiguhs OndaBayou
It would cost more to enforce such a financial regulatory regime than it'd get back. It's easy to hide money and you cannot reign in the transnational liberation of capital flows in any practical manner
Matthew Rozsa
I'm creating a list of policies that I believe would solve our economic problems. The fact that the two major parties do not propose these solutions - with the Republicans being entirely in the pocket of big business and Wall Street, and with Democrats being co-opted by the DLC and other so-called "centrist" groups - doesn't mean that they aren't valid. It's simply a sign that the Democratic Party of which I am a member - the one of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, and George McGovern - has been corrupted by the party of Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanche Lincoln.
Part of the blame for this lies with President Obama. While I suspect his heart is with the party of FDR, he is a weak leader, and as such has allowed the Baucuses to exert undue authority. The price for this unwillingness to use the bully pulpit of the presidency is one that the entire country is paying.
Matthew Rozsa
1) It would not be that expensive to enforce such regulatory mechanisms. In fact, many of the existing organizations could easily do this work, thus significantly reducing costs.
2) It is indeed easy to hide money, and transnational capital flows are hard to control. That doesn't mean that it's impossible. It just means you'd need a president who had the balls to stand up to the financial powers-that-be. We've had them before (see the Roosevelts), and we can have them again.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
So you're upset about the leverage the mod dems yield? certainly an impediment but politics is politics, as someone waiting for c&t to pass, I share your frustrations.
Tiguhs OndaBayou
We'll have to agree to disagree on the financial oversight bit. Read the Black Swan man, it's not so much related to any of the above and doesn't have an ideological angle, more philosophical/emprical. I think you'd enjoy it. At least look it up on amazon and read the reviews :)
Matthew Rozsa
I think we can end this debate on that note. It's about as close to friendly as this thing is likely to get. lol ;-)
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