Rudy! Blech!

Rudy messed up.  His speech was so long that they had to scrub the video introduction for Sarah Palin.  His enjoyable speech, however, was one of the better ones so far this convention.  Rudy has absolutely tons of experience giving speeches.  He's on a high-level motivational speaker circuit that includes people like Colin Powell as well. 

It showed.  He seemed the most "at ease" of any speaker I've seen at either convention.  He joked around a little bit, did a few little riffs, tossed a few zingers, and seemed to be enjoying himself. 

The actual content was, of course, completely abhorrent.  Something called "islamofascism" is taking over the world and the Democrats don't even know it, or worse, are collaborating with it.  The crowd, of course, lapped this up.  Democrats can get down and dirty, of course, but they don't seem to get the same kind of thrill out of it that Republicans do.

One reason we don't get all het up about "islamofascism" is because there is no such thing.  In fact, simplifying the middle eastern situation, and our role in it, by coming up with a one-size-fits-all label helps not at all. 

There's a whole lot in that middle eastern stew.  The place has a tiny percentage of rich--and they are very rich--and many, many poor.  In fact, income inequality in the middle east today is probably not that far off from what it was when Herod was king back in the first century BC. 

There is a large cohort of unemployed young men, which, by itself, is enough to cause unrest in almost any country.  Next time you're seeing someone throw rocks in the street in, say, Damascus, note that they're almost always about 13 or 14 years old.

To income inequality and demographics, add that the middle east has an enormous quantity of an increasingly scarce commodity, which is what brought about the current "resource war." Then add to that a religion which has a strong fundamentalist wing, including the violent streak that comes with any expression of fundamentalism, even those in the US.

Now that may be a lot of things, but one thing it's not is fascism.  Fascism involves corporate and governmental collusion.  Al-Qaeda has neither a government nor a corporation--ipso facto, it cannot be fascist.

Comments

[lillianjane]

Unrelated to the mayor of 9/11 (to whom I give credit for humor--he was great on SNL), you might have seen the PBS show I did about the Iraqi refugees --I think it was Wide Angle. Some guy in Syria lets refugees use his gym for free so they can channel their energy into pumping up instead of the usual pursuits of idle young men. After so long there, some of them are reaching Schwarzenegger proportions.

[John Petty]

Haven't seen it. I'll look for it!