Again, terrible, terrible news. Unemployment is down, by some
250,000 in the last two months, assuming those numbers don’t fall
under the category of lying lies. Would that they were lies,
because if true, they spells trouble. But for the sake of argument
let’s accept that a quarter of a million more Americans are now at
work under Bush rule. That can only mean harsh new forms of
exploitation, falling wages, disappearing benefits, non-existent
workplace protections and rising repetitive stress syndromes. OSHA
is adrift in an ocean of indifference. Homelessness is now a
feature of the nation’s plants and factories. Hunger is what unites
the lunch bucket brigade. Bush America is back to being On the
Waterfront America. So-called new jobs reflect the job that this
administration is doing on the rest of us.
The only meaningful steady work is being done by the nine
Democratic presidential hopefuls (sic). Their work is so
indispensable there’s talk of its being unionized. Just in time,
too. Given the 54 debates they have scheduled between today and
December 31, they have every reason to go on strike if reasonable
demands for a shorter debate-hour day and week aren’t met. Already
there’s talk of a lockout, sparked by suggestions from conservative
circles that the Democratic field be thinned of its “also-rans.”
But since by definition and qualification each of the nine is a
certified also-ran, who would that leave to mind the store? Talk
about your closed shop.
So let’s hear it for the Dems: one for nine (incidentally the
Yankees’ average with men in scoring position) and nine for one.
Though that sometimes means all nine will light a cross across
Howie Dean’s lawn. (Yes, that presumes Dean was himself one of the
nine, which as a deft and shifty fellow he managed with no trouble
at all.) It was unfortunate that Dean stereotyped the South as a
region of white men driving pickup trucks that display the
Confederate (apologies for this use of the C-word) flag, when
anyone with eyes can see that those trucks are as often as not
driven by white women. This time only we’ll forgive Howie for
carrying on while wearing conservative blinders. We do look so much
forward to his visit at — indeed, his assuming the presidency of
— Bob Jones University.
According to the next issue of National Review, Ms.
Hillary Clinton, who in her Southern days drove an Oldsmobile, is
back at her hard labors. No longer the demure, pristine presence
we’ve come to admire and emulate, she joined other fanatics and
Hoffas to celebrate the opening of a new Democratic stink tank, the
Center for American Progress. While the Kissinger of this new
operation, Al Franken, entertained the rabble with an
expletive-replete equivalent of an SDS H-Bomb recipe, Ms. Hillary
was seen to nod her head and smile and laugh and guffaw. On the
bright side, in her own remarks she defiantly endorsed to “the war
that we’re engaged in with the other side.” She didn’t mean the war
against terrorists. She meant the domestic war against you and all
other products of civilization. Do we want her now, or in 2008?
In certain ways, it’s a world war, right in our backyard. On the
left-coast front, CBS surrendered without a fight, withdrawing its
anti-Reagan two-parter faster than even the right could blame Dan
Rather and Barbra Streisand for the entire project. When last
spotted, the remnants of the CBS defense forces were bleating
something about free speech and artistic creativity and
Iran-contra. It wasn’t pretty, this rout that brought to mind the
last days of the 1991 Gulf war.
On the right-coast, something else was a foot. Once again the
Enola Gay is being brought out of the closet, this time
for permanent display in a huge new museum outside Washington, D.C.
To hear the usual culprits squawk, you’d think the display of the
Hiroshima plane will include the mushroom cloud itself. But there’s
something more at work as well. Well over 150 prize post-Leninists
— where were they when Joe McCarthy could have read their names
from a list? — have signed on to a document
demanding that their version of the August 6 bombing be the
official version of events, OR ELSE.
All the usual suspects are there: Robert Jay Lifton, Daniel
Ellsberg, Gar Alperovitz, Norman Lear, Oliver Stone, Todd Gittlin,
E. L. Doctorow, Stanley Hoffmann, Julian Bond, Jane Mansbridge and
Ron Kovic. They detest what they call a “celebratory” exhibit that
“both legitimizes what happened in 1945 and helps build support for
the Bush administration’s dangerous new nuclear policies.” Talk
about a surprise attack. Not only are these wonder profs unhappy
more Americans weren’t killed in the Pacific war, they assume our
president will soon be dropping nukes on Tikrit and Gaza and
anywhere else he damn well chooses.
So let’s hear it for the comrades of this week’s EOW collective,
the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and
Current Policy. Thanks to its labors, we can’t sleep at night.
