In so many ways, these are trying times
in international affairs, and human nature has resulted in this
response from far too many Americans:
Panic, panic, panic.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
Moan, moan, moan.
Lament, lament, lament.
What is it about the “peanut gallery”
that makes people act so? If interested in what has me so agitated,
read this
post at the website of my blog god Wretchard
the Cat. The thread, which as of this writing is nearing 600 posts
long, agitated me – vexed me, in fact. Particularly because many of
the readers of that blog should have a better grip on reality than is
evident more these days than has been evident since non-state
terrorists were first engaged by the Bush Administration in the
aftermath of 9-11.
Panic, panic, panic.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
Moan, moan, moan.
Lament, lament, lament.
I was driven to respond, given that I’m
a Bush Administration hack, into making something of a case for
patience and understanding – faith, in other words. Here was my
contribution:
Impatience.
Our true achilles
heel.
Other than the nattering nabobs of negativity. Look, if
Bill Clinton were President, Albright at State, and some like-minded
Democrat at the U.N., then I might be worried.
But with Bush
at the helm, Dr. Rice at State, and Bolton at the U.N. -- damn, some
of y'all are relentlessly negative. I understand some of the
disappointment from the Israelis -- they are invested in the myth of
the IDF. But does anyone remember the stupidity of a certain set of
USMC types bitching from the safety of their California base about
U.S. Army ineptitude in Iraq, after the initial war phase was
completed but early on in our ongoing "winning the peace"
phase -- anybody remember that? The USMC's vaunted "velvet
glove" stupidity?
Which was completely oblivious of the
Fedayeen and still stuck thinking about the damn Vietnamese? Well,
that's what the hell some of y'all want with the Hez in Lebanon. Some
of y'all want the IDF to be stupid and walk right into the
Hezbollah's military and propaganda preparations. You think the Hez
(just like the Fedayeen) haven't studied the strengths of the IDF --
and prepared for them? These Iranians are not buck-tooth idiots, man!
But y'all bitch and moan on here like wenches on the rag.
There's
an obvious disinformation campaign going on, obvious probing going
on, obvious attempts to make the other side show their hand. Patience
is on our side, and impatience works to the benefit of the Islamists.
Which is why we're so lucky to have Bush at the helm. The Democrats
would have been spooked stupid by 9-11 and all of y'all know
it.
Though people still haven't figured it out, the Bush
Administration forcing a pullback from the first Fallujah assault in
Iraq was a brilliant move -- otherwise, the propaganda gift to the
Islamists would have been Qana times ten. They were all set and ready
for their own version of Hezbollywood. For any serious-minded person,
the Islamist playbook is being made very, very plain. And
limited.
Patience, patience, patience. We have no choice but
to play chess. Let the professionals do their damn job. Iran has
already screwed up, so has Syria; both are already boxed in but there
are certain required steps that must be followed. Just let the
denouement of this kabuki (who was that -- Catherine?) play itself
out.
But, of course, the kid was ignored.
And on went the thread:
Panic, panic, panic.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
Moan, moan, moan.
Lament, lament, lament.
But then, from out of the blue, came a
redeemer self-identified as The Mad Fiddler:
To Wretchard and all the folks who find
sanctuary in the company of the Belmont Club,
This morning I
walked around my neighborhood a little after dawn, savoring air that
was cool and fragrant with honeysuckle, mimosa, pine, and gardenia.
Each home seemed to offer a different perfume of the owner’s
favorite plants, some whispering more to the eye with extravagant
rouges and blues and zanthic yellows. Mourning doves called, to each
other, I know. But they seemed softly to reproach me for letting
myself be so preoccupied lately with darkness and trouble.
Crossing
a creekbridge shaded by towering loblolly pines and pin oaks, I
caught a whiff of mud flats and boggie critters, and was suddenly
transported back to childhood days spent in intent study of the
society of fiddler crabs on the banks of a nearby marsh. The placid
surface of the tidewater creek reflected a sky pure and unblemished
by any sound but morning birdcalls; by any movement but breeze-borne
spider silk.
It was a kind of intoxication, or bewitchment,
that I’ve been denying myself too long.
For a spell I aim to
spend a lot more time savoring my little patch, and thinking about
how much beauty there is, not just in nature, but in the people who
tend their gardens, and clean up their public ways when they’re
done with their own yards, and still have time and energy to
volunteer for the rescue squad, or shelve books at the library, or
serve church dinners. Playing my fiddle for folks in hospital,
sometimes for people living out their final days or hours, has been
challenging, but gives me some sense that I can ease other folks’
burdens with something that might otherwise be shabby
self-indulgence.
I wish I had Mr. Kielland’s expansive
confidence that the worst is past. But what struck finally me this
morning is that whatever happens in the short term, I do share his
sense that things will work out. I love that phrase: “In the
fullness of time...” It conveys to me a reminder that a jaundiced
view puckers our squinty eyes like blinders, making us numb to the
wide world and the titanic stretch of time behind and before. Once in
a while, a little injection of cosmic perspective helps to settle the
mind at how small the ripples in the stream really are.
My
brother planted several pine seedlings in our backyard the year my
folks moved into this house, now forty-one years ago. Those have
matured to rival even the most ancient of the trees, and shelter
trailing vines that house birds, snakes, squirrels, frogs, cicadas,
bees, ladybugs and mantids. Just a few decades, and the scars of fire
and ruin can be healed by lush growth and steady human labor.
Nagasaki and Hiroshima have been rebuilt, along with Dresden and
Hamburg and Coventry and a thousand other cities and towns once
shattered by man and nature, and their inhabitants rush about their
business and have to be reminded to take an occasional day to
remember...
I want to thank all of you for the time and
efforts and research you’ve done and shared; for the late nights
and gritty eyes and sore wrists from typing and scrolling, keeping
the conversations going. It has helped me sort things out. I hope the
exchange has reached a few others. Seems like the last couple of
weeks we’ve seen a passle of folks join in that had been silent,
but taking notes all the while. The thoughts, challenges, responses,
but most importantly, the fundamental decency and civility of this
forum set a very high standard for constructive debate. I pray that
somewhere in some quiet alcove in Teheran, or Beijing, or in a study
carel in a Pakistani madrassah, maybe someone has surreptitiously
been following the conversations here or some of the other blogs, and
come away with a quickening hunger to join in.
Mad Fiddler, thank you. Your post is
one of the examples demonstrating why the blogosphere is a beautiful
thing. Concerning that last sentence, there can be no doubt that most
of humanity wishes the same.
I’ve begun reading a book that will
likely take two years to finish (because of my own peculiar reading
habits) but I’ve been very pleased with what I’ve read so far. In
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1967 book, “Introduction
to Christianity,” he early on in the writing
made these basic points (the numbering is not associated with the
book but with this post alone):
On top of the gulf between the
visible and invisible, there comes (just to make things even harder
for humanity) the gulf between the “then” and the “now,”
rendering belief as old fashioned and trapping the unsuspecting into
an outlook that makes belief appear to be a demand to bind oneself
to yesterday – a tough sell in an age where the idea of
“tradition” has been replaced by the idea of “progress,”
however defined
In an earlier time, tradition was
a rock – a firm program offering something protective upon which
man could rely; thus, the primary stumbling block to belief (the
distance between the visible and the invisible – i.e., between God
and Not-God) is impeded by the secondary stumbling block of Then and
Now – rendering it the antithesis between tradition and progress
Christian belief is not merely
concerned with belief or faith but is much more concerned with God
in history, with God as man
By making us meet God as a man,
the eternal as the temporal, as one of us, it
understands itself as revelation
Does life involve only the
ascertained and ascertainable, or is ascertaining perhaps only one
particular method of making contact with reality, one that can by no
means comprehend the whole of reality and that even leads to
falsification of the truth and of human existence – if we assume
that it is the only definitive method?
And further into the book, Ratzinger
notes:
Many, many, many will strive to
deny it but there is a realm that allows no other response but that
of entertaining a belief, and no man can completely avoid this
realm – every man is bound to have some kind of “belief”
Yeah. That’s right. So I will close
with the 23rd Psalm. It seems appropriate to me.
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall
not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still
waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for His name' sake.
Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: For thou art
with me;
Thy rod and thy staff, they
comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou annointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of
the Lord forever.
Keep the faith, ladies and gentlemen,
keep the faith.
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