Too Many Broads in the Peace Movement, Apparently

Antiwar.com’s Don’t F*ck Me Up With Peace and Love? brought my attention to this piece from American Conservative, “Solving Non-Interventionism’s Tough-Guy Problem.” George Hawley writes:

The tendency to categorize everything into dichotomous categories is a major problem with contemporary American political thought. One idea that unfortunately survived the 60s is that only limp-wristed hippies care about peace, and if you don’t want to be lumped with those indolent, unshaven wusses, you should make it a point to support whatever you think they hate. My suspicion is that a great percentage of the GOP’s voters think very little about American foreign policy, but instinctively believe that only America-hating wimps are against America’s wars, whereas Real Men “support our troops.” These people don’t really care about Iraqi or Afghani civilians, and consider stoically accepting American casualties a sign of “American Grit.” This does not mean they cannot be persuaded by non-interventionist arguments, but doing so will require a message stripped of all traces of humanitarian, we-are-the-world gobbledygook.

Oh my God. Being antiwar is too gay, is it? Next I suppose Real Men will stop wanting to get married, since they hear that’s what the gays want to do now.

Americans have not always associated peace with poltroonery. As far as I know, few people argued that the America First Committee was primarily motivated by spinelessness. Still, since the 60s, the anti-war movement has unfortunately been associated with “Flower Power” and other sissy slogans. Anyone serious about reviving an older, pre-hippy anti-war tradition and making it a major political force would be wise to eschew all rhetoric that conforms to this unfortunate stereotype.

Get all those old queens out of the antiwar movement. Understood.

Lamenting the suffering created by harsh economic sanctions and bombing campaigns is a good way for non-interventionist right-wingers to suck up to their leftist friends and colleagues, but so what? The people moved by such arguments are already anti-war. Building a powerful anti-war coalition on the Right will require an entirely different rhetoric. At all costs it must avoid sounding like Code Pink.

Again, oh my God. At a time when mainstream feminists openly support pro-war candidates and troop surges, we’re supposed to believe that the peace movement is too soft and feminine and humanitarian? We can take the antiwar sentiments of leftist colleagues for granted when, as amply documented by Arthur Silber, the American Left has largely abandoned a principled antiwar stance? I don’t know about you, but whenever I try sharing with leftists my opposition to tyranny and war, they largely hear “I hate roads,” or “I want to deprive the poor of healthcare.” Little things, like a million Iraqi dead, are just one of the unfortunate side effects of a system primarily designed to build pretty parks and pathways. Find me a leftist who thinks culpability for America’s aggressive interventions doesn’t begin and end with Bush II, and you can take a well-earned vacation.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about recruitment tactics lately, and I’ll be sure to keep the “harness contempt of women and gays” tactic in my toolbox. You can actually build a pretty broad coalition with that one. Even feminists don’t shy away from using it.

Quick! Someone Give Me A Billion Dollars to Fight Racism!

What? Don’t you trust me? ARE YOU FOR RACISM? Is that what this is about? Gee, I never would have thought it of you. Then again, I did see you using last Sunday’s NYT to line the budgie cage. We all know what that means. (I also noticed that you didn’t even read Krugman’s column, with accompanying nods, chuckles and sighs, before Petey pooped on it. I oughta turn you in.)

It’s actually a combo of the Boston Globe, the NYT, and a Shakira interview that happens to be triggering me this morning. But let’s start with the Globe:

In health bill, billions for parks, paths

WASHINGTON – Sweeping healthcare legislation working its way through Congress is more than an effort to provide insurance to millions of Americans without coverage. Tucked within is a provision that could provide billions of dollars for walking paths, streetlights, jungle gyms, and even farmers’ markets.

The add-ons – characterized as part of a broad effort to improve the nation’s health “infrastructure” – appear in House and Senate versions of the bill.

Critics argue the provision is a thinly disguised effort to insert pork-barrel spending into a bill that has been widely portrayed to the public as dealing with expanding health coverage and cutting medical costs. A leading critic, Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, ridicules the local projects, asking: “How can Democrats justify the wasteful spending in this bill?”

Hmm, the pork is “tucked within.” How cozy. A veritable pig in a blanket—of legislation. And I wonder why we’re all so inured to statism. Anyway, where’s my billion? I want to fight racism. Seriously. It’s all for a good cause, right? I mean, supposedly racism hurts people’s health, too; I just wanna contribute to building the “health infrastructure.” But I bet all you selfish bastards, who no doubt vote Republican, are going to tell me that you’re not gonna give me that billion. I’ve got to work for it, or raise, it or something.

Ok, fine. I don’t get a billion. Can I at least get half-a-mil for my farmer’s market? I think we’ve got limes coming in. Or lemons. Hard to say. They’re green, at any rate. Green is good, right? Paul Krugman seems to think so (Save the Frogs! Or something—it’s a little unclear), so I know it must be true.

I’m a little braindead of late, so please forgive my slowness of thought. But if poverty is correlated with negative health outcomes, while wealth is associated with better health, then…wouldn’t it be better to let people keep their money? (I mean, compound interest, anyone? Taxes aren’t returned to you, nor do they pay interest. Bet if you could sock away half your income, even at rates that barely outpace inflation, you’d be doing better in a hurry.) Of course, cutting taxes while keeping spending at its current level, or increasing it, is insane, or so I understand. (By the way, isn’t it just a little insane to propose spending increases at a time like this? Are people really more worried about “bike paths” than keeping food on the table?* Is anyone but the privileged concerned about bike paths?) So maybe we could start with cutting subsidies to corn growers and start bringing down the concentration of high-fructose corn syrup in our food. According to current Evidence and Science and Studies**—which are being trotted out to justify the boondoggles listed in the Globe article—HFCS is strongly linked to obesity and diabetes. Now will someone please give me a taxpayer-funded mansion for pointing that out? NO? God. What a bunch of anti-health tightwads you are. I bet you also hate roads.

*Right, I know. The solution, as ever, is to tax the rich more and the poor less. Not that I favor taxing the poor more, but gouging “the rich,” nebulously defined, can have unintended consequences. For one thing, whole tabloid industries would dry up if we drove the Hiltons out of the country through excessive taxation. Hey, somebody’s got to think about the important issues.

**We all know that study results are never superseded or disproved or distorted or just plain false to begin with, so it’s totally justifiable to use force to make people comply with their recommendations. That’s never had bad outcomes before, particularly in public health.