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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive.
Editorial: 4/21/2000 Three items this week indicate how much of vital modern life has been taken
over by political radicals. Fist came the twin anniversaries of the end of the Waco
seige and the Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. Talk shows like mine were
full of the closet members of the Tim McVeigh Fan Club, choking back crocodile
tears for the victims while saying they understand--they really, really understand--
why someone like McVeigh could blow innocent men, women, and children to kingdon come.
It must be hard to talk on the phone with your thumb stuck, well, someplace, but
they managed, railing against that big, bad, evil government that made it necessary for
losers like Mcveigh to take action. And the dead? Sorry about that.
Then, a day later, came the anniversary of Columbine's slaughter. Then, on top
of that, comes a study out of Fort Leavenworth showing young officers are deserting the
Army by the thousands, and that while morale in the armed services may be at an all-time
low, contempt for those in command, military and civilian, is at a NASDAQ-type high.
Waco/Oklahoma City. Columbine. A damaged military. All of them share one thing
in common--they're the end result of radical fringe elements destroying a good deal of
society for the rest of us. First things first. Oklahoma City and Columbine are two
ends of the same thread,an unravelling of the social fabric that began in the late
Seventies. That's when the radical right wing of the Republicans began to reach
critical mass. They've now oozed across the face of America like algae taking over
a farm pond.
Every man for himself, they bleat. Greed is good. A sense of community? That's
for Commies and losers. And of course, banging the evil government like Tommy Lee of
Motley Crue beating his drums, or his wife. Everyone who isn't with me is against
me. So what you end up with are loose screws like Tim Mcveigh and his braying
talk radio apologists, marginalized losers who are so scared and isolated that they're
able to rationalize even the most heinous acts of violence.
Then you have their first cousins, little Satans like the shooters at Columbine,
isolated paranoids so tightly wrapped in a cocoon of me-me-me that they're unable to
feel anything except joy at the pain and death of others. The isolationist
know-nothings in the GOP-controlled Congress are proud that most members on Capitol
Hill don't have valid passports. It's a short step from a culture of political
isolation to the sort of walled-in social isolation that produces mass murder.
It's the parents, the right wing yammers, ignoring the fact that the parents of
the Columbine killers seemd to be straight out of Dick and Jane primers and that the
schoolyard shooter in Pearl, Mississippi was a regular at Sunday School. Sure,
the individuals who pulled the triggers are responsible. And so is the culture
of isolation so carefully nurtured by the ultra-right.
Then, we have the almost complete destruction of military readiness and morale
by the ultra-left. The Fort Leavenworth study shows the young officers and experienced
sergeants are fleeing the Army at a break-neck pace. The most common reason given was
that today's Army has become a classroom for diversity training and political
correctness, not a fighting force.
Spare parts for planes and tanks are in short supply, because of the left
establishment's belief that we don't need an effective military any more. To them,
the military is a giant petri dish where they can order experiments in gender
equity and diversity sensitivity. Never mind war fighting capability.
The left, if they can stomach the military at all, believes in the Kumbayah
school of military deployment. Send a smaller and smaller armed service--down one
third in size in the last decade--across the globe for peace-keeping, nation-
building, and crossing guard work from Somalia and Bosnia to Haiti and Kosovo.
These are the same elites who whine about the public schools, but who would no more
put their own kids in public schools than they would drink warm chardonnay.
They feel the same about the military. They're willing to experiment on the
men and women who've pledged their lives to the defense of the United States, but
have never come near service themselves, and probably don't know anyone who has
done anything more dangerous than to accept the burden of white liberal guilt for
everything that's wrong in the world.
Those of us in the middle share as much blame as anyone else. We've been
willing to pretend it's Christmas, and ignore the fruitcakes. We've let the
fringe elements control the political and social life of our country because we've
been too busy. Ronald Reagan once wrote a book titled after his best movie--
"Where's the Rest of Me?"
Paraphrase it, and ask youself--where's the rest of us?
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