With the run for the Nextel Cup and Clemson’s football season at an end, I don’t plan to be thinking about sports for at least a couple more months. Maybe this will work out and give some well deserved attention to Oliver Purnell and the Clemson basketball team.
I will once more refer to Brit Hume’s grapevine. He makes note of some of the ridiculous comments in USA Today from singer Linda Ronstadt.
“People don’t realize that by voting Republican, they voted against themselves,” she says. Of Iraq in particular, she adds, “I worry that some people are entertained by the idea of this war. They don’t know anything about the Iraqis, but they’re angry and frustrated in their own lives. It’s like Germany, before Hitler took over. The economy was bad and people felt kicked around. They looked for a scapegoat. Now we’ve got a new bunch of Hitlers.”
Ah yes, the Hitler argument. I particularly like that one. When I think of Hitler’s reign, I think about the Holocaust, socialism, and imperialism. The last I checked, the United States is not trying to banish any groups of people from the world (Ok, maybe the members of terrorist regimes, but I think that’s justified). It seems the Republicans are also not big fans of socialism. The last I heard from the Left was that all Republicans are just tools for the capitalist “Big Business”. So which is it? It seems fairly certain to me also that we have not invaded any of our neighbors. I don’t think there are any Canadian invasion plans. And I don’t think that Republicans would want Canada if it was being given away. So while we have gone into Afghanistan and Iraq, it was not to enslave their populations and pillage their natural resources. Otherwise the urban centers of Iraq would have been nuked and the oil pipelines would be pumping so much oil that Americans would be swimming in it.
I think my primary problem with her logic is why pissed off people would re-install the current administration. Perhaps some anger overflowed, leading us into our current conflicts. But angry, frustrated people tend not to re-elect their leader. Whatever the administration did during the last 4 years gave the people confidence to re-elect Bush instead of the hype, rhetoric, and promises of John Kerry. The fact is, the economy is on the upslope. The draft will not be re-instated. Elections were held in Afghanistan. Elections will be held in Iraq.
Linda Ronstadt needs to realize that she does not represent anything main stream. People voting Republican are not hurting themselves. Perhaps famous people like her are the ones with self-inflicted wounds. I would encourage her to kindly shut the hell up. But on second thought, keep up the good work.
