Wednesday, November 03, 2004

 
The Left Goats?
Bush & Buzkashi
Pim's Cup of Woe

Can't say that I've given much thought to goats in the past, but the Comedy Channel ran a "Tough Crowd" episode wherein host Colin Quinn expounded on the toughness of Afghans, citing among other things, their style of polo which involves a dead goat. Then Bin Laden scooped up, on the run, Kerry's claim that Bush wasted valuable time on 9/11 reading a story about goats to children. Then Barack Obama, who claims that his father herded goats, appeared on cable tonight, not having broken a sweat in crushing his right wing nutjob opponent.(Who, btw.,shocked some supporters by coming out for "reparations"-something for which Obama, the issue of a honkey and an African, might not be qualified)
And lastly, thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking to coverage of the murder of Theo van Gogh* in Holland:
"Van Gogh lashes out against a culture of what he describes as “report the neighbors if they say something negative about a Turkish person at the local discrimination reporting center. This culture of reporting one another. The thought police. Typical for the Labour Party, typically 1970s and 1980s Dutch. Yes, we’ve got to pay for that now. It’s going to happen. The price we’re paying is our freedom. I can’t even say or write what I think.”

Yet Van Gogh is nuanced when he talks about Islam. “Let’s be honest. There is a significant number of very reasonable Muslims that are not prepared to pull the trigger” Van Gogh wouldn’t be Van Gogh if he adds that “Well, if everyone is starting to get scared over a fifth column of goat-fuckers, as I call them, then the debate in this country will pretty soon be over”

That murder was, of course, preceded by that of Pim Fortuyn, and state repression of free speech under various european anti patriot acts goes way beyond anything done to First Amendment rights by John Ashcroft.
And someone capable of writing, "fifth column of goat-fuckers" will be sorely missed here.
Bush should be given credit for reducing Iraq from a menace to a "mess," but a mess it is, and for all we know, he may feel some regret that it looks for the moment like he won't be able to hand it off to a President Kerry. I wish Bush well(having spoken so well of him), but still fear that Allawi and Musharraf will be lucky to have destinies better than having their corpses dragged up and down some dusty field.

*not to be confused with the painter, Vincent van Goat, immortalized in the movie, "Lust For Hircus," directed by Mr. Frank "Capra".