Professor Dauber had an editorial point to make
about the use of the passive voice by the NYT when dealing with the Beslan
massacre:
It
was an afternoon and evening of confusion, savagery, daring and horror, as
the
battle swept aside lives with the blind
indifference
of a lottery, but also allowed many of the children to manage desperate
escapes.
(Her emph.)
Well, my
that's soaring, poetic language. It's also utter crap. "The battle," a sweeping
impersonal force, a large blind thing with no moral agency did not take those
lives, you God damn moron. Men with automatic weapons
did.
As I said, a fair point. She
gets comments though, too. Including one from one Munir Um'rani, a writer, Chap
points out, for the Muslim
Journal
and the Diplomatic
Times. Mr. Um'rani
posits:
While I enjoy
your ranting on the media including your rant about media coverage of the
horrible killing of children in the Russian school hostage situation, sometimes
you sound like those in the mainstream media you criticize. At times, I seem to
detect a holier-than-thou approach. So many of us bloggers complain about
"liberial media bias," whatever that is. Yet when publications characterized as
"liberal" do straight reporting without embelllishment, many of us get angry and
call them
names.
Secondly, we are
all biased and often react to events based on our perception and understanding,
or lack of understanding, of the history of events. The school killings in
Russia are no exceptions. I, too, was saddened by the killings and condemn them.
However, I appreciated CNN's straight-forward reporting on the hostage situation
that led to the
deaths.
Finally, both
the Russians and the Chechens killed those children. I think with this situation
we have what those of us in the legal profession call the "but for" issue. I
suspect that but for Russia's refusal to grant Chechnya independence, and its
colonial policy towards Chechnya beginning with Peter the Great and continued by
every Soviet and Russian leader since, the Chechens wouldn't be so desperate
that they would take children hostage knowing that they would be internationally
condemned, as they should
be.
Of course, many of
us Americans don't care about history and intent, all we see are 350 or more
people killed.
Mr. Um'rani, who has a
blog of
his own, takes a little heat for that statement, especially the part about "both
the Russians and the Chechens killed those children" in the rest of the
comments. Well deserved, in my opinion. History didn't kill anyone, Friday
morning - terrorists did. And answering "yes, but.." to the outrage people ought
to feel when hundreds of children are
shot in the
back by terrorists is going to get you
some heated responses.
But I gather
that Mr. Um'rani is just another run-of-the-mill, garden variety,
seen-one/seen-'em-all, "yes, but" cultural apologists. That's all. Maybe not
quite as mad as Bahraini cleric Ali Abdullah, who, while condemning the attack
as "un-Islamic," placed the blame squarely at the feet of the
Israelis.
And one of the things that
has always stuck in my craw a bit is the moral arrogance of some of these
progressives, their ability to be so sneeringly superior in the moral realm to
us knuckle-dragging Cro-Magnons on the other side of the political veil, while
simultaneously being unable to parse the distinction between
Hamas
suicide bombers and American soldiers. This from someone who sniffs at RNC
delegates doing good works while in New York, calling them "leper lickers ," since they're doing it where
everyone can
see. And that's not the worst, everything
else in there, with the possible exception of NYC co-op arrangements (a topic I
am uniquely unqualified to speak to) is pure tinfoil hat brigade
fodder.
It just steams me, that's
all. </rant>
I am not a
Republican. In truth, I'm not even much of a conservative, I'm more of a
"cultural/societal defender." So I don't know why this gets me so
angry.
To be fair, there is, I
suppose, an arc of the outer rim on the political right that considers any one
on the left of the political divide as a communist (as if that word even means
anything anymore). But these folks are deeply marginal. Most folks on the right
think that progressives are well-intentioned, but merely misguided, perhaps
naïve.
But when folks on the
left accuse us of being either stupid or malignantly evil, calling the RNC a
"hate fest," while chortling happily at F9/11 distortions, and no voice of
reason or rejection checks them, I have to wonder if they are worthy of our
courtesy.
Maybe John Edwards is
right. Maybe there really is "two Americas." The part that I'm in can tell the
difference between Soldiers and terrorists.
Posted @
04:42 PM
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Posted in
""
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
