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Joe Millionaire's Imperial Nation
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Chronicles Magazine ^ | 2/15/2003 | Thomas Fleming
JOE MILLIONAIRE'S IMPERIAL NATION by Thomas Fleming
February 15, 2003
“No one ever went broke underestimating the American people.” Even H.L. Mencken may not have anticipated his country’s precipitous descent into silliness. Here we are, almost 300 million people, protected by the greatest arsenal of “weapons of mass destruction” the world has ever known, and we are out in force, at the government’s request, buying duct tape and plastic sheeting which will not save us from the terrorist attacks we shall probably never have to face.
Republican pundits, while defending the duct tape defense, have a more serious response to the threat of Korean missiles: “Now, more than ever, we must go forward with SDI.” This is the same answer they had for the failing Soviet Empire, uppity Chinese, the Saudi terrorists of 911, and—I can only guess—hangnails and dandruff. This is the party that used to declare that you couldn’t solve problems by throwing money at them.
The pundits may talk all they like about “American Greatness,” but they should be talking about American silliness. Can people who watch Joe Millionaire and The O’Reilly Factor really be taken seriously as an imperial nation? Of course the pundits—mostly neoconservative yuppies and their younger cousins—have always regarded Americans as canaille, cannon fodder for the endless wars dreamed up by the Kristols, Kagans, Krauthammers (KKK, for short). If you have ever read one of their columns or, worse luck, had a conversation with one of the pundits, you would run screaming back to the comparative sanity and intelligence of the canaille.
The latest fad is, of course, hating the French. This will supposedly establish their populist credentials. (I’d be satisfied if they could prove their human credentials.) So now the pundits and their ilk are boycotting all things French—wine, cheese, bottled water. Some imagine this to be a hardship. What, deprive the yuppies of their chardonnay and camembert? But it is not. These people have no better taste in food than they do in music and literature. Everything is fad, nothing is real—including the opinions they manufacture and distribute for recitation. It takes some element of human passion really to like Scarlatti or Mendelsohn, Trollope or Péguy, ripe taleggio or old claret. It takes nothing to pretend to identify the 16 flavor points of a trendy chardonnay or discover the “depth” in Saul Bellow.
It is cold out here in reality-land, and the snow is about to fall. I intend to build a fire, crack open a bottle of Moulin-à-Vent and giggle at the thought of the KKK’s, wrapped up snug in their duct-taped plastic sheeting, washing down their Kraft singles with a good bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine.
JOE MILLIONAIRE'S IMPERIAL NATION by Thomas Fleming
February 15, 2003
“No one ever went broke underestimating the American people.” Even H.L. Mencken may not have anticipated his country’s precipitous descent into silliness. Here we are, almost 300 million people, protected by the greatest arsenal of “weapons of mass destruction” the world has ever known, and we are out in force, at the government’s request, buying duct tape and plastic sheeting which will not save us from the terrorist attacks we shall probably never have to face.
Republican pundits, while defending the duct tape defense, have a more serious response to the threat of Korean missiles: “Now, more than ever, we must go forward with SDI.” This is the same answer they had for the failing Soviet Empire, uppity Chinese, the Saudi terrorists of 911, and—I can only guess—hangnails and dandruff. This is the party that used to declare that you couldn’t solve problems by throwing money at them.
The pundits may talk all they like about “American Greatness,” but they should be talking about American silliness. Can people who watch Joe Millionaire and The O’Reilly Factor really be taken seriously as an imperial nation? Of course the pundits—mostly neoconservative yuppies and their younger cousins—have always regarded Americans as canaille, cannon fodder for the endless wars dreamed up by the Kristols, Kagans, Krauthammers (KKK, for short). If you have ever read one of their columns or, worse luck, had a conversation with one of the pundits, you would run screaming back to the comparative sanity and intelligence of the canaille.
The latest fad is, of course, hating the French. This will supposedly establish their populist credentials. (I’d be satisfied if they could prove their human credentials.) So now the pundits and their ilk are boycotting all things French—wine, cheese, bottled water. Some imagine this to be a hardship. What, deprive the yuppies of their chardonnay and camembert? But it is not. These people have no better taste in food than they do in music and literature. Everything is fad, nothing is real—including the opinions they manufacture and distribute for recitation. It takes some element of human passion really to like Scarlatti or Mendelsohn, Trollope or Péguy, ripe taleggio or old claret. It takes nothing to pretend to identify the 16 flavor points of a trendy chardonnay or discover the “depth” in Saul Bellow.
It is cold out here in reality-land, and the snow is about to fall. I intend to build a fire, crack open a bottle of Moulin-à-Vent and giggle at the thought of the KKK’s, wrapped up snug in their duct-taped plastic sheeting, washing down their Kraft singles with a good bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine.
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