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Two Men Named Blair
by Bruce Walker
Men's News Daily, CA
May 3 2005
The pending electoral victory of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom
shows just how wonderful it would be if the Democrat Party actually
did what some hoped it was doing in 1976 and 1992: establishing an
admirable left of center party. The United Kingdom is emphatically
not the United States, but consider just how much Jimmy Carter or Bill
Clinton could have done if they had elevated broad dreams big enough to
encompass all men of good will, the way Tony Blair has done in Britain.
Imagine, also, what Leftists in America could do if they were willing
to spend political capital to try to accomplish goals beyond the
retention of power. Tony Blair is a Leftist in noble tradition of
Eric Blair (George Orwell), who saw the ugliness beneath the rock of
totalitarian Leftism and the self-indulgence of pampered Leftism and
who did not like what they saw.
These two Blairs remind me of the pre-exilic prophets of Ancient
Israel: they were not traitors to their Leftism, any more than
Amos or Micah were traitors to their Hebraic faith; they were men
who called upon those who pranced around saying the right things,
saying to their co-religionists and countrymen things like:
"Woe to them that are at ease in Zion...that lie on beds of ivory,
and stretch themselves upon their couches, and the eat the lambs of
the flock...that drink wines in bowls, and anoint themselves with chief
ointments: but they are not grieved for the afflictions of Jacob."
The Blairs of Britain understood that unseen injustices which are not
to be spoken in the posh clubs of London or the salons of Paris are
injustices nonetheless and that if we believe in the brotherhood of
man, then we must believe that the enslavement of Iraqi and Afghan
and Syrian and Korean and Iranian is the enslavement of us all.
Jimmy Carter could have faced the Soviet Union more easily than
Ronald Reagan did, because Carter would not only have had overwhelming
majorities in both houses of Congress, but also overwhelming support
within his minority Republican opposition. He could have built Star
Wars and stopped the Soviets cold in both Afghanistan and Poland.
Bill Clinton could have faced down the North Koreans and the
Chinese, instead of selling his soul for thirty pieces of campaign
contributions. He could have used the overwhelming military superiority
of the United States to face real, growing threats to peace and not
innocuous but safe activities like in Haiti and Kosovo.
What these American pols lacked was moral integrity, just like all
the pundits and savants of craven Leftism in modernity have lacked.
Why has Spielberg never made a film about the now manifest treason
of communists in American society and government in the 1940s and
1950? Why has he never made a film about the Gulag or the Armenian
holocaust? Because he, and I am not meaning just to pick on him but
on a whole class of Leftist writers and culturalists, are cowards.
It requires no more courage to attack Nazis in films than it does
for Clinton to send troops into Haiti.
This is the Left, to a vast extent. But then there are men like
Blair & Blair. Sometimes, as if God is trying to remind us that
men choose to be good, men like Eric Blair write masterpieces like
1984, insuring that over time the Left will make him an "unperson."
Sometimes a Leftist like Tony Blair decides that power is sought
for moral reasons and evil is sometimes fought because it is evil,
not because fighting evil is always popular.
So, as I anticipate a Labour Party victory in the United Kingdom,
something generally I oppose, a part of me is just as happy that Blair
won as it is sad that Conservatives lost. What is the ultimate goal
of conservatives and other normal people? We seek not to destroy our
enemies but to cure them. Tony Blair will make history, be hated,
gain power, and use that power to fight evil. Amen.
Bruce Walker
by Bruce Walker
Men's News Daily, CA
May 3 2005
The pending electoral victory of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom
shows just how wonderful it would be if the Democrat Party actually
did what some hoped it was doing in 1976 and 1992: establishing an
admirable left of center party. The United Kingdom is emphatically
not the United States, but consider just how much Jimmy Carter or Bill
Clinton could have done if they had elevated broad dreams big enough to
encompass all men of good will, the way Tony Blair has done in Britain.
Imagine, also, what Leftists in America could do if they were willing
to spend political capital to try to accomplish goals beyond the
retention of power. Tony Blair is a Leftist in noble tradition of
Eric Blair (George Orwell), who saw the ugliness beneath the rock of
totalitarian Leftism and the self-indulgence of pampered Leftism and
who did not like what they saw.
These two Blairs remind me of the pre-exilic prophets of Ancient
Israel: they were not traitors to their Leftism, any more than
Amos or Micah were traitors to their Hebraic faith; they were men
who called upon those who pranced around saying the right things,
saying to their co-religionists and countrymen things like:
"Woe to them that are at ease in Zion...that lie on beds of ivory,
and stretch themselves upon their couches, and the eat the lambs of
the flock...that drink wines in bowls, and anoint themselves with chief
ointments: but they are not grieved for the afflictions of Jacob."
The Blairs of Britain understood that unseen injustices which are not
to be spoken in the posh clubs of London or the salons of Paris are
injustices nonetheless and that if we believe in the brotherhood of
man, then we must believe that the enslavement of Iraqi and Afghan
and Syrian and Korean and Iranian is the enslavement of us all.
Jimmy Carter could have faced the Soviet Union more easily than
Ronald Reagan did, because Carter would not only have had overwhelming
majorities in both houses of Congress, but also overwhelming support
within his minority Republican opposition. He could have built Star
Wars and stopped the Soviets cold in both Afghanistan and Poland.
Bill Clinton could have faced down the North Koreans and the
Chinese, instead of selling his soul for thirty pieces of campaign
contributions. He could have used the overwhelming military superiority
of the United States to face real, growing threats to peace and not
innocuous but safe activities like in Haiti and Kosovo.
What these American pols lacked was moral integrity, just like all
the pundits and savants of craven Leftism in modernity have lacked.
Why has Spielberg never made a film about the now manifest treason
of communists in American society and government in the 1940s and
1950? Why has he never made a film about the Gulag or the Armenian
holocaust? Because he, and I am not meaning just to pick on him but
on a whole class of Leftist writers and culturalists, are cowards.
It requires no more courage to attack Nazis in films than it does
for Clinton to send troops into Haiti.
This is the Left, to a vast extent. But then there are men like
Blair & Blair. Sometimes, as if God is trying to remind us that
men choose to be good, men like Eric Blair write masterpieces like
1984, insuring that over time the Left will make him an "unperson."
Sometimes a Leftist like Tony Blair decides that power is sought
for moral reasons and evil is sometimes fought because it is evil,
not because fighting evil is always popular.
So, as I anticipate a Labour Party victory in the United Kingdom,
something generally I oppose, a part of me is just as happy that Blair
won as it is sad that Conservatives lost. What is the ultimate goal
of conservatives and other normal people? We seek not to destroy our
enemies but to cure them. Tony Blair will make history, be hated,
gain power, and use that power to fight evil. Amen.
Bruce Walker