Le Sequoit

Why I'm Not a Conservative, Part Mille et un

You may have read in previous posts my belief that the attitudes of the mothers of America eventuated the end of the Vietnam War. It's possible we are seeing this process repeat in the choking dust of Crawford, Texas. Cindy Sheehan continues her vigil, and the fur is really beginning to fly.

This woman who lost her son is determined to make a stand. Because she lost her son she is uniquely qualified to be a symbol that cannot be erased. To drag her away in custody will send an image across the world about our leadership that is intolerable. To allow her to continue will bring the inevitable escalation from both sides. It's a quandary, to be sure. Cindy is using every chip of political collateral she has, as would those at the other end of the driveway. Her effort is well timed, determined, and the greatest threat to the flying "W" circus to have been launched to this date.

And so, of course, she is to be vilified. Scorned. Roundly accused of treason by the rightie blogsphere on up to the masters, the O'Reilly's and their ilk. Ferrets scurry about in the dark tonight searching for hints of college lesbian encounters or, to the horror of their Warrior God, the carnage of an abortion in her past. Moles work through the decaying mulch trying to dig up a scent of gayness in the life of her fallen son, anything to bend the ears and thus win favor of the Chancellor Rove and the Boy King.

Cindy Sheenan thus joins Hanoi Jane and Hanoi Kerry in the ranks of the treasonous. I won't describe the absurd path this reasoning necessitates. Rather my point here is of the enthusiasm this cadre of "true" Americans displays in attacking someone who remains, above all else, a victim. This is one of those times when I am reassured that I have chosen the correct philosophy to guide my political bent, or rather have successfully avoided an extremely unsatisfactory one.

In the famous climactic scene in The Graduate―not long before the escaping Ben and Elaine use the cross to keep the angry mob from escaping the church―Ben repeatedly screams Elaine's name from the balcony of her wedding chapel and a panicked Elaine looks for the faces in her life to find an answer to her dilemma. Everyone Elaine turns to―her father, her mother, her husband―is a picture of invective spewing hatred. She doesn't hear them. It matters little what they are saying, only that the ugliness of their mouthing is horrifying.

The right's America is looking a lot like that.

posted by sequoit @ 8:15 PM