Friday, October 21, 2005

The Ignorant, and the Brave

Got to see Mr. Bill O'Reilly hawking his book on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week. I love the fact that Jon will host alternate points of view, but having BO on was a puzzle to me. Bill is successful from a TV trashy tabloid point of view, but is hardly a serious pundit. We already know that Bill is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but what the hell was an intellectual like Stewart thinking? Maybe a Carribean shower joke or two?

BO strutted his true stuff when he referred to France as "our enemies", and used the tired refrain "we saved their butts in WW II". I don't know how we can expect any two groups with mildly different opinions on a subject to get along when we aggressively refer to such a long time friend and ally as France as an "enemy". OK, maybe Peabrain is pushing the showbiz buttons for ratings. But members of the W administration and congress have done the same.

A couple of things to remember: First, guess who funded the revolution of 1776? France! We didn't have enough $$ to get the job done, but the French stepped in to pay the whole bill. Second, we helped a bunch of countries in WW II; China, Korea, The Philipines, all of Europe and north Africa, USSR, on and on. Thus the term "Allies". And the Statue of Liberty??

Quit demonizing a wonderful country, culture, and people just because their government had the chutzpah that so many others lacked the chutzpah to say: Invading a sovereign nation which posed no threat to us was immoral, and wrong. We have plenty of real enemies.

1 comment:

rmacapobre said...

unless the UN make concrete sanctions against the US, (some) americans will continue to think they did the right thing ..