An Ecstatic Orgy of Adulation
Mary Pitt
06/06/04 "ICH" These are the salad days for the Republican party. Not only are they worshipping at the altar of the brave men who landed in France sixty years ago today to presage the end of World War II, but their greatest living hero, passed to his eternal reward yesterday. Their combination of mourning a death that was too long in coming while celebrating the grandeur of the "greatest" war in our history is a combination of beatification and campaign hype.
Good taste demands that we on the left not bring up Iran-Contra or the fact that many of those involved in that scandal are current employees of our present adminstration. We must not recall the questioning of the current President in the Valerie Plame affair or issue a reminder that her "outing" was in retaliation for her husband's disclosure of the lie about weapons of mass destruction. Neither must we discuss the private contracting system and the involvement of the vice-President in the procurement for his friends of these munificent deals.
Ronald Reagan is their hero! He won World War II singlehandedly by his portrayal of all those real-life heroes in the movies and "won the Cold War" by dint of happenstance placing him in the Oval Office when the Soviet Union fell of its own internal corruption. The fact that there was very good reason why he was "out of the loop" when the machinations regarding Iran-Contra were taking place and that "Ike" was something less than optimum in his abilities as President after he became a national hero by his actions in war. We must also not remind them that the Greatest Generation consisted of many more Americans than simply those who wore a uniform.
This is not the time to try to call them back from their ecstatic orgy of adulation of President Reagan or their glorification of Eisenhower and the rest of The Greatest Generation. They do not want to believe that there is any difference between then and now, between that desperate effort to establish peace and national sovereignty in the face of bloody conquerors and this almost unilateral invasion of another nation on the weakest of pretense. They are too young or too forgetful to recall the great restraint that was exercised by the United States before entering that war or that we were directly attacked by both Germany and Japan before we assented to join in the battle.
They are unimpressed by the withholding of support for the present effort by the people of all Europe, despite their love for America and their gratitude for the assistance that was rendered to them, not only in throwing back the conquerors, but in restoring their nations. They refuse to accept the fact that billions of dollars are being wasted while hundreds of young men are wasting their lives in the desert sands for a war without end that exists only in the tortured minds of a few money-hungry international tycoon-wannabees who will pay any price for world domination. This is particularly true since none of that price will be paid by them but by future generations of Americans.
We must let them have their party and their funeral in the hope that, once the morning comes and they are holding their aching heads, they will realize that the bills must still be paid and they must sober up and face the day. May it be a good one!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, born pre-Roosevelt in the Dust Bowl, grew up during the Great Depression, and came of age during World War II. She works full-time in her own business and writes as time permits in defense of the historical freedoms and in opposition to tyranny. <mpitt@cox.net>
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