From th eauthor of such classics as “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers” and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, author Tom Wolfe has been casting his eye on the ‘intelligensia’ for 35+ years. Here is his observation of the current view of sex and, of course the level to which his friends invectives and diatribe has sunk to in this election cycle.
"As a member of the Manhattan intelligentsia, novelist Tom Wolfe seems a lonely defender of George Bush’s conservative values. But, he tells Ed Vulliamy, he’s bewildered by a sex-mad society and tired of being lectured to at dinner parties. So is he voting for Dubya tomorrow? He’s not quite telling
Tom Wolfe casts his gaze across America at this election time, with eyes that change mood in a nanosecond, with a flicker. For the most part, they exude an amused elegance befitting the hallmark white suit and dandy-ish two-tone brogues. But then the look suddenly changes, to become scalpel-sharp, mischievous, seizing upon some detail. It is a metamorphosis which begins to explain, perhaps, how this softly-spoken, immaculately-mannered gentleman journalist from the South can write with such voracity about the grime and sediment which inhabits American society and the human soul."(excert from article)
Have to agree with Tom Wolfe. I’m also a lone ranger defender of George Bush’s conservative values.
I just wish George Bush was one of us. Somewhere along the line his evil doppelganger slipped into his skin and the real George Bush was reduced to a barely visible hump on the back of doppelganger twin.
You can hear his tiny little voice crying out pathetically if you listen closely: “may the power of Christ compel you! may the power of Christ compel you!”
Yes, I too share Tom Wolfe’s trenchant view that the liberal elite is clueless and lower than lizard piss which has seeped to the core of the earth and is now dancing like little debils on the surface of its molten core as it evaporates into oblivion.
Once it dawns on a still slightly off-balance Tom Wolfe though that Doppelganger Bush and the real Bush aren’t one and the same, he too may end up believing as I do that while nothing can be lower than lizard piss dancing like toxic miasma on the surface of the earth’s molten core, petrified dinosaur turds being crushed into oblivion thousands of feet below the earth’s cruel surface is certainly low enough in itself.
Well, enough of pondering. I’ve got to get back to my work on the unified field theory.
[quote]Today, I suspect, the intellectuals are impotent because so many of them are no good. In America it is a sign of the times that their leader is the mobile cheeseburger. The Right attracts at least as many stars as the rest: they write in the New Criterion, the National Review, Commentary and the American Spectator, and don
You people are nuts. Somehow being self-critical is bad. :loco: I guess it’s best to just insult other countries and pretend to be the ‘best country in the world’ like everyone else believes. An inability to criticize yourself is a severe flaw, and criticizing the US seems much more valuable to me than criticizing others because at least we have a democratic society in which we can enact change. But there is a level when criticism is just insulting, and since I love my country I feel just as much contempt as anyone for self-hating Americans or wannabe Eurotrash who ‘only drink French wine’ or such.
As I said before, nationalism can detract from your ability to have a cosmopolitan, or greater, sense of what is meaningful in life. Having lived in many places, I deeply love my country but realize that most people there really are not truly happy. Loneliness and ignorance are rampant there as they are in many countries. I can easily trash North Korea, but can I make any difference there? If we don’t try to make a positive difference, our culture will stagnate. I’m worried that the conservative trend in the US will isolate us again and leave the rest of the world to pass us by. I can’t go back to a country of religious fanatics. In Spain, where 90% of the country is Roman Catholic, 60% support homosexuals’ right to marriage? What is wrong for finding my fellow citizens’ fear of gay marriage irrational and a step in the wrong direction?
Realize there are brilliant spokespeople on both sides. By trashing the liberals you assume you are right. If you are right, you have nothing to learn and no reason to change. How sad.
This is hilarious. Criticize others for not knowing much about the world outside their country but then put your love and faith and trust in a man who, before 911, thought Al Qaeda was a Tex-Mex dish.
I agree, by the way, liberal elites are out of touch. They haven’t learned yet how to be wealthy, over-educated, and
live exclusive lives of great priviledge, all the while convincing the average man and woman that they’re just like them.
Better to trust someone who admits to having his worldview changed by the events of 911 than to put trust in a man who says 911 didn’t cause him to change his worldview.
Best to trust somebody who had enough of what Johnson calls ‘talent’ to read, comprehend, and act upon an August, 2001, intelligence brief entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike In the US’ while changing his worldview nonetheless.
Best to trust somebody who had enough of what Johnson calls ‘talent’ to read, comprehend, and act upon an August, 2001, intelligence brief entitled ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike In the US’ while changing his worldview nonetheless.
And if you’re keeping track, that ain’t Bush.[/quote]
Still, it was better Bush than Kerry. Even on that score.
You are setting up straw men. No one said that you cannot criticize the US, but as I have frequently asked these major critics of the US and its policy, so too do I ask you now? What are your suggestions? What are your alternatives? What do you recommend that we do instead?
Then, if the US is open for criticism why is not the UN nor France nor Germany subject to the same type of criticism. The US was heavily criticized for choosing to act first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Given the votes of Russia, France and the UN leadership’s policies at the time, which were used to criticize American foreign policy, why cannot we look at what was going on including the massive corruption to discount their opposition as unprincipled?
Finally, the big criticism that I have for the Left is if it claims to care about human rights, women’s rights, gay rights etc. then why isn’t it happy that Afghanistan is free of the Taliban. Why does it blame America for the violence in Iraq? Why does it not support American efforts to bring democracy and respect for human rights to Arab and Muslim nations?
So here you criticize Bush for suppressing gay rights but at no time in America have gay rights been stronger. Bush and his policies will make gays and other groups more protected in nations around the world since respect for human rights, all human rights, will be advanced.
So here we see yet another Leftie basically defending Arab leaderships as being worthy of respect and how the US should listen to them more, why? Shouldn’t we be listening to the people? I mean do the police listen to the gang leaders and drug dealers and give them the respect that they deserve or respect their right to “diversity” or do the police try to arrest them to keep them from abusing and intimidating neighborhoods?
Again, these conundrums are so basic and so integral to these arguments that there is no way anyone can listen to what the Left claims it cares about and then see how it in fact acts and not walk away with at the very minimum complete contempt to utter disgust.
Better to trust someone who admits to having his worldview changed by the events of 911 than to put trust in a man who says 911 didn’t cause him to change his worldview.[/quote]
The election’s over. Give it up. You’re not going to get that posting at AIT.
[quote=“fred smith”]What are your suggestions? What are your alternatives? What do you recommend that we do instead?
[/quote]
If the US goal is to permanently occupy Iraq militarily and the Israeli goal is to push Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza and make it a part of Israel then there’s no hope of peace in the Middle East in our lifetimes.
That’s the first order of business then, the dominant parties in the Middle East being honest and forthright about their real goals.
If their real goals are permanent occupation and ethnic cleansing and the strategy for achieving this is to talk the opposite – sovereignty and Palestinian statehood – simply in order to buy time and divide the opposition then only a fool would give this approach any chance of bringing peace and stability to the Middle East.
A realist though would note that since the ‘say one thing and do another’ approach has worked so well for neoconservatives so far there’s very little chance they’ll stop doing it anytime soon.
If every Jew drops dead tonite at midnite, do you [i]honestly[/i] think Peace will then magically reign in te Middle East? There has [i]never[/i] been Peace in the Middle East.
Fred, I agree that France, Germany and Russia should definitely be criticized when it’s merited. We don’t have any Le Pens here, and our President isn’t supporting corrupt election results in Ukraine. The whole ‘freedom fries’ issue about them opposing the war was not serious criticism, however. Since the US tends to act more dramatically on the world stage it naturally attracts more criticism, especially when it acts against world opinion. As for gay rights, homosexuals’ struggle for equal rights has gone on since the 70’s, and the fact that they have greater rights under Bush certainly is in contrast to his attitudes rather than with it. He has done little if anything to support their cause and has probably undercut it with his dramatic cut of funding to social service organizations (a typical Republican trend) except for those with religious affiliations (hm… separation of church and state anybody?). As for US causing violence in Iraq, that is an asinine assertion. I think the invasion of Iraq as poorly supported ‘preemptive attack’ sets a terrible precedent for countries to use in the future, but I am glad that Saddam is gone and terrorists are being shot. Did it merit an invasion? The expenses and significance of the invasion still did not merit it, but I hope all goes well now that we’re in. Cowboy politics simply don’t belong in the modern age when the world is so closely knit together. We can’t afford ignorant ‘go-it-alone’ attitudes that severely damage our reputation, which is the LOWEST it has ever been. There will always be petty anti-Americanism, especially by the French, but we’re at the point that other countries are seriously reconsidering their alliance with us (consider that in the war on terrorism) and we could become a kind of paranoid pariah state like Israel. Americans will now be further held in contempt for electing a chimp to office. :fume:
Stalin, there has never been peace anywhere. The MidEast has seen times of prosperity and times of greater or lesser conflict, but to assume that peace is impossible is to basically throw your hands up and do nothing. Hey, actually if that means not using up all of my tax dollars (which Curious George has done so well) that’s fine with me.
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“spook”]
If the US goal is to permanently occupy Iraq militarily and the Israeli goal is to push Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza and make it a part of Israel then there’s no hope of peace in the Middle East in our lifetimes.
[/quote]
If every Jew drops dead tonite at midnite, do you [i]honestly[/i] think Peace will then magically reign in te Middle East? There has [i]never[/i] been Peace in the Middle East.[/quote]
you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink
How does the US act more “dramatically.” How does it act against world opinion? And if you are worried about the US acting against world opinion, why have you never mentioned Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Germany, France, etc. etc. and let’s not even go to the UN which acted against the opinion of the US led coalition probably because they all their hands in the till. This is the perception that I am trying to fight. a. that only the US acts against world opinion and b. that there is any world opinion at all and c. that the majority of the world’s opinion comes from nations that are backward dictatorships with no respect for human rights.
No the gay rights groups have undercut their support by trying to get a constitutional amendment that says gays have the right to be married just like men and women. This is NOT in the Constitution and what gives gay people the right to try to force that down the American public’s throat without going through the process of getting the necessary amendments written up, processed and ratified just like all the other amendments?
Why do gays need social services any more than other Americans? Given that Bush increased the education budget more than any president in recent history, I should be the one who is angry since I do not support this not you. Also, given that there is no direct proof that spending more money helps and plenty of evidence to suggest that it is actually just being wasted or actually resulting in worse behavior why is spending more on these programs good?
Has the separation of church and state ended under Bush? Prove that. Also, if vouchers are used at Catholic schools but parents are still the ones who make the final decision how is the separation of church and state ended? Just because some of that money would go to religious schools does not mean that parents are being forced to choose them. Right now, these parents with children in failing schools have no choice at all. How communist!
The US and UK invaded Kosovo in 1999 and Bosnia was taken out in 1995. Neither action had UN approval. In the former, Kofi Annan (yes one and the same) said of the US and UK that sometimes nations had to act to enforce UN mandates. Interesting? And Robin Cook the UK foreign minister who resigned before the fight in Iraq was grilled by Parliament about how he led the nation into Kosovo when there was no proof of mass exterminations. There were proof of these in Iraq so how exactly is it that Kosovo was worth the humanitarian invasion but Iraq was not?
Finally one intelligent question and a worthy conviction hoping for the best.
How has the US acted as a cowboy. We had a coalition that included almost all our allies in East Asia, and the majority of both the EU and NATO. It was France and Germany and Belgium who were acting against the majority not us.
Again, we are no acting alone. Our actions are not ignorant. Is following the majority always better than doing what is right? Think about that as a high school student. Would you smoke, have sex, drink and do drugs just to fit in and not be seen as being a go it aloner?
No argument on that.
Who is REALLY rethinking their alliance and cooperation with the US. In fact, we are seeing a hell of a lot more cooperation from China, India, Russia, Central Asia, Libya and even Syria as well as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. What we are not getting is cooperation from traditional allies like France and Belgium oh yes and Greece. So?
How and why is Israel a pariah state? It is being ganged up on in the UN by the Arab world, not one of which has a democracy nor respects human rights. If Israel is such a pariah, sign me up to become one too.
Someone spends too much time reading salon.com Bush is one of the most effective presidents that we have ever had and he has gotten nearly everything that he claimed to wish to accomplish. Disagree with his policies but show that he is stupid. Hardly the case.
