Or perhaps more fairly… Fuddy-duddy minds, simple answers.
Frank Rich writes in yet another endless column today: “For five years boomers have been asking, “Why are the kids not in the streets screaming about the war the way we were?” The simple answer: no draft.”
How about an even simpler answer? Different war.
Of course, you’ll never see anything like that out of Rich whose entire weltanschauung hasn’t changed a jot since he heard his first Crosby, Stills & Nash album. How conservative, in the true sense, is that! What I would love to see is Rich parodied on South Park. But I doubt the guys would bother. They may not even have heard of him.
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17 Comments
1. srlucado:Does that windbag get paid by the word? Proof yet again that brevity is the soul of wit, given this soulless and witless bloviating.
“This is not 1968, when the country was so divided over race and war that cities and campuses exploded in violence. If you have any doubts, just look (to take a recent example) at the restrained response by New Yorkers, protestors included, to the acquittal of three police officers in the 50-bullet shooting death of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell.”
Hey, maybe the calendar year has nothing to do with it, but the fact that New Yorkers figured out that those cops (two of whom are black) were justified in the shooting. Imagine that; it wasn’t a racial incident.
Don’t guys like Frank Rich ever grow up? Or even look around? Or breathe anything besides their own exhaust?
Scott
May 11, 2008 - 9:17 am 2. chuck:No USSR, either. That shining city on the hill has joined Atlantis at the bottom of the sea and even Plato couldn’t bring it back.
May 11, 2008 - 10:28 am 3. Gary Rosen:Frank is rich.
May 11, 2008 - 1:37 pm 4. TerryeL:There is also the difference between 57,000 dead Americans and 4,000.
I wonder if these guys really think that rooting for the enemy makes them morally superior?
May 11, 2008 - 3:04 pm 5. photoncourier.blogspot.com:The great thing about being a “progressive,” in the current sense of the word, is that you can endlessly congraulate yourself on your courage, boldness, and creativity without even having to actually entertain a new idea or risk offending anyone who matters to your career.
May 11, 2008 - 3:27 pm 6. miguelj:How ’bout: different zeigeist? (I get to say that, Roger, since you said weltanschauung).
May 11, 2008 - 5:53 pm 7. Carl Spackler:As I recall the 60s, it was about a lot more than the war: simultaneous revolutions in music, art, literature, sex, religion and (ghasp!) drugs.
Remember the Generation Gap? That is why the “kids were in the streets then” but not now.
I will admit, however, that people in their 20s mostly seem like mutants to me now (gripe, groan!) but that is not the same as a Generation Gap.
Is Frank going to parachute into Burma with satellite Internet dishes? You know, power to the (Burmese) people! No, I suppose not.
Scratch Tibet and Darfur too.
It must suck to realize your country is last yearÃs lefty cause.
May 11, 2008 - 8:08 pm 8. vnjagvet:Mf. Rich I served in Vietnam: I knew Vietnam; Vietnam was an intimate experience of mine. Mr. Rich, Iraq is no Vietnam.
May 11, 2008 - 8:29 pm 9. ldt:Mr. Rich is typical of that select group of Boomers who base their whole identity on a war they never fought in and a rock concert they never went to.
May 12, 2008 - 6:43 am 10. ben:Scott,
Just a small quibble.
The Judge did not find the shooting justified. The Judge found that the accusation that the shooting was unjustified wasn’t proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
A lot of people are confused on this. But the difference is very important to how our justice system works. A shooting by a Cop is not an ordinary shooting, when you consider that his job description is one that includes shooting. Since it’s part of his duties, he doesn’t have to prove himself right- the accuser has to prove him wrong.
May 12, 2008 - 9:00 am 11. Boojum:Sean Bell already had several prior arrests for drug dealing. I suspect many people felt his absence would not be missed and stayed home.
May 12, 2008 - 11:10 am 12. robert verdi:Frank Rich doesn’t read the Iraq coverage from his own paper, he pretty much lifts whatever the blogosphere talking points happen to be.
May 12, 2008 - 4:58 pm 13. Barry Dauphin:So Rich is admitting that the Vietnam protests were not about exalted moral philosophy of which wars are good and just and worth the risk but about the pragmatic philosophy of self preservation and fear of dying? Hmmm, quite an admission.
May 12, 2008 - 5:43 pm 14. seePea:“Crosby, Stills & Nash album” ?
May 12, 2008 - 9:40 pm 15. zefal:tsk, tsk, tsk, Roger.
It is since the
Crosby, Stills , Nash & YOUNG albums .
Frank is right(someone get my heart medicine for me) the “anti-war” protests back then were anti-draft protests. When the draft was ended back then the “anti-war” protests dried up too.
Btw, South Vietnam and The United States were opposed to the Vietnam war. Unfortunately, the Communist North, China & USSR weren’t opposed.
May 12, 2008 - 11:55 pm 16. Stacy's Mom:I liked this blog better when Rich was behind his “paid subscribers only” firewall and Roger had no need to comment on anything the guy wrote.
May 13, 2008 - 9:48 am 17. MarkD:It’s definitely the draft. No one wants to think of himself as a coward, hence the endless self justification for acts of self preservation.
The folks who really care are doing something about it. The usual suspects are whining that somebody should do something. The Marines hit 142% of their recruiting target. Code Pink is looking for witches because their antics aren’t drawing enough protesters. The people who care deeply are speaking with their actions.
May 14, 2008 - 8:43 am