Although I didn’t much care for Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , I should begin by giving it its due. The movie does a fantastic job of conveying what Britain looked, sounded, and even smelled like in 1973, which was the year I arrived there for what turned out to be a nearly 15-year stay spanning the transition from the Britain of the post-war era to the threshold of the post-Cool Britannia of today. The clothes, the cars, the general dinginess, and shabbiness of everything is captured perfectly, so far as I can see, in spite of the odd false note like having George Smiley (Gary Oldman) and an associate dining in a Wimpy Bar. Obviously, the Wimpy Bar has to be there in order to give us the full flavor of the period, but men of their class wouldn’t have been caught dead in one. Movies these days are generally pretty good at re-creating the material past, but this one is a reminder of the importance of also getting the moral and intellectual and spiritual past right as well, for it cannot be understood apart from that cultural context. In its case, that means the John le Carré novel of 1974 and the 1979 BBC television adaptation of it starring Alec Guinness as well as the history of the Cold War on which both purport to be a distinctive gloss. Unlike Mr. Alfredson’s previous film, Let the Right One In , which was a completely original take on the vampire legend, Tinker Tailor places itself squarely in the middle of the now well-established tradition of cultural customs and concepts with which it deals — partly, perhaps, in order to suggest a continuity between that tradition and current political realities with which it would otherwise seem to have little in common. In other words, now not only Cold War spies but spies in general are seen as inhabiting that famously “twilit” world invented by Mr. le Carré to express his own conviction of moral ambiguity and, in consequence, a near moral equivalence between Communist slave states and what used to be called “the West.” That this is an important preface to any discussion of Mr. Afredson’s movie is suggested by the unconsciously hilarious remark of Manohla Dargis , a reviewer for the New York Times , that ” Tinker, Tailor is set against a geopolitical (and movie) moment that is almost quaintly, reassuringly old-fashioned, a time when enemy agents had names like Boris, and a red flag with a hammer and sickle made the ideological and political stakes clear.” She is of course not alone in conveniently forgetting how very unclear the ideological and political stakes were to so many of her fellow lefties at the time, not excluding Mr. le Carré himself. But he, at least, has always been admirably consistent in preferring moral muddle to clarity — except, that is, when it comes to his implacable anti-Americanism. Fortunately, the economics of the movie business and the need for the film to make enough cis-Atlantic money to repay its production costs require that there should be no more than hints of Mr. le Carré’s views of the United States in this version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy . Anyway, I imagine he would agree with the editorialist for the Guardian
The “Chicken Hawk” Argument Is Elitist Pig Behavior I’ll bet you’ve never personally performed open heart surgery. You haven’t? Really? In that case, I don’t want your stinkin’ opinion on how the government should best distort the health insurance markets with artificial incentives. You probably also haven’t dropped acid in the last ten years. Given that painful deficiency on your CV, I don’t want to hear any of your sanctimonious blithering about The War on Drugs. I assume, furthermore, that you’ve never been behind enemy lines, staggering home through the bad guys’ wire with your small intestine in one your canteen cups.* If such is the case; then you, like Newt Gingrich, have no right to have an opinion on issues of international military involvements. So argues Dr. Ron Paul, who has the unique moral authority to decide whether John Huntsman really has American values. As Devine Emperor of Truth and Logic; Dr. Paul hath (self)-righteously decreed that Newt Gingrich has no right to an opinion on matters of war and peace. “I think people who don’t serve when they could and they get three or four or even five deferments aren’t — they have no right to send our kids off to war, and not be even against the wars that we have, (My bolding)” Paul, a former Air Force flight surgeon, said. “I’m trying to stop the wars. But at least, you know, I went when they called me up.” – Congressman Ron Paul. The entire reason people serve in the US Military is to defend and uphold the US Constitution. The entire reason that politicians and their enemies make arguments based upon “Chicken-Hawking” is to deprive people who have not been under enemy fire, of the right to participate in the vital national conversation involving war and peace. It’s a way for great and courageous defenders of the US Constitution like Dr. Ron Paul to strip others of their rights under the 1st Amendment. This would make Dr. Paul a smug and arrogant elitist pig. He is as revolting on the issues of war and peace as President Obama is with regards to social issues. It makes me think that Dr. Paul is a bitter clinger who desperately holds on to his 9-11 Conspiracy Theories and his Racist literature and his proposed Fed audit. As one who wore the uniform briefly, I can understand a teaspoon’s measure of Ron Paul’s frustration over the civilian leadership of the armed forces. It has to be one of the more vexing aspects of the entire US Constitution when Von Clausewitz of the 9-11 LIHOP Theories ponders the document. But that’s exactly the point. You and I don’t have to like Mr. Gingrich’s resume on military issues in order for him to have a right to express his views. Ultimately, “Chicken Hawking” is the revolting logical inverse of the argument that a former military person would make a great foreign policy president. I doubt there is a single opponent of the Iraq War who spent all of 2005 thinking “Ya know what? I don’t like this whole Iraq War thing. However, George W. Bush and John McCain have landed fighter jets on an aircraft carrier before. Based upon that, I have no valid point of view on whether the GOP has a correct policy via-avis the Iraq War.” That’s the astonishing thing about the entire “Chicken Hawk” branch of logical fallacy. Not a single practitioner of it will ever admit that a more experienced member of the military that holds a diametrically opposed point of view on some defense-related issue has a God-Given right to serve the Ron Pauls of the world a big, steaming cup of STFU. This situation sends them appealing to all-important bastions of authority like Gen Wesley Clark. Thus, Ron Paul’s use of the “Chicken Hawk” smear to demean one of his opponents in the GOP Primary reminds me of what is wrong with American Democracy. Here we have a former military member, sworn to uphold and defend the US Constitution, attempting to deprive an opponent of his right to speak based on pure CV snobbery. This is not courageous libertarian constitutionalism. It is post-modern feudalism instead. Elitist Pigs like Ron Paul, who use their resumes and life experiences as a weapon to silence the points of view they don’t want to hear, are an enemy of American Democracy. * – If any members of our rich and vibrant RS community have done all three, than what in the heck are you doing wasting time on the Internet? Get out there and fix all the world’s problems!
Visit link:
Ron Paul, Elitist Pig
Christian ethicist Shaun Casey, who served as a religious liaison in the 2008 Barack Obama campaign, recently reflected on the “legacy of the immoral misadventure in Iraq” for Christian Century magazine.
Bear with me as we connect the dots. This latest journey into Paulville began when I received a missive from a self-identified South Carolina Catholic Ron Paul
“Democracy,” H.L. Mencken once observed, “is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Although mindful of the fact that the United States is a republic rather than a democracy, Ron Paul supporters are about to learn the truth of this maxim. For months, they have protested as political reporters have ignored their candidate in favor of people with far less measurable popular support: Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and even Rick Santorum. They have seen the 11-term Texas congressman receive much less ink and pixels than a former pizza company CEO who insisted that the economy was just fine right before the global financial meltdown occurred — a crisis their man had long predicted. Cover Ron Paul, many of his supporters demanded. Well, they are about to get what they want good and hard. Two reputable scientific polls now show Paul with the lead in Iowa. He is third nationally, moving back toward the double digits. When it comes to measuring public opinion, polls are but a snapshot in time. But even the keepers of the conventional wisdom can no longer ignore the Paul campaign. Expect outlets ranging from the liberal mainstream media to the more hawkish precincts of the conservative press to become one big reprint of the Ron Paul Survival Report between now and January 3. Already those who most disagree with Paul on foreign policy have been discussing the newsletters, which for a period of the 1990s contained some (reputedly ghost-written) racist content the congressman and his campaign have never explained satisfactorily. There has already been a flurry of predictions in places as diverse as the New York Times and conservative blogs that Paul’s surge spells doom for everything from the Iowa caucuses to the Republican Party itself. Robert Stacy McCain has a good round-up . This is what it sounds like when hawks cry. If Paul holds on to win Iowa, the Washington Examiner ‘s Tim Carney predicts he will receive the Pat Buchanan treatment. After Buchanan won the 1996 New Hampshire primary, a terrified Republican establishment rallied to crush him in South Carolina and beyond. While Paul began his campaign opposed to the war that led to Americans being unceremoniously kicked out of liberated Iraq, Buchanan had most recently opposed the war that kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Like Paul, Buchanan almost certainly had too low of a ceiling to prevail once the GOP field narrowed. “But for the enforcers of Republican orthodoxy,” Carney concludes, “a Paul victory in Iowa will be an act of impudence that must be punished.” Paul has risen among Republican voters who want a candidate who means what he says about cutting government and following the Constitution. The alternatives include a Massachusetts governor who drafted the blueprint for Obamacare and the prodigal son of the last Republican revolution, a former House speaker who illustrates a memorable M. Stanton Evans quip: “Most conservatives know when they come to Washington that it is a sewer; the trouble is, too many of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.” Yet Paul’s successes will undoubtedly raise the political costs of his excesses. It should be possible to oppose a repeat of the Iraq adventure in Iran while maintaining greater rhetorical distance from the odious regime in Tehran. Similarly, one should be able to curb excesses in Republican talking points on Islam without making concerns about radical Muslims sound as outlandish as complaints about Romney’s Mormonism. None of this means the attacks on Paul will necessarily be proportionate to his offenses, to say nothing of fair. Paul’s suporters can take heart in one thing: their man has a successor waiting in the wings to lead their movement, one who smooths some of the good doctor’s rougher edges. Pat Buchanan didn’t have that, but Barry Goldwater did.
Read more from the original source:
Ron Paul in the Crosshairs
