It's All My Fault

Just in case you thought the far right had some sort of emotional break in the actual aftermath of 9/11, when Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell told their 700 club TV audience on 9/13/2001 that the terrorist attacks were the fault of feminists, homosexuals, environmentalists, and the ACLU (no, I'm so not kidding), here we have Dinesh D'Souza - the Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution - some 5 1/2 years later - surely enough time to regain lucidity - publishing a book called: "The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11." The title says it all. A follow up article appeared in the national press, courtesy of USA TODAY, on January 23, 2007. Maybe you saw it. D'Souza wrote there that the real "issue" Radical Islam has with America isn't capitalism, science, or even religion. The issue is "that we are a decadent, immoral society that is projecting its culture and values throughout the world and threatening their faith." How should the Bush administration respond, D'Souza asks. The answer, our author says, is that "The best way for America to refute the radical Muslim allegaton that we are an immoral, pagan society is for the Bush administration to show the rest of the world the face of traditional America...[Bush] should not hesitate to speak out against American cultural exports that are shameless and corrupting. And American should promote traditional family values, not feminisim and homosexual rights, in international forums like the United Nations." D'Souza concludes his article by saying: "If traditional Muslims realized that there are millions of Americans who go to church, take care of their families and live by traditional values, they would be less likely to view us or our leaders as the Great Satan, and fewer of them will be tempted to join the camp of the Islamic radicals. Improving our moral reputation is not just a way to look better, it may also be the best long-term strategy to make our country safer." http://www.amazon.com/Enemy-At-Home-Cultural-Responsibility/dp/0385510128 I think this author - this book - and this paranoid perspective - is dangerous. That's why, counter-intuitively, I want you to go buy this book. Buy it and give it to one your friends who has his head in the sand. You know the one: He thinks it doesn't really matter who gets elected president. Or he thinks that our "national security" is more important than safeguarding human rights, not just here but everywhere. Or he thinks it's "just a matter of time" before we have equal rights for all Americans. Maybe you need to buy more than one copy. I'm thinking about buying one for all of my friends who think the biggest issue facing gay and lesbian people is that they can't be ordained. We have an enemy living right here in our midst. Just like the man says. This "enemy" is pointing at me (and maybe at you) and blaming us for the way the rest of the world looks at us - and hates us. And here I thought it was because of the way we keep invading their countries and killing their people and sucking up their natural resources and eating way more than our share of the world's food. Silly me.