Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Rep. Bob Ney, the big cheese (or should I say “La grande fromage?”) of the House Administration Cmttee., which manages the Congressional cafeteria has outlawed all French terms used to describe food items sold in the cafeteria (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/12/national/12FRIE.html). So French toast and fries have become Freedom toast and fries…yes, no kidding. Maybe in honor of Tony Blair, we can call them Tony toast?

It’s a symbolic gesture. Not to slap the French around, but people are not hot on the French government right now. This is just to send a message to the troops to say that here in the Capitol, we are not happy, Ney said.

Ney is reported to have suggested to Don Rumsfeld that after our boys tidy up Iraq that they also go on to Paris and mop up that dirty cesspool called the Elysee Palace (er, Freedom Palace). Rumsfeld is reported to have replied: “Great idea!”

Pres. Bush is considering the idea of “cleansing” American English of dirty French words. Instead of the Republic of France, he’s considering the “Scumbag Republic.” When Ari Fleischer politely suggested that might be going too far; Bush grumbled: “well, then let’s call ‘em the Sissy Republic.”

Jacques Chirac, when told of the U.S. government’s war on the French, suggested that the French clean up their language too: L’etats unis would become the “Warmonger Etats Unis.” McDonald’s would henceforth be referred to in French as “the greasy Golden Arches.”

Ari Fleishcher was fuming when he heard of the Sissies’ latest insult. He was heard mumbling to no one in particular: “Take away the “Ch” in Chirac and what do you have?” When a reporter overheard his comment and asked him for clarification, Fleishcer replied: “What do you think it means? Do I have to spell it out for you! I-R-A-C, IRAC get it?” When told that the nation’s name was spelled IRAQ, Fleishcher said: Iraq, Irac, who cares. By next week, their name will be anything we says it is!”

or How a Bunch of Old Reaganites Plan to Dump Sixty Years of U.S. Foreign Policy to Remake the World

On March 5th, Nightline broadcast a terrifying segment about the Project for a New American Century, a right wing foreign policy think tank founded by Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, et al in 1997 to espouse a muscular projection of American might around the globe. In the interview, Kristol himself points out that their views are extensions of Reagan era (many of these guys served in the Reagan Administration) foreign policy rhetoric. The main difference is that while Reagan’s foreign policy WAS rabidly anti Communist & opportunistic in an amoral or immoral way, it recognized some limits. PNAC’s projected policies are limitless & unrestrained (the difference between then and now is that now the Republicans control both Houses of Congress & the Presidency, plus we have a lackluster Democratic opposition). PNAC would overturn decades of bi-partisan U.S. foreign policy objectives. PNAC , for example, believes (essentially) in overthrowing all of the despotic Arab regimes and replacing them with “democratic” (read “U.S. vassal”) states. This would include Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia & others.

The New York Times today (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/arts/11WEEK.html ) describes President Bush’s recent remarks before the American Enterprise Institute at a dinner honoring Bill Kristol’s dad, Irving Kristol the Original Neoconservative. His remarks could have been written by PNAC and Bill Kristol (& perhaps they were!):

If we have to act, we will act to restrain the violent and defend the cause of peace. And by acting, we will signal to outlaw regimes that in this new century the boundaries of civilized behavior will be respected.

In this rhetoric, you hear overtones of the bully and the petulant boy ready to impose his will on any recalcitrant boys on the playground. Most of all, you hear echoes of 1984 and Alice in Wonderland in which we make war to gain the peace; and kill to make men free.

Jessica Matthews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is quoted in the article with the most cogent analysis of PNAC’s political philosophy:

They are urging a de facto return to empire. Announcing a global crusade on behalf of democracy is arrogant, blind to local realities, dangerous and ignorant of history.

PNAC first proposed in a 1997 letter to Bill Clinton that the U.S. topple Hussein fr. power & transform Iraq into a vassal state (Oops! I meant “democratic state”). Their website is at http://www.newamericancentury.org. Their publications are at http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm (these include a pre 9/11 report advocating toppling Sadaam).

Also, you can go to the abcnews.com website (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/DailyNews/pnac_030310.html) to read a text summary. If you click on the Free Video link you can sign up for the RealPlayer Super Pass service (choose the 14 day free trial). You can cancel the service before 14 days & will not be charged for it. You do have to fill out some tedious info including credit card, etc. But the Ted Koppel interview w. Kristol is gold (Ian Lustig, a dovish M.E. expert is also interviewed as a counterweight to PNAC’s drivel). This is the only way I know of to hear the entire program (it lasts 15 mins.).

As someone who suffered from parental child abuse and who is the father of a 2 year-old son, this song is a very powerful reminder of how wonderful and precious our children are (or should be) to us all. I know this sounds a little sentimental, but when you grow up missing a parent’s love, witnessing it in a song like this is a very profound experience. My son’s second birthday approaches on March 20th.

The rascal himself

Godspeed (Sweet Dreams) (hear Dixie Chicks cover version here)
by Radney Foster

Dragon tales and The Water is Wide
Pirates sail and lost boys fly
Fish bite moonbeams every night
And I love you
Godspeed little man Sweet Dreams little man
My love will fly to you each night on angels wings
Godspeed sweet dreams

The rocket racer’s all tuckered out
Superman’s in pajamas on the couch
Goodnight moon we’ll find the mouse
And I love you

Godspeed little man Sweet Dreams little man
My love will fly to you night on angels wings
Godspeed Sweet Dreams

God bless mommy and matchbox cars
God bless Dad and thanks for the stars
God hears “amen” wherever we are
And I love you

Godspeed little man Sweet Dreams little man
My love will fly to you each night on angels’s wings
Godspeed Godspeed Godspeed Sweet Dreams

From Radney Foster’s See What You Want To See

The song lyrics, performers and guitar chords are at e-tabs.org.

ADVISORY: This mp3 blog exists to spread the wonder and genius that is traditional music. By all means come, listen, enjoy, then follow the links to buy the music. If you come, listen, download, then leave—you’re doing nothing to support the artists featured here. Please don’t direct link to this file as it’s uncool plus your link will not work.

I first heard this story when I was an undergraduate at Columbia University in the 1970s. I have no idea whether it is true or apochrypha, but it sounds entirely plausible.

Professsor Sidney Morgenbesser, distinguished professor of philosophy at Columbia University, sat at the back of a philosophy seminar while a graduate student delivered a paper on Double Positive Statements. The student’s thesis was that while there are many examples of double negatives meaning a positive; there are NO examples of double positives meaning a negative.

>From the back of the room came Prof. Morgenbesser’s booming response, “Yeah, Yeah!”

I imagine the student fled the room in shame.

UPDATE: Professor Morgenbesser has died at the age of 82. The New York Times obituary provides the orginal source for the above story and adds a few tremendously witty and funny stories to the treasury of Morgenbesser wisdom in Sidney Morgenbesser, Kibbitzing Philosopher, Dies.

In yesterday’s blog post, I said that George Bush may have misspoken when he changed the rules for the game of Iraq war in midstream by announcing to an AEI audience that Sadaam now had to completely disarm his entire country to satisfy the U.S. Well, in today’s New York Times, Ari Fleischer did me the favor of clarifying that this was not imprecision; Bush actually HAS made a radical revision in his policy regarding Iraqi disarmament. “As opposition to war stiffened in the UN Security Council, the Bush Administration set a new standard …that could be out of reach for Saddam…and, perhaps, the world body.”

“The White House [thus] set the bar beyond the reach of the inspection force that is working on only half of the equation–disarmament.” Another front page article New Element in Iraq’s Mix says: “Fleischer told reporters…that Iraq must ‘completely and totally” disarm or its leader must ‘go into exile.’ Pressed on the point, …Fleischer said…disarmament was the UN’s (!?) goal and changing Iraq’s government was the president’s. The statement puts the U.S. on a different track from the UN.” His new “policy” directly contradicts many statements he’s made on the subject in the past, as the Times has noted today (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/international/middleeast/01IRAQ.html). It says: “As the Security Council took up its disarmament work last fall, Bush made a point of stating ‘regime change’ could be defined as a decision by Hussein to change his stripes fundamentally and give up all his weapons of mass destruction. ‘If he were to meet all the conditions of the UN…that in itself will signal that the regime has changed.’ A changed Hussein, in other words, could survive.”

Interestingly, George’s father, GHW Bush has weighed in on the subject too. “It would be much better to act with as much international support as possible.” George, Jr., are you listening??

George’s moving of the goal posts in midgame is a cynical ploy by a politician who is watching as support for one of his dearest policy objectives slips out of reach. So if he sets the bar impossibly high for Sadaam & the UN, then both must fail the U.S. “test.” This, of course, is exactly what Bush wants. Sadaam has acceded to almost every major directive of the UN weapons inspectors, including the dismantling of the Samoud missiles. Momentum is shifting in peace’s favor. Much of the Security Council and the world is arrayed against the U.S. position. Bush is beginning to realize that he will lose the effort to pass the second UN Security Council resolution that he needs for war. So he figures that he might as well up the ante impossibly high. This is a terribly cynical, not to mention erratic policy shift. Until now, we had a policy, no matter how wrongheaded it was; now, we have a new policy that goes far beyond the first; This new policy takes us even farther from our opponents and even some of our allies in the UN and world community. We were out on a limb before; now there’s no limb under us at all.

While all of this alarms me, part of me is quite satisfied because the more erratic Bush’s policy decisions appear to the world and the American people, the faster his popularity will fall and his political power dissipate. What is frightening is that in the process of undermining his power, Bush may get us into a horrifying war with murky goals and sloppy execution: a recipe for bloodshed and confusion in Iraq and the region.